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Organizations Call for Elimination of 'Launch on Warning' Land-Based Nuclear Missiles in the United States
More than 60 national and regional organizations on Wednesday issued a joint statement calling for the elimination of the 400 land-based nuclear missiles now armed and on hair-trigger alert in the United States.
The statement, titled "A Call to Eliminate ICBMs," warns that "intercontinental ballistic missiles are uniquely dangerous, greatly increasing the chances that a false alarm or miscalculation will result in nuclear war."
More than 60 national and regional organizations on Wednesday issued a joint statement calling for the elimination of the 400 land-based nuclear missiles now armed and on hair-trigger alert in the United States.
The statement, titled "A Call to Eliminate ICBMs," warns that "intercontinental ballistic missiles are uniquely dangerous, greatly increasing the chances that a false alarm or miscalculation will result in nuclear war."
Citing the conclusion reached by former Defense Secretary William Perry that ICBMs "could even trigger an accidental nuclear war," the organizations urged the U.S. government to "shut down the 400 ICBMs now in underground silos that are scattered across five states -- Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming."
"Rather than being any kind of deterrent, ICBMs are the opposite -- a foreseeable catalyst for nuclear attack," the statement says. "ICBMs certainly waste billions of dollars, but what makes them unique is the threat that they pose to all of humanity."
Norman Solomon, national director of RootsAction.org, said the statement could represent a turning point in the range of options being debated about ICBMs. "Until now, the public discussion has been almost entirely limited to the narrow question of whether to build a new ICBM system or stick with the existing Minuteman III missiles for decades longer," he said. "That's like arguing over whether to refurbish the deck chairs on the nuclear Titanic. Both options retain the same unique dangers of nuclear war that ICBMs involve. It's time to really widen the ICBM debate, and this joint statement from U.S. organizations is a vital step in that direction."
RootsAction and Just Foreign Policy led the organizing process that resulted in the statement being released today.
Here is the full statement, followed by a list of the signing organizations:
Joint statement by U.S. organizations being released on January 12, 2022
A Call to Eliminate ICBMs
Intercontinental ballistic missiles are uniquely dangerous, greatly increasing the chances that a false alarm or miscalculation will result in nuclear war. There is no more important step the United States could take to reduce the chances of a global nuclear holocaust than to eliminate its ICBMs.
As former Defense Secretary William Perry has explained, "If our sensors indicate that enemy missiles are en route to the United States, the president would have to consider launching ICBMs before the enemy missiles could destroy them; once they are launched, they cannot be recalled. The president would have less than 30 minutes to make that terrible decision." And Secretary Perry wrote: "First and foremost, the United States can safely phase out its land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force, a key facet of Cold War nuclear policy. Retiring the ICBMs would save considerable costs, but it isn't only budgets that would benefit. These missiles are some of the most dangerous weapons in the world. They could even trigger an accidental nuclear war."
Rather than being any kind of deterrent, ICBMs are the opposite -- a foreseeable catalyst for nuclear attack. ICBMs certainly waste billions of dollars, but what makes them unique is the threat that they pose to all of humanity.
The people of the United States support huge expenditures when they believe the spending protects them and their loved ones. But ICBMs actually make us less safe. By discarding all of its ICBMs and thereby eliminating the basis for U.S. "launch on warning," the U.S. would make the whole world safer -- whether or not Russia and China chose to follow suit.
Everything is at stake. Nuclear weapons could destroy civilization and inflict catastrophic damage on the world's ecosystems with "nuclear winter," inducing mass starvation while virtually ending agriculture. That is the overarching context for the need to shut down the 400 ICBMs now in underground silos that are scattered across five states -- Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming.
Closure of those ICBM facilities should be accompanied by major public investment to subsidize transition costs and provide well-paying jobs that are productive for the long-term economic prosperity of affected communities.
Even without ICBMs, the formidable U.S. nuclear threat would remain. The United States would have nuclear forces capable of deterring a nuclear attack by any conceivable adversary: forces deployed either on aircraft, which are recallable, or on submarines that remain virtually invulnerable, and thus not subject to the "use them or lose them" dilemma that the ground-based ICBMs inherently present in a crisis.
The United States should pursue every diplomatic avenue to comply with its obligation to negotiate nuclear disarmament. At the same time, whatever the status of negotiations, the elimination of the U.S. government's ICBMs would be a breakthrough for sanity and a step away from a nuclear precipice that would destroy all that we know and love.
