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Peace from Harmony
HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI: 70th anniversaries of nuclear bombings. The US as "death and the destroyer of worlds"

Spiritual Culture for Harmonious Civilization

Citizens of Earth!

Unite in harmony for love, peace, justice, fraternity and happiness!



Global Harmony Association (GHA)

Since 2005, GHA is an international NGO uniting more than 500 members in 65 countries and more than o­ne million participants from the GHA collective members in 80 countries.

Web: www.peacefromharmony.org

 

GHA Mission is:

To bring peace from harmony and to pave a conscious way for harmonious civilization through scientifically based ‘ABC of Harmony’ and GPS: Global Peace Science:

www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=585

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GHA Message o­n August 6thand 9th, 2016:

HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI

71st anniversary of Nuclear bombings

 Nuclear weapons: gravest threat to humanity.

According to Prof Noam Chomsky, there are two grave threats to the world: climate change and nuclear weapons. Among the dangers facing the environment, the possibility of nuclear war is undoubtedly the gravest.

 

Global Peace Science 2016: “No Nukes! No wars!”

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The GPS Global Vision of the XXI century is abolishing the Nuclear weapons (Nuclear Free World) and Building Peaceful World Order is presented in the GPS tetranet 4S-Model of Creating New World: S1- Society – SPHERONS; S2 –Sustainability; S3 – Spirituality; & S4 – Security Order: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=609 

 



Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Campaign

 

Over 120 nations -- a majority of all countries -- have taken theHumanitarian Pledgeto 'fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons'. Chemical weapons and biological weapons have already been prohibited. Please sign the United States o­nto the Humanitarian Pledgeand support negotiations for a treaty to ban and eliminate all nuclear weapons http://secure.psr.org/eaaction/action?ea.client.id=1898&ea.campaign.id=3260

 

Global Peace Science (GPS) 2016: “No Nukes! No wars!”

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GPS: Science of Peace, Full Security and Sustainability to Create a Nuclear Free World http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=689


 

 

 

Universal Message of Peace & Harmony at Simhastha 2016 released By Prime Minister of India
Narendra Modi

The International Convention o­n Living the Right Way:

Universal Message of Simhasth 2016 was organized from12-14 MAY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DL9HcI455Y

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi said “that world is facing two main problems - global warming and terrorism. Expansionism is taking humanity towards conflict. Strongly opposing attempts at expansionism, he said this was not a solution to the problems.

“Expansionism is another thing that is leading us towards conflict. Time has changed. Expansionism is not a solution to the problems. We should not go horizontal. It is not a solution. We need to go vertical and raise ourselves from within,” Modi said

Text of the Universal Message https://newsroom24x7.com/2016/05/14/modi-releases-universal-message-asking-all-to-denounce-acts-of-violence-committed-in-the-name-of-religion/

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GPS: Victory of Peace over War

http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=585

The fate of humanity, each country and its leaders in the 21st century is defined by recognition of Global Peace Science (GPS), created by GHA! Higher value of peaceful co-existence NOW depends not from preparation for war and the arms race, both today and in the past, but from creating harmony basedGlobal Peace Science 2016 : CREATING HARMONY WE BUILD PEACE!!!

 

GPS is a revolutionary shift to “No Nukes! No wars!”

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GPS for the UN and UNESCO:

Petition approved by the GHA o­n May 16, 2016

Publication: In English: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=686

In Russian: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=669

Sign the Petition:

https://www.change.org/p/the-honorable-ban-ki-moon-secretary-general-united-nations-to-create-scientific-instrument-for-global-peace-which-will-be-acceptable-to-all-nations

  

 

GHA invites all the Social, Religious and Political leaders, Scientists, Educators, Peace & Human Rights activists, to join the revolutionary shift to
No Nukes! No wars!”

To create a Nuclear Free World!

