Text Fwd: 3rd 1,800-Ton Submarine to Begin Service Tuesday

* Image source/ caption: Korea Times, Dec. 1, 2009

'State-of-art submarine: Crew members salute from the Navy’s latest 1,800-ton KSS-II submarine, which became operational, Tuesday. The commissioning ceremony took place at the Naval Operations Command in Busan. The nation’s third Type-214 submarine was named after Ahn Jung-geun, the independence fighter who assassinated Japan’s first resident general, Hirobumi Ito, in 1909. The dieselelectric submarine was built by Hyundai Heavy Industries in cooperation with Germany’s Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft.'

Korea Times
11-30-2009 19:13
3rd 1,800-Ton Submarine to Begin Service Tuesday
By Jung Sung-ki, Staff Reporter

The Navy will begin to operate its third 1,800-ton KSS-II submarine Tuesday after 18 months of sea trials.

The commissioning ceremony will be held at the Naval Operations Command in Busan, it said in a news release.

The third Type-214 submarine was named after Ahn Jung-geun, a Korean independence fighter who assassinated Japan's first resident general, Hirobumi Ito, in 1909 in retaliation for Japan's annexation of Korea.

The diesel-electric submarine, built by Hyundai Heavy Industries under technical cooperation with Germany's Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW), is expected to play a key role in sea denial to North Korean and other hostile forces, and anti-submarine warfare, Navy officials said.

The submarine is equipped with state-of-the-art torpedoes and submarine-to-surface missiles.

It has a maximum submerged speed of 20 knots and a crew of 40. One submarine costs around $1 billion to produce.

The 65.3-meter-long submarine is equipped with Air Independent Propulsion (AIP), which improves its underwater performance and gives it stealth capability.

It can submerge to depths of up to 400 meters and carry out underwater operations for as long as two weeks.

Its operational radius reaches Guam.

The ISUS-90 integrated sensor submarine system enables operators to deal with variable information and detect up to 300 targets simultaneously.

The Navy plans to create a submarine command by 2018. To that end, the Navy will launch six more Type-214 submarines by 2018 and build indigenous 3,000-ton submarines after 2018.

gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr

Text Fwd: Five People Arrested on Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor - Disarm Now Plowshares

Text Fwd from Frank Cordaro(frank.cordaro@gmail.com) and Felice & Jack Cohen-Joppa(nukeresister@igc.org)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Felice & Jack Cohen-Joppa <nukeresister@igc.org>
Date: Mon, Nov 2, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2, 2009

Contacts :
Jackie Hudson- 360-286-9036 or jackiehudson123@Yahoo.com
Sue Ablao - 360-286-9157 or sablao1@yahoo.com

Five People Arrested on Naval Base Kitsap- Bangor
The "Disarm Now Trident Plowshares Action"

Bill "Bix" Bischel, S.J., 81, of Tacoma, Washington;
Susan Crane, 65, of Baltimore MD;
Lynne Greenwald, 60, of Bremerton, Washington;
Steve Kelly, S.J., 60, of Oakland, CA.;
Anne Montgomery RSCJ, 83, of New York, New York,

All five were arrested on Naval Base Kitsap- Bangor. They entered the
Base in the early morning hours of November 2, 2009, All Souls Day,
with the intention of calling attention to the illegality and
immorality of the existence of the Trident weapons system. They
entered thru the perimeter fence, made their way to the Strategic
Weapons Facility - Pacific ( SWFPAC) where they were able to cut
through the first chainlink fence surrounding SWFPAC, walked to and
cut the next double layered fence, which was both chain link and
barbed wire, onto the grounds of SWFPAC. As they walked onto the
grounds, they held a banner saying ŠŠ "Disarm Now Plowshares :
Trident: Illegal + Immoral", left a trail of blood and hammered on
the roadway (Trigger Ave. and Sturgeon) that are essential to the
working of the Trident weapons system, hammered on the fences around
SWFPAC and scattered sunflower seeds throughout the base. They were
then thrown to the ground face down, handcuffed and hooded and held
there for 4 hours on the wet, cold ground. They were taken, hooded,
and carried out through the very holes in the fence that they had
made, for questioning by Base security, FBI and NCIS. They refused to
give any information except their names, and were cited as of now, for
trespass and destruction of government property, given a ban and bar
letter and released.