"I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction," Martin Luther King Jr. said as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Nearly 60 years later, the United States must eliminate its ICBMs to reverse that downward spiral.
Action Corps
Alaska Peace Center
American Committee for U.S.-Russia Accord
Arab American Action Network
Arizona Chapter, Physicians for Social Responsibility
Back from the Brink Coalition
Backbone Campaign
Baltimore Phil Berrigan Memorial Chapter, Veterans For Peace
Beyond Nuclear
Beyond the Bomb
Black Alliance for Peace
Blue America
Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security
Center for Citizen Initiatives
Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility
Chicago Area Peace Action
Code Pink
Demand Progress
Environmentalists Against War
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Global Zero
Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility
Historians for Peace and Democracy
Jewish Voice for Peace Action
Just Foreign Policy
Justice Democrats
Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy
Linus Pauling Chapter, Veterans For Peace
Los Alamos Study Group
Maine Physicians for Social Responsibility
Massachusetts Peace Action
Muslim Delegates and Allies
No More Bombs
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Nuclear Watch New Mexico
Nukewatch
Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility
Other98
Our Revolution
Pax Christi USA
Peace Action
People for Bernie Sanders
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Prevent Nuclear War Maryland
Progressive Democrats of America
RootsAction.org
San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility
Santa Fe Chapter, Veterans For Peace
Spokane Chapter, Veterans For Peace
U.S. Palestinian Community Network
United for Peace and Justice
Veterans For Peace
Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility
Western North Carolina Physicians for Social Responsibility
Western States Legal Foundation
Whatcom Peace and Justice Center
Win Without War
Women Transforming Our Nuclear Legacy
World Beyond War
Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation
Youth Against Nuclear Weapons
RootsAction is dedicated to galvanizing people who are committed to economic fairness, equal rights for all, civil liberties, environmental protection -- and defunding endless wars. We mobilize on these issues no matter whether Democrats or Republicans control Washington D.C.
Trump Taps JD Vance—Who Once Called Him 'America's Hitler'—as Running Mate
The right-wing Ohio Republican, who opposes abortion rights and backed Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, is a former venture capitalist who portrays himself as a champion of the working class.
Former President Donald Trump on Monday chose U.S. Sen. JD Vance as his running mate despite the Ohio Republican formerly describing himself as a "Never Trump guy" and calling the presumptive GOP nominee an "idiot," an "asshole," and "America's Hitler."
Trump—who survived an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday—announced his pick on the opening day of the Republican Party's convention in Wisconsin with apost on his Truth social media platform, calling Vance "the person best suited" to be vice president.
"JD honorably served our country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, summa cum laude, and is a Yale Law School graduate, where he was the editor of the Yale Law Journal, and president of the Yale Law Veterans Association," Trump wrote. "JD's book, Hillbilly Elegy, became a major bestseller and movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our country."
Vance's selection came two days after the senator took to social media to assert that President Joe Biden's rhetoric—including the assertion that Trump "is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs"—led "directly" to Trump's attempted assassination.
Should he accept his selection, Vance—who turns 40 next month—would be making a stark departure from his previous views on Trump.
"I'm a Never Trump guy," Vance said in a 2016 interview with the late Charlie Rose. "I never liked him."
"My God what an idiot," he said of Trump on social media that same year.
In another message explaining his views on the rise of Trump, Vance wrote that the Republican Party "has itself to blame."
"Trump is the fruit of the party's collective neglect" of working-class Americans, Vance argued. "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole" like former President Richard Nixon "who wouldn't be that bad... or that he's America's Hitler."
Vance, who claims to be a champion of working people and against elites, is a former venture capitalist whose 2022 Senate campaign was backed by billionaires and who has ties to Big Pharma. He opposes reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights. He has complained about high gas prices while raking in Big Oil campaign contributions. He says that Project 2025—a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right takeover of the federal government—has some "good ideas" in it. He has fundraised for January 6 insurrectionists. He blamed the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas on "fatherlessness." He wants to ban pornography.
"As Trump's running mate, Vance will make it his mission to enact Trump's Project 2025 agenda at the expense of American families," Jen O'Malley Dillion, chair of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign, said in response to Trump's pick. "This is someone who supports banning abortion nationwide while criticizing exceptions for rape and incest survivors; railed against the Affordable Care Act , including its protections for millions with preexisting conditions; and has admitted he wouldn't have certified the free and fair election in 2020."
