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The Forum > Article Comments > Australia, the UN, and nuclear weapons > Comments

Australia, the UN, and nuclear weapons : Comments

By Moritz Kütt and John Langmore, published 14/1/2008

Australia aligned with the US by opposing nearly every resolution dealing with nuclear issues at the 2007 UN General Assembly.

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The author is berating the previous government for not putting up proposals on nuclear weapons that are not enforceable and are not supported by the nations that actually have the weapons.

The general assembly is like an old politician's club where grandiose proposals are voted on between lunch and dinner and then globally ignored.

I would hope that the new government does not pander to this gravy train where Mugabe's and Sudan's hencemen sit on the panel for human rights.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 14 January 2008 10:57:18 AM
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Future is in a development of nuces.
Posted by MichaelK., Monday, 14 January 2008 11:04:01 AM
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United Nations General Assembly, however slow and inadequate it might be, is really all we have, as a start in a planet-saving movement towards global peace, and a liveable environment.

Under the Howard government, Australia moved towards a strange sort of "unilateralist" position. It wasn't really "unilateralist", because Howard simply tied Australia's policies directly to the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration.

In doing this, Howard appeared to the world, and was, a sycophant to George W. Bush. So enthusiasticly a fan of George W.Bush, Howard joined him in disregard of other nations, and contempt for the United Nations. Even when he knew that the AWB had been bribing Saddam Hussein, Howard tried to shift the blame to the UN, and with some media help, imposed on Australians his own view of contempt for the UN.

This attitude suddenly looks strangely antiquated. In this world of global warming, people everywhere are waking up to the fact that, with a global problem, co-operative global solutions are now essential.
The nuclear arms race is equally a global problem.

The United Nations might be "a poor thing, Sir, but mine own". It's all we've got, to take on this problem. So - let's allow Howard to slip away intio oblivion, where he belongs. There is some hope that we now have a forward-looking government, open to international co-operation.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclear.net
Posted by ChristinaMac, Monday, 14 January 2008 11:13:38 AM
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Oh dear. Does a new Labor Government mean that Australian defence policies and issues will be decided in the UN? Is it just the beginning of a decade of feelgood idealism? Is the Rudd Government about to be hijacked by the Labor Left?

Its the closed, militaristic societies who frequently hide behind UN numbers who work to "out" the open societies. These closed societies will build their nuclear weapons and deploy them in secret - regardless of their UN ratification behaviour.

Will we become a passive, though self-righteous, receiver of defence protection like NZ under NZ Labor's Helen Morse?

Fortunately our aircraft and submarines are nuclear capable with the Harpoon Land Attack missiles. Their conventional warheads could perhaps be substituted for nuclear warheads (from Israel or the US) in weeks. Does this mean we should have no Harpoons, no aircraft, no submarines? Lets put it to the UN.

If Australia is to become an independent country with independent defence and foreign policies we need to begin to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Otherwise we will be forced to follow US troops wherever the US tells us to fight - be it Iraq, Afghanistan and perhaps Iran and Pakistan in future.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com
Posted by plantagenet, Monday, 14 January 2008 11:27:59 AM
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Nuclear weapons are the ultimate equaliser. A simple fact that scares the US.

Moreover, they are efficient and economical and for that reason probably not favoured by the conventional arms industry. It is highly likely that Australia could develop nuclear weapons faster than say Indonesia meaning its better to not develop them now and risk SEA arms race.

Also, recall that Oliphant headed the British team at Los Alomos and Britian needed our help with its programme when the US said, "no" to Britain's nuclear ambitions [tied up with the politics of the Suez Crisis]. Finally, Enhanced Radiation Weapons have a broader domain than bombs; one needs only to skatter isotopes.
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 14 January 2008 11:38:29 AM
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Oh dear - Oliver, and the well-named Plantagenet - don't seem to notice that nuclear weapons facilities immediately become nuclear targets.

Also, I didn't know that our Aussie actors were so influential.
Apparently that fine actor, Helen Morse, actually runs New Zealand.

Just as the world is now waking up, and fast, to the growing danger of global warming, it will wake up to the more immediate peril of nuclear war. The Doomsday Clock, of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, recently warned us yet again of how urgent is this risk.