In a joint statement, the group stated that, "The manufacture and
deployment of Trident II missiles, weapons of mass destruction, is
immoral and criminal under International Law and, therefore, under
United States law. As U.S. citizens we are responsible under the
Nuremberg Principles for this threat of first-strike terrorism hanging
over the community of nations, rich and poor. Moreover, such
planning, preparation, and deployment is a blasphemy against the
Creator of life, imaged in each human being. "

There have been approximately 100 Plowshares Nuclear Resistance
Actions worldwide since 1980. Plowshares actions are taken from Isaiah
2:4 in Old Testament (Hebrew) scripture of the Christian Bible, ³God
will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many
people. And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their
spears into pruning hooks. And nations will not take up swords against
nations, nor will they train for war anymore."

The Trident submarine base at Bangor, just 20 miles from Seattle, is
home to the largest single stockpile of nuclear warheads in the U.S.
arsenal, housing more than 2000 nuclear warheads. In November 2006,
the Natural Resources Defense Council declared that the 2,364 nuclear
warheads at Bangor are approximately 24 percent of the entire U.S.
arsenal. The Bangor base houses more nuclear warheads than China,
France, Israel, India, North Korea and Pakistan combined.

The base has been rebuilt for the deployment of the larger and more
accurate Trident D-5 missile system. Each of the 24 D-5 missiles on a
Trident submarine is capable of carrying eight of the larger 455
kiloton W-88 warheads (each warhead is about 30 times the explosive
force as the Hiroshima bomb.) The D-5 missile can also be armed with
the 100 kiloton W-76 warhead. The Trident fleet at Bangor deploys
both the 455 kiloton W-88 warhead and the 100 kiloton W-76 warhead.

xxx

Statement of the DISARM NOW PLOWSHARES

"I will purify you from the taint of all your idols. I will give you
a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart
of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my
Spirit within you and make you conform to my statutes." Ez. 36:25-27

We walk into the heart of darkness, the Naval Submarine Base
Kitsap-Bangor, housing and deploying over 2,000 nuclear warheads for
Trident submarines. By their very existence they are endangering the
environment, threatening the indiscriminate destruction of life on
earth, and depriving the hungry, homeless, and jobless of billions of
dollars that could supply human needs throughout the world.

The manufacture and deployment of Trident II missiles, weapons of mass
destruction, is immoral and criminal under international law and,
therefore, under United States law. As U.S. citizens we are
responsible under the Nuremberg Principles for this threat of
first-strike terrorism hanging over the community of nations, rich and
poor. Moreover, such planning, preparation, and deployment is a
blasphemy against the Creator of life, imaged in each human being.

We are called by Isaiah to take seriously our own responsibility to
act as citizens of the nation that subjected the civilians of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the hell of nuclear bombing and its deadly
consequences. The United States continues to research and develop
even more inhumane weapons of mass destruction.

We are called by Ezekiel to transform our own hearts and to invite all
those whose hearts are hardened by blindness, fear, and mistrust of
the ³other² to allow theirs to be transformed into "hearts of flesh:"
disarmed, compassionate, and generous.

We bring carpenters' hammers to symbolically transform these weapons
of death into material useful for homes and factories. On this day of
remembrance, All Souls Day, we bring our own blood in solidarity with
the victims of war, who are invisible to those who target them. We
bring sunflower seeds to plant the hope of new life in this violated
earth. We intend to beat swords into plowshares as one step up the
holy mountain where all nations can unite in peace.

At the beginning of the International Decade of Disarmament, we join
with the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the 2020 Vision
Campaign to abolish all nuclear weapons by that year at the latest.
Nuclear weapons can never be guardians, defenders, or upholders of
peace. They are sheathed in stainless steel and metal coverings that
conceal the evil incarnate lying within. They are filled with
death-dealing agents that tear apart humans and leave survivors
scarred for life. They leave no place for human care for the
thousands who suffer and die in agony. Nuclear weapons are a lie.
Their ³protection² is an illusion. They must be abolished.

