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abolition-usa-digest       Sunday, July 2 2000       Volume 01 : Number 332




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Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2000 17:07:42 +1000
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) Aust Organisations Solidarity with Vandenburg NMD Vigil

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIAN PEACE COMMITTEE
PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT-WESTERN AUSTRALIA
ANTI BASES COALITION
PAX CHRISTI NSW

SOLIDARITY WITH VANDENBERG AFB NMD VIGIL

Dear Participants in the vigil at Vandenberg Airforce Base on the week
leading to the July 7 test of the National Missile Defence System,

FOE Australia, PND-WA, the Australian Peace Committee, The Anti-Bases
Coalition, and Pax Christi NSW wish to declare their solidarity with your
vigil and protest against the July 7 test of the National Missile Defence
(NMD) system.

Yesterday morning at 9.30am, the Australian Senate passed a resolution in
which it urged the US government not to proceed with a national missile
defence system.

The current national missile defence proposal and indeed, any proposal for
ballistic missile defence, would be strategically destabilizing, costly,
and would in all probability fail to deliver the security it promises to
the American people, while putting the rest of the world, as well as the
US, at an increased risk of nuclear exchange.

The UN Secretary General, the European Union, Germany, France, Sweden, the
New Agenda Coalition, and the Non-Aligned movement have all spoken out
strongly against this proposal.

It is urgent that all governments, as many have already done, speak out
against a weapons proposal that may re- ignite the nuclear arms race with
no real security advantage whatsoever to those who deploy it.
We wish you every success in your vigil.

John Hallam, Friends of the Earth Australia
Jo Vallentine, People for Nuclear Disarmament, W.A.,
Irene Gale AM, Australian Peace Committee,
Dennis Doherty, Pax Christi NSW
Hannah Middleton, Anti-Bases Coalition, NSW,



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Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2000 16:52:37 +1000
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) SAY NO TO NMD - TEST PLANNED JULY 7

Please forward this message to anyone you know that might act on it.

JULY 7 TEST OF 'SON OF STAR WARS'
=46AX CLINTON, COHEN, NOW - SAY NO TO NMD.
Clinton [phone], Cohen on [phone].

CONTAINS:
Sample letter and Appeal to fax Cohen, Clinton
Press Releases from WSLF, Vandenburg Action Coalition.

Dear All,

Today in front of the Vandenberg Airforce base in the US, activists have
commenced a peaceful vigil against the planned 7 July test of the National
Missile Defence system.(NMD)

Non-violent civil disobediance is planned for the day of the test itself,
and it is hoped that as a result the test will be disrupted or delayed.

Ballistic Missile Defence, (BMD) or the specific proposal now under
consideration by Clinton known as National Missile Defence (NMD), is
essentially the continuation of 'Star Wars'.

The current NMD proposal will in all probability not work, is designed to
meet a nonexistent threat, and potentially may re-ignite the arms race,
setting at nought the obligations of both the US and Russia to the 'total
and unequivocal' elimination of their nuclear arsenals, embodied in the
final declaration of the NPT Review Conference.

The US secretary General, the European Union, Portugal, Sweden, Germany,
=46rance, and a  coalition of nations known as the New Agenda Coalition (who
effectively have the support of of the overwhelming majority of countries
in the world), have all expressed grave concern over the NMD proposal.

Russia and China have expressed extreme opposition and say it will create a
new arms race. Russia has threatened to tear up nuclear arms control
agreements if the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty is broken to allow NMD to
proceed.

The Australian Senate voted a motion against NMD on Thursday Morning at
9.30 am (Canberra Time)

President Clinton and Defence Secy Cohen will be making a decision on NMD
within a few weeks.

If you think,  as most of the world does, that NMD is a dangerous delusion,
please fax President Clinton and US Defence Secretary William Cohen now,
and let them know that you don't want NMD or BMD.

If you are in the US, please also contact your congressperson and let them
know that you don't want NMD.

If, like me, you're not in the US, you can still fax president Clinton on
[phone], and ask that the US not deploy BMD.  You could also fax
Defence Secretary Cohen on [phone].

IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE US YOU SHOULD ALSO LET YOUR MINISTER OF FOREIGN
AFFAIRS KNOW THAT YOU WANT YOUR GOVERNMENT TO TAKE A STAND AGAINST NMD.

IF YOU LIVE IN A G8 COUNTRY (Which includes not only US but Russia, UK,
=46rance, Germany, Japan) ASK YOUR MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OR HEAD OF
STATE TO LET THE US KNOW YOUR COUNTRY IS CONCERNED AT US NMD PLANS AT THE
COMING G 8 SUMMIT IN OKINAWA.

In the meantime, whether you live in the US or elsewhere, you are urged to
fax Clinton and Cohen before July 7 to say you don't want NMD.  You should
also try to fax candidates Bush and Gore.

You should also visit the 'Dont Blow it' website at
 http://DontBlowit.org.
from which you can send the president a free e-postcard.


I am enclosing:

1)A sample letter to Clinton/Cohen.

2) Press Releases from the Vandenburg Action Coalition and WSLF.

Happy faxing!


