Tuesday, April 5, 2005

Nuclear Proliferation or Non FEATURED ARTICLES - How Bush Learned To Love the Bomb, Spiegel Online - Atlanta Consultation II: On the Future of the NPT, Middle Powers Initiative - RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE: A Con Job by Pakistan's Pal, George Bush, Robert Scheer, Creators QUOTE OF THE DAY: "...Until recently all American presidents since Dwight Eisenhower had striven to restrict and reduce nuclear arsenals -- some more than others. So far as I know, there are no present efforts by any of the nuclear powers to accomplish these crucial goals. The United States is the major culprit in this erosion of the Nonproliferation Treaties. While claiming to be protecting the world from proliferation threats in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea, American leaders not only have abandoned existing treaty restraints but also have asserted plans to test and develop new weapons, including anti-ballistic missiles, the earth-penetrating "bunker buster" and perhaps some new "small" bombs. They also have abandoned past pledges and now threaten first use of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states..." - - President Jimmy Carter (From "Saving Nonproliferation," Wash Post, 3/29/05) KNOW YOUR HISTORY: April 5th 1969 -- A weekend of antiwar demonstrations in 50 cities attract an estimated 150,000 Vietnam War protesters. 1982 -- Ireland: Nuclear free zone declared by Dublin City Council. 1996 -- Twelve arrested during protest at weapons manufacturing plant of Lockheed-Martin in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. 1996 -- Fifty-Four arrested in Good Friday protest at Livermore Nuclear Weapons Laboratory, Livermore, California. RHINO HERE: The shrub gang's hypocrisies have been stacking up higher & higher over the last 4 plus years. It makes The Rhino think that sooner or later the tower of bush is going to come crashing down. The question is how many people will be buried in the rubble. Surely, the crowning achievement; the highest hypocrisy in the stack is the fable that George the Lesser cares about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. In fact he & his cronies are the first U.S. administration in decades to do nothing toward furthering the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaties (NPT). Today's blog is dedicated to examining the current state of NPT. (o/)(o/)(o/) How Bush Learned To Love the Bomb By Leigh Flayton, Spiegel Online, March 30, 2005 United States President George W. Bush is talking tough about nukes in Iran and North Korea. But critics say by illegally testing and building nuclear weapons, the U.S. is fueling a new arms race. In a barren stretch of Nevada desert 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas, a large modular tower and a steel crane, once used for testing nuclear bombs, stand in plain view of anyone passing through the area known to the U.S. government as U6c. They are easily detected by satellites orbiting overhead. Later this year, scientists at the Nevada Test Site will use the structures to conduct an experiment called Unicorn, which will help determine whether the site is prepared to resume full-scale nuclear tests if ordered to do so by the president. Unicorn, which works with plutonium and high explosives, will resemble an old-fashioned underground nuclear test from the Cold War era, when bombs were placed in towers aboveground and lowered beneath the surface by custom-built cranes... MORE AT:   http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,348779,00.html (o/)(o/)(o/) Atlanta Consultation II: On the Future of the NPT The Carter Center, January 26-28, 2005 The Middle Powers Initiative (MPI) consists of eight international non-governmental organizations which work primarily with "middle power" governments to encourage and educate the nuclear weapons states to take immediate practical steps to reduce nuclear dangers, and commence negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons. MPI is dedicated to the worldwide reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons, in a series of well-defined stages accompanied by increasing verification and control. The Middle Powers Initiative organized an Extraordinary Strategy Consultation on the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) 2005 Review Conference in cooperation with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, January 26-28, 2005. Entitled Atlanta Consultation II: On the Future of the NPT, the gathering involved high-level representatives of key governments and was modeled after the successful Atlanta Consultation I that MPI held at The Carter Center in 2000. LOTS MORE AT THE MIDDLE POWERS INITIATE WEBSITE, AT: http://www.middlepowers.org/mpi/index.html (o/)(o/)(o/) 9:56:14 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - A Con Job by Pakistan's Pal, George Bush A Con Job by Pakistan's Pal, George Bush RobertScheer, Creators Syndicate, March 29, 2005 Trying to follow the U.S. policy on the proliferation of nuclear weapons is like watching a three-card monte game on a city street corner. Except the stakes are higher. The announcement Friday that the United States is authorizing the sale to Pakistan of F-16 fighter jets capable of delivering nuclear warheads ˆ and thereby escalating the region's nuclear arms race ˆ is the latest example of how the most important issue on the planet is being bungled by the Bush administration. Consider this dizzying series of Bush II-era actions: We have thrown away thousands of Iraqi and American lives and billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars after crying wolf on Iraq's long-defunct nuclear weapons program and now expect the world to believe similar scary stories about neighboring Iran. We have cozied up to Pakistan for more than three years as it freely allowed the operation of the most extravagantly irresponsible nuclear arms bazaar the world has ever seen. We sabotaged negotiations with North Korea by telling allies that Pyongyang had supplied nuclear material to Libya, even though the Bush administration knew that the country of origin of those shipments was our "ally," Pakistan. Now, Lockheed Martin has been saved from closing its F-16 production line by the White House decision to lift the arms embargo on Pakistan and allow the sale. The decision, which ends a 1990 embargo put in place by the president's father in reprisal for Pakistan's development of a nuclear arsenal, is especially odd at a time when we are berating European nations for considering lifting their arms embargo on China... ...One result of the United States shortsightedly pulling this fast one has been the collapse of multilateral nonproliferation talks with Pyongyang. Yet in the long term, the cost is much greater: a dramatic erosion of trust in U.S. statements on nuclear proliferation. From Iraq to Iran, North Korea to Pakistan, the Bush administration has pulled so many con jobs that it is difficult for anybody to take it seriously. Unfortunately, though, the proliferation of nuclear weapons is as serious as it gets. MORE: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=18802 (o/)(o/)(o/) Rhino's Blog is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. Feedback & requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. (rhino@kifaru.com) See The Latest Greatest Political Cartoons      While You Read Rhino's Blog AT : http://www.rhinosblog.info Rhino's Other Web Sites: http://www.dreamcatchers.org  (Indigenous Assistance & Intercultural Dialog) http://www.kifaru.com  (Native American Relations Video Documentaries) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 8:36:43 AM    comment

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