 

Dr. Subhash Chandra

PresidentGHA& Chairman Board

GHA India

http://www.peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=583

Ramesh Kumar

GHA Executive Director (CEO)

GHA India

http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=658

 

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Reimon Bachika

Professor of the sociology of religion at Bukkyo University, Kyoto, Japan

August 2009

Hiroshima, No More

 

Hello People of Planet Earth

Look West, look East

SeeNippon’s Constitution for Peace

No more war

No more army.

 

In just o­ne day

Thousands of children died

Thousands of mothers died

Thousands of boys and girls died

Thousands of men and women died

and elderly:

Thousands and thousands and thousands

All in o­ne day

In o­ne city.

 

Yet, another city had to follow

Flattened, burnt, scorched

In a moment of infernal rage.

 

SaysNippon’s Constitution for Peace:

No more war

No more army.

 

Oh People of Planet Earth

That we need

A constitution for peace

In every person’s heart.

June 18, 2009. Reimon Bachika, Professor Emeritus,

Bukkyo University, Department of Sociology, Kyoto Japan

 

The USA won the final phase of WW II with Satan o­n its side. Other powerful nations engaged the same Devil and keep him in their backyards. More power-hungry nations long for the same ally of Hades. Can this demonic urge be stopped? I do not know, but it should. We can look back, o­nce again, at what happed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki 64 years ago. We can find inspiration in Japan’s Peace Constitution that represents the saner and greater part of Nature, Life, Peace, and Harmony loving Japanese. May many nations follow Japan’s decision to make war unconstitutional.
Published: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=24 

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HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI

ALWAYS REMEMBERED

August 6-9, 1945

 

It was the worse day

for humankind when

President Truman authorized

using the atomic bomb

against the people of Japan.

More than 140,000 people

died then and many more

died from the atomic radiation

after it.

As it is not enough, the

United States of America

has 5,113 warheads prepared

to send any place in the world.

As it is not enough,

President Truman announced

in 1953 that the United States

has developed a hydrogen bomb.

From bad to worse, no o­ne president

of the United States has yet promised

to dismantle all of the atomic

and hydrogen bombs!

 

Dr. Teresinka Pereira,

President, International Writers and Artists Association (IWA),

Senator, International Parliament for Safety and Peace.

Address: Toledo, Ohio, USA;

Web:http://wps-poets.blogspot.ru/2007/05/teresinka-pereira.html
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Tom Z. Collina: "Most Americans will be surprised to learn that current U.S. policy allows the first use of nuclear weapons" (http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=698 or:
 http://ccisf.us13.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c455b8a6ccfed2424e0d56f4d&id=3c4c34e7b0&e=5f2540838b )

 

 

 

GHA Message o­n August 6th and 9th , 2015:

70th anniversary of nuclear bombings

Published: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=630
In Russian: http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=ru_c&key=655


 


 

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“The greatest purveyor of violence in the world:

My own Government, I cannot be Silent.”

 


Nuclear Age
: Under the sign of death

The nuclear age begins o­n a quiet stretch of desert in Alamogordo, New Mexico o­n July 16, 1945, where the US government tested the first atomic bomb. o­n that day humanity took a long step o­n the road to its own demise.

Robert Oppenheimer, a principal scientist in the effort to create the atomic bomb, reported recalling this line from the Bhagavada Gita,”I am become Death, the destroyer (shatterer) of Worlds.” Just three weeks after the first test, a second atomic bomb has been tested o­n human beings over the city of Hiroshima o­n August 6, 1945 and Hiroshima became death. Three days later, o­n August 9, 1945, and Nagasaki became death. Not Oppenheimer and its fellow scientists but the US Government became death and destroyer of worlds.

In Hiroshima and Nagasaki the US Government being burned alive in a trice about 200,000 civilians - children, women and the elderly - without any military need and did not apologize even now, even after 70 years! It thinks the like is normal for itself in the future! This means that the US government reserves for itself the moral and legal (precedent) right to burn alive in the nuclear fire any city, any country and humanity as a whole along with the planet also easily as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US proved it with a new nuclear test July 1, 2015 in Nevada, violating all international laws. The newest test in the 70th anniversary of atomic bombings is the USA devilish ridicule over the innocent victims of Hiroshima/Nagasaki and humanity in a whole within long 70 years and for the future.

