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Iowans Have the Threat of Nuclear Weapons on Their Minds
“Our worries of eyes glazing over proved to be unfounded
as the male and
predominately conservative listeners demonstrated that they
have been
following the corporate media’s accounts of the issues of nuclear
weapons
modernization, the threat of terrorism, nuclear deterrence and the
politics of
nuclear weapons.”
When I began posting on foreign affairs each Friday, there
was no anticipation about how much nuclear disarmament and related nuclear
issues would be in the news this spring. Search Google News for ‘nuclear
disarmament” and it returns 6,841 news articles. That’s a lot.
Nuclear weapons technology has been proliferating in the
shadow of the fall of the Berlin Wall even if it has been not covered so much
by the media. The Cold War is over and the threat of nuclear weapons
transformed into a new question, “What if terrorists obtain a nuclear weapon?”
This question leads to another, asked by Jonathan Schell
in the April 1 edition of The Nation, “What is the purpose, if any, of the
nuclear bomb, that brooding presence that has shadowed all human life for
sixty-five years?”
There are no good answers to either question. As long as
nuclear weapons exist in the world, there is the potential that they will be
used. Schell quotes Henry Kissinger, “Any use of nuclear weapons is certain to
involve a level of casualties and devastation out of proportion to foreseeable
foreign-policy objectives.” In simpler terms, the use of nuclear weapons in the
21st century would be morally wrong.
Joe Cirincione, President of the Ploughshares Fund, views
today as the time to clearly and unequivocally call in all of our political
markers and “Start Something
New” with regards to nuclear disarmament. Blog for Iowa discovered
Cirincione earlier this year and lately, he has been appearing on corporate
media outlets promulgating his clear message, “join this patriotic consensus”
to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons. To hear Cirincione tell the story,
the opportunity to take action is unique in the post Cold War era and now is
the time. Not everyone shares the clarity of Cirincione.
On April 8, the author appeared on the Fallon Forum on 98.3
WOW-FM in Des Moines to talk about the signing of the START Treaty between Russia
and the United States that day. I met Ed and Lynn Fallon before the show to
talk about how to make the show interesting on a topic that tends to put people
to sleep. Our worries of eyes glazing over proved to be unfounded as the male and
predominately conservative listeners demonstrated that they have been
following the corporate media’s accounts of the issues of nuclear weapons
modernization, the threat of terrorism, nuclear deterrence and the politics of
nuclear weapons. (You can listen to the podcast here).
If the corporate media influences consumers, then we can expect the public
discourse on nuclear disarmament to be as clouded as it is on many other
topics.
At the same time, a message is emerging in the United States
and around the world. It is that when President Barack Obama outlined his
policy of nuclear disarmament, of a “world without
nuclear weapons” in Prague, Czech Republic on April 5, 2009, he was
prepared to back his words with deeds. The news of the last 10 days around
START, release of the Nuclear Posture Review and the Nuclear Security Summit in
Washington is evidence that residents of the United States and people around
the world are prepared to engage in this important work.
If the topic of nuclear disarmament is complex and sometimes
inscrutable, it can be reduced to fairly simplistic terms: Iowans should support
President Obama’s policies on nuclear disarmament.
~Paul
Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County and weekend
editor of Blog for Iowa. He is also a member of Iowa Physicians for
Social Responsibility and Veterans for Peace. E-mail Paul
Deaton
Blog For Iowa 