I don't that all the lobbying and corporate greed of the pro-nukes is going to be able to con the world much longer. The fossil fuel industries are failing in their long and expensive campaign, to deny global warming. The nuclear lobby will be the next to be exposed for the fraud that it is.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclear.net
Posted by ChristinaMac, Monday, 14 January 2008 12:03:05 PM
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sry, chrismac, the length of a lie is measured by the amount of money and guns behind it. the usa has been selling itself as the champion of human rights for a long, long time, and just recently the new oz government subscribed to this hoary lie.

don't blame rudd for bending a knee, he has to, to stay in office.
Posted by DEMOS, Monday, 14 January 2008 12:53:06 PM
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Christina,

"however slow and inadequate it might be", I would have used the term corrupt and irrelevant. While consuming the resources that would run a small country it has produced almost nothing of consequence in the entire 60 odd years of its existance.

While I agree that there are many important issues facing us today, the GA is not the place to get anything to happen.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 14 January 2008 1:09:22 PM
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"Oh dear - Oliver, and the well-named Plantagenet - don't seem to notice that nuclear weapons facilities immediately become nuclear targets." - ChristinaMac.

I agree with you. Australia's council to the British was not have missile silos, because these sites become targets.

Nuclear weapons can also be used defensively, scorched Earth policy, if invaded from the North.
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 14 January 2008 1:13:53 PM
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Saddam smiling more in his Grave

Nuclear strikes possibly due before December.

Saddam’s former Baath Party Sunnis now forgiven by Bush, all part of what can only be called peace in Iraq obtained only by America giving in to the Sunni Iraqis.

A force George Dubya moved in going on five years ago to conquer and the Shia Iraqis she moved in to save now deliberately becoming lumped together with America’s main enemy, Iran, the former Persian nation which has made fools of the US at least three times since WW2.

Although the latest report states that the US has worked out that the forgiven Sunnis are not true terrorists, any social scientist could safely make a bet that the bulk of those forgiven, are part of Saddam’s 200, 000 frontline troops, a force that was never captured by the Americans, and really only proving the historical fact that the Sunnis over the years have been skilful two-timers, American advisers having gladly fought with them during the eventually lost long war in the 1980’s against Iran.

While Bush and Howard, and now Rudd appear to be part of naming the above part of a recent swift allied victory, it must be remembered that though a mostly muzzled media has been presenting such news to an easily dumbed down Aussie public, us war historians in particular did not come down in the last shower.

George Dubya and Dickie Cheney you can bet your life will now be gladly using this shonky Iraqi turnabout to make a hit on Iran before the end of the Bush term, foolish little Middle East pariah, Israel again being used to make the initial attack.

Finally we must thank the Washington Post for being on the side of ethics or truth with a scary report six months ago about the usual scuffle near Baghdad between government Shia troops and rebel Sunnis but with a US gunship breaking up the scuffle, with the Shias being arrested and not the Sunnis.

And so it goes on......?

Cheers - BB, WA.
Posted by bushbred, Monday, 14 January 2008 5:12:42 PM
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We need new ways of thinking to cope with the nuclear age. It is here that writers, with their concern for the human condition and their special skills with language, can enable us to imagine the horrific reality of nuclear arms and nerve us to build an alternative future.
The Australian poet, Jack Davis, speaks to the reader simply and openly, trying to reach across perhaps our barriers of ignorance, by visualizing a nuclear attack with his poem, "Nuclear."

"I saw a flash of yellow light
As Titan thunder split the night,
Then darkness.

No sound now, only the starkness
Of flesh uncontrolled
And knowing I'm a cold
Statistic of decaying bone,
Falling hair.

Yet running helter skelter
To the fallout shelter,
They count their dollars
Claw at white collars
And watch their own children,
Dying there."

For most of us, the trauma of a nuclear war would be too extreme.
Few of us have the mental or emotional capacity to imagine a nuclear
war. In this poem Jack Davis blames not the people of the world
collectively, but rather a small "group" of men, who dictate their
terms. And to whom the dollar is of greater value then the lives of
their own children. Harsh, angry words, but appropriate because a
nuclear war will not be kind to anyone. We will all be a
"Statistic of decaying bone, Falling hair..."

