By The Institute for Public Accuracy. Reuters reports today: “Dozens of countries signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons on Wednesdayamid tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, although the United States, Britain, France and others boycotted the event at the annual United Nations gathering of world leaders. “The treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons will enter into force 90 days after 50 countries have ratified it. … “‘There remain some fifteen thousand nuclear weapons in existence. We cannot allow these doomsday weapons to endanger our world and our children’s future,’ U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said as he opened the treaty for signing.
By John Laforge for Counter Punch – A series of anti-nuclear weapons actions between March and August at Air Base Büchel in Germany brought widespread media attention to the 20 US nuclear weapons still deployed there. Surprising demands for the bombs’ removal soon came from high-ranking political leaders including Germany’s foreign minister. A timeline of events between July 12 and 18, involving a Nukewatch-organized delegation of 11 US peace activists, shows how the work may have moved the officials to speak out. July 12 — Upon its arrival, four members of the US group held a press conference in Frankfurt accompanied by Marion Küpker, international coordinator for DFG-VK — Germany’s oldest anti-war group — and organizer of the five-month peace camp. News of the unprecedented US group was reported in the daily Frankfurt Journal (“Activists from the US land in Frankfurt: Campaign against US nuclear weapons”), the online magazine FOCUS (“Nuclear fighters receive support from the US”) and picked up around the country. July 15 — Headlines like “Today in Büchel: Action day against nuclear weapons,” and “Konstantin Wecker sings for the peace,” was news across southwest Germany when the well known singer-songwriter drew about 400 to his performance near base’s main gates. The US delegates all spoke briefly to the gathering through interpreters.
By Andrea Germanos for Common Dreams – Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, meanwhile, said that he was drafting new sanctions to place on North Korea in response to the test. “It’s clear this behavior is completely unacceptable,” Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.” Yukiya Amano, head of the U.N. nuclear agency, said the test was “an extremely regrettable act,” and called on North Korea “to fully implement all relevant resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and the IAEA,” which include stopping further nuclear tests. Among those appealing for calm was Russia, declaring diplomacy “the only possible way” to resolve the conflict. The foreign ministry in Moscow said the test merited “the strongest condemnation,” and warned that “the continuation of such a line is fraught with serious consequences” for Pyongyang. “In the unfolding conditions,” the ministry statement added, it is imperative to remain calm and to refrain from any actions that lead to a further escalation of tension.” “We call on all interested parties to immediately return to dialogue and negotiations as the only possible way for an overall settlement of the problems of the Korean peninsula,” it said.
By Peace Wave Task Force for Organizing Committee, the World Conference against A and H Bombs. On the occasion of the 72nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the 2017 World Conference against A and H Bombs called on the peoples of the world to launch international join international simultaneous actions “Peace Wave” to urge all national governments to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons from September 20, the day when the Treaty will be open for signatures, until 26, the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted on July 7 this year with the support of 122 States. It is a groundbreaking treaty to open a path to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons. The “Peace Wave” will start from Japan at noon, September 20, and circle around the globe, linking actions in different countries to call on all governments of the world to join the treaty. In response to the call by the World Conference against A and H Bombs, we call on all of you to organize actions, setting the common goal as “Abolition of nuclear weapons . . .
By Staff for Al Jazeera. US and South Korean troops have begun annual military drills amid heated warnings by North Korea that the exercises will worsen tensions in the region. The Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills, which began on Monday, are largely computer-simulated war games. The exercise brings together as many as 50,000 South Korean soldiers and approximately 17,500 US service members for a simulation of war on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said the drills are defensive in nature. He said the exercises are held regularly because of repeated provocations by North Korea, including two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month. Pyongyang called the 11-day operation a “reckless” invasion rehearsal that could trigger an “uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war”. China and Russia last week urged the United States to suspend the drills in exchange for North Korea suspending its missile and nuclear tests.