Hence, the US is the greatest nuclear threat to humanity in the 21st century: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-empire-reaches-breaking-point-greatest-threat-to-humanity-time-to-end-it/5392310

As we approach the 70th anniversaries of the August 6 and 9, 1945 U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have a unique opportunity to impact people’s thinking, to educate them about the crime of the A-bombings and the continuing dangers of nuclear weapons, and to build the popular movement needed to eliminate the threat they pose to human survival:http://www.abolition2000.org/?p=3826

Among the dangers facing the environment, the possibility of nuclear war is undoubtedly the gravest.

 

Global Peace Science (GPS): Science of Peace, Full Security and Sustainability to Create a Nuclear Free World

GPS is the science of peace, security and sustainability from harmony. GPS is awareness for nuclear abolition and developing Nuclear Free World through harmonious education.

GPS is the GHA volunteering and social service, which is defined in the "GHA Humanity Charter" as the declaration of basic principles to build a just, sustainable and peaceful global society and harmonious civilization through the Gandhian’s philosophy of Non-violence in the 21st century.

GPS is the theory of key peacebuilding Institutions and Global Security Two Fronts:
http://peacefromharmony.org/?cat=en_c&key=606


GPS is a revolutionary shift to “No Nukes! No wars!”

GPS is Victory of Peace over War

 

Global Harmony Association invites all the Social and Political leaders, Scientists, Educators, Peace & Human Rights activists, to join the revolutionary shift to
No Nukes! No wars!”

To create a Nuclear Free World!

 

 

Dr. Leo Semashko,

GHA President

Russia

 

Dr. Subhash Chandra,

GHA Secretary General,

India

 


HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI

ALWAYS REMEMBERED

August 6-9, 1945

 

It was the worse day

for humankind when

President Truman authorized

using the atomic bomb

against the people of Japan.

More than 140,000 people

died then and many more

died from the atomic radiation

after it.

As it is not enough, the

United States of America

has 5,113 warheads prepared

to send any place in the world.

As it is not enough,

President Truman announced

in 1953 that the United States

has developed a hydrogen bomb.

From bad to worse, no president

of the United States has yet promised

to dismantle all of the atomic

and hydrogen bombs!

 

Dr. Teresinka Pereira,

President, International Writers and Artists Association (IWA),

Senator, International Parliament for Safety and Peace.

Address: Toledo, Ohio, USA;

Web: http://wps-poets.blogspot.ru/2007/05/teresinka-pereira.html

Email: tpereira@buckeye-express.com

 



Close calls: We were closer to
nuclear destruction than we knew (2)
By Gunnar Westberg, IPPNW
and TFF Board member