1) Sample letter to Clinton and Cohen

1)SAMPLE LETTER FOR ESP US FOLKS,  TO SEND TO BILL CLINTON, WILLIAM S.
COHEN, MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, BUSH, GORE, AND RELEVANT CONGRESSIONAL
SUBCOMMITTEES.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, 1-202-456-2461,

SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT 1-202-647-6047

SECRETARY FOR DEFENCE, WILLIAM S. COHEN 1-703-695-1149
cc
George Bush
Al Gore

Dear President Clinton, William Cohen, Madeleine Albright, and Presidential
candidates,

I am writing to urge you not to proceed with proposals for a national
ballistic missile defence system.  Missile defence schemes respond to a
nonexistent or exaggerated threat,  are not the solution to real threats,
make the rest of the US's security environment less safe, sabotage nuclear
disarmament efforts to which the US is legally committed along with the
rest of the world, and show contempt for the opinions of US allies and the
rest of the world.

At the recent NPT Review Conference, the US together with 187 other
countries, signed a final declaration that commits it to an unequivocal
undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of its nuclear arsenal.
Plans to deploy a missile defence system threaten that vital goal, to which
the US is legally committed.

At the very same conference, the UN Secretary General, and representatives
of Russia, China, the UK, France, Sweden, the European community, the New
Agenda Coalition and the Non- aligned movement have all expressed strongly
that they believe the ABM treaty is the cornerstone of global strategic
stability. They do not think it should be modified to allow a missile
defence system,  still less abrogated unilaterally.  On your recent
European trip, leaders of Europe and Russia have made the same point.
America simply cannot ignore the strongly repeated opinion of the whole
world, that the ABM treaty should not be modified to permit BMD.

=46urthermore:

1)The threat that the national missile defence system is supposed to
address, namely that of missile - equipped  so- called  'rogue states' is
in all likelihood, nonexistent.

2) A  state that really wished to inflict serious damage on the US would
probaby rather smuggle a nuclear explosive device into a US city by means
that are more reliable and more difficult to trace than missiles.

3)There are serious doubts as to whether this system can work at all, or as
to whether any missile defence system can ever work.  The problems posed
even by relatively simple decoys are probably technically insoluble.

4)National (and theatre) missile defence schemes are unsustainably costly,
and cost estimates are likely to rise without limit.

Instead of pursuing missile defence, it is vital that the US  focus on real
solutions to global  strategic security.  The highest priorities have to be
the elimination of as many warheads as possible under any START-III
agreement with Russia, and  the removal of  strategic missile forces from
high alert status as advocated by the Canberra Commission, subsequent UN
resolutions and the final NPT declaration.

In this respect, the commitment of Candidate Bush to deep cuts in warhead
numbers and to reductions in alert status are worthy of support.
Commitments to costly and dangerous missile defence schemes are worthy only
of opposition.

Yours Sincerely,
Signed
=2E...

2) Press Releases

=46OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30, 2000

                                      .  Vandenberg Action Coalition  .
                                  .  Resource Center for Nonviolence  .

for more information contact:
    Peter Lumsdaine  [phone] /  [e-mail]  through July 3,
[phone]  /  [e-mail] July 4 and early July 5,
[phone] from July 5 on
    Tracie De Angelis [phone] through July 4;  [e-mail]


   "Vieques west" looms for pivotal Star Wars missile test July 7:

                   PROTESTORS VOW TO INVADE PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE SECURITY
                                         ZONES,   DISRUPT KEY NMD LAUNCH

    *  "The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a
widening between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' ... military forces have
evolved to protect national interests and investments - both military and
economic.    ... [the] U.S. Space Command:  dominating the space dimension
of
military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment.  Integrating
Space Forces into warfighting across the full spectrum of conflict."   -  '
Vision for 2020 ' (1998 U.S. Space Command document assembled under General
Howell M. Estes III)