"Billionaires and corporations are literally rooting for JD Vance: They know he and Trump will cut their taxes and send prices skyrocketing for everyone else," she added.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) responded to Vance's selection in a statement asserting that "this is the most consequential election of our lifetimes, and with Donald Trump's decision today to add JD Vance to the Republican ticket, the stakes of this election just got even higher."
"JD Vance embodies MAGA—with an out-of-touch extreme agenda and plans to help Trump force his Project 2025 agenda on the American people," the DNC continued. "Vance has championed and enabled Trump's worst policies for years—from a national abortion ban, to whitewashing January 6, to railing against Social Security and Medicare."
"Let's be clear: A Trump-Vance ticket would undermine our democracy, our freedoms, and our future," the DNC added.
Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said in a statement that "Donald Trump just made clear that his calls for unity were hot air, and that he plans to double-down on his extremist agenda and sow further division."
"JD Vance has called for a national abortion ban and denied the results of the 2020 election," Mitchell added. "He's bankrolled by the same billionaire CEOs who are raising prices while slashing wages for working people. All of us who believe in a future where people can live safely and freely must come together to defeat Trump and Vance in November."
Food & Water Watch Action deputy director Mitch Jones said: "Just like Trump himself, JD Vance is a fossil fuel backer and climate change denier that poses a serious risk to public health and our environment. Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance shouldn't be elected to lead our country, the duo represent an existential threat to a livable climate future for all Americans and people around the globe."
"For the sake of our planet and the wellbeing of current and future generations, it is critical that sensible people of all stripes come together to ensure that Trump and Vance are defeated in November," he added.
Alliance for Retired Americans executive director Richard Fiesta argued that Vance "locks in place a ticket that endangers the things that retirees care about the most: the protection and expansion of their earned Social Security and Medicare benefits."
"As a member of the U.S. Senate in 2023 and 2024, Sen. Vance earned just a 13% lifetime Pro-Retiree Score in the Alliance for Retired Congressional Americans Voting Record for his votes on important senior issues," Fiesta noted.
"Donald Trump has long acknowledged he would be open to slashing Medicare and Social Security spending in a second term as president, and Sen. Vance also supports cutting those benefits," he added. "The selection of Sen. Vance as his running mate is another major step in that direction."
Ultimately, critics contend, Trump chose Vance for the one thing many say the former president values most: loyalty. Vance has said he would have supported Trump's efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
"Vance stands for nothing but gaining power," said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. "Trump picked him for vice president because he has publicly said he'd do what [former Vice President] Mike Pence refused to do—overturn democracy to place America under MAGA control."
"A Vice President Vance is one more reason why a second Trump term would be far more dangerous than the first," Reich warned.
Report Shows How US Drug War and Deportation Machine Are Destroying Lives
"It's imperative that the U.S. government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war."
Thousands of people are deported from the United States each year for past drug offenses that often aren't even crimes anymore under evolving state narcotics laws, a report published Monday revealed.
The 91-page Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) report—titled Disrupt and Vilify: The War on Immigrants Inside the U.S. War on Drugs—highlights the experiences of people deported years or even decades after they committed drug offenses.
One of those immigrants, Natalie Burke of Jamaica, was convicted in 2003 of cannabis-related offenses but pardoned last August by Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, who acted on the unanimous recommendation of a state clemency board, which found that Burke was a victim of domestic violence who was "lured" into trafficking marijuana.
However, according to the report:
She cannot move on with her life because U.S. immigration authorities are trying to deport her, even though marijuana is now legal in Arizona and she has a pardon...
Natalie explained that one day in 2009, her probation officer asked her to come into the Tucson office to fill out some paperwork. Her son, who was in fifth grade at the time, waited for her outside in the parking lot. Natalie never came back to him that day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took her directly to an immigration detention center because her conviction made her deportable from the United States.
"Even with a hard-won gubernatorial pardon, and even in a state where marijuana is now legal, ICE is still trying to deport Natalie," the report adds. "She continues to fight back and is currently pursuing new legal arguments based on the pardon."
Burke is far from alone. Analyzing data from 2002-20, the report's authors found approximately 500,000 deportations of people whose most serious offense was drug-related. More than 150,000 of those deportations were the result of convictions for drug use or possession, including 47,000 for marijuana—which is now legal for recreational or medicinal use in a majority of U.S. states.
