Applause at UN for pope's words on nuclear arms

[bananas]

Source: Associated Press

Pope Francis' call for a world free of nuclear weapons drew applause from across the United Nations General Assembly - including from Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Francis made the comments at the U.N. on Friday morning, his first stop in a daylong visit to New York.

Francis praised the recent Iranian nuclear deal in his speech to more than 100 world leaders and diplomats, saying it was proof that political will and patience can bring about fruits.

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Read more: http://abc7news.com/religion/applause-at-un-for-popes-words-on-nuclear-arms/1001702/

[Fred Sanders]

1. The spears to the heart of the GOP in disarray and their extremism just keep on coming.

[forest444]

6. D'ya hear the latest from Ann Coulter - that intellect of the GOP:

"I'm an American and this is why our founders -not "immigrants"!- distrusted Catholics & wouldn't make them citizens."

The more they squirm, the better.

[bananas]

2. Pope Francis’s Condemnation of Nuclear Weapons

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/25/pope-franciss-condemnation-of-nuclear-weapons/

Pope Francis’s Condemnation of Nuclear Weapons

by Alice Slater
September 25, 2015

The stirring condemnation of nuclear weapons by Pope Francis today at the United Nations and his call for their prohibition and complete elimination in compliance with promises made in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed by the US in 1970, 45 years ago, should give new momentum to the current campaign to start negotiations on a ban treaty.

This initiative endorsed by 117 non-nuclear weapons states to sign the Humanitarian Pledge being circulated initially by Austria, to “fill the legal gap” for nuclear disarmament and ban the bomb just as the world has banned chemical and biological weapons would create a new legal norm, which was not established in the NPT which provided that the five nuclear weapons states (US, Russia, UK, France, China) would make “good faith” efforts for nuclear disarmament, but didn’t prohibit their possession, in return for a promise from all the other nations not to acquire nuclear weapons.

Every nation in the world signed the treaty except India, Pakistan, and Israel who went on to get nuclear weapons. North Korea took advantage of the NPTs Faustian bargain to give “peaceful” nuclear power to nations who promised not to make bombs and walked out of the treaty using the keys it got to its own bomb factory to make weapons.

At the NPT five year review conference this spring, the US, Canada, and the UK refused to agree to a final document because they couldn’t deliver Israel’s agreement on a promise made in 1995 to hold a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone conference for the Middle East. South Africa, condemned the nuclear apartheid enshrined in the double standard of the NPT which allowed the five signers to not only keep their nukes but to continue to modernize them with Obama pledging one trillion dollars over the next thirty years for two new bomb factories, delivery systems and new nuclear weapons.

Indeed, on the eve of the Pope’s UN talk, it was reported that the US is planning to upgrade its nuclear weapons stationed at a German NATO base, causing Russia to rattle a few nuclear sabers of its own. The obvious bad faith of the nuclear weapons states is paving the way for even more non-nuclear weapons states to create the legal taboo for nuclear weapons just as the world has done for other weapons of mass destruction. Inspired by the Pope’s talk, this may be a time to finally give peace a chance.

Alice Slater is a founder of Abolition 2000, which works for a treaty to ban nuclear weapons.

[bananas]

3. The Pope Is Lining Up to Ban Nuclear Weapons

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2015/09/pope-lining-ban-nuclear-weapons/121589/

The Pope Is Lining Up to Ban Nuclear Weapons

September 21, 2015
By Joe Cirincione
Tom Collina

Under Pope Francis the Catholic church is moving away from Cold War nuclear acceptance faster than Congress and the Obama administration.

Pope Francis is making a key shift in church doctrine on nuclear weapons, and some people are not going to like it.

The Catholic Church has long held that nuclear weapons must be eliminated from the face of the Earth.

Pope John XXIII, now a saint, wrote in 1963, “Nuclear weapons must be banned. A general agreement must be reached on a suitable disarmament program.” The church and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have worked actively in support of arms control and disarmament agreements, including the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, the 2010 New START treaty between the United States and Russia and the 1996 nuclear test ban treaty.

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Up to now, the church has abhorred the inhumanity of these weapons that indiscriminately target innocent civilians and would kill them in massive numbers. But—until now—it has recognized a need for states to have nuclear weapons to deter other countries from launching a nuclear attack on them.

No longer.

In a December message to a conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, the pope wrote: “Nuclear deterrence and the threat of mutually assured destruction cannot be the basis for an ethics of fraternity and peaceful coexistence among peoples and states.”

Last week, the church was more direct. Reading a statement from the Holy See, the pope’s spokesperson said:

The world’s nuclear arsenals are much reduced since the height of the Cold War, but they remain excessive. Moreover, the dubious strategic rationales for maintaining and even strengthening these still bloated arsenals are morally problematic.

Nuclear deterrence can hardly be the basis for peaceful coexistence among peoples and states in the 21st century, since it is unable to be broadly responsive and tailored to the security challenges of our times; furthermore, it risks being used in a way that would cause severe humanitarian consequences.

Instead of being a step toward nuclear disarmament, nuclear deterrence has become an end in itself, and risks compromising the non-proliferation regime and undermining real progress toward a nuclear-free world.

In case there was any doubt about the direction the pope is taking, a December church policy paper stated,

Finally, it must be admitted that the very possession of nuclear weapons, even for purposes of deterrence, is morally problematic. While a consensus continues to grow that any possible use of such weapons is radically inconsistent with the demands of human dignity, in the past the church has nonetheless expressed a provisional acceptance of their possession for reasons of deterrence, under the condition that this be “a step on the way toward progressive disarmament.” This condition has not been fulfilled—far from it. In the absence of further progress toward complete disarmament, and without concrete steps toward a more secure and a more genuine peace, the nuclear weapon establishment has lost much of its legitimacy.

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[shenmue]

4. Pope: "Let's not bomb each other"

Right-wingers: "Boooooo."

[Dawson Leery]

5. kick