Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Weapons Must Be Eradicated for all Our Sakes

By Desmond Tutu, The Guardian [UK] [March 4, 2013]

---- We cannot intimidate others into behaving well when we ourselves are misbehaving. Yet that is precisely what nations armed with nuclear weapons hope to do by censuring North Korea for its nuclear tests and sounding alarm bells over Iran's pursuit of enriched uranium. According to their logic, a select few nations can ensure the security of all by having the capacity to destroy all. As an Oslo conference on nuclear weapons starts, we should not accept that a 'select few nations can ensure the security of all by having the capacity to destroy all. Until we overcome this double standard - until we accept that nuclear weapons are abhorrent and a grave danger no matter who possesses them, that threatening a city with radioactive incineration is intolerable no matter the nationality or religion of its inhabitants - we are unlikely to make meaningful progress in halting the spread of these monstrous devices, let alone banishing them from national arsenals.