"God will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many
peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears
into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor
will they train for war anymore.² Isaiah 2:4

Washington State
November 2, 2009

Steve Kelly, S.J.
Lynne Greenwald
Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
Susan Crane
Bill Bichsel, S.J.


xxx

November 2, 2009
Hand Delivery
Captain Mark Olsen
Commander US Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor
120 South Dewey St
Bremerton, WA 98314

YOU have been involved in the housing, deployment and threatened use
of immoral and illegal nuclear weapons on Naval Base Kitsap/Bangor.
These weapons and their delivery systems include Trident submarines,
Trident II D-5 missiles, and W-88 and W-76 nuclear warheads. These
weapons, and their delivery systems, threaten the destruction of other
nations and people and as such constitute violation of International
Law and of Ruling of the International Tribunal of Justice of 1996.

You are hereby notified that effective upon receipt of this letter
that the disarmament of all nuclear weapons at Naval Base
Kitsap/Bangor is to begin immediately and continue until all nuclear
weapons are disarmed and removed.

You are further informed that delay or failure to begin disarmament
will lead to the prosecution before the International Tribunal of
Justice of all naval and civilian personnel responsible for the delay.

This barment letter is issued for the protection and security of
people, animals, and all creation of our world.

Any compelling reason for naval or civilian exemption from prosecution
by the International Tribunal can be entered with the secretariat of
the International Tribunal.

(Address; International Tribunal, International Court of Justice, The
Hague, Netherlands)

Steve Kelly, S.J.
Lynne Greenwald
Anne Montgomery, RSCJ
Susan Crane
Bill Bichsel, S.J.

xxx

Disarm Now Plowshares Bios:

Steve Kelly, S.J. During his religious formation in our inner cities,
in Sudan, Africa, as well as refugee work in Central America following
ordination, he encountered the messiah, Jesus incarnate in the poor.
At the same time, the relevance of Jesus as a real shepherd inserting
himself between the danger of wolf or thief and the flock in his care
inspired this Jesuit to try to imitate Jesus. His current
collaboration with Catholic Workers and the Pacific Life Community
confirms the analysis that the nukes represent, just in their making,
a contemporary larceny from the poor, while the wolf, the imminent
danger of their use, demands the embodiment of Isaiah 2:4. Will that
hammering wake us, those professing faith in a loving God, from our
idolatrous slumbers?

Lynne Greenwald is the mother of three children and has worked
professionally as a Registered Nurse, Family Therapist and Social
Worker for nearly 40 years. She has also been actively involved in
the Nonviolent Peace Movement since the mid-1970s. Lynne moved to
Kitsap County in Washington State 26 years ago to join Ground Zero
Center for Nonviolent Action and to become a neighbor to families
involved with the Trident Base and other facilities in this
predominately military community. "While the existence of Trident is
obvious, the truth of Trident's nuclear threats and illegality remains
hidden. My action of conversion today is one committed out of love
for all life."

Anne Montgomery is an eighty-three year old Religious of the Sacred
Heart and former teacher in high schools and programs for dropouts and
learning disabled children. As a member of the Gulf Peace Team in
1991 and of Christian Peacemaker Teams from 1995 to 2009 she served in
Iraq and Palestine. Since 1980 she has been active in the Plowshares
movement and other forms of civil resistance to U.S. militarism,
especially nuclear weapons. Since 2005 she has also participated in
Witness Against Torture and the Free Gaza boat trip to open the port
of Gaza. She acts now to support all efforts to convert weapons of
death into resources for human life, especially for the most neglected
and oppressed of the threatened earth.

Susan Crane is the mother of two sons, and has taught at a school for
marginalized youth in California. More recently she has lived at
Jonah House, a nonviolent community in Baltimore, which speaks out
against all warmaking, and specifically nuclear weapons. Aware that we
take better care of nuclear weapons than of our nation's children, and
that we spend more than half of every federal tax dollar on warmaking
rather than human needs, she acts to transform these weapons of mass
destruction to life- giving materials.

