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Home Articles Flashpoints Stay of Execution? Protest 10am sat19 Town Hall Sq

Stay of Execution? Protest 10am sat19 Town Hall Sq

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 17 AUG 2017
PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT
 
A STAY OF EXECUTION?
HAVE WE REALLY STEPPED BACK FROM THE BRINK?
DID SOMEONE BLINK?
 
NEGOTIATE DON'T ESCALATE
 
PROTEST 10AM SAT 19TH TOWN HALL SQUARE Hannah 0418 668 098
 
As Kim Jong Un makes it known that he won't be sending a test flight of 4 missiles toward Guam just today, and as Donald Trump tweets that this is a 'wise decision', we can be excused for heaving a small sigh of relief.
 
However we aren't yet completely out of danger. Any tendency by Trump to gloat at his 'victory' is likely to provoke a reaction from Kim Jong Un, especially if it's couched in a way that seems to threaten the DPRK.
 
The language of threats and confrontation must be avoided now more than ever.
 
The 'wise move' (and it WAS a wise move) by Kim Jong Un on the one hand opens up opportunities for diplomatic engagement and dialogue if Trump is wise enough to take them, but on the other hand offers ample opportunities for further crises.
 
Further missile tests, and a further nuclear weapons text by the DPRK, seem quite likely though nothing is certain or entirely predictable. Whether or not those become flashpoints for further escalating nuclear confrontation is entirely up to the US administration. The DPRK may well feel that, having, in the least obvious way possible, 'blinked', it must do one or the other or both in order to save face – or merely to perfect its own nuclear deterrent.
 
Restraint on both sides would be highly desirable. But the US, as the power with thousands of times the megatonnage and capability of the DPRK has by far the greater obligation to restrain itself.
 
Of course if both countries had taken a decision to sign up to the nuclear prohibition treaty, we would not be having this kind of conversation.
 
Australia should set an example by signing the prohibition treaty itself, and by urging other similar nuclear umbrella countries such as Japan to do likewise.
 
And above all, the Australian government should refrain from painting a target on Australia's backside by uncritically supporting everything the Trump administration does no mater how lunatic, with respect to the DPRK.
 
A protest against war with the DPRK will take place in Town Hall Square at 10am Saturday 19th.
 
John Hallam
0411-854-612
h9810-2598
 


 
15 AUG 2017
 
PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
 
WAR WITH DPRK COULD KILL MILLIONS
 
ANZUS IS NO REASON FOR US TO BLINDLY FOLLOW TRUMP INTO CATASTROPHE
 
PROTEST AGAINST WAR WITH NORTH KOREA 10AM SATURDAY 19TH AUG TOWN HALL SQUARE
 
A protest against the possibility of war with North Korea (DPRK) is to be held at 10am Saturday 19th Aug, in Town Hall Square. (For inquiries re the protest contact Hannah on 0418 668 098 )
 
According to People for Nuclear Disarmament's UN nuclear weapons campaigner John Hallam:
 
War with the DPRK could be catastrophic, even though its likely – assuming that no other countries get involved, which could indeed happen – that the DPRK would eventually lose.”
 
Even if we limit considerations to the purely conventional, the DPRK has arrayed thousands of artillery batteries just north of the DMZ, just north of Seoul. Even without use of a limited stock of maybe not very reliable nuclear weapons, these would level Seoul, a city of over 20 million. That would create at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of casualties.”
 
If we assume that the DPRK tries to use its stock of possibly around 30 Hiroshima – sized nuclear weapons, a number of possibilities arise.”
The most likely is that it will use them against relatively close – in targets including Seoul and maybe Tokyo, using its intermediate – range Nodong missiles, a technology it has shared with the Pakistanis, so we are in little doubt as it its ability to lob a nuclear warhead.”
 
This already gives us a body-count rising into the millions.”
 
Its also likely to make an actual nuclear attack on US military bases in both Guam and in Okinawa. The US will try to use the THAAD system to protect against this, but THAAD is untried and may be completely unsuitable for defense against intermediate range and ballistic missiles.”
 