TFF PressInfo # 375
Lund, Sweden, May 27, 2016
Introduction
By Jan Oberg
Today U.S. President Barack Obama visits Hiroshima as the first-ever sitting US President. This raises the issue of nuclear weapons and our living in the nuclear age.
He will spend o­nly 45 min at the Memorial and not apologize. o­ne must wonder how he personally feels about that; it's a place that can not possibly leave anyone untouched.
The president wants to alert the world to the dangers of nuclear weapons, he says. So he could, there and then today, declare some little initiative in the direction of the nuclear-free world he's committed himself to - remedy his evident failure to work towards the nuclear-free world he promised to work for.
It would also relieve him of the burden of being associated with terrorism.
One quite overlooked dimension of nuclear weapons is theircharacter of terrorist weapons.
It's generally taken for granted that terrorists are smaller non-state groups, not governments.
However, o­ne essentially important element in all definitions of terror is that it targets and kills innocent people - people who are not party to a conflict - in order to achieve a political goal.
Nuclear weapons cannot be used without killing thousands or millions of innocent people.
That is also why, during many decades, nuclear weapons were hinged o­n what was officially called "the balance of terror."
To put it in simple but precise terms:
Anyone who has nuclear weapons or want them must subscribe to the philosophy of terrorism. It is reasonable, therefore, to maintain that today's largest terrorists are the governments of nuclear weapons states.
It's mind-boggling how the world can focus o­n small groups like ISIS but be in virtual denial of the much much larger terrorism embedded in the nuclear arsenals in the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and in countries that host other countries' nukes.
It's mind-boggling too how the world can focus o­n the risk of proliferation to countries that do not have them (like e.g. Iran) but not o­n the possession by those who are already nuclear terrorists.
The nuclear weapons systems are far from safe. There have been many human and technical close calls where millions could have been killed. (See PS below).
And we were told about them o­nly many years later - as this PressInfo documents.
What will we be told in the future about today's close calls?
It's time we address all kinds of terrorism.
President Obama could go down in history with a personal gesture today - like Willy Brandt did in Warsaw in 1970 and said: "We must look to the future and recognize morals as a political force."
Barack Obama will not. Or can not.
Even if the risks of human and technical failures with nuclear weapons may be thought to be smaller than before, it is far from zero.
The permanent peacetime dangers that nuclear weapons represent is what o­ne of the world's leading experts, Dr. Gunnar Westberg who is also a TFF board member writes about in:
Part 1 of his article reached you yesterday.
PS While preparing this PressInfo, CNN reported that the U.S. still operates its intercontinental nuclear missiles and nuclear bombers by means of - would you believe it? - floppy disks from the early 1970s!



What Obama should do in
Hiroshima o­n May 27, 2016

By Jonathan Power, columnist
and TFF Associate


TFF PressInfo # 373
Lund, Sweden, May 26, 2016
Introduction
By Jan Oberg
President Barack Obama visits Hiroshima o­n May 27; it's the first time since the U.S. used nuclear weapons o­n Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 that a sitting U.S. president visits Hiroshima
It is known that he will not apologize for the crime that killed and crippled about a quarter of a million innocent people.
Disturbingly, the White House has also announced that he will "not have the time" to meet any victims, the Hibakusha.
According to Time he shakes off the ethical dimension of this unique mass killing by stating that "it is important to recognize that in the midst of war, leaders make all kinds of decisions"(!)
His commitment to peace and a nuclear weapons-free world has been an utter failure, according to TFF Associate Jonathan Power.
And it seems that Obama will not use this unique opportunity to show any moral leadership or this last chance to announce even the smallest step in the direction of what the huge majority of the world's people want: living in a more peaceful world with fewer and, eventually, no nuclear weapons.
Jonathan Power starts out in Hiroshima
"We were standing in Hiroshima looking at a stone wall. All there was to see was a shadow of a man. It had been etched into the wall at the moment of his obliteration by the blinding light of the first atomic bomb.
Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden, stared hard at it.
An hour later he gave a speech as head of the Independent Commission o­n Disarmament of which I was a member.
“My fear”, he remarked, “is that mankind itself will end up as nothing more than a shadow o­n a wall.”
Make the most out of your visit, Mr. President
Another TFF Associate, professor Richard Falk, argues that president Obama should acknowledge both a legal and a moral responsibility o­n this very special occasion.
He argues this in a short open letter to the president here.
Compared with the convenient obsession with much smaller threats such as, say, ISIS, the o­ngoing, daily threat of nuclear weapons being used - deliberately or by accident - is a perversely suppressed global issue particularly in the media of nuclear weapons 'haves'.
It must be hoped that US and other Western media will pay just a little attention to this globally existential issue.
And before mankind ends up as a shadow o­n a wall...
TFFprovides research and public education related to the basic UN Charter norm that "peace shall be established by peaceful means".
We are always happy to hear from you or try to answer your questions.
This text may be reprinted as it is with due credit and links to TFF but we shall appreciate you telling us. If shortened, please send the abridged version to obtain our permission.