     (Vandenberg AFB, California)   An international alliance of peace and
global justice activists vowed today to carry the "spirit of Seattle and
Vieques" into the brushy coastal security zones of Vandenberg Air Force Base
to disrupt a pivotal "Star Wars" or "National Missile Defense" (NMD) flight
test scheduled for July 7.  Those planning to take on the physical and legal
risks of backcountry civil disobedience at Vandenberg include dissidents
from
China, Russia, Great Britain and the United States.
    Organizers involved in planning the recent Seattle and Washington DC
upheavels against corporate globalization, local residents from California's
central coast, and  veterans of  an historic 1983 backcountry showdown at
this west coast missile base have banded together in the Vandenberg Action
Coalition, backed by the endorsement of  the long-established national Peace
Action organization (membership 78,000) and the Global Network Against
Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.  The Resource Center for Nonviolence
(founded in 1976) and the Casa Guadalupe Catholic Worker House, just north
of
Vandenberg, are also involved;  and a local World War II veteran has offered
his nearby house and farmland as a base camp for the civil resistance teams.
    Activists say that - much like similar actions at Vieques in Puerto Rico
this year, at Kwajalein Atoll in 1982 and 1996, at Cape Canaveral in 1987,
and at Vandenberg itself in 1983 - small teams of nonviolent resisters will
clandestinely hike into the rugged launch-security zones of the base by July
7 to block flight testing of the Star Wars/NMD system, which they denounce
as
"a defensively-wrapped Trojan Horse of offensive global terror and a tool of
nuclear first-strike warfare."
    "We are going to rip the mask of lies off of this cleverly camouflaged
offensive Star Wars program," declared Coalition spokespeople Peter
Lumsdaine
and Tracie DeAngelis, "and we will confront the New World Order's space-age
missile power with what Gandhi and Martin Luther King called the
'soul-power'
of nonviolent direct action -
re-occupying the backcountry, putting ourselves at risk near the launch
point
to stand in the way of this these global war machines and denounce the
continued military theft of indigenous lands, from California to the South
Pacific.  The U.S. Space Command's
little-known plan for global domination, expressed in their own document
'Visi
on for 2020', must be exposed and stopped."
    Vandenberg's intercontinental test missiles, including a Minuteman ICBM
slated to be used the July 7 test, are fired at Kwajalein - the Earth's
largest coral atoll - which is occupied by the U.S. military, despite years
of protests and nonviolent resistance actions by the indigenous Marshallese
people who once lived around the South Pacific island ring.  The new NMD
interceptor missile is scheduled to be launched from Kwajalein Atoll on July
7, aimed to collide with Vandenberg's Minuteman.  Vandenberg Air Force Base
itself is built on the traditional lands of California's Chumash Indians,
who
were almost exterminated by European forces in previous centuries, but whose
descendents still live in the area, near Point Conception, which they call
the Western Gate - the bridge to the afterlife.
    The Vandenberg Action Coalition has stated that they oppose the NMD/Star
Wars project and related space warfare programs because these military
technologies will facilitate the use of the Pentagon's devastating offensive
weaponry against movements and nations that resist the 'New World Order' of
corporate globalization, while simultaneously igniting a perilous new
nuclear
arms race.  "Star Wars/NMD weapons are not being built to stop an attack on
the United States but to make sure that the U.S government and corporate
leadership can securely launch a 'conventional' or nuclear
first-strike against any country on Earth" said Lumsdaine and De Angelis.
The Coalition denounces the forced relocation of Kwajalein Atoll's
indigenous
people and calls for the U.S. Space Command to respect the traditional land
rights of  the Marshallese and Chumash peoples.
    Coalition activists will also gather at noon on July 1 for a  legal
protest vigil at Vandenberg's main gate, less than a week before the test
launch resistance action.  They plan a public educational event on Hiroshima
Day (August 5), and a larger backcountry mass resistance action on October
7.
   Vandenberg is the largest U.S. Space Command facility in the world, with
a
55-mile land boundary, and Coalition spokespeople believe that their
resistance teams will be able to clandestinely slip into the rugged
backcountry.  Military secrecy and security regulations require that large
areas of the base be cleared of all unauthorized people before a launch
countdown can proceed.  Futhermore, missile exhaust can endanger people near
the launch point and accidental launch explosions can blast shrapnel,
burning
debris and super-heated toxic gasses for more than a mile in all directions.
    The nonviolent resistance teams may make their presence in these areas
known by the use of banners, flares, balloons, noise or night-time
flashlights, while avoiding capture for as long as possible.   Some likely
participants are veterans of similar actions that disrupted base operations
in the 1980s.  Others have emerged from the clouds of peppper spray and
rubber bullets at recent Washington DC and Seattle globalization protests
with a renewed determination to confront what Lumsdaine calls "the military
enforcement wing of a slowly crumbling corporate world order, its space-age
global web of counterinsurgency terror and thermonuclear brinkmanship."

                                                       -  30  -


=46or more information contact:
 [see detailed contact information at the top of this news release]
  Peter Lumsdaine  [phone];  [e-mail]   OR   [e-mail]
  Tracie De Angelis [phone];  [e-mail]


 WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION
 1440 Broadway, Suite 500 Oakland, CA 94612
 Tel [phone]  E-mail [e-mail]

 For immediate release: July 1, 2000
 Contact: Jacqueline Cabasso or Andrew Lichterman [phone]

 WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION STATEMENT ON BMD,
 NATIONAL SECURITY AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

  Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA -- The proposed US Ballistic Missile
Defense (BMD) system blocks nuclear arms reductions and threatens to spur
new arms races.  BMD, like =93Stockpile Stewardship,=94  is fundamentally
incompatible with nuclear disarmament.  This simple fact is often obscured
in a blizzard of technical minutia and political gobbledygook.  But you
don=92t have to be an expert to understand that the best (and possibly only)
way to prevent nuclear war is to get rid of nuclear weapons.  And you don=92=
t
have to be an expert to understand that the current US concept of national
security if not sustainable.  Security cannot be premised on the constant
threat of overwhelming bloodshed and destruction.  Instead it must be
redefined in human and ecological terms.       =20

         Western States Legal Foundation calls for cancellation of the July
7 interceptor test from Vandenberg Air Force Base and termination of the
BMD program and follow-on plans for space-based weapons systems.  Instead,
we call on the U.S. government -- without further delay -- to seek and
accept sweeping reductions in both strategic (long-range) and tactical
(short-range) weapons, and together with Russia to take all weapons off
hair-trigger alert so that Armageddon is no longer the push of a button
away.  Further, we call on the US to initiate multilateral negotiations on
the framework for a nuclear-weapon-free-world.  These are the necessary and
appropriate first steps toward nuclear sanity and real global security.