ill Bichsel, a Tacoma native, entered the Jesuit Order in 1946 and
after studies and teaching was ordained a Jesuit in 1959. He has
served in parishes, taught in high schools, and was Dean of Students
at Gonzaga from 1963-1966. In 1969 he returned to Tacoma where he
served at St. Leo's Parish for over 7 years and then co-founded the
Tacoma Catholic Worker (Guadalupe House) which offers hospitality and
transitional housing to the homeless. The Guadalupe Community lives in
the nonviolent tradition of Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker
foundress. Bichsel still resides and serves at the Tacoma Catholic
Worker-one mile from where he was born and raised. He has served jail
and prison terms many times for his resistance to the violence of the
Trident nuclear weapon system and the violence of the S.O.A. training
at Ft. Benning, GA. He believes that unless we, the American people,
actively work to abolish nuclear weapons we as a people will continue
to threaten destruction to the global community and continue to
deprive the poor of the world of resources necessary for life.

xxx

Fact Sheet: Trident Submarine & Missile System:

Trident submarines serve as the sea based nuclear launch system of the
Air, Land, and Sea Nuclear Triad supported by the US government. The
U.S. currently has 14 nuclear-powered Trident ballistic-missile (SSBN)
submarines. Trident submarines are 560 feet in length, or nearly two
football fields. Each submarine can carry 24 submarine-launched
ballistic missiles (SLBMs) designated Trident D5 and each missile can
carry up to eight 100 kiloton nuclear warheads (about 30 times the
explosive force as the Hiroshima bomb).

The Trident D5 missile stands 44.6 feet high and originally had a
range of 4,230 nautical miles with a full load of warheads, and up to
6000+ nautical miles with a reduced load of warheads. Upgrades and
Life Extension Programs may have changed some specifications.
Warheads are either Mark-4/W76 or Mark-5/W88.

100: Number of kilotons on ONE Trident W76 warhead
455: Number of kilotons on ONE Trident W88 warhead
345,600: Total number of kilotons deployed on Trident fleet
14: Number of kilotons on atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima
150,000: Number of people killed by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima
1,028 minimum; 4,885 maximum: Number of potential "Hiroshimas" each
Trident is capable of destroying
$66,000,000: Price of ONE Trident II D5 missile
14: Number of nuclear- armed submarines the Navy wants to deploy through 2042
$60,000,000: Cost of health insurance for 60,000 children
$10,000,000,000: Annual cost of providing sanitary water to 2.4
billion people worldwide who now lack it
$59,000,000,000: Cost of building housing for 6000,000 homeless
families in the US
$170,200,000,000 (low estimate): Total cost of the ENTIRE Trident
program through year 2042

Naval Submarine Base Kitsap-Bangor is located 20 miles west of Seattle
on the deep waters of Hood Canal in Washington State. It is the home
to the largest single stockpile of nuclear warheads in the U.S.
arsenal, housing more than 2,000 nuclear warheads. This is
approximately 24% of the entire U.S. arsenal. The Bangor Base
presently houses more nuclear warheads than the countries of England,
France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea combined.

There are eight Tridents based at the Bangor Base; six operate out of
Kings Bay, GA. The Trident submarines at Bangor are likely to be used
first in any nuclear attack, either as an isolated tactical assault on
a specific site, bunker, or weapons location, or in a larger strategic
nuclear attack. The D5 missile is capable of traveling over 1,370
miles in less than 13 minutes, allowing for a US nuclear strike
anywhere on planet earth within 15 minutes.

xxx

LETHAL FORCE
by William J. Bichsel, S.J.

On November 2, 2009, All Souls Day, by the grace of God I choose to
enter the Trident Submarine Base at Bangor Washington. I wish to walk
to the idolatrous place of nuclear weapon bunkers where lethal force
is authorized to guard the hiding places of the most lethal forces in
the world. I wish to walk in solidarity with the poor of our world
who live with lethal force constantly directed against them. My
vulnerability to this lethal force is minimal compared to the lifetime
vulnerability of the condemned of our world. My compelling reason for
entering the Trident Submarine Base is to be present at this Auschwitz
place in order to witness in faith to the transforming power of Jesus'
non-violence and Resurrection which can turn hearts of stone into
hearts of flesh and compassion. At this place of global death and
hopelessness I wish to witness in faith to the life giving and
transforming power of this presence which can expel the demon of
violence from the hearts and minds of people possessed by the need for
nuclear weapons. I believe the life giving power of the Resurrection
can flow over the nuclear death machine and stop its destructive
force.

