COUNTERPLAN/NUCLEAR ABOLITION

ADVANTAGE: NUCLEAR ABOLITION IS THE MORAL CHOICE

IT IS MORALLY REQUIRED TO ADVOCATE NUCLEAR ABOLITION TO SAVE LIFE ON PLANET EARTH

David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.  11.28.2000 A World Without Nuclear Weapons

We need a new beginning with regard to nuclear weapons, a new beginning in which we create a world without nuclear weapons.  This is the greatest moral issue of our time and the greatest responsibility that falls to those of us now living.

Nuclear weapons are weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction.  They do not and cannot discriminate between men, women and children; between the healthy and the infirm; the aged and the newly born.  We know that.  Each nuclear weapon could destroy a city filled with people going about their daily lives.  Some fraction of the more than 30,000 nuclear weapons that continue to exist in our world could put an end to human life on our planet.  The stakes are high.  This is not a problem to run away from, to justify or to deny.  It would be irresponsible and immoral for us not to address the threat posed by nuclear weapons and to work to end that threat.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS POSE A SPECIES-WIDE THREAT TO HUMANITY

WE MUST PURSUE REDUCTIONS IN NUCLEAR FORCES FOR SECURITY, MORAL AND LEADERSHIP REASONS

Stephen S. Rosenfeld, March 6, 2000, The Washington Post SECTION: OP-ED; Pg. A19 HEADLINE: Clinton's Nuclear Dilemma // acs-ln

We have a security rationale, a good-faith obligation and a requirement of leadership to show the way to smaller, safer nuclear capabilities everywhere. For some that means lower numbers, for others zero.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARE THE SHARED ENEMY OF ALL NATIONS AND ALL PEOPLES

The year 1985 ended with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Accepting the award for IPPNW, its co-founder, Dr. Bernard Lown, stated, "Combatting the nuclear threat has been our exclusive preoccupation, since we are dedicated to the proposition that to insure the conditions of life, we must prevent the conditions of death. Ultimately, we believe people must come to terms with the fact that the struggle is not between different national destinies, between opposing ideologies, but rather between catastrophe and survival. All nations share a linked destiny; nuclear weapons are the shared enemy."

IN THE NUCLEAR AGE WE ARE ALL LIVING DOWNWIND OF THE RADIATION CLOUD

David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.  11.28.2000 A World Without Nuclear Weapons

Our lesson led to the ongoing pursuit of more and better nuclear weapons.  It led to a mad nuclear arms race based upon mutually assured destruction with the Soviet Union.  It led to some 2,000 nuclear weapons tests in the world that have caused untold radiation damage to downwinders, mostly indigenous peoples, around the world.  The stories are heart wrenching.  Radiation affects not only the living, but also the unborn.  The pain, suffering and death resulting from an arrogant attitude toward nuclear weapons will continue in future generations, even if we abolished nuclear weapons today.  The truth is: In the Nuclear Age we are all downwinders.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS MEET THE DEFINITION OF TERRORISM

MOVEMENT IN INDIA FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, 2001, Biologists in India for Nuclear Disarmament

//VT2002acsln

Nuclear weapons are therefore quintessential terrorist instruments inappropriate for democratic societies anywhere. It is a matter of common sense that making nuclear weapons and deploying them steadily increases the chance that they will be used, - by ‘mistake’, ‘inadvertently’, ‘just to be on the safe side’.

WE HAVE A MORAL IMPERATIVE TO ACT TOWARDS THE ABOLITION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

    The world is not condemned to live forever with threats of nuclear conflict, or the anxious fragile peace imposed by nuclear deterrence. Such threats are intolerable and such a peace unworthy. The sheer destructiveness of nuclear weapons invokes a moral imperative for their elimination. That is our mandate. Let us begin.