Friday, December 15, 2017

Nobel Peace Prize shames United States


Do even 1% of Americans know an organization, not a person, won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize for actions vigorously opposed by the United States and all other nuclear powers? The winner was the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a coalition of non-government organizations in one hundred countries advocating for a strong and effective nuclear weapon ban treaty. ICAN won for leading the campaign that resulted, last summer, in the United Nations treaty prohibiting the use, development and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. It passed 122-1, but the debate was boycotted by the nine nuclear-armed nations (Britain, China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United States), along with Australia, Japan, South Korea and every member of NATO except the Netherlands, which cast the single no vote. While having no tangible means of forcing nuclear disarmament, it does have symbolic and moral force to inspire all of us facing nuclear annihilation to lobby our government to honor it. Meanwhile, Uncle Sam, always on the wrong side of nuclear debate, prepares to spend a trillion dollars over the next decade to upgrade our nuclear arsenal that already possesses nearly half of the 15,000 nukes at the ready to destroy the planet.  

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