Det danske Fredsakademi

Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 14. september 2012 / Timeline September 14, 2012

13. September 2012, 15. September 2012

09/14/2012
Y-12 Protesters Mulled Infiltrating New Mexico, Missouri Nuclear Sites
A group of three antiwar advocates targeted the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee for infiltration after considering two alternative U.S. nuclear-weapon locations, and the trio used open-source information to plot the unauthorized entry over a period of months, one of the trespassers said on Wednesday in comments reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel.
The members of the antinuclear group Transform Now Plowshares on July 28 infiltrated the Oak Ridge site's "Protected Area," where a facility holding large quantities of weapon-grade uranium is located. The three had enough time to allegedly pour out blood, put up signs and paint on the sides of buildings before they were discovered and apprehended, writes Global Security Newswire
The story of the action
Calling themselves Transform Now Plowshares they hammered on the cornerstone of the newly built Highly-Enriched Uranium Manufacturing Facility (HEUMF), splashed human blood and left four spray painted tags on the recent construction which read: Woe to the empire of blood; The fruit of justice is peace; Work for peace not for war; and Plowshares please Isaiah.
- http://transformnowplowshares.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/action-narrative/
See also: - http://transformnowplowshares.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/plowshares-slideshow/

09/14/2012
Mindesten over militærnægtelse hærget igen
Af Tom Vilmer Paamand, Aldrig Mere Krig
Ukendte hærværksmænd har atter ødelagt den mindesten, som Aldrig Mere Krig har sat op i Gribskov for militærnægterloven fra 1917.
Stenen blev overhældt med brun maling, og pladen sparket i stykker natten til den 12. september. Lige som ved det foregående hærværk var der efterladt et mindre dannebrogsflag med påskrevet budskab om "faldne helte".
- En hurtig reflektion over hærværket er, at det åbenbart ikke er ytringsfrihed, disse folk kæmper for, siger Tom Vilmer Paamand fra foreningen Aldrig Mere Krig.
Mindestenen blev oprindeligt indviet november 2008 af Aldrig Mere Krig og Kunstnere For Fred for militærnægterloven fra 1917, åbningen af Danmarks første nægterlejr året efter i Gribskov og for afslutningen på den 1. Verdenskrig i 1918.
Ved indvielsen i 2008 talte blandt andre forfatteren Klaus Rifbjerg, historikeren Jørgen Knudsen samt skuespillerne Anne Marie Helger og Peter Larsen. Opstillingen vakte en del debat, og udløste ikke kun trusler, men også ødelæggende hærværk.
Mindestenens bronzeplade blev stjålet, og stenen overhældt med tjære. Ved gerningsstedet var efterladt et stort dannebrogsflag med påskriften: Til ære for de faldne helte. Politiet afviste at undersøge sagen.
Stenen fik en tid lov til at stå som monument over hvad der meget passende kaldes "hærværk", men blev renset og genopbygget med sit oprindelige budskab om fred og forsoning. Stenen blev genindviet på den 5. september, men fik denne gang kun lov til at stå i fred i en uge. Hærværket er anmeldt til politiet som en hadforbrydelse.
Læse mere om genindvielsen den 5. september:
- http://www.aldrigmerekrig.dk/det_sker/index.htm#mindesten
Læs om hærværket i Frederiksborg Amts Avis:
Plade på mindesten sparket itu
Gribskov - 13. september 2012
- http://www.sn.dk/Plade-paa-mindesten-sparket-itu/Gribskov/artikel/224075
Flag kan afsløre hærværksmænd
- http://www.sn.dk/Flag-kan-afsloere-haervaerksmaend/Gribskov/artikel/224330
Kender du hærværksflaget?
Gribskov - 14. september 2012
- http://www.sn.dk/Kender-du-haervaerksflaget/Gribskov/artikel/224409