By Aaron Kesel for Activist Post – Amid Americans’ concerns that North Korea threatened to launch a missile at Guam, Iran is planning on building up a flotilla of warships in the Atlantic Ocean, while Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani has threatened to revitalize the country’s nuclear program if the U.S. continues “threats and sanctions.” If Washington continues with “threats and sanctions” against Iran, Tehran could easily ramp up its nuclear activities Rouhani said in Iranian Parliament, AP reported. In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations. “The U.S. has shown that it is neither a good partner nor a trustable negotiator,” Rouhani added. “Those who are trying to go back to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past hallucinations. They deprive themselves of the advantages of peace.” Iranian lawmakers reportedly shouted “death to America” as they passed the bill to increase military spending. The legislation also imposes sanctions on U.S. military officials who are in the region. Meanwhile, after the announcement of a massive $500 million investment in war spending, Iran has planned to send flotilla of warships to the Atlantic Ocean in response to the U.S. proposed sanctions against the country.
By Leonard Eiger for Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action. Washington State – Activists blockaded the West Coast nuclear submarine base that would likely carry out a nuclear strike against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) should President Donald Trump give the order. Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, just 20 miles from Seattle, is home to the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the US. More than 1,300 nuclear warheads are deployed on Trident D-5 missiles on the eight ballistic missile submarines based at Bangor or stored at Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific (SWFPAC) at the Bangor base. Activists with Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action held a vigil and nonviolent direct action at the Bangor base on August 14…
By Paul Street for Truth DIg – One of the more irritating claims made by members of the John F. Kennedy cult holds that JFK heroically saved humanity from annihilation during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. In one sense, the claim is true. During the crisis, the president overrode many people in his inner National Security Council “ExComm” circle who favored responding to the Soviet Union’s placement of missiles in Cuba in ways that might well have ignited World War III. But Kennedy sparked the crisis in the first place, and his macho posturing during the hair-raising, 13-day showdown might have sparked global nuclear catastrophe if not for Soviet sanity. The faceoff never would have occurred without young President Kennedy’s aggressive arms escalation, his disregard (inherited from President Eisenhower) for Soviet disarmament offers, and his wish to strangle the great socialist revolution and national independence movement led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in Cuba. Kennedy’s determination to look strong was a critical part of why the nearly disastrous missile crisis happened. This was JFK’s key political imperative in the wake of his Bay of Pigs humiliation the previous year, when a poorly planned U.S.-led invasion meant to overthrow the Cuban revolution failed ignominiously.
United National Antiwar Coalition. Today, the US maintains a force of tens of thousands of troops in South Korea; it has installed Thaad missiles and conducts joint nuclear-armed military exercises in the region twice a year. The DPRK justly sees these as practice for a U.S. invasion. As in Vietnam, where the ten-year U.S. war cost the lives of four million Vietnamese, the U.S. is today threatening yet another genocidal war, this time against North Korea, a nation that has never invaded another country. The United National Antiwar Coalition stands opposed to all U.S. wars and threats of war. We call upon all peace and social justice groups to organize emergency actions against the U.S. war drive. Please see a list of actions being organized and add your own action by going here: http://nepajac.org/koreaevents.htm.
By Christian Appy for Information Clearing House – Here we are, 70 years after the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I’m wondering if we’ve come even one step closer to a moral reckoning with our status as the world’s only country to use atomic weapons to slaughter human beings. Will an American president ever offer a formal apology? Will our country ever regret the dropping of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man,” those two bombs that burned hotter than the sun? Will it absorb the way they instantly vaporized thousands of victims, incinerated tens of thousands more, and created unimaginably powerful shockwaves and firestorms that ravaged everything for miles beyond ground zero? Will it finally come to grips with the “black rain” that spread radiation and killed even more people — slowly and painfully — leading in the end to a death toll for the two cities conservatively estimated at more than 250,000? Given the last seven decades of perpetual militarization and nuclear “modernization” in this country, the answer may seem like an obvious no. Still, as a historian, I’ve been trying to dig a little deeper into our lack of national contrition.