Compassion can then grow in hearts and minds of people who have been
liberated from the prison of fear and violence.

Millions upon millions of people throughout our world live with lethal
force being directed against them. Our brothers and sisters and
children live in war ravaged places where violence reigns and
starvation, disease, absence of medical resources, absence of shelter
eventually bring death. One hour from our shores in Haiti, where one
in twelve children do not reach the age of five, parents give children
mud cakes made of earth, oil, sugar and salt to diminish the effects
of hunger pains. From the Sudan to Sub Saharan Africa, mothers watch
as their infants and children become emaciated with swollen stomachs
and lifeless eyes then die. All of these lethal forces are authorized.

In the U.S., except for the poor, we have been protected and insulated
from the death sentences under which half of the earth's population
lives. The drive for security has numbed our citizens to accept
nuclear weapons as the ultimate protector of the American way of life.
In effect this choice means the acceptance of the use of nuclear
weapons if the United States considers itself threatened. The people
of the United States accept the deaths of millions of people if a
preempted strike is ordered. Thus the use of lethal force is
authorized.

Across our nation there are vast numbers of U.S. citizens who face
lethal forces directed against them which are not as immediate or
instantaneously murderous as the lethal forces directed against the
3rd world poor. In our capitalistic system there are many who will not
receive the health care, education, employment, appropriate housing
and nutrition needed to live full human lives in this culture. These
forces attack the body, soul and spirit of our citizens which
eventually bring death of the spirit and then the body. This is
especially true of one segment of our population - the mentally-ill,
who live on the streets, under bridges, in door ways, jungle camps or
in jails and prisons. They belong nowhere. They die. These lethal
forces are also authorized.

The continued possession of nuclear weapons by the United States means
that resources that could be used to divert the lethal forces that are
now killing the poor of our world will continue to be used to fuel the
killing machine.

Father Richard McSorley, S.J. has maintained that "the tap root of
violence in our society is the acceptance of nuclear weapons." We must
bend our efforts to make known the Non Proliferation Treaty Review
which will take place on May 2, 2010 at the United Nations. By our
presence we must insist that the NPT Review Committee in the very near
future organize a nuclear weapon global conference of these treaty
nations which will set a firm date for nuclear weapon abolition.

xxx

Some thoughts about going onto Naval Base Kitsap/Bangor
by Susan Crane

All Soul's Day, Nov. 2, 2009
Today in the US more and more people are coming to food pantries,
needing food for their families. The numbers of home foreclosures
increase, leaving families homeless; unemployment increases; and many,
even those with health insurance, can't get their basic health needs
met. Class size increases as teachers are laid off and dropout rates
increase. Many returning vets must struggle for benefits. States are
near bankruptcy, and our infrastructure is falling apart. And day by
day climate change threatens us all.

As a nation, we know all this. We experience it personally, and hear
it on the nightly news. But what we don't hear is that there may be
solutions to these problems. We need to look at where, as a nation, we
are allocating our resources: where do our federal tax dollars go?
Where do our brightest and best scientists find work? Where do our
idealistic and dedicated youth end up? We know that over half of
every federal tax dollar is used for warmaking. And we know that the
American people never have a chance to vote on a bond issue for the
next fighter plane or nuclear weapon. Every dollar that is used for
warmaking, killing or planning to kill other people, is a dollar that
is not used for human needs, or healing the earth.

Here in Washington state, I was thinking about the Trident submarines
which have nuclear warheads on them, and are constantly roaming the
oceans. There are 8 subs homeported here at Naval Base Kitsap/Bangor.
And each of these subs carries 24 Trident II D-5 missiles, and each
of the missiles carries multiple nuclear warheads. Some of the
warheads are 32 times the explosive heat and blast of the bomb the US
dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

The Trident subs are stealthy, and at sea their location is secret.
They can launch nuclear weapons to anywhere in the world in 15
minutes, which is a constant threat to people in other nations. Here
in the US we don't live under a threat like that.

My faith tradition teaches me that we are to love our enemies, to love
one another. Planning to kill others is not an act of
loveŠIndiscriminate killing of whole cites of people, animals and
plants is not an act of love.