Let us hope that our current PM has more humanity and will lead us
away from nuclear - from polluted soil, poisoned streams, irradiated
game ...then we can divert unprecedented energy and resources to the real problems facing us, including poverty, disease, overpopulation, injustice, oppression, and the devastation of our natural environment.
Posted by Foxy, Monday, 14 January 2008 5:58:52 PM
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CM,

The fraud that is the nuclear industry seems to have convinced the British gov who has stated recently that it intends to build many more nuclear power stations as it is the only viable alternative to fossil fuels available presently.
Posted by Democritus, Monday, 14 January 2008 6:00:45 PM
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Resolutions on critical issues, such as nuclear weapons, that are adopted "either by CONSENSUS (the operational term) or by large majorities" are meaningless, if not dangerous, when there is a minority of rogue dangerous states, such as Iran, that will not abide to such resolutions in their stealthy pursuit to acquire nuclear weapons.

No wise nation in our dangerous times, facing irreconcilable external and internal fanatic enemies will "proxy" its defense to the effete organization of the UN and its totally ineffective resolutions.

http://kotzabasis1australiaagainst.blogspot.com
Posted by Themistocles, Monday, 14 January 2008 8:02:17 PM
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Themistocles, the UN is only effete because the US wants it that way.

Immanuel Kant foresaw this after he witnessed Napoleon declaring himself Emperor when he was sent out as a
young general of the Enlightenment to spread the message of Liberty Equality and Fraternity.

Thus we still have the Kantian recipe for Perpetual Peace, not one single power in charge of the world as we have now with GWB's Pax Americana but a Federation of Nations, not necessarily all democratic nations, but as Konrad Adenuer of West Germany implied when he helped draw up the plan for the present United Nations, strong representation in the Secretariat from all the Federation, not the deliberately weak leadership which now exists, letting Condoleeza Rice move in most times to manage the
global stage.

Just as all academic political scientists get sick of hearing, as we are all sick of hearing Dick Cheney's threats towards Iran which we know a truly competent UN might easily manage, possibly better if the American Way was not part of the plan.

Cheers - BB, WA.
Posted by bushbred, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 12:11:23 PM
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" ... Put *Him* in ... "
:INDO REPORT:
<KARBON FREEZE>
:DARK MURMERINGS OF THE PRAYER PEOPLE:
<KARBON FREEZE>
:INDO COAST CARD:
<KARBON FREEZE>
:GLOBALWARMINGCONF TROOP DEPLOYMENT & RELATED ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS:
<KARBON FREEZE>

:"My 2 Bob:"

Of paramount importance is 2 establish "our" own Independent credentials in the region.
No more Uranium for *Dastardly&Muttley a.k.a. englund & america*
pending confession, repentance, penance & appropriate treatment for those contaminated by
U235 EnrichmentWasteMunitions
OR
kick them out of Australia.

& I put it 2 U Dear Poppets
if the constitution cld always be overtrumped by another mere act of the mongrel pommy parliament, even with it's new sticky plaster & bubble gum australia act attached,
it is essentially little more than a bog roll &
U shld summarily set it on fire & p!ss it into a permaculture patch.

*Browny* for !HeadofState!
Ambassador 2 *Satan* - Mr Peter Costello
(1Good, 1Evil)
a Lord/Ess Spiritual
a Green 4 the Environment
a Unionist for the Workers
Australian of the Year for the Scientists
a TrueBlue BlakFella for OriginalOzzie affairs
(have I 4gotten anyone?)
& an *Ozzie HellB_tch* for Women's Business

and I must confess, I cannot entirely dismiss the words of:
Saint _ucking, Patron Saint of _ooting
(controlled crazy head or otherwise)
& co-founder of Australia's 1st Independent Denomination,
*Church of the Mystic Christ*
whom said 2 me in the summer of '87

" ... & Spiritually speaking it depicts U like a spike, with pieces of paper pushed onto it. As if U will bcome a pawn, in the hands of some player. & I am not even speaking of the immediate future but in the distant future that danger is most certainly there. Well I suggest U refuse 2 become a spike. Don't b the spike that receives useless things, things that r done & over with, that U can't do anything about. ... "

& with that I bid u adieu 2 return 2 my grandiose,
paranoid delusions & other "ruminations" in Indo.