Finally its possible, though in my view much less likely, that the DPRK may try to hit west coast US cities. It may or may not be able to do this right now, though in a year or two we'd expect it to be able to do this with some reliability. This would in turn kill millions of US citizens. If the DPRK can hit the US west coast, its also likely to be able to hit parts of Australia in which case it might try to hit Pine Gap, or perhaps, an Australian city, though this seems currently to be the least likely eventuality.”
 
Finally of course, the US will want to turn the DPRK into rubble, and there isn't the slightest doubt about their ability to do that. If they do so, then much of the DPRK population will be incinerated, and the fallout will drift over faithful US allies South Korea and Japan. If we had to pluck a figure out of the air we might guesstimate a body count of somewhere over 10 million for this.”
 
Things get much more complicated however, if the conflict is not limited to the US and the DPRK. We already suggested that the DPRK might attack Tokyo, or US bases on Japanese territory. China has intimated that if the DPRK is attacked, China will defend it. China has massive missiles with 5Mt nuclear warheads that are capable of completely paralyzing both the US – and Australia- with electromagnetic pulse with just one shot 400Km out in space. In that eventuality, the US Congress concluded in a 2010 report that most US citizens would starve to death even if nothing further took place.”
 
Finally, the involvement of Russia, with whom the US has terrible relations, could – if the worst possible event – sequence took place – bring about the deaths of most humans and the end of what we call civilization”
 
To forecast 'doomsday' given a certain event sequence does not at all mean that this is for sure what will happen, or even that this is the most likely outcome. We have choices, and the actual outcomes depend on the choices we make. We could choose instead to take the path of low- key, tweet-less, negotiations that would first of all halt the momentum toward catastrophe and take down the temperature, and would then move toward either a solution or a temporary modus vivendi. This is precisely what we urge should be done.”
 
The Australian Government should, instead of proclaiming its willingness to follow Donald Trump over a cliff, take the lead in urging such a solution to the current crisis. It should then take the lead in another closely related matter, reverse its opposition to the nuclear weapons prohibition treaty, and announce its intention to sign this coming September. If anything shows the peril of maintaining nuclear weapons, surely the current crisis does.”
 
John Hallam
 
61-411-854-612 h 61-2-9810-2598


Saturday 19 August
10 — 11am
Town Hall Square
 
Come to call for negotiations to resolve the crisis on the Korean peninsula without war. A military confrontation would affect the whole international community, including Australia, especially with the US military base at Pine Gap
 
Come to tell Turnbull Australia must not go to war. He claims that this is a requirement in the ANZUS pact. In fact, the treaty contains no such obligation. The partners in the alliance are simply supposed to consult each other in the event of an attack.
 
Bring your own banners and placards
Inquiries: Hannah on 0418 668 098
 
NO NUCLEAR WAR!
 

Guam residents angry at being caught in
“crossfires of geopolitical games”
 
“The Pentagon controls about a third of all the land on Guam, which is home to 163,000 people and a sprawling complex of U.S. military bases, including the Air Force base where many of the United States’ B-2 bombers take off from before flying over theKorean Peninsula,” Dr Middleton from the Anti-Bases Campaign said in Sydney today.
“For decades, residents of Guam, especially the indigenous Chamoprro people. have resisted the militarisation and colonisation of their homeland by the United States, which has now put them in the crosshairs of a possible nuclear war between the U.S. andNorth Korea.
Dr LisaLinda Natividad, a professor at the University of Guam, President of the Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice and a member of the Guam Commission on Decolonisation, spoke to us today from Guam saying:
“I think there are two primary responses that our people are having. On the one hand, because of our hypermilitarised existence, there is a sort of desensitisation to the threat, and buying into what we’re being told in terms of the island being safe.
“On the other hand, I’d say there’s just about an equal amount of people who are really growing increasingly angry as to how we’re being used as pawns in this situation. And so the second half of our population is very angry about how our colonial status puts us at this level of grave, grave risk.
“On the one hand, we’re being told we’re safe; we have the maximum amount of military preparation.
“But on the other hand, it just creates this flagrant example of our colonisation and how our Native people, the Chamorro people of Guam, are caught again in the crossfires of these geopolitical games,” Dr Natividad concluded.
 
 
For more information, please contact Dr Natividad on 0011-1-671-777-7285 or Dr Middleton on 0418 668 098
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 August 2017 13:19