Here in the northwest where the Trident subs are homeported, the land
is beautiful; the trees are aromatic; the water is healing. And I
hope that we come to our senses and experience this land we live in,
and realize that we-and people all over the earth-are brothers and
sisters. There is no "us" and "them". As individuals and as a
nation; we all have good in us; we all have a shadow side. We can all
work together if we choose to.

With hope for peace and disarmament, the five us, Steve Kelly, S.J,
Lynne Greenwald, Anne Montgomery, RSCJ, Bill Bichsel, S.J. and
myself, go to Naval Base Kitsap/Bangor on All Soul's Day. We remember
the 150 million people killed by warmaking and related consequences of
war in the last 100 years. It is in solidarity with all who live in
lethal force zones that we enter the lethal force zone on the naval
base.

We bring our own blood to pour on the missiles, nuclear weapons,
trident subs, or perhaps on the railroad tracks that carry the
weapons. We pour our blood to remind us all of the consequences of
warmaking. We bring hammers to enflesh the words of Isaiah to hammer
swords into plowshares. We bring sunflower seeds to sow to begin to
convert the base, and we bring disarmed hearts in hope of a disarmed
world. I go onto the base with the support of all at Jonah House, in
Baltimore, carrying their prayers in my hip pocket.

Text fwd: Pushing South Asia Toward the Brink

Text Informed by Bruce Gagnon on July 30, 2009

Foreign Policy In Focus
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6295
Pushing South Asia Toward the Brink
By Zia Mian | July 27, 2009


The contradictions and confusions in U.S. policy in South Asia were
on full display during Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's recent
visit to India. U.S. support for India, which centers on making
money, selling weapons, and turning a blind eye to the country's
nuclear weapons, is fatally at odds with U.S. policy and concerns
about Pakistan.

By enabling an India-Pakistan arms race, rather than focusing on
resolving the conflict and helping them make peace, the United States
is driving Pakistan toward the very collapse it fears.

America's New India

In an op-ed in The Times of India just before the start of her visit,
Clinton laid out U.S. interests in India. The first item on Clinton's
list was "the 300 million members of India's burgeoning middle
class," that she identified as "a vast new market and opportunity."

The emerging Indian middle class is large - for comparison, the
current total U.S. population is also about 300 million - and greedy
for a more American lifestyle. But the focus on India as
fundamentally a market for U.S. goods and services, and a source of
cheap labor for U.S. corporations, marks a remarkable shift. The
United States and other western countries have traditionally seen
India as the home of the desperately poor, deserving charity and
needing development. But no more. Clinton's article made no mention
of India's poor, which the World Bank recently estimated as including
over 450 million people living on less than $1.25 a day.

India is also seen as a new emerging power of the 21st century, one
that can be an ally of the United States and help it balance and
contain the rise of China. Under the Bush Administration, in 2004,
the U.S. and India signed an agreement called the "Next Steps in
Strategic Partnership." To make India a fitting strategic partner, a
senior State Department official later explained the U.S."goal is to
help India become a major world power in the 21st century," and left
no doubt what this meant, saying "we understand fully the
implications, including military implications, of that statement."

India is seeking both to modernize and expand its military forces. It
has dramatically increased its military budget, up over 34% alone
this year. India now has the 10th-highest military spending in the
world. It's becoming a major market for U.S. arms sales. U.S. weapons
makers Lockheed Martin and Boeing have already racked up deals worth
billions of dollars. But the real bonanza is still to come. India is
said to be planning to spend as much $55 billion on weapons over the
next five years.

But the big news of the Clinton visit was the announcement of an
India-U.S. Strategic Dialogue. This will include an annual formal
meeting of key officials, co-chaired by the secretary of State and
India's external affairs minister, and including on the U.S. side the
secretaries of Agriculture, Trade, Energy, Education, Finance, Health
and Human Services, Homeland Security, and others. But given the
difference in the power and range of interests of the two states,
this will be no dialogue of equals. The process is intended to align
Indian interests and policies in a wide range of areas with those of
the United States.

