Comments

Comment by Pradip Lande. Rural upliftment Society of India (09/03/2009)

India and pakistan are nuclear weapons state and they do not have cordial relations. Pakistan is failed state and terrorist groups active in Pakistan e,g, Taliban and Al Qudea may have access to the nuclear weapons which are dangerious for South Asia as well as for whole world. People have to be educated that Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is not solution for gettting read of their problems. The people's welfae is depended on the economic progress .

Comment by Angelo Baracca (08/16/2009)

I thank both Hellman and Derek for their kind comments. However, I dissent from both their general, and specific (Israel) arguments: not in principle, better on a concrete foot.

On an ideal basis I would approve their arguments: but reality is unfortunately different form ideal, and practical (unavoidably partial) steps are needed. I must confess that after 4 decades of commitment for disarmament and peace, I am quite pessimistic. I don't see a contradiction between calling for common action and sensibilization of people working on nuclear weapons, on the one side, and trying to introduce positive changes, on the other. Rotblat radically changed his work and commitment, but in order to generlize such choices, more sensibilization is needed. On the other hand, I completely agree that conventional armaments (up to "machetes"!) are the main responsible for war and deaths: mainly small arms, whose limitation to common citizens is so difficult to control and limit, due to enormous economic interests (look at the US). In my deep I feel myself an extremist - this whole system is the responsible, and is driving toward the destruction of humankind and nature - but on a practical foot I work for concrete steps. In Italy, in 1987, we succeeded to stop civil nuclear plans with a general referendum, since citizens were sensibilized (althogh Berlusconi is now trying to reopen them): every victory is seldom definitive.

Singling out nuclear weapons for their elimination doesn't imply that we accept conventional arms: in my opinion, nuclear is the sector in armaments which has the most complete set of regulations and treatises, so the "easiest" to eliminate and put under strict control; if we are not able to eliminate them, it will be much harder to eliminate the others (always my opinion: think to biological arms, which are increasingly intrinsically linked to common biotechnologies and biotech industries!). Derek himself acknowledges a specificity to nuclear weapons saying that "The world has been very lucky to escape a horrendous nuclear war". Asking for "all", refusing partial steps or actions, risks to lead to asking for "nothig".

Concerning Israel, I specify that my proposal too pertains to a first step, which I consider preliminary to a second one. In my opinion the arsenal of Israel, and those of Pakistan-India-North Korea, cannot be put on the same foot: the latter countries have made known to the world the existence of their nuclear weapons, they are proud of them, while Israel has never acknowledged its existence either; and has repetedly played on this ambiguity in its history. I can understand the criticisms moved to my "two-step" proposal, nevertheless I remain convinced that it would be very important to officially unveil this "secret". I attach at the end the new of a demand from Atab States urging EU to ask Israel nuclear transparency (with no simpathy at all towards Arab States!). My personal opinion is that such a step is preliminary (logically, not as a time sequence) to the whole process of nuclear disarmament. Israeli ambiguity is one of the major obstacles.

Thank you for your kind attention, best regards

Angelo Baracca

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Arab States Urge EU to Demand Israeli Nuclear Transparency Friday, Aug. 14, 2009

Arab nations urged the European Union in June to join them in demanding that Israel submit to international scrutiny of its nuclear activities, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 12).

Israel is widely considered the Middle East's only nuclear-armed state, but it has never publicly acknowledged possession of nuclear weapons. At the International Atomic Energy Agency's General Conference each year, Israel's neighbours routinely propose resolutions calling on Jerusalem to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state and open its nuclear sites to U.N. inspectors.

In a June 29 letter to Sweden, the current holder of the rotating EU presidency, the 22-nation League of Arab States links its demand for Israeli nuclear transparency to U.S. President Barack Obama's recent calls for the world to move toward nuclear disarmament.

