To mark the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, it would be quite easy to write about the challenges of being a woman in the man's world of the CIA. Lots of hand-wringing on the inequalities faced by women in the CIA (not to mention how they are portrayed in popular media), but that's just so predictable. Instead, as a testament to how far we've come, I prefer to tackle an issue that affects all of us regardless of gender -- nuclear proliferation. As a former CIA covert operations officer who specialized in nuclear counter-proliferation, I believe that this is the most urgent threat we face. As dire as the predictions are on this issue, the good news is that we are actually making progress! The recent ratification of the new START treaty demonstrates that there is real international political will to take us off the path of certain destruction by nuclear weapons if nothing is done. But, there is much work still ahead.
Let's start with the known threat: Without doubt, terrorist groups are trying to buy, build or steal a bomb. Furthermore, there is enough highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in the world to build more than 100,000 weapons, and rogue individuals are selling technology on the black market. If terrorists get hold of HEU, they could not be prevented from smuggling it into a targeted city, building a bomb and exploding it.
To my mind, the only realistic solution to this danger is to lock down all nuclear materials and eliminate all nuclear weapons in all countries: Global Zero. I am now dedicated to achieving this goal as a leader of the Global Zero movement. This movement was launched in December 2008 in Paris by an international group of 100 current and former heads-of-state, national security officials, military commanders and business, civic and faith leaders -- and in just two years has grown to 300 leaders and 400,000 citizens worldwide.
The group believes that whatever deterrent value nuclear weapons had in the Cold War is now outweighed by the dangers of proliferation and nuclear terrorism. Our international Global Zero Commission has developed a practical, step-by-step plan to eliminate all nuclear weapons through phased and verified reductions.
To build on the progress made to date, we need a worldwide public movement to make Global Zero an urgent global imperative -- and to bring all nuclear weapons countries to the table to negotiate multilateral nuclear arms reductions for the first time in history.
Young people must be on the forefront as they have been with other successful movements. That is why April 8-10 -- the anniversary of the 2010 signing of the START Treaty and President Obama's 2009 Prague speech calling for a world without nuclear weapons -- Global Zero will convene hundreds of students and young professionals for the GZ|DC Convention in Washington, DC. These young Global Zero leaders will participate in intensive leadership trainings and strategize on building the Global Zero movement.
I will be there to speak about the nuclear threat, and along her Majesty Queen Noor, we will launch Women for Global Zero -- a new initiative dedicated to engaging women from all sectors as leaders in the cause of eliminating nuclear weapons. I will do whatever I can to support the vision of a world without nuclear weapons and encourage any young person who is willing to commit him or herself to this cause to apply here to join Global Zero and attend the Convention. Now, that's something all women can celebrate.
Then again, there is that off chance that we might someday need one of those weapons to 'save the planet' etc.
Not much real hope without either a few more generations of evolution in human intelligence, and/or a very big bang that provides the necessary incentive.
There is no doubt that our species has become the most destructive species in our planets history but this destructive power pales in camparison to the destructive universal power of CHI!!!
Equality between the good & the evil..
That's about the only equality a descent American does not accept..
Thank you for your years of service to our country. Actually, more than service. Your sacrifices, dedication, risk, and courage that can not be imagined.
The article is very good in that it is raising awareness to the objectives of the organization. In any good marketing strategy, we generate awareness. Then educate (at the Convention), followed by getting those educated to effectively promote the message. And then, finally sales. In this case getting more people to buy into or subscribe to the goals of Global Zero.
This is an incredibly challenging endeavor. At first reading, I thought, "yeah right, that'll never happen". Then I remembered when I used to believe that something else would never happen. I used to believe that a President and Vice President would never commit the act of "outing" a covert CIA agent, tantamount to treason. I used to also believe that in the incredibly, unlikely case that that ever happened, surely people would go to prison. But as we know that NEVER happened.
either!
So, I guess that I ought to thank Mr. Cheney for inadvertantly restoring my faith that nuclear obliteration can be avoided and that REAL WMDs will be destroyed.
Oh, if you are reading this Special Agent Fitzpatrick, how about a press conference with a progress update. Since Libby only was only convicted of telling a fib, I have to think that the case is still open. Isn't it?
Sincerely,
WTFbush
But, will we ever really see the day, when the Big Boom goes away, genie back in the bottle, Pandora's Box closed, locked, weighted, and sunk to the bottom of some oceanic abyss, and never to be seen again? Well...probably not. But, the next-best thing is to keep the issue out in the open, and keep promoting international cooperation on the issue. Because if we don't, eventually somebody's going to insult someone else's family, or steal their crops, or commit some other gross offense, and that argument will escalate and finally be solved in a bright flash of light. Nuclear arms are just one more product of our dearly beloved military-industrial complex, tanks and jets are now sold and built around the world, and if they can build those, they can build missiles, and if they can build missiles, they can build nuclear ones...here's hoping the budget-keepers and the politicians and the scientists and the generals and everyone else concerned(that's everyone that lives in this world, in one sense) is willing to be more tolerant and civil and cooperative even if we do have our disagreements and differences and squabbles and money battles etc. Up, or down? That's the Big Decision, of the 21st century.
Thanks you so much for taking this on. Hope you are aware of the terrible price we paid for START--$184 billion for three new bomb factories at Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Kansas City of which 100 Billion is to go for new delivery systems for nuclear weapons--planes, subs and missiles. While it's true one of the critical steps to getting to global zero is to lock down loose material, etc, the most important thing we can do is stop our own proliferation here in the US, desist from star wars and missile rings around Russia and China so we can call all the parties to the table and start negotiaqtions for nuclear disarament. See model nuclear weapons treaty and proposals to phase out nuclear energy, a key proliferation factor, at www.abolition2000.org Thanks. Alice Slatger
Belgium hosts 20 weapons, Germany hosts 130, Italy hosts 50, Netherlands hosts 20, Turkey hosts 90, and UK, which is already a nuclear nation, hosts, in addition to their owns, 110 US nuclear weapons. Japan, South Korea and Bahrain are also known to host US nuclear weapons. As a first step I think the effort should be to collect all these weapons and bring them to US.
No sovereign state can survive at odds with the USA in this modern world without a few nukes, or allies with a few nukes. Notice we did not invade N Korea, but we did invade Iraq. I doubt the Iraq invasion would have happened if they had a few nukes.
Empower a woman You empower a village-a city . Eventually that spreads village to village
Its happening in some remote Afghan villages where an American has raised lots of money to
buid t schools for girls- who then educate their peers- become mid wives-helping deliver healthier
babies. and so it goes. Education IS THE KEY