TFF director, dr. hc.

 

 

TFF PressInfo # 373: What Obama should do in Hiroshima tomorrow

 May 25th, 2016 |   Author: Jan

By Jonathan Power

Lund, Sweden, May 26, 2016

Introduction
By Jan Oberg

President Barack Obama visits Hiroshima o­n May 27; it’s the first time since the U.S. used nuclear weapons o­n Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 that a sitting U.S. president visits Hiroshima

It is known that he will not apologize for the crime that killed and crippled about a quarter of a million innocent people.

Disturbingly, the White House has also announced that he will “not have the time” to meet any victims, the Hibakusha.

According to Time he shakes off the ethical dimension of this unique mass killing by stating that “it is important to recognize that in the midst of war, leaders make all kinds of decisions”(!)

His commitment to peace and a nuclear weapons-free world has been an utter failure, according to TFF Associate Jonathan Power.

And it seems that Obama will not use this unique opportunity to show any moral leadership or this last chance to announce even the smallest step in the direction of what the huge majority of the world’s people want: living in a more peaceful world with fewer and, eventually, no nuclear weapons.

Jonathan Power starts out in Hiroshima

“We were standing in Hiroshima looking at a stone wall. All there was to see was a shadow of a man. Read the rest of this entry »

 Posted in AbolitionAsiaGeneral issuesInternational lawJonathan PowerNuclear Free Zones,Nuclear weaponsPro-peace & proposalsReconciliation & forgivenessTFF PressInfoUN mattersUS EmpireUS politics & securityUSAViolence-preventionWorld order/governance |   Tags: Obama in Hiroshima |  No Comments »

TFF PressInfo # 373: What Obama should do in Hiroshima o­n May 27

 May 16th, 2016 |   Author: Jan

By Jonathan Power

We were standing in Hiroshima looking at a stone wall. All there was to see was a shadow of a man. It had been etched into the wall at the moment of his obliteration by the blinding light of the first atomic bomb. Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden, stared hard at it.

An hour later he gave a speech as head of the Independent Commission o­n Disarmament of which I was a member. “My fear”, he remarked, “is that mankind itself will end up as nothing more than a shadow o­n a wall.”

President Charles de Gaulle of France o­nce observed, “After a nuclear war the two sides would have neither powers, nor laws, nor cities, nor cultures, nor cradles, nor tombs.”

What if, contrary to the received wisdom, it was shown that nuclear weapons played no role in the surrender of Japan at the end of World War 2, as has been their justification?

Perhaps the terrible acts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are no worse, despite their two hundred thousand deaths, than many other scathing memories of war waged against mainly civilian populations. Then we would have to start a big rethink of the value of nuclear arsenals.

Nuclear deterrence, many thoughtful generals have long concluded, is nonsense o­n stilts and long has been. Read the rest of this entry »

 Posted in AbolitionGeneral issuesJonathan PowerNuclear weaponsPro-peace & proposals,Reconciliation & forgivenessTFF PressInfo |   Tags: Obama to Hiroshima |  No Comments »

TFF PressInfo # 372: Drop the Just War theory and abolish nuclear weapons!

 April 29th, 2016 |   Author: Jan

By Mairead Maguire

Press Release 19th April, 2016

Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead Maguire, co-founder of The Peace People and TFF Associate, says from Rome:

“I believe we are at an important and hopeful turning point in human history – from violence to nonviolence and from war to peace”

Laity and religious meeting in Rome appeal to Pope Francis to share with the world an encyclical o­n nonviolence and just peace and for the church to no longer use or teach ‘Just War theory’

It was a joy for me to join eighty people from around the world meeting in Rome 11-12th April, 2016, to contribute to the important discussion ‘Nonviolence and Just Peace Contributing to the Catholic Understanding of and Commitment to Nonviolence’.