The letter, penned by League of Arab States leader Amre Moussa, urged Sweden to support a resolution proposed this year entitled "Israel's Nuclear Capabilities." The letter included a draft version of the resolution.

"We are hopeful that your country would support the Arab draft resolution," Moussa wrote in the message to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. "Unfortunately," Sweden and other EU countries voted against a similar proposal in 2008, he noted.

Moussa's letter was also submitted to the top diplomats from the 26 other EU member nations, European sources told AP yesterday.

Sweden was working on a response to the letter that would represent the EU position, but Stockholm has not yet settled on its final position, Swedish Foreign Ministry spokesman Anders Jorle said.

The positions that the 27 EU nations take on the resolution take could be key to the measure's chances of success; a similar proposal failed by only a slim margin last year, suggesting that calls for Israeli nuclear transparency were gaining momentum in developing nations and elsewhere (George Jahn, Associated Press/Google News, Aug. 13).

Comment by Harlan Girard/ International Committee on Offensive Microwave Weapons  (08/15/2009)

Dear All:
About twenty years ago I campaigned across Europe against the development of directed energy weapons by the United States of America. I particularly focused on members of IPPNW thinking they might comprehend the problem which concerns me even now.
Simply put, there is only one electromagnetic spectrum. It extends from direct current at the low end through visible radiation to gamma rays and beyond on the other end. And having produced the world's first nuclear weapon, the United States has gone on to weaponize the low frequency end of the EM spectrum. We all know about lasers but what else is there, out there hiding in the bushes.
We are very interested in weapons originally called 'offensive microwave weapons' but now referred to as 'influence technology', and might even more accurately be referred to as neurological weapons. They are the electromagnetic equivalent of nerve gas. The one such weapon which has been disclosed is the so-called 'active denial system', manufactured by Raytheon. What hasn't been publicly disclosed is that the USA possesses weapons which can synthesize far more complex biological responses than burning pain, and in fact can reduce human beings to automatons.
The United States has in fact enslaved many hundreds and possibly thousands of persons around the world with these weapons. They are being mercilessly tortured to death. My point is this: THERE IS NO POINT WHATSOEVER IN BANNING NUCLEAR WEAPONS WITHOUT BANNING ALSO THE GREATER MENACE OF NEUROLOGICAL WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. This is not only our appraisal but the appraisal of the Soviet Union, as early as 1979. Now, thirty years later, the human species rests on the brink of extinction because the United States has persistently blocked any mention of neurological weapons based on electromagnetic energy at the United Nations.
Sincerely, Harlan Girard

Comment by Jambu Kumar Jain, Rural Development & youth Training Institute , Kota - India (08/14/2009)

Yes , we believe that scientist must accept that there should be no any type of support for Nuclear - Weapons .

Thanks for campaign and best wishes .
Jambu Jain

Comment by Martin Hellman, National Academy of Engineering  (08/08/2009)

Dear Prof. Baracca,

As you can see from my project on the risk of nuclear weapons (www.nuclearrisk.org), trying to save our species from committing unintentional suicide is my highest priority. However, I have been unable to support either INES' recent statement or the call in your email because it violates a principle which is essential to solving the problem. That principle is moving from blame to responsibility.

Blame is a large part of what leads nations to make nuclear weapons -- and war. Study of almost any war will show that both sides thought God (or right) was on their side. Only by moving from blame (YOU need to change!) to responsibility (What can I change to make the situation better?) will there be any chance of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Yet, focusing condemnation on Israel's nuclear -- leaving out India, Pakistan, and North Korea, not to mention the major nuclear powers and Italy's protection under NATO's "nuclear umbrella" -- will only intensify Israel's feeling of isolation and make it more insistent on maintaining its own deterrent.