09/14/2012
Jimmy Carter's Controversial Nuclear Targeting Directive PD-59 Declassified
Designed to Give President More Choices in Nuclear Conflict than "All-Out Spasm War"
White House Officials Envisioned Prolonged Nuclear Conflict Where High-Tech Intelligence Systems Provided a "Look-Shoot-Look" Capability
Leak of PD-59 Exposed White House Exclusion of State Department in National Security Decisions
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 390
Posted - September 14, 2012
Washington, D.C., September 14, 2012 -- The National Security Archive is today posting - for the first time in its essentially complete form - one of the most controversial nuclear policy directives of the Cold War. Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59), "Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy," signed by President Jimmy Carter on 25 July 1980, aimed at giving U.S. Presidents more flexibility in planning for and executing a nuclear war, but leaks of its Top Secret contents, within weeks of its approval, gave rise to front-page stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post that stoked wide-spread fears about its implications for unchecked nuclear conflict.
The National Security Archive obtained the virtually unexpurgated document in response to a mandatory declassification review request to the Jimmy Carter Library. Highly classified for years, PD 59 was signed during a period of heightened Cold War tensions owing to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, greater instability in the Middle East, and earlier strains over China policy, human rights, the Horn of Africa, and Euromissiles.
In this context, the press coverage quickly generated controversy by raising apprehensions that alleged changes in U.S. strategy might lower the threshold of a decision by either side to go nuclear, which could inject dangerous uncertainty into the already fragile strategic balance. The press coverage elicited debate inside and outside the government, with some arguing that the PD would aggravate Cold War tensions by increasing Soviet fears about vulnerability and raising pressures for launch-on-warning in a crisis. Adding to the confusion was the fact that astonishingly, even senior government officials who had concerns about the directive did not have access to it.
With other recently declassified material related to PD-59, today's publication helps settle the mystery of what Jimmy Carter actually signed, as well as shedding light on the origins of PD-59 and some of its consequences. Among the disclosures are a variety of fascinating insights about the thinking of key U.S. officials about the state of nuclear planning and the possible progression of events should war break out:

• PD-59 sought a nuclear force posture that ensured a "high high degree of flexibility, enduring survivability, and adequate performance in the face of enemy actions." If deterrence failed, the United States "must be capable of fighting successfully so that the adversary would not achieve his war aims and would suffer costs that are unacceptable." To make that feasible, PD-59 called for pre-planned nuclear strike options and capabilities for rapid development of target plans against such key target categories as "military and control targets," including nuclear forces, command-and-control, stationary and mobile military forces, and industrial facilities that supported the military. Moreover, the directive stipulated strengthened command-control-communications and intelligence (C3I) systems.
• President Carter's first instructions on the U.S. nuclear force posture, in PD-18, "U.S. National Strategy," supported "essential equivalence", which rejected a "strategic force posture inferior to the Soviet Union" or a "disarming first strike" capability, and also sought a capability to execute "limited strategic employment options."
• A key element of PD-59 was to use high-tech intelligence to find nuclear weapons targets in battlefield situations, strike the targets, and then assess the damage-a "look-shoot-look" capability. A memorandum from NSC military aide William Odom depicted Secretary of Defense Harold Brown doing exactly that in a recent military exercise where he was "chasing [enemy] general purpose forces in East Europe and Korea with strategic weapons."
• The architects of PD-59 envisioned the possibility of protracted nuclear war that avoided escalation to all-out conflict. According to Odom's memorandum, "rapid escalation" was not likely because national leaders would realize how "vulnerable we are and how scarce our nuclear weapons are." They would not want to "waste" them on non-military targets and "days and weeks will pass as we try to locate worthy targets."
• An element of PD-59 that never leaked to the press was a pre-planned option for launch-on-warning. It was included in spite of objections from NSC staffers, who saw it as "operationally a very dangerous thing."
• Secretary of State Edmund Muskie was uninformed about PD-59 until he read it about in the newspapers, according to a White House chronology. The State Department had been involved in early discussions of nuclear targeting policy, but National Security Adviser Brzezinski eventually cut out the Department on the grounds that targeting is "so closely related to military contingency planning, an activity that justly remains a close-hold prerogative and responsibility" of the Pentagon.
• The drafters of PD 59 accepted controversial ideas that the Soviets had a concept of victory in nuclear war and already had limited nuclear options. Marshall Shulman, the Secretary of State's top adviser on Soviet affairs, had not seen PD-59 but questioned these ideas in a memorandum to Secretary Muskie: "We may be placing more weight on the Soviet [military] literature than is warranted." If the Soviets perused U.S. military writing, it could "easily convince them that we have such options and such beliefs." Post-Cold War studies suggest that Shulman was correct because the Soviet leadership realized that neither side could win a nuclear war and had little confidence in the Soviet Union's ability to survive a nuclear conflict.

09/14/2012

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