Organizations call on Biden to incorporate nuclear disarmament into campaign

A coalition of progressive organization are urging the democratic presidential candidate to incorporate nuclear disarmament into his campaign. CODEPINK, WAND, WILPF, and Massachusetts Peace Action are among the organizations that expressed an urgent need for former Vice-President Joe Biden to protect the security of Americans from a catastrophic nuclear war and outline his a vision of peace.

In a petition titled, “Candidate Biden: Pull the Nation Back from the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe!,” the organizations called for “five clear nuclear disarmament planks” to be included in Biden’s campaign:

1. No First Use of Nuclear Weapons;
2. Promote the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty—no new nuclear weapons testing;
3. Cancel the provocative, destabilizing, and enormously expensive $2.0 trillion nuclear weapons modernization program;
4. Lead with diplomacy in resolving international conflicts; and
5. Designate national and international nuclear disarmament a central goal.

“75 years later, the United States remains one of only a handful of countries in the world which refuses to agree to a No First Use policy as our elected officials continue to pour billions into the production and maintenance of nuclear weapons,” Jodie Evans, co-director of CODEPINK, said. “Instead of funding the production of nuclear weapons and escalating tensions with China, we need to come together as a global community to address a real existential threat: climate change.”

The coalition of progressive groups said the United States needs to lead the international effort of ridding the world of nuclear weapons by asking for common security for the American people with the passage of No First Strike Legislation, the reduction of work on nuclear weapons upgrades, and an aggressive pursuit of New Start and other treaty initiatives, the petition stated.

“The United States urgently needs a leader who will have the courage to look at, think hard about, and speak openly about the dire perils posed by our country’s vast nuclear arsenal,” Elaine Scarry, author of Thermonuclear Monarchy, said.

Instead of “supporting spending $2 trillion of our tax dollars over the next 30 years upgrading our nuclear weapons triad,” the groups are calling for a president who will “pull us back from this new nuclear arms race, which can only undermine our security, and starve the economy of critical public health needs,” Jonathan King, co-chair of Massachusetts Peace Action, said.