 Most Americans have no idea that their government continues to brandish
nuclear weapons as the ultimate =93big stick.=94 But every government knows
that a nuclear threat implicitly backs up every US or US-led military
action anywhere in the world. More than 10 years after the end of the Cold
War, US Trident submarines continue to patrol the world=92s oceans, armed
with thousands of the most deadly weapons every designed, ready to launch
them within 15 minutes. Thousands more land-based =93strategic=94 missiles a=
re
ready to launch within 2 minutes.  And approximately 150 US =93tactical=94
nuclear weapons are deployed in NATO countries.

 Presidential Decision Directive-60 (PDD-60), signed by President Clinton
in December 1997, recommitted the US to nuclear weapons as the
=93cornerstone=94 of its national security for the foreseeable future and
reaffirmed the US policies of threatened first use and threatened massive
retaliation.  Over the past decade the US has threatened the use of nuclear
weapons against Libya (April 1996), North Korea (July 1994) and Iraq (1991
and 1998).

         The US is planning to spend over $4.5 billion a year over the next
decade on nuclear weapons research, development, testing and production; an
amount, in constant dollars, well above the annual Cold War spending
average of $3.7 billion for directly comparable activities. Through the
misleadingly-named =93Stockpile Stewardship=94 program, new nuclear weapons
facilities of unprecedented sophistication are being built, a new
generation of nuclear scientists is being trained, and nuclear weapons
design and production is going forward. Under Stockpile Stewardship,
modifications or upgrades  in some instances including enhanced military
capabilities -- are planned for every weapon type in the US arsenal. This
new round of high-tech research and development -- the =93price=94 exacted b=
y
the nuclear weapons labs for their acquiescence to the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty --  is lending renewed credibility to the threatened use of
nuclear weapons, and is leading towards the development and production of
weapon-types that are more, rather than less likely to be used in the post
Cold War world.=20

 Moreover, some Stockpile Stewardship facilities have applications for
ballistic missile defense systems and other kinds of high-tech weaponry.=20
This technology overlap is of increasing concern as parts of the Stockpile
Stewardship technology base are used for many different types of weapons
programs.  According to one Air Force planning document: =93The technology
base required to meet future space weapon needs must be developed and
matured today if it is to be available for future warfighter needs.=94

 The US Space Command Vision for 2020 contemplates =93dominating the space
dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment...
Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilties across the full
spectrum of conflict.=94  The Pentagon=92s Joint Vision 2020 contemplates =
=93the
creation of a force that is dominant across the full spectrum of military
operations  persuasive in peace, decisive in war, preeminent in any form of
conflict.=94
        =20
 It is only within this broader context of current and emerging US national
security policy and current and planned technology development that the
internationally dangerous and destabilizing effects of the impending
decision to deploy a BMD system can be fully understood.

 Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF) is a non-profit, public interest
organization founded in 1982, which monitors and analyzes US nuclear
weapons programs and policies with a focus on the national nuclear weapons
laboratories.  WSLF recognizes that nuclear weapons affect the environment,
the economy, the role of violence in society, and democracy itself.  Rather
than enhancing our =93national=94 security, nuclear weapons threaten our
fundamental human security.  WSLF seeks to abolish nuclear weapons, compel
open public environmental review of nuclear technologies, and ensure
appropriate management of nuclear waste. Grounded in nonviolence and rooted
in both international and environmental law, the principle guiding WSLF=92s
activities is democratization of decision making affecting nuclear weapons
and related technologies. WSLF is a founding member of the Abolition 2000
Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, and its US affiliate, the US
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.




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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 21:39:46 -0400
From: Ellen Thomas <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: (abolition-usa) US CAMPAIGN TO ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS UPDATE

- --=====================_21196440==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"


>REMINDER: If your group received a yellow booklet but hasn't
>yet sent in your endorsement form, please do so NOW!  (If you don't know
>what I'm talking about, send me an e-mail.)

I haven't the foggiest whether I've filled out this form.  Do you know?

Ellen Thomas
Proposition One Committee
PO Box 27217, Washington DC 20038
202-462-0757 -- fax [phone]
[e-mail]  --  http://prop1.org

                         ***

                    BAN AND BURY ALL RADIOACTIVE BOMBS
                          * depleted uranium, fission, neutron *

       Online Petition - http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html
 Write Letter to Congress about HR-2545 - http://prop1.org/prop1/letter.htm
Depleted uranium keeps on killing!: http://[e-mail]/2000/du/dulv.htm
                      NucNews: http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm

- --=====================_21196440==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"

<html><div>>REMINDER: If your group received a yellow booklet but
hasn't</div>
<div>>yet sent in your endorsement form, please do so NOW!  (If
you don't know</div>
<div>>what I'm talking about, send me an e-mail.)  </div>
<br>
<div>I haven't the foggiest whether I've filled out this form.  Do
you know?</div>
<br>

Ellen Thomas<br>
Proposition One Committee <br>
PO Box 27217, Washington DC 20038<br>
202-462-0757 -- fax [phone]<br>
[e-mail]  --
<a href="http://prop1.org/" eudora="autourl">http://prop1.org</a><br>
<br>
<font face="Courier, Courier">
***<br>
<br>
</font>
BAN AND BURY ALL RADIOACTIVE BOMBS<br>

