News Release

North Korea: * Peace? * Hypocrisy of U.S. Nuclear Policy

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JAMES BRADLEY, james at jamesbradley.com
Bradley, educated in Japan, has written about Korea in two of his books, published English and translated into Korean, among other languages. His books include Flyboys, The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia and The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War. He currently is working on a book about the Vietnam War and is available from Vietnam for Skype or telephone interviews.

ALICE SLATER, alicejslater at gmail.com
Slater is the New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and serves on the Coordinating Committee of World Beyond War.

She addressed the position of Sen. Chuck Schumer and other members of the current Democratic Party senate establishment, saying they have “disgracefully argued the [National Security Advisor John] Bolton position in a letter to Trump egging him on to be tough on North Korea.” See from action alert from RootsAction.

She also said it was “hypocritical and blind to be calling for the complete denuclearization of North Korea” while the U.S. is continuing its nuclear policies. …

“This summer 122 countries negotiated a UN treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons — their manufacture, possession, use, threat of use, just as we have banned chemical and biological weapons. The grassroots campaign that worked with governments to get that result, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, received the Nobel Peace Prize for that achievement this past December. None of the nuclear weapons states or U.S. allies under the U.S. nuclear umbrella of deterrence signed the treaty.” See material from ICAN, including “Trump Kim Summit: ICAN launches roadmap to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula.”

“Interestingly, when the UN General Assembly’s First Committee for Nuclear Disarmament voted last fall for the negotiations to go forward, while the five western nuclear states, the U.S., Russia, U.K., France, and Israel voted NO, three Asian states, China, India, and Pakistan, ABSTAINED, and North Korea was the ONLY nuclear weapons state to vote YES! …

“Not only should we be calling for a peace treaty with the U.S., North and South Korea, and get our 28,000 U.S. troops out of South Korea, a peace treaty which we refused to negotiate since 1953, but we should call for the states to sign and ratify the new Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. There are 50 ratifications required for the treaty to ‘enter into force’ and have the force of law. So far, 58 have signed and 11 countries have ratified.”

Slater wrote the piece “Democracy Breaks Out at the UN as 122 Nations Vote to Ban the Bomb” for The Nation last year.

See from the Guardian: “U.S. to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more ‘usable’ warheads.”

See IPA news releases: “U.S. Nuclear Stance Toward Russia Increasing Existential Threats” and “U.S. Breakthrough on Nuclear First Strike Threatens Stability.”