Similarly, I found myself unable to sign the "Scientists for a Nuclear- Weapons-Free World" statement because of its statement, "Finally, we call upon scientists and engineers throughout the world to cease all cooperation in the research, development, testing, production and manufacture of new nuclear weapons." While less of a blame issue than with respect to singling out Israel's nuclear weapons program, it still left me unable to sign. Who am I to call on friends and colleagues in the weapons labs to turn their lives on end when I pay my taxes, part of which goes to fund their work? It opens our effort to unnecessary criticism to place the threshold for requiring change above our own involvement, but below that of others.

I hope INES will focus on positive change -- removing the root causes which lead nations to seek nuclear weapons -- rather than criticizing others for taking actions which are logical within the current illogic of national security. It is especially important not to single out individuals or nations from a larger pool of offenders.

Thank you for considering my remarks.

Martin Hellman

Comment by Derek Paul, Toronto (08/08/2009)

I agree with Angelo Baracca, but want to add another view of nuclear disarmament, which may help to get something started. Attempts at controlling nuclear weapons and fissile material began in 1947 with the Lilienthal report, and have continued intermittently and sometimes continuously since then, notably in 1948, 1955, 1961 ( the McCloy-Zorin agreement), then the SALT Treaties and the START Treaties. But no path of systematic steps to reduce nuclear weapons to zero has been seriously contemplated since President Gorbachev's proposals in the mid-1980s. My impression is that any head-on attempts may prove as futile in future as they have in the past. Something new or something extra is needed, to overcome the irrational military love of and reliance on these weapons. A new strategy is needed having planned, temporal phases, and it must surely include huge reductions in the threats posed by conventional arms. It is conventional arms that have killed the many millions of people who have died as a result of military action since 9 August 1945, not nuclear arms. The nuclear weapons themselves were developed to avoid defeat at the hands of enemies having huge conventional arms capacity. Thus, major conventional arms capacity is in itself a motive for posession on nuclear weapons by others facing such capacity. There can be nothing more false than the view that conventional arms are OK but nuclear must be abolished. Yes, nuclear must be abolished, but conventional arms require immense reductions and strict control. They too require ultimately to be eliminated. I do not think that conventional arms reductions should hold up nuclear disarmament, but rather that both should be planned simultaneously. Returning to the matter of nuclear disarmament, the recent announcement by the government of India that it intends to develop a nuclear submarine armed with nuclear missiles (a big step in the wrong direction), makes a focus on naval nuclear disarmament a logical starting point. Naval accidents are liable to result in nuclear weapons on the ocean bottom, an affront to the ecosphere as well as a violation of international law; and nuclear submarines, when submerged, are out of contact with central command which puts the fate of the world into the hands of the submarine commanders. The world has been very lucky to escape a horrendous nuclear war. It is time now to stop pushing our luck and eliminate naval nuclear arms.

With best regards,
Derek Paul, Toronto

Comment by Angelo Baracca, Professor of Physics University of Florence (08/08/2009)

Dear INES members, and possibly all signatories:

I take the inspiration from this campaign, to add a specific proposal.

In the whole nuclear affair there is a particular (artificially) obscure case: Israel's arsenal! The silence/ambiguity by Israel on its own arsenal (with the prosecution of Vanunu), largely supported by that of the international political community, is in my opinion one of the strongest obstacles on the way of non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament, and by far the most dangerous factor in the region.

In this condition, I think that it could be meaningful, and important, if a declaration could be subscribed by representatives of the scientific/academic/cultural world, addressed to the UN General Secretary and all the State chiefs and representatives, and to the public opinion, saying something like:

 "All we perfectly know the exixtence of the Israel's nuclear arsenal, we publicly denounce its existence, we call the world political community to do officially the same, and to ...

Obviously this generic idea should be thoroughly developed, the declaration should be articulated. It could appear as an ingenuous proposal, but this "secret" must be uncovered, an authotitative and representative denounce could hardly be ignored, and some problem/ consequence could follow for the Israeli political establishment.

I am obviously at disposal if a group would follow and properly develop some proposal in tis sense. best regards

Angelo Baracca Professor of Physics University of Florence