* depleted uranium, fission, neutron *<br>
<br>
       Online Petition -
<a href="http://www.petitiononline.com/prop1/petition.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.PetitionOnline.com/prop1/petition.html</a><br>
 Write Letter to Congress about HR-2545 -
<a href="http://prop1.org/prop1/letter.htm" eudora="autourl">http://prop1.org/prop1/letter.htm</a>
<br>
Depleted uranium keeps on killing!: <a href="http://[e-mail]/2000/du/dulv.htm" eudora="autourl">http://[e-mail]/2000/du/dulv.htm</a><br>
   <font size=2>                   NucNews: </font><a href="http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm" eudora="autourl">http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm</a><br>
</html>

- --=====================_21196440==_.ALT--


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 To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "[e-mail]"
 with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message.
 For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send
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------------------------------

Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2000 19:57:23 -0400
From: Ellen Thomas <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) NucNews 00/07/01 - An important message for subscribers

- --=====================_21196265==_.ALT
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

As we begin the second half of 2000, I'm asking you to help me improve NucNews
Archives.  Please take a couple of minutes to read the following:

(1) NucNews Archives Online files for June 21-25, 2000, which we've been
compiling on the Proposition One website, have been uploaded at
http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm.  We will be adding more stories to these
files as soon as I've processed the many messages received from subscribers.
We really appreciate receiving articles, but have decided the information could
be archived much more quickly if you will send them to
mailto:[e-mail], which automatically posts to
http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews, rather than to [e-mail].

(3) As a subscriber to [e-mail], you should be aware of the
capabilities of OneList (http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews).  You can
decide whether you want to merely post messages for archival purposes ("web
only"), receive a digest of everyone's postings ("daily digest"), or receive
individual e-mails from other subscribers.  If you don't want to receive
emails, it's easy to arrange, either by yourself, or by replying to this
message asking me to make the change for you. At the moment there are only
three of us contributing regularly to mailto:[e-mail]. I hope it
will
become a much richer, more timely, reliable, and inclusive collection of
information.

(4) Please only post news articles or official reports about "nuclear" --
weapons, power, waste, business, science, conversion, etc --  at
mailto:[e-mail] (http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews).  Please
include publication name, date, title, author, and URL or other address for
verification purposes. Please don't use this site for conversations!!  Articles
which can't be verified will be deleted.

(5) The archives at http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm include some
non-nuclear stories which we believe are important enough, historically, to be
included in our personal archive.  All stories are placed under categories
(search for "--- " to skip from one category to the next).  Starting with June,
2000 we've revised the format of these files so all the NUCLEAR stories are at
the beginning, followed by MILITARY (by country), followed by OTHER, which
includes activist bulletins, and news about alternative energy, environment,
imf/world bank, genetics, etc.  Prior to June, 2000, the categories were listed
alphabetically.

I hope this makes sense,  is useful, and inspires you to use the OneList
archives for storing articles and reports so we all can collect and share the
news.  Thanks to the OneList inventors for providing this marvelous service.
(You can also get into NucNews through egroups.com.)

Ellen Thomas


     ___________________________________________________

  Today's Newspapers and Archives: http://prop1.org/nucnews/briefslv.htm
Interactive Archives (since 6/10/00): http://www.onelist.com/archive/NucNews

     Subscribe to NucNews:  mailto:[e-mail] (NucNews-Subscribe)
           Submit URL/Article: mailto:[e-mail]
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Excellent e-mail news resources:

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Downwinders - [e-mail] - http://www.downwinders.org/
EnviroNews - [e-mail] - http://www.envirolink.org/environews
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Radbull (Radiation Bulletin) mailto:[e-mail]

Quick Route to U.S. Congress:

http://www.senate.gov/senators/index.cfm (Senators' Websites)
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http://thomas.loc.gov/ (Pending Legislation - Search)

Presidential Candidates' Websites:

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Pat Buchanan - http://www.buchananreform.com/index.asp
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Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 12:36:26 +1000
From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign <[e-mail]>
Subject: (abolition-usa) SAY NO TO NMD - TEST PLANNED JULY 7

Please forward this message to anyone you know that might act on it.

JULY 7 TEST OF 'SON OF STAR WARS'
=46AX CLINTON, COHEN, NOW - SAY NO TO NMD.
Clinton [phone], Cohen on [phone].

CONTAINS:
Sample letter and Appeal to fax Cohen, Clinton
Press Releases from WSLF, Vandenburg Action Coalition.

Dear All,

Today in front of the Vandenberg Airforce base in the US, activists have
commenced a peaceful vigil against the planned 7 July test of the National
Missile Defence system.(NMD)

Non-violent civil disobediance is planned for the day of the test itself,
and it is hoped that as a result the test will be disrupted or delayed.

Ballistic Missile Defence, (BMD) or the specific proposal now under
consideration by Clinton known as National Missile Defence (NMD), is
essentially the continuation of 'Star Wars'.

The current NMD proposal will in all probability not work, is designed to
meet a nonexistent threat, and potentially may re-ignite the arms race,
setting at nought the obligations of both the US and Russia to the 'total
and unequivocal' elimination of their nuclear arsenals, embodied in the
final declaration of the NPT Review Conference.

The US secretary General, the European Union, Portugal, Sweden, Germany,
=46rance, and a  coalition of nations known as the New Agenda Coalition (who
effectively have the support of of the overwhelming majority of countries
in the world), have all expressed grave concern over the NMD proposal.

Russia and China have expressed extreme opposition and say it will create a
new arms race. Russia has threatened to tear up nuclear arms control
agreements if the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty is broken to allow NMD to
proceed.

