Every year, just as the summer is nearing its end, the world remembers. We remember the unconscionable use of the world’s deadliest weapons—nuclear weapons—seventy-three years ago, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This year, unlike in the years past, we no longer should be comforted solely by “never-agains” in speeches and statements of government officials marking the event. This year, for the first time in world’s history, there exists a credible and widely supported framework to deliver on the promise of the nuclear-weapons free world. A group of bold women played an essential role in its delivery.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (the Ban Treaty) came into existence in July 2017. This ambitious document spelled out a commitment to a world without nuclear weapons. It banned the making, testing, possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons.

More than 120 countries participated in its drafting, most of them from the global south – including the small island states whose populations are still reeling from the consequences of nuclear testing. Absent were, unsurprisingly, nine possessors of nuclear weapons (U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia, Pakistan, India, North Korea and Israel) and their respective allies (including almost all NATO members).

As of now, more than sixty states have signed onto the Treaty and fourteen have ratified it, slowly inching closer towards the goal of 50, when the treaty would become operational.

The road to the Treaty’s existence was a culmination of political courage and skillful diplomacy. But it is also the result of the decades of tireless advocacy by civil society movements, like the International Coalition to Ban Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), recognized with a Nobel Peace Prize last year for its work.

ICAN follows the long line of anti-nuclear efforts which span as far back as the invention of the atomic bomb itself. They feature a diverse cast of characters, movements and well-meaning individuals from the U.S. and abroad. They have included environmentalists, hippies, young people, lawyers, physicians, scientists, and even committed nuns – Sister Megan Rice who broke into the high-security nuclear facility in Tennessee as an act of protest being among the most well-known.

Women have played an integral part in anti-nuclear activities in the U.S. and across the world. They organized and attended protests, produced scholarship and were instrumental in pushing for past diplomatic breakthroughs on nuclear testing ban treaties. They were also key to bringing about the Nuclear Ban Treaty.

Many of the civil society activists who took part in negotiations were women. ICAN’s leadership is made up of passionate and committed women and led by Beatrice Fihn, a proud mother of two. Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the nuclear blast in Hiroshima, also played an outsized role in speaking against nuclear weapons. She was a constant presence in the halls of the UN headquarters for the past several years, sharing her story of survival and lobbying diplomats to support the Ban.

Women were well represented in many country delegations negotiating the Treaty. The diplomats from Ireland stood out in this regard, for their team was composed solely of female Ambassador, experts and policy advisers. Despite this, women remain grossly underrepresented in disarmament diplomacy

Women who have delivered the Ban Treaty and are now working to mount a large coalition to ensure the Treaty ratified by as many countries as possible.  Their work should be supported, the role they played in bringing about the Treaty should be celebrated more widely known.

At a time when the number of social justice causes calling for our attention is ever-increasing, we must prioritize the call of the anti-nuclear weapons activists. Responding to their calls will  provide for safety and  security of our planet for many years to come.

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Anyone in the U.S. military with any connection to nuclear weapons is required to pass the Personnel Reliability Program. Donald Trump would most likely flunk it.

In his recent New Yorker article, “How Trump Could Get Fired,” Evan Osnos notes that,

..If Trump were an officer in the Air Force, with any connection to nuclear weapons, he would need to pass the Personnel Reliability Program [PRP], which includes thirty-seven questions about financial history, emotional volatility, and physical health.

The US Department of Defense  established the PRP specificially for nuclear weapons during the Cold War. According to DOD:

[The PRP is a] security, medical and psychological evaluation program designed to permit only the most trustworthy individuals to have access to nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and biological weapons.

…Only those personnel who have demonstrated the highest degree of individual reliability for allegiance, trustworthiness, conduct, behavior, and responsibility shall be allowed to perform duties associated with nuclear weapons, and they shall be continuously evaluated for adherence to PRP standards.