Nuclear India

In her press conference with India's minister of external affairs,
Clinton said, "We discussed our common vision of a world without
nuclear weapons and the practical steps that our countries can take
to strengthen the goal of nonproliferation." But there was no mention
here of India's nuclear buildup, or of the United States asking India
to slow down or to end its program. In fact, one would never guess
from Clinton's remarks that India even had a nuclear weapons program.
She seemed interested only in the prospect of U.S. sales of nuclear
reactors to India worth $10 billion or more.

India is one of perhaps only three countries still making material
for new nuclear weapons. The others are Pakistan and Israel (with
North Korea threatening to resume production). India is building a
fast-breeder reactor that is expected to begin operation in 2010 and
is outside International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. It could
increase three- to five-fold India's current capacity to make
plutonium for nuclear weapons.

India seeks to become a major nuclear power. On July 26, it launched
its first nuclear-powered submarine. India plans to deploy several of
these submarines. Last year, it carried out its first successful
underwater launch of a 700 kilometer-range ballistic missile,
Sagarika, intended for the submarine. India joins the United States,
Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China in the club of those
owning such nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered submarines. Israel is
believed to have nuclear-armed cruise missiles on diesel powered
submarines.

India is also developing an array of land-based missiles. In May
2008, it tested the 3,500 kilometer-range Agni-III missile, which was
subsequently reported to have been approved for deployment with the
army, and is working on a missile with a range of over 5,000
kilometer. In November 2008, India also tested a 600 kilometer-range
silo-based missile, Shourya. In 2009, India carried out several tests
of its cruise missile, Brahmos, which the army and navy are inducting
into service.

The U.S. silence on India's nuclear weapons and missile programs is
all the more telling, given that it was the Clinton administration
that proposed United Nations Security Council resolution 1172. In
1998, this unanimous Security Council resolution called on India and
Pakistan to "immediately stop their nuclear weapon development
programs, to refrain from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease
development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear
weapons, and any further production of fissile material for nuclear
weapons." The Bush administration ignored it. It seems the Obama
administration will too.

Pakistan v. India

Pakistan was noticeable for its near absence from Clinton's agenda in
India. It came up only in the context of the need to fight terrorism.
Forgotten was the brute fact that India and Pakistan are straining
harder than ever in their nuclear and conventional arms race. A
Pakistani diplomat responded to the Clinton visit to India by telling
The Washington Post that "What Hillary is doing there is probably
again going to start an arms race." This race drives Pakistan toward
collapse, the very thing the United States fears.

Pakistan is buying U.S. weapons as fast as it can, some paid for with
U.S. military aid, with arms sales agreements worth over $6 billion
since 2001, including for new F-16 jet-fighters. China, an old ally,
is also supplying the country with jet fighters and other weapons.
Pakistan is also boosting its nuclear program. It's building two new
reactors to make plutonium for nuclear weapons. It continues to test
both ballistic missiles and cruise missiles to carry nuclear weapons.

The principal U.S. concern about Pakistan, aside from the country
falling apart and its nuclear weapons falling into the hands of
Islamists, is the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan
and in the border areas of Pakistan. It has been telling Pakistan to
focus its military forces and strategic concerns on this battle,
which requires moving more soldiers away from the border with India.
The generals who command Pakistan's army were bound to resist such a
redeployment. They worry about the new U.S.-India strategic
relationship, and what it may mean for them when the war on the
Taliban is over and the United States no longer needs Pakistan.

The Pakistani army, which rules the country even when civilians are
in office, will not easily shift its view of India. The army and
those who lead it see the threat from India as their very reason for
being. The army has grown in size, influence, and power, to the point
where it dwarfs all other institutions in society and would lose much
if there was peace with India. But there is a personal dimension as
well. The partition of the subcontinent 62 years ago that created
Pakistan is in the living memory of many who make decisions in
Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf, who was chief of army staff
before he seized power in 1999 and ruled for nine years, was born in
India before partition. General Musharraf, along with the current
chief of army staff, General Kayani, and others in Pakistan's high
command, fought as young officers in the 1971 war against India. The
war ended with Pakistan itself partitioned, as East Pakistan became
the independent state of Bangladesh, with India's help, and 90,000
Pakistani soldiers captured by India as prisoners of war.