By Simone Chun for Truthout – On August 2, US Sen. Lindsey Graham paraphrased President Donald Trump’s stance on the prospect of conflict in the Korean Peninsula as follows: “If thousands die, they’re going to die over there.” Less than a week later, on August 8, President Trump responded to North Korea’s latest missile test by threatening to unleash “fire and fury” against Pyongyang, raising alarms throughout the international community. These statements were only the latest excerpts of the ongoing hostile dialog between North Korea and the United States since both parties signed an armistice 64 years ago. A peace treaty was never reached. Will Trump’s heightened rhetoric lead the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war anytime soon? Most likely not. As many analysts point out, deterrence still holds in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia, despite bellicose rhetoric on both sides. The United States knows that North Korea now has the capability and willingness to strike back if attacked. North Korea knows firsthand the overwhelming power of the United States, well proven in the devastation visited on the populace during the Korean War, when more than 30 percent of Koreans were either killed or injured.
By Global Zero. Washington, DC – On Wednesday night groups including Global Zero, MoveOn.org, Win Without War, Ultraviolet, and CODEPINK: Women For Peace protested in front of the White House to stand against nuclear war. Over the last 24 hours the situation with North Korea has erupted into a full-blown crisis. In response to reports about Kim Jong-un’s new nuclear capabilities, Trump promised to meet another threat with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Right now two inexperienced egomaniacs are facing off with nuclear weapons. Experts are calling this the Cuban Missile Crisis of our time.
By John Zangas for DC Media Group – On Sunday At exactly 7:02 PM, peace activists Philipos Melaku-Bello and Cliff Roberts sit quietly at the Peace Vigil in front of the North Portico of the White House. They mark the moment when 72 years ago the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. But this historic day passes at the White House in typical form. If not for the Peace Vigil activists, there would be no one to remind the passers by of its significance. The many flags, signs and photos at the Peace Vigil could easily lead to confusion as to why it is there. There are over a dozen posters with different messages about war, occupation, politics, and oppression. Reprinted photos of the attack aftermaths on Hiroshima and Nagaskaki are attached to the two permanent wooden boards of the Peace Vigil. Above them are three flags: a large silk Tibetan flag hangs on the left sign, and an anarchist flag sags on the right, while a small plastic American flag sits in the middle above the tent. The signs and flags embody principles that both compliment and contradict each other and this is essence of discourse at the Peace Vigil. Several hundred tourists are milling about while posing for selfies.
By Stephen Lendman for Paul Craig Roberts – War in the Pacific was won months before Franklin Roosevelt’s April 12, 1945 death. He declined to accept the Japanese offer of surrender. So did Harry Truman when he became president. War continued for months unnecessarily, countless more casualties inflicted, mainly Japanese civilians – notably from fire-bombing Toyko in March 1945, an estimated 100,000 perishing in the firestorm, many more injured, over a million left homeless. Around the same time, five dozen other Japanese cities were fire-bombed. Most structures in the country were wooden and easily consumed. The attacks amounting to war crimes achieved no strategic advantage. In early 1945, Japan offered to surrender. In February, Douglas McArthur sent Roosevelt a 40-page summary of its terms. They were nearly unconditional. The Japanese would accept an occupation, would cease hostilities, surrender its arms, remove all troops from occupied territories, submit to criminal war trials, and allow its industries to be regulated. In return, they asked only that their emperor be retained in an honorable capacity. Roosevelt spurned the offer as did Truman. Hiroshima and Nagasaki followed on August 6 and 9 respectively.
By Kazumi Matsui for The Mainichi. Friends, 72 years ago today, on August 6, at 8:15 a.m., absolute evil was unleashed in the sky over Hiroshima. Let’s imagine for a moment what happened under that roiling mushroom cloud. Pika — the penetrating flash, extreme radiation and heat. Don — the earth-shattering roar and blast. As the blackness lifts, the scenes emerging into view reveal countless scattered corpses charred beyond recognition even as man or woman. Stepping between the corpses, badly burned, nearly naked figures with blackened faces, singed hair, and tattered, dangling skin wander through spreading flames, looking for water. The rivers in front of you are filled with bodies; the riverbanks so crowded with burnt, half-naked victims you have no place to step. This is truly hell. Under that mushroom cloud, the absolutely evil atomic bomb brought gruesome death to vast numbers of innocent civilians . . .
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