Members of the three day event co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the International Catholic Peace Movement Organization, Pax Christi, strongly called o­n Pope Francis ‘to share with the world an encyclical o­n nonviolence and Just Peace; and o­n the Church to ‘no longer use or teach ‘just war theory’; and continue advocating for the abolition of war and nuclear weapons’.

The statement of Appeal to the Pope also said:

‘We believe there is no ‘just war’. Too often the ‘just war theory’ has been used to endorse rather than prevent or limit war. Suggesting that a ‘just war’ is possible also undermines the moral imperative to develop tools and capacities for nonviolent transformation of conflict’.

The gathering in Rome consisted of lay people, theologians, members of religious congregations, priests and bishops from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania and the welcoming address was given by Cardinal Turkson of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, who read a Statement from Pope Francis.

The Final Statement Read the rest of this entry »

 Posted in AbolitionConflict and warCulture & religionDemocracy - local & globalDisarmament,Ethics and valuesFuture perspectivesGlobal trends & eventsHuman rights and justiceMairead MaguireNobel Peace PrizeNonviolenceNuclear weaponsPro-peace & proposalsPsychology - war & peaceReconciliation & forgivenessTFF PressInfoUN mattersUS EmpireViolence-preventionWorld order/governance |   Tags: Just war theory |  No Comments »

TFF PressInfo # 371: If Obama visits Hiroshima (Part 2)

 April 28th, 2016 |   Author: Jan

By Richard Falk

Part 1

In Prague, Obama significantly noted that “..as the o­nly nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.” [emphasis added]

In the 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) o­n the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, the judges unanimously concluded that there was a legal responsibility to seek nuclear disarmament with due diligence. The language of the 14-0 ICJ finding is authoritative: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all aspects under strict and effective international control.”

In other words, there is a legal as well as a moral responsibility to eliminate nuclear weapons, and this could have made the Prague call for a world without nuclear weapons more relevant to present governmental behavior.

The Prague speech while lauding the NPT never affirmed the existence of a legal responsibility to pursue nuclear disarmament. In this respect an official visit to Hiroshima offers Obama a golden opportunity to reinvigorate his vision of a world without nuclear weapons by bringing it down to earth.

Why is this? Read the rest of this entry »

 Posted in AbolitionGeneral issuesNuclear Free ZonesNuclear weaponsPeacePro-peace & proposalsRichard FalkTFF PressInfoTheories and conceptsUN mattersUncategorizedUS Empire,US politics & securityUSAViolence-preventionWorld order/governance |  No Comments »

TFF PressInfo # 370: If Obama visits Hiroshima (Part 1)

 April 27th, 2016 |   Author: Jan

By Richard Falk

There are mounting hopes that Barack Obama will use the occasion of the Group of 7 meeting in Japan next month to visit Hiroshima, and become the first American president to do so.

It is remarkable that it required a wait of over 60 years until John Kerry became the first high American official to make such a visit, which he termed ‘gut-wrenching,’ while at the same time purposely refraining from offering any kind of apology to the Japanese people for o­ne of the worse acts of state terror against a defenseless population in all of human history.

Let’s hope that Obama goes, and displays more remorse than Kerry who at least deserves some credit for paving the way.

The contrast between the many pilgrimages of homage by Western leaders, including those of Germany, to Auschwitz and other notorious death camps, and the absence of comparable pilgrimages to Hiroshima and Nagasaki underscores the difference between winning and losing a major war. This contrast cannot be properly accounted for by insisting o­n a hierarchy of evils that the Holocaust dominates.

The United States, in particular, has a more generalized aversion to revisiting its darker hours, although recent events have illuminated some of the shadows cast by the racist legacies of slavery.

The decimation of native Americans has yet to be properly addressed at official levels, and recent reports of soaring suicide rates suggests that the native American narrative continues to unfold tragically.

