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On to the Senate floor with Bipartisan Support! September 16th, 2010

Good news — Earlier today, in bipartisan fashion, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to approve the New START treaty, sending it to the Senate floor where it needs 67 votes for ratification. But it’s not time to celebrate yet! Clearing committee is a big step in the right direction, but the tight Senate schedule means that unless Senators from both parties publicly call for an up-or-down vote on this treaty, it may not be ratified this year.

With strong bipartisan support, the time to ratify the New START treaty is now:

  • The treaty makes us safer — it will reduce the number of deployed nuclear weapons in U.S. and Russian arsenals.
  • The treaty allows U.S. inspectors to monitor Russian nukes. By the time the committee voted today, it’s been 285 days without on-site inspections of Russian nuclear weapons and facilities.
  • The treaty has the overwhelming support of the military and national security experts of both parties, including current and former commanders of our nuclear weapons, Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, and many others.
  • The treaty is a symbol of peace and the common good, and has the support of religious groups from across the spectrum, including the World Evangelical Alliance, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the National Council of Churches.

Please take time today to call your Senators and let them know the New START treaty is out of committee with Republican and Democratic support, and they need to join this bipartisan consensus. It will take only five minutes — simply visit the Two Futures Project START Action Center, find the Office Number for your Senators, and ask them to publically call for a vote to ratify the New START treaty this year.

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Posted in Nuclear Policy, Take Action |

Week of Action on START May 17th, 2010

It’s not often that we have the opportunity to weigh in on a concrete step that will improve nuclear security — these chances sometimes come around just once per year.

So take this opportunity to tell your elected officials that you won’t tolerate partisan nonsense when it comes to a treaty that’s good for national security and sound moral choice.

We need you to call the offices of your U.S. Senators and express your strong support of the treaty. It will take only five minutes — simply visit the Two Futures Project START Action Center, find the Office Number for your Senators and use our sample “call script.”

Last week, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was officially submitted to the U.S. Senate, with hearings expected to begin later this week. In order for this treaty to become law, the Senate must ratify it by a two-thirds majority — needing 67 votes.

There is no reason for this treaty not to receive unanimous support from the Senate based on its merits. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “the treaty has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership.” Similarly, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen said during a briefing on the announcement of the START treaty, “I am as confident in its success as I am in its safeguards.”

However, the greatest enemy to its success in the Senate is partisan distraction, and the possibility that a handful of outspoken ideologues can derail or weaken the treaty. This would not only damage strategic relations between the US and Russia, it would be a huge step in the wrong direction toward nuclear insecurity.

Take action today for the peace and security of tomorrow.

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Posted in Nuclear Policy, Take Action |

Forging a New Start March 31st, 2010

After a year of negotiations, the U.S. and Russia recently announced they’ve completed a new agreement to reduce the excessive size of our nuclear arsenals in a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The new treaty will be signed April 8 in Prague and its objectives are fairly straightforward: it reduces deployed strategic weapons (i.e., missiles and bombs) from 2,200 to 1,550; it cuts delivery vehicles (bombers, silos, subs) to 800; and it continues the Reagan legacy of “trust but verify” with Moscow.

Strategic nuclear weapons? Missiles? Prague? These aren’t words with a whole lot of relevance in today’s activist crowd—they conjure up icons like Gorbachev, Dr. Strangelove, or maybe Matthew Broderick in War Games. Let’s face it: this is not cutting-edge stuff. Our parents might remember classroom “duck and cover” drills (historical note: plywood desks offer minimal protection against thousands of tons of TNT), the fear of total annihilation, and the threat that one incident or accident could usher in the destruction of every nation. But this was a conflict that had two superpowers pointing thousands of missiles at each other.

What’s really unfortunate is that we may actually have been safer then.

At the height of the Cold War, there were more than 70,000 nuclear weapons in existence, enough to destroy the world many times over. This number has been dramatically reduced by treaties just like the one we’re about to sign. But there are approximately 20,000 nuclear weapons still in existence, 95 percent of which are in the U.S. and Russia.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger observed of nuclear weapons that “our age has stolen fire from the gods; can we confine it to peaceful purposes before it consumes us?” In our post-Cold War, post-9/11 world, this “fire” is now harder to contain and capable of quickly spreading. For this reason, the United States and Russia are recognizing that reductions to our own arsenals are necessary if we want to have any moral authority in curbing breakout in countries like Iran.

Yet the quiet acknowledgment coming out of the negotiating rooms is that this treaty is really pretty modest. Because it wouldn’t take the thousands of remaining nuclear weapons to ruin the world for which we are called by God to care. Just one bomb would cause tens of thousands of deaths, massive environmental damage and financial suffering worldwide. (Check out the video on the front page of TwoFuturesProject.org for a visual of what this looks like.)

