Articles 
MON16 OCTOBER 2017
PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT
ESCALATORY RHETORIC (BY ANY SIDE) ENDANGERS MILLIONS OF AUSTRALIANS (AND TENS OF MILLIONS OF OTHERS)
WE NEED CALM DIALOGUE AND NEGOTIATION:
AND A SIGNATURE ON THE PROHIBITION TREATY WOULD KINDA HELP TOO
The best thing Australia could do for its own security and that of the world right now, according to People for Nuclear Disarmaments UN nuclear disarmament campaigner John Hallam, would be to sign and ratify the Nuclear Prohibition Treaty. The worst thing it can do right now is unfortunately exactly what it has been doing – talking up its US nuclear alliance and its lockstep with Donald Trump with 'joined at the hip' statements and bravado about 'not being intimidated'. This is predictably unhelpful and potentially inflammatory.
According to Mr Hallam:
“'Not being intimidated' just isn't what it is about. What Australia needs to do is to refuse to provoke the DPRK, who are all too easy to provoke. We have no need to approve of every lunatic statement issuing from the mouth of Donald Trump – to avoid painting a series of targets on Australia's backside with 'Bomb right here Kim' written on them – and above all to play a constructive role in which we can actually mediate between two irresponsible individuals with swollen and pathological egos, both of whom unfortunately have fingers on various nuclear triggers.”
“Failure to play such a constructive role does, unfortunately, place Australia's major cities at least potentially, at serious risk. While some, (notably South Korea's Minister of Defense, Song-Moo Young) have suggested that the DPRK can't (yet) put a nuclear weapon on a missile, it seems most likely that at a minimum, the DPRK really does have the ability to strike Tokyo, Okinawa, Guam, and Hawaii. It seems most likely, though not certain, that it is able also to strike the US west coast. If it can do that it can also strike Tasmania.”
“Making 'we will not be intimidated' and 'joined at the hip' statements invites being placed on Kim Jong Un's 'map of death'. I urge Julie and Malcolm to google Alex Wellersteins 'Nukemap' (http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/) and see just what a 250Kt thermonuclear weapon does to downtown Sydney.”
“Sure, if Kim ever nuked Sydney out of the blue, he'd be vaporized himself fairly soon. Unless of course, his weapons do what they are supposed to do, and deter the United States, who may not want to trade NY for Sydney.”
“The best we can hope for is that:
--He has not enough (or maybe doesn't have any) weapons that can actually do that. Notwithstanding South Korea's defense minister's statements that he hasn't, it really seems more likely that he does have. We don't know for sure of course, and don't want to discover that he does, the hard way.
--That Kim has only one or two such weapons, and reserves them for high priority targets such as US naval bases, command and control facilities and Pine Gap and North West Cape. This actually seems the most likely of these possibilities.”
“Right now, the best way to ensure we are not on the Kim Jong Un 'map of death' would be to offer our services to mediate, to do as Julie Bishop herself suggested barely two weeks ago, and to encourage de-escalation and dialogue without preconditions, and to cement our credibility by signing the Nuclear Prohibition Treaty.”
“A world in which all Governments, or an overwhelming majority of them, including nuclear weapon states, signed that Treaty would be one in which this kind of crisis could never take place.”
John Hallam
People for Nuclear Disarmament
Human Survival Project
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