The PRP evaluates many aspects of the individual’s work life and home life. Any disruption of these, or severe deviation from an established norm would be cause to deny access. The denial might be temporary or permanent.

PRP has many requirements for clearance. Here are the ones that would probably make Trump questionable:

For his article, Osnos interviewed Bruce Blair, a research scholar at the Program on Science and Global Security, at Princeton:

[Blair] told me that if Trump were an officer in the Air Force, with any connection to nuclear weapons, he would need to pass the Personnel Reliability Program, which includes thirty-seven questions about financial history, emotional volatility, and physical health. (Question No. 28: Do you often lose your temper?)

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Trump would never pass muster,” Blair, who was a ballistic-missile launch-control officer in the Army, told me. “Any of us that had our hands anywhere near nuclear weapons had to pass the system. If you were having any arguments, or were in financial trouble, that was a problem. For all we know, Trump is on the brink of that.

But here’s the kicker:  The President is exempt from the PRP. He has already threatened North Korea, and he has the ultimate deciding vote on when to launch. Be afraid.

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How far will Trump go before it’s too late? We need to test the limits. President Donald Trump has already shown that he is comfortable taking drastic measures, foolish measures and basing decisions on false information. But what so many are concerned about, and this is what separates Trump from his Vice-President, is how dangerous he will get.

He has the nuclear code. He’s easily peeved. He does not have a good understanding of international relations. He appears to be largely blind to the consequences of his actions. How much longer can we allow him to be in this position?

There are two peaceful ways to try to curb Trump unleashed. The first is by invoking Section 4 of the 25^th Amendment:

Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

That is the easiest and the quickest way to do it. However, since Trump has hand-picked his cabinet members and many of them seem to be as unprepared for their job as he is, it will require a significant improvement in the wisdom and fortitude of enough Cabinet members to invoke the amendment.

The second path, one which may be more democratic but is also lengthy and drawn out, is for the House of Representatives to open impeachment hearings and initiate the process that could lead to a conviction of Trump by the Senate, thus removing Trump from office. It would not be difficult to find “high crimes and misdemeanors” that Trump has committed, beginning with his finances.

Many would argue that it would be rash to move ahead with either of these options at this point, and I would agree. However, I would suggest that two steps need to be taken to indicate whether drastic action might be needed in the near future. These two steps are intertwined.

Some Republicans are going to have to stand up to Trump. Obviously, neither the 25^th Amendment nor impeachment and conviction can occur without Republican involvement. Once some Republicans stand up to Trump, it will be illustrative to see what he does.

For example, if there were a handful of Republicans who voted against one of his cabinet nominees, how would Trump respond to that? Would he go on a name-calling tirade? Would he try to cut off federal favors to those senators? Would he try to turn his legion of voters against them?

What would he do about submitting a replacement nominee? If we were talking about Secretary of Health and Human Services, would Trump say that there is no one else in the country who could do the job as well as Dr. Tom Price? Would he insist on resubmitting Price’s name for consideration, or would he be able to move on to someone else?

Suppose that Republican members of Congress joined with Democrats to pass a law saying that the president could not place a gag order on employees in federal agencies. Or if the House of Representative rescinded its adoption on the Holman Rule which gives the president wide leeway in firing workers in the executive branch, or short of firing, actually reducing their pay down to $1 a year.

How big would the Trump tantrum be if Congress went against his will on any of these issues? What would it tell us about his stability, or instability, in situations where Kim Jong-un or Vladimir Putin would rattle his chain?

There certainly is good cause for Republicans to immediately stand up against Trump. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have both spoken of the need for the United States to stand strong against Russia. They both have expressed serious concerns about Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson’s close ties with Putin.

Surely there is someone else in the United States who could be a better Secretary of State than Tillerson. If either of these senators had constructed a “short list” of twenty possible nominees for Secretary of State, they would have had quite a few who were (a) far more capable than Tillerson, and (b) acceptable to Republicans, and perhaps even some Democrats.

