The Devil's Work: More Bombs for America (Page 1 of 3)

Since August 1945, the spectre of nuclear annihilation has hung like a dark cloud over the earth, threatening not only the humans who built the bombs, but all creation. From almost the very beginning, those scientists—including many in Oak Ridge—who most clearly understood the horrific power of the bomb —worked to constrain the use of the bomb. Einstein wrote the president; other physicists signed petitions; the Union of Concerned Scientists was formed.

By 1949, when the Soviet Union tested its first bomb, there were others—politicians, diplomats, military leaders—who recognized we would either control this unprecedented power or be destroyed by it. But how could it be controlled?

Arms-control treaties—first to limit testing, then to limit missile defense systems, then to reduce arsenals themselves—were negotiated and signed. And finally, more than 20 years after the United States destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the moment came.

On March 6, 1970, the nuclear powers of the world struck a deal to reduce the chance that we would blow ourselves up in a nuclear holocaust. The deal was the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the NPT for short. The United States was an early signer of the treaty. We signed in 1968, and our Senate ratified it in 1969, but U.N. treaties require a certain number of signatories before they become binding. Eventually, almost everyone signed it: 189, more countries than any other international treaty. India, Pakistan, and Israel were among the few that declined.

Here’s how the deal works: Those countries that don’t have nuclear bombs won’t build them, and those that do—Nuclear Weapons States—will get rid of theirs. Over the last 36 years, the NPT has been quietly doing its work—working so quietly that we rarely, if ever, heard of it. Every decade or so a new arms-control agreement was announced and celebrated. That was the NPT at work, though it didn’t get much credit.

The NPT made headlines around the world last year when North Korea announced it was withdrawing from the Treaty in order to make its nuclear weapons. You’ve got to give North Korea points for integrity—they refused to remain party to a treaty they would no longer comply with.

The NPT comes up sometimes, too, when Iran’s nuclear program is mentioned. Iran points out, correctly, that it has remained in full compliance with the terms of the NPT, a point which has made it difficult for the U.S. to marshal a united opposition to Iran.

These days, when the media loves scandal more than anything else, you would think nothing would be a more interesting subject for journalists than to catch a country cheating on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It would not only be a nice piece of embarrassment, it would be a real story; cheating on the NPT raises the stakes for everyone and increases the risk that we will blow ourselves up one day with nuclear weapons. Cheating on the NPT is truly and profoundly dangerous.

So why isn’t the media blowing the whistle on the United States?

It’s hard to figure, unless you think corporate media is somehow so deeply entrenched in the status quo of the popular culture that it doesn’t ask the big questions, at least not of our country. I saw an ad recently about a book on the Armenian genocide that said the reason it is illegal to mention the genocide in Turkey is because it would force Turks to admit their country was founded by war criminals.

The reluctance to admit our darker side is part of why white people still have such a deep and destructive race problem in this country. It’s why no one ever mentions that a couple of our Tennessee highways are named for men who butchered Native Americans and built their reputations and fortunes on blood.

Now, in the first decade of the 21st century, the United States has announced its plans for a new nuclear weapons complex—the plan was unveiled in a Notice of Intent published in the Federal Register by the National Nuclear Security Administration on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006. You can look it up. The NNSA plans to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement on Complex 2030, a new complex to design, produce, test, and certify a new generation of nuclear warheads.