So the new START isn’t a silver bullet for our nuclear problem—but it’s not insignificant, either. The question now is whether or not the Senate will ratify it. There are some positive signs, like Richard Lugar—a Republican Senator and important voice on foreign policy—saying he looks forward to working “quickly to achieve ratification of the treaty.”

Unfortunately, Congress has recently proven itself to be not only inefficient, but also incapable at times of passing meaningful legislation due to a venomous political climate, and crippling partisan gridlock. Senate rules require 67 votes to ratify a treaty, so ratification of START must be bipartisan. The question is whether a handful of outspoken ideologues in the U.S. Senate can derail the treaty. Inaction would not only damage strategic relations between the United States and Russia, it would be a huge step in the wrong direction toward nuclear insecurity.

A lot of people in our generation are suspicious of anything political, and there aren’t many things more political than ratification of a nuclear treaty in the U.S. Senate. But nuclear weapons are not an issue we can afford to ignore. In fact, inaction is itself a choice; it’s like waking up to find out that your house is on fire, and deciding to go back to bed. We believe God calls us to use our “talents” in the service of His kingdom—and whether we like it or not, having a say in the American political process is one of the most significant gifts for which God will hold us responsible. So let’s make sure that in this, as in all things, we’ll act in a way that will be met with the judgment, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

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This post was published on RELEVANT Magazine’s “Reject Apathy” blog in March of 2010.

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Posted in Nuclear Policy |

Reduce the Danger of Nuclear War and Help Feed Hungry Kids November 24th, 2009

Nowadays  everyone’s talking about nuclear disarmament.  The Queen of England, George Shultz, President Obama, Dwight from The Office (Don’t believe me?  Check Rainn’s Wilson’s twitter feed).

We at the Two Futures Project couldn’t be happier.  We believe that the sooner Americans wake up to the incredible dangers of nuclear weapons, the sooner moral people of all political persuasions will band together and get rid of these dangerous weapons once and for all.

The thing is, even though nuclear weapons are on the public’s mind more than ever, Congress hasn’t really caught up. Sure, they have plenty of other important issues to worry about, but we know that unless our elected leaders are on board, it’s going to be a lot harder reaching our end goal — a world free of nuclear weapons.

In recent years, though, there haven’t been a lot of vehicles for Congressional action. That changed last spring, when two Congressmen from opposite sides of the aisle — Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Dwight Lungren (R-CA) — got together and crafted a bill that not only paves the way toward necessary reductions in our nation’s nuclear arsenal, but also — wait for it — redirects a good chunk of that spending toward efforts to curb global hunger and help child survival.

The Global Security Priorities Resolution (H.Res. 278) is a bipartisan bill that calls for reducing U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to 1500 warheads per side — with the resulting savings split between efforts to combat nuclear terrorism and programs that encourage global child survival.

What’s not to like?  We already know that the weapons that are being reduced are unnecessary, and the money saved — which adds up to 13 billion annually — will go straight toward efforts to promote nuclear security and make sure that more kids around the world grow up to see adulthood.

That’s why the bill has been endorsed by, among others:

- President Reagan’s top arms control official
- the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
- Lutheran World Relief
- World Vision

Aside from its obvious merits, Two Futures Project is supporting the bill because it’s a great way to help build bipartisan support for the arms reduction treaty currently being negotiated between the U.S. and Russia, which is a critical step toward a world without nuclear weapons.
To succeed, the Global Security Priorities Resolution needs 25 Members of Congress to sign on as co-sponsors. Earlier in November, each Member got a letter from the main sponsors, Reps. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Dan Lungren (R-CA), asking that they join them. But so far, only 15 out of 435 have signed on! It’s clear that we, the voters, are the only ones who can make sure that this gets the attention it deserves.

We know that everyone’s busy preparing for Thanksgiving. But if you’re able to take fifteen minutes or less (maybe while your pumpkin pie is cooking) you can make a critical difference in spreading the word to Congress.

Click here to send a quick email to your Congressperson urging them to cosponsor this critically important bill.

If you’d like to learn more about the Global Security Priorities Act by watching a quick homemade video, visit 2FP’s November Priorities Campaign.

In a recent Rolling Stone piece, Bono talked about “vision over visibility” — the urgent need “to look past what you can see in favor of what can be.”

Working toward a nuclear weapons free world will take vision.  But reminding Congress that the first step toward that vision needs to start now?  That only takes fifteen minutes.  And one click . . . right here.

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This post was published on Sojourners God’s Politics Blog in November of 2009.

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Posted in Take Action |