Opinion Editorials, April 2010

Blowing Doors and Nuclear Deceptions

By Eileen Fleming

Al-Jazeerah, ccun.org, April 19, 2010

Last week’s two-day summit on nuclear security in Washington was attended by leaders of 47 countries. Iran was not invited, but did host a two-day conference in Tehran on nuclear disarmament with sixty countries represented.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a statement delivered at the conference stating that nuclear weaponry was "haram" meaning prohibited under Islam. 
 
Oman's Foreign Affairs Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdallah said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes that it is pursuing a peaceful, and not, as certain states claim, a military nuclear goal. We have taken part in the Tehran conference in a bid to reemphasize that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful.” [1]  
 
President Obama's drive for tougher sanctions on Iran picked up momentum at the D.C. nuclear security summit, which focused at finding ways to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on weapons-grade nuclear material.
 
Not much has changed since 1951, when the CIA told President Harry S. Truman, that the United States faced an enemy with “no scruples about employing any weapon or tactic” and that “nuclear weapons smuggled across porous borders threatened to devastate American cities. Sleeper cells…might already be inside the country.” [2]  
 
In 1953, The New York Times reported that, “Officials regard the possibility of atomic sabotage as the gravest threat of subversion that this country, with its virtually unpatrolled borders, has ever faced,” and that the Eisenhower administration was preparing to alert the public to the danger from “valise bombs.” [Ibid]
 
Declassified documents from the 1950s, obtained by The New York Times from the FBI read like today, except Al Qaeda replaces the communist agents. During the Cold War, communism caused “Intelligence officials [to] fear that bomb parts might be delivered in diplomatic mail pouches, carried by international air travelers in their luggage or delivered by boat or submarine to an isolated beach. Communist agents already in the country might then assemble, plant and detonate the weapons." [Ibid]
 
After the murder of Israeli athletes (and their Palestinian captors by Israeli commandoes) at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, American officials shifted focus to terrorists, which increased immeasurably after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, as it had been reported that Al Qaeda had actively sought a nuclear weapon since the early 1990s. We know that Al Qaeda leaders have said they would use a nuclear weapon, but they aren’t even close to building a bomb.
 
We also know that largely unreported is the fact that the United Nations General Assembly approved a draft resolution put forward by Iran on nuclear disarmament in October 2009, despite strong opposition from the U.S., Britain, France, Israel and a number of western countries.

“The resolution ratified in the first committee of the UN General Assembly calls on all nuclear countries to destroy their nuclear weapons under the supervision of international bodies…The resolution also urges Israel to join the NPT and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear facilities.” [3] 
 
Many in America will blow off Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s flaming rhetoric as engaging in anti-American propaganda, but in the big world, his speech blew the doors off Israel’s nuclear ambiguity and American policy: 
 
“If America’s claims of fighting the proliferation of nuclear weapons were not false, would the Zionist regime be able to turn the occupied Palestinian lands into an arsenal where a huge number of nuclear weapons are stored while refusing to respect international regulations in this regard, especially the NPT?
 
“There is only one government that has committed a nuclear crime so far. Only the government of the United States of America has attacked the oppressed people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs in an unfair and inhumane war…using or even threatening to use such weapons is a serious violation of the most basic rules of philanthropy and is a clear manifestation of war crimes.
 
“The greatest violators of the NPT are the powers who have reneged on their obligation to dispose of nuclear weapons mentioned in Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. These powers have even surpassed other countries with respect to promoting nuclear weapons in the world. By providing the Zionist regime with nuclear weapons and supporting its policies, these powers play a direct role in promoting nuclear weapons which is against the obligations they have undertaken according to Article 1 of the NPT.
 
“We believe that besides nuclear weapons, other types of weapons of mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons also pose a serious threat to humanity. The Iranian nation, which is itself a victim of chemical weapons, feels more than any other nation the danger that is caused by the production and stockpiling of such weapons and is prepared to make use of all its facilities to counter such threats. We consider the use of such weapons as haram (religiously forbidden) and believe that it is everyone’s duty to make efforts to secure humanity against this great disaster.”[4]  
 
American money is imprinted with "IN GOD WE TRUST" but reality is we have become a nation of hypocrites, for by our foreign policy we expose that we live by the sword.
 
America has a nuclear arsenal of over 10,000 weapons and nearly 2,000 remain on hair-trigger alert ever since the end of the Cold War and American taxpayers provide over $54 billion annually to maintain a nuclear arsenal.
 
An estimated 150 – 240 tactical nuclear weapons remain based in 5 NATO countries and the United States is the only country with nuclear weapons deployed on foreign soil.
 
The U.S. government is also a co-conspirator in international nuclear apartheid and a collaborator in Israel's ineffective policy of nuclear ambiguity. 

In April 2004, and just three days after Mordechai Vanunu was released from 18 years in jail for providing the photographic proof and telling the truth about Israel's clandestine seven story underground WMD Program in the Negev, Uri Avnery wrote:

"Everybody understands that he has no more secrets. What can a technician know after 18 years in jail, during which technology has advanced with giant steps?

"But gradually it becomes clear what the security establishment is really afraid of. Vanunu is in a position to expose the close partnership with the United States in the development of Israel's nuclear armaments.

"This worries Washington so much, that the man responsible in the State Department for 'arms control', Under-Secretary John Bolton, has come to Israel in person for the occasion. Vanunu, it appears, can cause severe damage to the mighty super-power.

"The Americans, it seems, are very worried. The Israeli security services have to dance to their tune. The world must be prevented by all available means from hearing, from the lips of a credible witness, that the Americans are full partners in Israel's nuclear arms program, while pretending to be the world's sheriff for the prevention of nuclear proliferation."[5] 
 
The NPT/Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, was created in 1968, and maintains that nuclear weapons proliferation can only be curtailed if nuclear countries move toward disarmament while the rest of the world is allowed to access civilian nuclear technology.
 
Iran signed the NPT, which allows them the right to have nuclear power and to enrich uranium. Israel has not signed the NPT.
 
The 185 non-nuclear states have agreed to give up the right to have nuclear weapons and the five nuclear powers that signed the NPT agreed to get rid of their nuclear weapons.
 
Iran is not in violation of the NPT, but America has been in violation ever since the day we signed it.
 
America will also continue to forfeit credibility by playing along with Israel's ineffective nuclear ambiguity.

Notes:

1. http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=624311
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/world/16memo.html?th&emc=th
3. http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=624311
4. http://www.juancole.com/2010/04/khamenei-us-only-nuclear-criminal-for-hiroshima.html  
5. http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/taxonomy/term/226
 

Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"  
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming