Support Growing for Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

[bananas]

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/232255

Support Growing for Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
William Lambers
April 27, 2011

Earlier this month Ellen Tauscher, Undersecretary of State for arms control, said, "The reality is that the United States has not tested a nuclear weapon for nearly twenty years, and we do not need to do so."

So why hasn't the United States ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)? This treaty would ban all nuclear test explosions.

<snip>

Support for the CTBT is growing. Col. Richard L. Klass of the Veterans’ Alliance for Security and Democracy and Dr. Robert Dodge of the Physicians for Social Responsibility just penned an op-ed supporting the CTBT.

Another recent article highlights physics professor Dr. Jerry Gilfoyle and his advocacy for the CTBT. The event where Tauscher was speaking was a Global Zero convention, a group in favor of the treaty and other steps toward the elimination of nuclear weapons. Ending nuclear testing certainly makes conditions much more suitable for disarmament to take place.

<snip>

[Nihil]

1. Go for it.

> Earlier this month Ellen Tauscher, Undersecretary of State for arms control, said,
> "The reality is that the United States has not tested a nuclear weapon for nearly
> twenty years, and we do not need to do so."
>
> So why hasn't the United States ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
> (CTBT)?

Politics driven by fear-mongering profit-pigs in the MIC.

Good luck with unseating those blood-sucking ticks from their embedded
position in the government ...

[PamW]

2. It remains to be proven...

Ending nuclear testing certainly makes conditions much more suitable for disarmament to take place.
======================================

That remains to be proven. The USA conducted its last nuclear test in 1992.

In the intervening 18 years, the USA has relied on a program called "Stockpile Stewardship"
involving laboratory-scale experiments and supercomputer simulations to assess the safety
and reliability of its nuclear stockpile.

If ending testing makes conditions, "much more suitable" for disarmament, then why hasn't
the USA disarmed in the nearly two decades since testing ended?

It's more complicated than "testing", that's the simplistic explanation.

President Obama has stated the USA will retain nuclear weapons as long as other nations
have them, and Russia wants to retain them because nuclear weapons give it greater stature
in world affairs. The Russian people like to think there nation is very important. Nuclear
weapons give them that importance. So Russia will keep their nuclear weapons, and the
USA will keep its nuclear weapons in response. Neither side tests. Testing has nothing to do with it.

PamW