The Australian Senate voted a motion against NMD on Thursday Morning at
9.30 am (Canberra Time)

President Clinton and Defence Secy Cohen will be making a decision on NMD
within a few weeks.

If you think,  as most of the world does, that NMD is a dangerous delusion,
please fax President Clinton and US Defence Secretary William Cohen now,
and let them know that you don't want NMD or BMD.

If you are in the US, please also contact your congressperson and let them
know that you don't want NMD.

If, like me, you're not in the US, you can still fax president Clinton on
[phone], and ask that the US not deploy BMD.  You could also fax
Defence Secretary Cohen on [phone].

IF YOU ARE NOT IN THE US YOU SHOULD ALSO LET YOUR MINISTER OF FOREIGN
AFFAIRS KNOW THAT YOU WANT YOUR GOVERNMENT TO TAKE A STAND AGAINST NMD.

IF YOU LIVE IN A G8 COUNTRY (Which includes not only US but Russia, UK,
=46rance, Germany, Japan) ASK YOUR MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OR HEAD OF
STATE TO LET THE US KNOW YOUR COUNTRY IS CONCERNED AT US NMD PLANS AT THE
COMING G 8 SUMMIT IN OKINAWA.

In the meantime, whether you live in the US or elsewhere, you are urged to
fax Clinton and Cohen before July 7 to say you don't want NMD.  You should
also try to fax candidates Bush and Gore.

You should also visit the 'Dont Blow it' website at
 http://DontBlowit.org.
from which you can send the president a free e-postcard.


I am enclosing:

1)A sample letter to Clinton/Cohen.

2) Press Releases from the Vandenburg Action Coalition and WSLF.

Happy faxing!


1) Sample letter to Clinton and Cohen

1)SAMPLE LETTER FOR ESP US FOLKS,  TO SEND TO BILL CLINTON, WILLIAM S.
COHEN, MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, BUSH, GORE, AND RELEVANT CONGRESSIONAL
SUBCOMMITTEES.

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, 1-202-456-2461,

SECRETARY OF STATE MADELEINE ALBRIGHT 1-202-647-6047

SECRETARY FOR DEFENCE, WILLIAM S. COHEN 1-703-695-1149
cc
George Bush
Al Gore

Dear President Clinton, William Cohen, Madeleine Albright, and Presidential
candidates,

I am writing to urge you not to proceed with proposals for a national
ballistic missile defence system.  Missile defence schemes respond to a
nonexistent or exaggerated threat,  are not the solution to real threats,
make the rest of the US's security environment less safe, sabotage nuclear
disarmament efforts to which the US is legally committed along with the
rest of the world, and show contempt for the opinions of US allies and the
rest of the world.

At the recent NPT Review Conference, the US together with 187 other
countries, signed a final declaration that commits it to an unequivocal
undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of its nuclear arsenal.
Plans to deploy a missile defence system threaten that vital goal, to which
the US is legally committed.

At the very same conference, the UN Secretary General, and representatives
of Russia, China, the UK, France, Sweden, the European community, the New
Agenda Coalition and the Non- aligned movement have all expressed strongly
that they believe the ABM treaty is the cornerstone of global strategic
stability. They do not think it should be modified to allow a missile
defence system,  still less abrogated unilaterally.  On your recent
European trip, leaders of Europe and Russia have made the same point.
America simply cannot ignore the strongly repeated opinion of the whole
world, that the ABM treaty should not be modified to permit BMD.

=46urthermore:

1)The threat that the national missile defence system is supposed to
address, namely that of missile - equipped  so- called  'rogue states' is
in all likelihood, nonexistent.

2) A  state that really wished to inflict serious damage on the US would
probaby rather smuggle a nuclear explosive device into a US city by means
that are more reliable and more difficult to trace than missiles.

3)There are serious doubts as to whether this system can work at all, or as
to whether any missile defence system can ever work.  The problems posed
even by relatively simple decoys are probably technically insoluble.

4)National (and theatre) missile defence schemes are unsustainably costly,
and cost estimates are likely to rise without limit.

Instead of pursuing missile defence, it is vital that the US  focus on real
solutions to global  strategic security.  The highest priorities have to be
the elimination of as many warheads as possible under any START-III
agreement with Russia, and  the removal of  strategic missile forces from
high alert status as advocated by the Canberra Commission, subsequent UN
resolutions and the final NPT declaration.

In this respect, the commitment of Candidate Bush to deep cuts in warhead
numbers and to reductions in alert status are worthy of support.
Commitments to costly and dangerous missile defence schemes are worthy only
of opposition.

Yours Sincerely,
Signed
=2E...