As Graham Usher notes in the new issue of the Middle East Report,
before becoming president, Barack Obama seemed to understand that
resolving the conflict between India and Pakistan was critical to
dealing with the problems in Afghanistan and with the Taliban. In
2007, Obama claimed "I will encourage dialogue between Pakistan and
India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir and between
Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and
develop the Pashtun border region. If Pakistan can look toward the
east with greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe that
its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the
Taliban." There is little evidence that this view has yet informed
U.S. policy.

The Reality of Pakistan

In their rush to make money and to preserve American power in the
world by crafting an alliance with India, U.S. policymakers seem to
have averted their eyes from the reality that stares them in the face
in Pakistan. In March 2009, the Director of National Intelligence
summed up the situation in Pakistan:

The government is losing authority in parts of the North-West
Frontier Province and has less control of its semi-autonomous tribal
areas: even in the more developed parts of the country, mounting
economic hardships and frustration over poor governance have given
rise to greater radicalization.Economic hardships are intense, and
the country is now facing a major balance of payments challenge.
Islamabad needs to make painful reforms to improve overall
macroeconomic stability. Pakistan's law-and-order situation is
dismal, affecting even Pakistani elites, and violence between various
sectarian, ethnic, and political groups threatens to escalate.
Pakistan's population is growing rapidly at a rate of about 2 percent
a year, and roughly half of the country's 172 million residents are
illiterate, under the age of 20, and live near or below the poverty
line.

Things have worsened since then. The Taliban is now seeking to escape
U.S. drone attacks and major assaults by the Pakistan army in the
Tribal Areas by taking refuge in the cities. There are already no-go
areas in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, where the Taliban controls
the streets. Meanwhile electricity riots have exploded in cities
across the country, with mobs attacking public buildings, blocking
highways, and damaging trains and buses. Each day seems to bring news
of some new failure of the state to provide basic social services.

The Obama administration believes that an increase in U.S. aid to
Pakistan can help solve the problem. The Kerry-Lugar bill (the
Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act) approved by the Senate in
June would triple economic aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year for
five years. But as the Congressional Research Service noted in its
recent report on Pakistan, the United States has given Pakistan about
$16.5 billion in "direct, overt U.S. aid" up to 2007. More of the
same offers little hope for change.

A basic reordering of U.S. priorities in South Asia is long overdue.
The first principle of U.S. policy in the region should be to do no
more harm. This means it has to stop feeding the fire between India
and Pakistan. Only an end to the South Asian arms race can begin to
undo the structures of fear, hostility, and violence that have
sustained the conflict in the subcontinent for so long. The search
for peace may then have at least a chance of success.


Zia Mian is a physicist with the Program on Science and Global
Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs at Princeton University and a columnist for Foreign Policy In
Focus.

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
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Text Fwd: US Nuclear Submarines In Arctic Wartime Operations Drills

* Informed in StopNATO*

US Nuclear Submarines In Arctic Wartime Operations Drills
Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:14 pm (PDT)

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53647
US Department of Defense
American Forces Press Service
March 25, 2009

Navy Submariners Participate in Arctic Ocean Exercise
By Gerry J. Gilmore

WASHINGTON – A group of Navy submariners are practicing wartime operations off the coast of northern Alaska as part of Ice Exercise 2009, the commander of the exercise said today.

Two Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarines, the USS Helena and the USS Annapolis, are participating in this year’s ICEX, said Navy Captain Greg Ott, a submariner who is also the deputy operations director for Submarine Force Command, based in Norfolk, Va.

The USS Helena is home-based in San Diego, while the USS Annapolis is home-ported in Groton, Conn.

“We’re maintaining our proficiency in arctic operations,” Ott said today during a telephone interview with American Forces Press Service.

The submariners, Ott said, are testing torpedo and sonar systems, while practicing wartime operations in an arctic environment. The exercise, he said, is slated to end in early April.
....
U.S. nuclear submarines have operated under the polar ice since 1958, Ott said, when the USS Nautilus became the first submarine to complete a submerged trip to reach the North Pole.

Arctic submarine operations are important to U.S. national defense, according to Navy documents. Accordingly, the Navy’s submarine force must be highly trained in arctic-water operations to provide and ensure access to strategic areas worldwide.

Continents of the Northern Hemisphere - Europe, Asia and North America - all share the Arctic Ocean.
===========================
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