McCain and others have to back Trump to the wall on non-nuclear issues to see how he responds. If he fails those tests, then serious consideration must be given to peaceful means to remove Trump from office.

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Rewind to Trevor Noah’s Daily Show this past Halloween. The show is set during the presidential campaign. Not the 2016 one, but the 2020 one as Donald Trump “runs” for reelection. The setting is literally and figuratively underground as Noah surreptitiously tries to continue the comedy program that had had been wildly successful when the press was still free.

As Noah goes from correspondent to correspondent, it is clear that America has become largely inhospitable to African-Americans, Hispanics, women, just about anyone who is not like Donald Trump. The program reveals (in hopefully a hyperbolic fashion) virtually everything that could go wrong in the first term of a Donald Trump presidency.

But one thing has not happened. Nuclear war. It reminds me of the perils that the people of Russia, in fact the people of the entire world, live under so long as Vladimir Putin is president of the world’s second strongest nuclear power. Putin has committed a litany of outrageous violations of human rights, he has invaded sovereign countries, he has taken cyber mischief and espionage to unprecedented levels, but he has not unleashed his nuclear arsenal.

It is no small coincidence that Trump and Putin seem to have a mutual admiration society. They both love to take just about everything to the limit, with little regard for the actual or perceived consequences. Neither seems capable of admitting a mistake. Each seems to think that the entire world is against them. Each is someone whose presence in a room would make everyone else wary.

Fast forward to now, three days after the Trevor Noah episode. The fear of a Trump presidency is only growing as the polls tighten and we are reminded of how in 1980 Ronald Reagan took a tight race the week before the election and turned it into a landslide victory for himself. Like Trump, the arguments against Reagan were that he was not ready for prime time, that he was not smart enough nor temperamentally fit to serve as president. Somehow as the clock ticked down to Election Day, there was a tsunami of sentiment that these fears were unfounded and Reagan became acceptable and then desired.

Is that what is happening with Donald Trump now? It has been sixteen months since he announced his candidacy and he has said and done everything and more that is outrageous. For those of us who oppose Trump, he has given us an almost daily diet of words and actions that clearly demonstrate that he is the most unqualified person to receive the nomination of a major party in American history.

But this seems to matter to fewer and fewer people. Could the unthinkable happen? On the day after the Cubs (deservedly) won the World Series, Trump seems primed to do what hardly anyone thought possible. I hope that I am wrong. I hope that the polls are flawed. I hope that the American people might be just a little bit wiser than I fear. But should the unthinkable happen, it might be the best we can hope for with a Trump presidency is “Putin-West.” Let’s hope that we never have to find out if that would be true.

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I can see why perhaps Donald Trump has little love for the United Nations. After all, since its inception in 1945 and his birth a year later, the United States has really not won any wars, with the possible exception of the Reagan’s “come-from-behind” victory over Grenada in 1983. If Trump was into playing blame games, he might assert that the United Nations, along with NATO, have prevented the United States from “winning again.”

According to the New York Times, Trump, while in Wausau, Wisconsin,

“also turned his attention to the United Nations, warning that it could meet a fate similar to NATO under a Trump administration. “By the way, United Nations — same thing, smaller numbers,” he said, seeming to call for a pared-down version of the intergovernmental organization.

“Where do you ever see the United Nations?” Mr. Trump continued. “Do they ever settle anything? It’s just like a political game. The United Nations — I mean the money we spend on the United Nations.”

He sounds like the late, not-so-great, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina who loved to block payment of US dues to the UN. In Helms’ case it was because he objected to the UN distributing information on birth control. Both Helms and Trump seem to have a very petty view of the UN.

Trump likes to think big, or huge, so let’s see how the United Nations has done on the biggest of all global issues since its inception. It gets an A+, because not only did 1945 mark the establishment of the United Nations, it also was the first and only year in which nuclear weapons were used in warfare. Perhaps it’s coincidence, or perhaps it’s cause and effect, but in the era of the United Nations, the world has been spared a nuclear holocaust. While there have been dozens of wars, including big ones like Korea, Vietnam, and on-going carnage in the Middle East, no country has resorted to using nuclear bombs. There is neither a shortage of nuclear weapons around the world nor countries that are in possession of them. But they alone have been silent for the past seventy-one years.