2) Press Releases

=46OR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 30, 2000

                                      .  Vandenberg Action Coalition  .
                                  .  Resource Center for Nonviolence  .

for more information contact:
    Peter Lumsdaine  [phone] /  [e-mail]  through July 3,
[phone]  /  [e-mail] July 4 and early July 5,
[phone] from July 5 on
    Tracie De Angelis [phone] through July 4;  [e-mail]


   "Vieques west" looms for pivotal Star Wars missile test July 7:

                   PROTESTORS VOW TO INVADE PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE SECURITY
                                         ZONES,   DISRUPT KEY NMD LAUNCH

    *  "The globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a
widening between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' ... military forces have
evolved to protect national interests and investments - both military and
economic.    ... [the] U.S. Space Command:  dominating the space dimension
of
military operations to protect U.S. interests and investment.  Integrating
Space Forces into warfighting across the full spectrum of conflict."   -  '
Vision for 2020 ' (1998 U.S. Space Command document assembled under General
Howell M. Estes III)



     (Vandenberg AFB, California)   An international alliance of peace and
global justice activists vowed today to carry the "spirit of Seattle and
Vieques" into the brushy coastal security zones of Vandenberg Air Force Base
to disrupt a pivotal "Star Wars" or "National Missile Defense" (NMD) flight
test scheduled for July 7.  Those planning to take on the physical and legal
risks of backcountry civil disobedience at Vandenberg include dissidents
from
China, Russia, Great Britain and the United States.
    Organizers involved in planning the recent Seattle and Washington DC
upheavels against corporate globalization, local residents from California's
central coast, and  veterans of  an historic 1983 backcountry showdown at
this west coast missile base have banded together in the Vandenberg Action
Coalition, backed by the endorsement of  the long-established national Peace
Action organization (membership 78,000) and the Global Network Against
Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.  The Resource Center for Nonviolence
(founded in 1976) and the Casa Guadalupe Catholic Worker House, just north
of
Vandenberg, are also involved;  and a local World War II veteran has offered
his nearby house and farmland as a base camp for the civil resistance teams.
    Activists say that - much like similar actions at Vieques in Puerto Rico
this year, at Kwajalein Atoll in 1982 and 1996, at Cape Canaveral in 1987,
and at Vandenberg itself in 1983 - small teams of nonviolent resisters will
clandestinely hike into the rugged launch-security zones of the base by July
7 to block flight testing of the Star Wars/NMD system, which they denounce
as
"a defensively-wrapped Trojan Horse of offensive global terror and a tool of
nuclear first-strike warfare."
    "We are going to rip the mask of lies off of this cleverly camouflaged
offensive Star Wars program," declared Coalition spokespeople Peter
Lumsdaine
and Tracie DeAngelis, "and we will confront the New World Order's space-age
missile power with what Gandhi and Martin Luther King called the
'soul-power'
of nonviolent direct action -
re-occupying the backcountry, putting ourselves at risk near the launch
point
to stand in the way of this these global war machines and denounce the
continued military theft of indigenous lands, from California to the South
Pacific.  The U.S. Space Command's
little-known plan for global domination, expressed in their own document
'Visi
on for 2020', must be exposed and stopped."
    Vandenberg's intercontinental test missiles, including a Minuteman ICBM
slated to be used the July 7 test, are fired at Kwajalein - the Earth's
largest coral atoll - which is occupied by the U.S. military, despite years
of protests and nonviolent resistance actions by the indigenous Marshallese
people who once lived around the South Pacific island ring.  The new NMD
interceptor missile is scheduled to be launched from Kwajalein Atoll on July
7, aimed to collide with Vandenberg's Minuteman.  Vandenberg Air Force Base
itself is built on the traditional lands of California's Chumash Indians,
who
were almost exterminated by European forces in previous centuries, but whose
descendents still live in the area, near Point Conception, which they call
the Western Gate - the bridge to the afterlife.
    The Vandenberg Action Coalition has stated that they oppose the NMD/Star
Wars project and related space warfare programs because these military
technologies will facilitate the use of the Pentagon's devastating offensive
weaponry against movements and nations that resist the 'New World Order' of
corporate globalization, while simultaneously igniting a perilous new
nuclear
arms race.  "Star Wars/NMD weapons are not being built to stop an attack on
the United States but to make sure that the U.S government and corporate
leadership can securely launch a 'conventional' or nuclear
first-strike against any country on Earth" said Lumsdaine and De Angelis.
The Coalition denounces the forced relocation of Kwajalein Atoll's
indigenous
people and calls for the U.S. Space Command to respect the traditional land
rights of  the Marshallese and Chumash peoples.
    Coalition activists will also gather at noon on July 1 for a  legal
protest vigil at Vandenberg's main gate, less than a week before the test
launch resistance action.  They plan a public educational event on Hiroshima
Day (August 5), and a larger backcountry mass resistance action on October
7.
   Vandenberg is the largest U.S. Space Command facility in the world, with
a
55-mile land boundary, and Coalition spokespeople believe that their
resistance teams will be able to clandestinely slip into the rugged
backcountry.  Military secrecy and security regulations require that large
areas of the base be cleared of all unauthorized people before a launch
countdown can proceed.  Futhermore, missile exhaust can endanger people near
the launch point and accidental launch explosions can blast shrapnel,
burning
debris and super-heated toxic gasses for more than a mile in all directions.
    The nonviolent resistance teams may make their presence in these areas
known by the use of banners, flares, balloons, noise or night-time
flashlights, while avoiding capture for as long as possible.   Some likely
participants are veterans of similar actions that disrupted base operations
in the 1980s.  Others have emerged from the clouds of peppper spray and
rubber bullets at recent Washington DC and Seattle globalization protests
with a renewed determination to confront what Lumsdaine calls "the military
enforcement wing of a slowly crumbling corporate world order, its space-age
global web of counterinsurgency terror and thermonuclear brinkmanship."