The New York Times in an unsigned editorial o­n April 12 urged President Obama to make this symbolic visit to Hiroshima, and in their words “to make it count” by doing more than making a ritual appearance. Recalling accurately that Obama “won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 largely because of his nuclear agenda” the editorial persuasively criticized Obama for failing to follow through o­n his Prague vision of working toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

A visit to Hiroshima is, in effect, a second chance, perhaps a last chance, to satisfy the expectation created early in his presidency.

When it came to specifics as to what Obama might do the Times offered a typical arms control set of recommendations of what it called “small but doable advances”: canceling the new air-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missile and ensuring greater compliance with the prohibition o­n nuclear testing by its endorsement coupled with a recommendation that future compliance be monitored by the UN Security Council.

The Times leaves readers with the widely shared false impression that such measures can be considered incremental steps that will lead the world over time to a nuclear-free world. Such a view is unconvincing, and diversionary.

In opposition, I believe these moves serve to stabilize the nuclear status quo have a negative effect o­n disarmament prospects. By making existing realities somewhat less prone to accidents and irresponsibly provocative weapons innovations, the posture of living with nuclear weapons gains credibility and the arguments for nuclear disarmament are weakened even to the extent of being irrelevant.

I believe that it is a dangerous fallacy to suppose that arms control measures, even if beneficial in themselves, can be thought of as moving the world closer to nuclear disarmament.

Instead, what such measures do, and have been doing for decades, is to reinforce nuclear complacency by making nuclear disarmament either seem unnecessary or utopian, and to some extent even undesirably destabilizing. In other words, contrary to conventional wisdom, moving down the arms control path is a sure way to make certain that disarmament will never occur!

As mentioned, many arms control moves are inherently worthwhile. It is o­nly natural to favor initiatives that cancel the development of provocative weapons systems, disallow weapons testing, and cut costs. Without such measures there would occur a dangerous erosion of the de facto taboo that has prevented (so far) any use of nuclear weaponry since 1945.

At the same time it is vital to understand that the taboo and the arms control regime of managing the nuclear weapons environment does not lead to the realization of disarmament and the vision of a world without nuclear weapons.

Let me put it this way, if arms control is affirmed for its own sake or as the best way to put the world o­n a path of incremental steps that will lead over time to disarmament, then such an approach is nurturing the false consciousness that has unfortunately prevailed in public discourse ever since the Nonproliferation Treaty came into force in 1970.

The point can be express in more folksy language: we have been acting for decades as if the horse of disarmament is being pulled by the cart of arms control. In fact, it is the horse of disarmament that should be pulling the cart of arms control, which would make arms control measures welcome as place holders while the primary quest for nuclear disarmament was being toward implementation.

There is no reason to delay putting the horse in front of the cart, and Obama’s failure to do so at Prague was the central flaw of his otherwise justly applauded speech.

Where Obama went off the tracks in my view was when he consigned nuclear disarmament to the remote future, and proposed in the interim reliance o­n the deterrent capability of the nuclear weapons arsenal and this alleged forward momentum of incremental arms control steps.

What is worse, Obama uncritically endorsed the nonproliferation treaty regime, lamenting o­nly that it is being weakened by breakout countries, especially North Korea, and this partly explains why he felt it necessary back in 2009 to consider nuclear disarmament as a practical alternative to a continued reliance o­n nonproliferation, although posited disarmament more as a goal beyond reach and not as a serious present political option.

He expressed this futuristic outlook in these words: “I am not naïve. This goal will not be reached quickly – perhaps not in my lifetime.” He never clarifies why such a goal is not attainable within the term of his presidency, or at least its explicit pursuit.

In this regard, and with respect to Obama’s legacy, the visit to Hiroshima provides an overdue opportunity to disentangle nuclear disarmament from arms control.

Part 2

 Posted in AbolitionGeneral issuesNuclear weaponsPro-peace & proposalsPsychology - war & peaceRichard FalkTFF PressInfoUN mattersUS EmpireViolence-preventionWorld order/governance |   Tags: nuclear disarmamentnuclearismObama Hiroshima |  No Comments »

Original: http://blog.transnational.org/category/tff-pressinfo/



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