The World Is Banning Nuclear Weapons — Can Trumpland Join the World?

SEPTEMBER 30, 2017 BY DAVIDSWANSON

The World Is Banning Nuclear Weapons — Can TrumplandJoin the World?

Scientists tell us that a single nuclear weapon could cause devastating climate change.

Donald Trump tells us . . . well, a bunch of incoherent gibberish that seems to include the illegal threat to use nuclear weapons if he should be in the mood to commit genocide in North Korea.

Meanwhile 122 countries have created a treaty to ban the possession of nuclear weapons, and 52 have already signed it, these 52:

Compare that map with the map of countries that own nuclear weapons:

Israel may be too small to see there. And one also needs to add Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey, all of which illegally possess nuclear weapons belonging to the U.S. government.

If you’re from the United States, click here to easily send an email to your U.S. Representative and your two Senators.

With President Trump pushing the U.S. Congress to start funding former president Obama’s one trillion dollar nuclear weapons and infrastructure program before he even completes the traditional expected “nuclear posture review,” there is not one champion in the Senate or the Congress for nuclear abolition! At most we have a bill supported by some members of Congress calling for cuts in spending on nuclear bombs, and requiring that only Congress can decide to annihilate a country with a nuclear attack, instead of leaving it solely to the President.

Despite the extraordinary fact that 122 nations have negotiated a treaty to ban the bomb, prohibiting possession, use, threatening to use, sharing, developing, testing, producing, manufacturing, transferring, stockpiling, or allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory, nuclear terrorism, as practiced by the United States, still goes unabated. This is in violation of a commitment made in the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty to make “good faith efforts” for nuclear disarmament. The latest U.S. nuclear threat has been made to North Korea, with Trump announcing that “all options are on the table”–nukespeak for we will use the bomb to slaughter you.

The new treaty opened for signature on September 20 at the United Nations, and 50 nations were required to sign and ratify it to make nuclear weapons unlawful, just as the world has already done for chemical and biological weapons. This threshold was met on Day 1.

It’s time to let the U.S. Congress and all the world’s governments know that we want them to support nuclear abolition. Write a letter to your Senators and member of Congress, asking them to press for nuclear abolition by joining the ban treaty with a commitment to follow the treaty’s provisions for nuclear armed countries to join and dismantle their arsenals.