"The uniquely American combination of the drug war and deportation machine work hand in hand to target, exclude, and punish noncitizens for minor offenses—or in some states legal activity—such as marijuana possession," DPA federal affairs director Maritza Perez Medina said in a statement.
"This report underscores that punitive federal drug laws separate families, destabilize communities, and terrorize noncitizens, all while overdose deaths have risen and drugs have become more potent and available," she added. "It's imperative that the U.S. government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war."
The publication notes that "of all immigrants deported with criminal offenses, people with drug-related offenses had lived in the U.S. for the longest periods of time."
This has resulted in the deportation of immigrants who have lived in the United States since childhood and U.S. military veterans being separated from their families.
The report's authors interviewed some people living under the threat of deportation who have become parents or even grandparents of U.S. citizens during their time in the country.
"I'm not able to live and operate without fear because I'm not a citizen," one California resident convicted for marijuana and paraphernalia possession said in the report. "I've lived here for more than 20 years now. This is my home. I have children here. I want to be a citizen, and I'm making every effort to do that. But it seems like that's not going to be possible."
"Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to 'one-size-fits-all' deportations."
HRW immigration and border policy director Vicki Gaubeca said: "Why should parents or grandparents be deported away from children in their care for decades-old drug offenses, including offenses that would be legal today? If drug conduct is not a crime under state law, it should not make someone deportable."
The report also highlights cases of legal permanent residents lawfully employed in states' marijuana industries who cannot become citizens because, due to enduring federal criminalization of cannabis, they are considered to lack "good moral character," and immigrant women who have been sexually abused by corrections officers who know their victims would soon be deported.
HRW and DPA asserted that "Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to 'one-size-fits-all' deportations."
"Instead," the authors argue, "immigration judges should be given the discretion to make individualized decisions. As an important first step, Congress should impose a statute of limitations on deportations, so people can move beyond old offenses and get on with their lives."
'Shocking': UNRWA Chief Decries Israel's Destruction of Agency Headquarters
"Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law," said the commissioner-general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees expressed horror Monday over Israeli forces' destruction of the key aid organization's headquarters in Gaza City, which Israel's military recently attacked and left in ruins.
"Shocking," Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), wrote in a social media post, which included photos of the bombed-out headquarters complex.
"UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, turned into a battlefield and now flattened," Lazzarini continued. "Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law. United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting purposes. Every war has rules. Gaza is no exception."
Shocking. @UNRWA headquarters in #Gaza, turned into a battlefield & now flattened 👇
Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.
United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting… pic.twitter.com/XVOm5UjJeM
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 15, 2024
Photos of UNRWA's destroyed headquarters emerged following a deadly weekend of Israeli bombings across the Gaza Strip that were overshadowed in the media by the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday.
More than 140 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded on Saturday and Sunday, including in Israeli airstrikes on a so-called "safe zone" in southern Gaza.
Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA's head of external relations, told Al Jazeera on Monday that "the last week has been one of the deadliest weeks in Gaza since the war started."
"The images coming out of the UNRWA headquarters are really shocking," said Alrifai. "What I saw today in the footage is unrecognizable."
While U.S. media blacked out coverage for Palestine: "The headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has been destroyed."
"The last week has been the worst violence since the war started," said Tamara al-Rafai, Head of External Relations. https://t.co/Jh228UYexc pic.twitter.com/jVHcqIpd2e
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) July 15, 2024
UNRWA and its infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, have been major targets of Israel's far-right government since its latest assault on the Palestinian enclave began in October following a deadly Hamas-led attack. Israeli officials have repeatedly claimed—without providing evidence—that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations.
Nearly 200 UNRWA facilities in Gaza, most of which have been serving as shelters for displaced people, have been damaged during Israel's war on the besieged territory, Alrifai noted Monday. Around 500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on UNRWA facilities, according to Alrifai.
"It speaks volumes to the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law," she said.
Israel's aerial and ground attacks on Gaza continued Monday as much of the territory's population is facing catastrophic levels of hunger. Since the start of the assault, Israel has dramatically restricted the flow of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, depriving Palestinians of food, medicine, clean water, and other basic necessities.
Reutersreported that Israel "struck the southern and central Gaza Strip" on Monday and "blew up several homes."
"Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose," the news agency added. "The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the al-Bureij and al-Maghazi historic refugee camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi camp."