                                                       -  30  -


=46or more information contact:
 [see detailed contact information at the top of this news release]
  Peter Lumsdaine  [phone];  [e-mail]   OR   [e-mail]
  Tracie De Angelis [phone];  [e-mail]


 WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION
 1440 Broadway, Suite 500 Oakland, CA 94612
 Tel [phone]  E-mail [e-mail]

 For immediate release: July 1, 2000
 Contact: Jacqueline Cabasso or Andrew Lichterman [phone]

 WESTERN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION STATEMENT ON BMD,
 NATIONAL SECURITY AND NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

  Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA -- The proposed US Ballistic Missile
Defense (BMD) system blocks nuclear arms reductions and threatens to spur
new arms races.  BMD, like =93Stockpile Stewardship,=94  is fundamentally
incompatible with nuclear disarmament.  This simple fact is often obscured
in a blizzard of technical minutia and political gobbledygook.  But you
don=92t have to be an expert to understand that the best (and possibly only)
way to prevent nuclear war is to get rid of nuclear weapons.  And you don=92=
t
have to be an expert to understand that the current US concept of national
security if not sustainable.  Security cannot be premised on the constant
threat of overwhelming bloodshed and destruction.  Instead it must be
redefined in human and ecological terms.       =20

         Western States Legal Foundation calls for cancellation of the July
7 interceptor test from Vandenberg Air Force Base and termination of the
BMD program and follow-on plans for space-based weapons systems.  Instead,
we call on the U.S. government -- without further delay -- to seek and
accept sweeping reductions in both strategic (long-range) and tactical
(short-range) weapons, and together with Russia to take all weapons off
hair-trigger alert so that Armageddon is no longer the push of a button
away.  Further, we call on the US to initiate multilateral negotiations on
the framework for a nuclear-weapon-free-world.  These are the necessary and
appropriate first steps toward nuclear sanity and real global security.

 Most Americans have no idea that their government continues to brandish
nuclear weapons as the ultimate =93big stick.=94 But every government knows
that a nuclear threat implicitly backs up every US or US-led military
action anywhere in the world. More than 10 years after the end of the Cold
War, US Trident submarines continue to patrol the world=92s oceans, armed
with thousands of the most deadly weapons every designed, ready to launch
them within 15 minutes. Thousands more land-based =93strategic=94 missiles a=
re
ready to launch within 2 minutes.  And approximately 150 US =93tactical=94
nuclear weapons are deployed in NATO countries.

 Presidential Decision Directive-60 (PDD-60), signed by President Clinton
in December 1997, recommitted the US to nuclear weapons as the
=93cornerstone=94 of its national security for the foreseeable future and
reaffirmed the US policies of threatened first use and threatened massive
retaliation.  Over the past decade the US has threatened the use of nuclear
weapons against Libya (April 1996), North Korea (July 1994) and Iraq (1991
and 1998).

         The US is planning to spend over $4.5 billion a year over the next
decade on nuclear weapons research, development, testing and production; an
amount, in constant dollars, well above the annual Cold War spending
average of $3.7 billion for directly comparable activities. Through the
misleadingly-named =93Stockpile Stewardship=94 program, new nuclear weapons
facilities of unprecedented sophistication are being built, a new
generation of nuclear scientists is being trained, and nuclear weapons
design and production is going forward. Under Stockpile Stewardship,
modifications or upgrades  in some instances including enhanced military
capabilities -- are planned for every weapon type in the US arsenal. This
new round of high-tech research and development -- the =93price=94 exacted b=
y
the nuclear weapons labs for their acquiescence to the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty --  is lending renewed credibility to the threatened use of
nuclear weapons, and is leading towards the development and production of
weapon-types that are more, rather than less likely to be used in the post
Cold War world.=20

 Moreover, some Stockpile Stewardship facilities have applications for
ballistic missile defense systems and other kinds of high-tech weaponry.=20
This technology overlap is of increasing concern as parts of the Stockpile
Stewardship technology base are used for many different types of weapons
programs.  According to one Air Force planning document: =93The technology
base required to meet future space weapon needs must be developed and
matured today if it is to be available for future warfighter needs.=94

 The US Space Command Vision for 2020 contemplates =93dominating the space
dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment...
Integrating Space Forces into warfighting capabilties across the full
spectrum of conflict.=94  The Pentagon=92s Joint Vision 2020 contemplates =
=93the
creation of a force that is dominant across the full spectrum of military
operations  persuasive in peace, decisive in war, preeminent in any form of
conflict.=94
        =20
 It is only within this broader context of current and emerging US national
security policy and current and planned technology development that the
internationally dangerous and destabilizing effects of the impending
decision to deploy a BMD system can be fully understood.

 Western States Legal Foundation (WSLF) is a non-profit, public interest
organization founded in 1982, which monitors and analyzes US nuclear
weapons programs and policies with a focus on the national nuclear weapons
laboratories.  WSLF recognizes that nuclear weapons affect the environment,
the economy, the role of violence in society, and democracy itself.  Rather
than enhancing our =93national=94 security, nuclear weapons threaten our
fundamental human security.  WSLF seeks to abolish nuclear weapons, compel
open public environmental review of nuclear technologies, and ensure
appropriate management of nuclear waste. Grounded in nonviolence and rooted
in both international and environmental law, the principle guiding WSLF=92s
activities is democratization of decision making affecting nuclear weapons
and related technologies. WSLF is a founding member of the Abolition 2000
Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons, and its US affiliate, the US
Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.




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