...Adam...
Posted by AJLeBreton, Tuesday, 15 January 2008 4:01:58 PM
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The need, ability and possibility of a legally binding Nuclear Weapons Convention (NWC):
http://www.icanw.org/the-solution

The majority of UN Member States call for immediate negotiation of this treaty, which would prohibit the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat, or use of nuclear weapons.
Posted by Atom1, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 9:03:31 AM
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Atom 1, unfortunately, with so many of our international laws being broken, including by America, the only resort maybe is to make use of the principles of power balance, which we studied during the Cold War.

It is so critical that during the Cold War, there was that strategic sideshow in the Middle East when Israel really broke the Code of Nuclear Deterrence which even Henry Kissinger has shown to have complained about in a recently found report, that the balance of power among smaller ME nations had not only been destroyed but had given the Soviet Union, already with an arranged power balance with the US, the excuse to arm the Arab nations with Nuclear weapons.

Though thanks to our lucky stars the worst did not happen, the point is that there is now evidence that Richard Nixon was also against Israel going militarily nuclear.

So what we are faced with now using the power balance agenda, Iran should be allowed to go nuclear to prevent a pariah-like Israel not only using its illegal nuclear weapons against Iran in an initial strike, but also conventional.

The big worry is, of course, that with Putin’s Russia already building nuclear installations in Iran, Kissinger’s original concern might come to pass - because there is now proof that Israel’s present power position in the Middle East is illegal, Russia and possibly China, and even India may believe they have the right to protect Iran.

There is even reports that Iran might already possess nuclear warheads to fit her long-range rockets, no doubt illegally arranged, but possibly not much worse than Israel’s illegal possession of atomic artillery in any case?

Maybe if the worst does come to be likely, the very fact that Iran might possess atomic warfare capability, could bring the kind of peace brought on by Pakistan going militarily nuclear to match India and helping the main border confrontation to gradually fizz out.

Regards - BB, WA
Posted by bushbred, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 12:37:10 PM
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Bushbred (and ChristinaMac please listen)

What you say makes. Mutually Assured Destruction HAS prevented the Cold War, Confrontations of Standoffs turning into hot wars.

However this type of logic is not recognised by those who feel that all inclusive international conferences (for example the UN) can talk away tension.

Major war is about violent national urges which have always been mixed with economic motivation (a la Cheney, contractors, oil, land etc). War cannot be talked away now because the talkers, spin doctors and major media companies represent the very passions and people that wage war. Thus Hitler/Goebbels phenomenon of the 30 and 40s has been updated into Bush/Hollywood/Murdoch. Looks like a hard left analysis but there is a twist.

I think the solution is not to rely on international talking that attempts to conquer national/economic passions. We should accept those passions as age old, irreversible realities. There will never be a peace utopia.

Talking is nice and often a useful tactic but few rely on it. Those that do are usually failed dependent states or (like Switzerland and Sweden) are happily by geography under the Europe wide American defence umbrella.

In the end I think we should rely very heavily on a larger national defence force to defend Australia if/when the US deserts us. A future option of Australia requiring nuclear weapons should be left open.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/2007/02/cheney-to-bless-australias-pm-again.html
Posted by plantagenet, Wednesday, 16 January 2008 3:19:56 PM
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BB, WA ("Though thanks to our lucky stars the worst did not happen")
- Exactly. It is pretty much purely by luck that we are all still here, after several well documented near misses/incidents.

Not good enough. But we have to demand disarmament, whilst ceasing funding those who design, build, test, store and maintain such weapons of terror which risk absolutely everything we have - and everything we have fought for.

("There is even reports that Iran might already possess nuclear warheads to fit her long-range rockets, no doubt illegally arranged, but possibly not much worse than Israel’s illegal possession of atomic artillery in any case?")

No actually, not according to the USA's own National Intelligence Estimate, “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,”
http://ippnweupdate.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/a-nuclear-armed-iran-not-according-to-intelligence-agencies-of-worlds-largest-nuclear-power/
and:
http://www.icanw.org/news#US%20NIE%20on%20Iran
including:
- We judge with high confidence that in fall (autumn) 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program
- We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.

Make no mistake, GW's latest trip to the Middle East had at its core the USA's $20billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the world largest oil exporter.
http://news.theage.com.au/bush-in-new-saudi-talks-after-arms-deal/20080114-1lwl.html
Posted by Atom1, Friday, 18 January 2008 4:34:56 PM
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