The apparent new testing of a nuclear weapon by North Korea is certainly bad news for nuclear proliferation. But the “outrage” expressed by the US – the only nation to have actually used nuclear weapons and which is evading its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty by planning an expensive “modernization” and expansion of its nuclear weapons arsenal – and by Israel, which is not a signatory to the NPT, has a nuclear arsenal estimated in the hundreds of weapons and which helped Apartheid South Africa to become a nuclear power — reeks of hypocrisy. So does the hysteria over a non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons program. Unlike its enemies, Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has long advocated a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East. Meanwhile, the US is apparently not going to rule out the “first-use” of nuclear weapons. Few Americans are probably aware that nuclear “first-strike” has been the long-standing US policy – or that the old Soviet Union pledged not to be the first to use nuclear weapons as far back as 1982
This comment first appeared in the Dorchester People for Peace Update, September 9, 2016