The United Nations has also succeeded in doing what its predecessor, the League of Nations, could not do. It has played a role in preventing another world war. The League came into existence in 1920, right after World War I (then known as “The Great War”). However, the Treaty of Versailles that created both the League and dictated other terms of surrender following the war that planted the seeds for another even greater world war. In 1939, World War II exploded.

The mission of the United Nations must be seen in conjunction with the generous terms of surrender that the world, and most particularly the United Nations, placed upon Germany and Japan following the Second World War. The UN knew that fomenting hatred was what had created that war and pacifying the world was key to limiting or diminishing the presence of war.

Trump openly states that he is channeling the anger of others (and of course himself), and the distinction between anger and hatred is minimal. Trump’s criticism of the United Nations, as well as NATO, reflects several key lessons learned, and put into practice, following World War II.

1. The best way to defuse hostile feelings among nations is through kindness. The United States’ Marshall Plan for Germany is perhaps the best example of this. And Mr. Trump, the United States has never asked Germany to pay back the expenses of the Marshall Plan.
2. The fewer the number of nations that have large military forces (with nuclear weapons), the better. Following the war in the Pacific in World War II, the United States insisted that Japan spend no more than 1% of its GNP on the military. Japan has stood by that. Now Trump is suggesting that Japan and South Korea should develop nuclear weapons to protect themselves from North Korea and China.

Trump seems to have been absent the day they talked about the benefits of a Pax Americana following World War II. Yes, the U.S. has not always been the best cop, but it has been successful in minimizing the re-militarization of other major nations.

When the United Nations works best, it is when countries are willing to negotiate. Some may call that “the art of the deal.” Perhaps Trump should examine the United Nations a little more closely and learn more about “win-win” negotiations.

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“If I had foreseen Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would have torn up my formula in 1905.” –Albert Einstein.

Next month, “Fallout 4,” a highly-anticipated video game releases. Dealing with various Americans a couple centuries after nuclear war, the Fallout series is known for its strong writing, dark humor, and bleak outlook. “War never changes,” Ron Pearlman bitterly narrates over each game’s introduction. The player character is never able to save the world or return it to what it was. Only slow progress is possible, and only if the player character chooses benevolent options. One entry’s entire quest involves bringing clean water to the inhabitants of DC. Not only does the most recent entry release soon, but we also approach the date in the Fallout universe on which nuclear war broke out: October 23, 2077, the games explain, sees a nuclear exchange between the United States and China that ends life as we know it in a mere two hours.

Some real-life anniversaries accompany this: 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the founding of the United Nations, intended to prevent another war capable of destroying the planet. The reason I bring this up (besides my love of video games) is that despite popular perceptions, nuclear disarmament is still a prevalent issue in today’s world. Here are some possibilities for the use or exchange of nuclear weapons:

• First, there is the ever-present fear, not unjustified, that a terrorist group could gain control of a nuclear weapon. As Fareed Zakaria points out in The Future of Freedom, nuclear weapons existed 70 years ago, the era of black-and-white televisions, rotary phones, and no commercial air traffic: The science of creating a nuclear weapon is not so complicated by today’s standards.

• Religious nationalists in India have recently taken power. Under Modi, Pakistan is unstable and beset by its own religious extremists, and both still claim Kashmir.

• North Korea is always as volatile as its current autocrat. It has a tiny stockpile of nukes, but their unpredictability worries world leaders across the globe.

• President Obama, along with other heads of state, is to be congratulated for negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran. However, hardline elements in Iran are still pro-expansion, which is worrying. There is also the outside possibility of an exchange with the State of Israel.

• The United States and Russia are currently at odds over the conflict in Ukraine.

Thankfully, none of these conflicts is particularly likely to escalate into nuclear war, but they are worth considering and keeping an eye on.

I should also point out our own extremists: Senator Jon Kyl nearly undermined the New START treaty with Russia in 2010/2011. His cooperation was secured only with massive pork-barrel projects for his state and a promise of tens of billions of dollars in nuclear modernization. John Bolton, meanwhile, took what appeared to be a pro-nuke stance in a New York Times piece. All this despite the fact that the United States has the most nuclear weapons on high alert in the world (closely followed by Russia, which has more nukes but fewer on high alert).

The threat of nuclear exchange did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. It may not be the most pressing problem in the world, but peace activists should continue to work towards a world free of the threat of nuclear destruction.

Check out Isao Hashimoto’s visual representation of every nuclear explosion from 1945 to 1998.

The post “Fallout” [the game] and fallout [the nuclear reality] appeared first on Occasional Planet.

We need to work to end wars. One way to do that is to get rid of all nuclear weapons. Eleanor Holmes Norton has introduced H.R. 1650 in the U.S. House of Representatives to abolish all nuclear weapons by 2020. Also supporting this legislation is the US Conference of Mayors in a 2012 Resolution. We need to get each of our representatives to co-sponsor this legislation.

This may seem like a pipe dream and not possible, but we must be persistent and have our representatives work for things we believe are important. We know that for the world’s security and justice we must end violence and war. War can and must be eliminated as an instrument of national policy. We need to declare our opposition to all weapons of mass destruction, which includes the testing, production and deployment of nuclear weapons. and we can begin by dismantling all nuclear arsenals and passing treaties banning all future weapons by any nation. We need to be the instruments of peace.

General Douglas MacArthur in July 1951 said it better than I can. He said, “

The abolition of war is no longer an ethical question to be pondered solely by learned philosophers and ecclesiastics, but a hard core one for the decision of the masses whose survival is the issue. Many will tell you with mockery and ridicule that the abolition of war can only be a dream – that it is the vague imagining of a visionary. But we must go on or we will go under….We must have new thoughts, new ideas, new concepts. We must break out of the straight jacket of the past. We must have sufficient imagination and courage to translate the universal wish for peace – which is rapidly becoming a necessity – into actuality.”

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Editor’s note: Here’s a look at how the left and the right are reacting to the agreement between Iran and the P5+1  [UN Security Council permanent five nations, plus Germany] to a moratorium on nuclear weapons production. This is an excerpt from the daily Progressive Blog Digest. Read the full feed, with additional links, here.

Left

http://my.firedoglake.com/fairleft/2013/11/24/can-the-left-handle-iran-nuclear-deal-good-news/

Can the left handle Iran nuclear deal good news?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/24/why-the-iranian-nuclear-deal-is-dangerous.html

Why the Iranian Nuclear Deal Is Dangerous

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2013/11/_iran_nukes_this_is_exactly_the_deal_that_obama_hoped_to_achieve_in_geneva.html

We Have a Deal With Iran. A Good One.

http://www.samefacts.com/2013/11/international-affairs/middle-east-politics/the-iranian-deal/

Congratulations to Secretary of State John Kerry and his boss. This seems like a remarkably good deal. . . .

I’m curious about whether there’s a single Republican officeholder with the guts, smarts, and patriotism to say out loud that this is good for the country.

Right

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/25/obama-crushes-the-neocons.html

The agreement signed with Iran on Sunday is a momentous step forward. Yet Republicans will try to subvert the success by playing to their Obama-hating base. . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/11/23/congressional-reaction-to-the-iran-nuclear-deal/?wprss=rss_politics&clsrd

@JohnCornyn:  Amazing what WH will do to distract attention from O-care [read on]

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/corker-claims-iran-taking-advantage-weak

Corker Claims Iran Is Taking Advantage Of ‘Weak’ Obama Administration

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