DISARMAMENT QUOTES
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* "...as long as we have nuclear weapons on this earth, one could claim that no real life is actually thriving on the earth. We do not have life actualizing its fullest potential as long as there are nuclear weapons."
-- Mayor Tadatoshi AkibaOur aim is to have a universal nuclear weapons convention signed by the year 2010 and ultimately abolish all nuclear weapons by the year 2020.
-- Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba
Many people believe that the world would be a more peaceful place if there were fewer weapons. For this reason, an important component of even the earliest peace movements was to advocate for disarmament -- convincing nations to keep only the weapons they need for an adequate police force.
-- Robert AlanThe United Nations has made some progress towards disarmament, with treaties and conventions that create guidelines and international laws about weapons production and exportation to other countries. But the UN can only do what nations allow it to do, and unfortunately, the profits many nations make from exporting weapons has slowed progress in disarmament over the years.
-- Robert Alan
If the entire history of mankind were condensed into a single year, our knowledge of how to destroy life on earth with weapons of mass destruction has been acquired in the last thirty seconds. Never again will we lack the knowledge to eliminate the world in a single act of madness. Therefore, we are faced with a dilemma unique in our history. We must not only control the weapons that can kill us, we must bridge the great disparities of wealth and opportunity among the peoples of the world, the vast majority of whom live in poverty without hope, opportunity or choices in life. These conditions are a breeding ground for division that can cause a desperate people to resort to nuclear weapons as a last resort. Our only hope lies in the power of our love, generosity, tolerance and understanding and our commitment to making the world a better place for all of Allah's children.
-- Muhammad Ali
* “Above all else, we need a reaffirmation of political commitment at the highest levels to reducing the dangers that arise both from existing nuclear weapons and from further proliferation.”
-- Kofi Annan
* "The existence of nuclear weapons presents a clear and present danger to life on Earth. Nuclear arms cannot bolster the security of any nation because they represent a threat to the security of the human race. These incredibly destructive weapons are an affront to our common humanity, and the tens of billions of dollars that are dedicated to their development and maintenance should be used instead to alleviate human need and suffering."
-- Oscar Arias Sanchez
"The sponsors of war closely resemble the weapons they create. And smart bombs, depleted uranium, land mines, rockets and tanks, rather than protect 'widows and orphans and strangers at the gate,' are designed precisely to create 'widows and orphans,' to transform strangers into enemies and enemies into corpses."
-- Daniel BerriganWe spoke out, committed civil disobedience, and went to jail because the peace hangs senselessly and precariously upon weapons costing billions to build and billions to improve — weapons which become more useless as we add to their destructive force. With this money we could have fed the world's people. Half the children on earth go to bed hungry — millions more have retarding and stunting protein deficiencies. Instead of building the peace by attacking injustices like starvation, disease, illiteracy, political and economic servitude, we spend a trillion dollars on war since 1946, until hatred and conflict have become the international preoccupation."
-- Daniel Berrigan
* "Nuclear weapons are the scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the earth itself."
-- Philip Berrigan
* "I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons - and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons."
-- Hans BetheToday we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills.
-- Hans Bethe
* "It is my profound conviction that nuclear weapons did not, and will not, of themselves prevent major war. To the contrary, I am persuaded that the presence of these hideous devices unnecessarily prolonged and intensified the Cold War. In today's security environment, threats of their employment have been fully exposed as neither credible nor of any military utility."
-- General Lee Butler, head of US Strategic Nuclear Forces 1991-1994.It is a measure of arrogance to assert that a nuclear weapons-free world is impossible when 95% of the nations of the world are already nuclear-free. I think that the vast majority of people on the face of this earth will endorse the proposition that nuclear weapons have no place among us. There is no security in nuclear weapons. It is a fool’s game.”
-- General Lee Butler, head of US Strategic Nuclear Forces 1991-1994
* "As a doctor, as well as a mother and a world citizen, I wish to practice the ultimate form of preventive medicine by ridding the earth of these technologies that propagate disease, suffering, and death."
-- Helen Caldicott
Finally, a safer world presupposes the revival of the virtuous circle of non-proliferation of weapons and disarmament.
-- Jacques Chirac
Ultimately the success of any nonproliferation strategy requires a universal standard. Washington’s “Do as I say, not as I do” approach lacks moral authority and is seen as hypocritical. It is like preaching temperance from a bar stool.
-- David CortrightReducing the nuclear danger will require a universal, consistent opposition to all forms of weapons development
-- David CortrightIn no circumstance would the United States or any other nation have the right to mount a military invasion to overthrow another government for the ostensible purpose of achieving disarmament. Rather, the United States would respect the Charter of the UN and would strive to achieve disarmament and settle the differences among nations through peaceful diplomatic means.
-- David Cortright
* "There’s a very simple reason for focusing on the nuclear issue. Many, many issues are of supreme importance in one way or another, but if we blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons, no other issue is really going to matter. Quite possibly there would be no other human beings left to be concerned about anything else."
-- Alan CranstonUnprecedented warnings by officials most closely linked with nuclear arms negotiations and defense strategy indicate that we are running out of time. If we fail to act soon, the scars of a major nuclear disaster will mark our immediate and distant future.
-- Alan Cranston
Well, it was quite a century, the best of times, the worst of times; and as we run down now toward the end of it, we can all recite our litany of despair: overpopulation; pollution; a faltering educational system; the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer; racial tension; drugs; too many guns. But you know, if there's anything I've learned, it is that we Americans do have a way of rising to the challenges that confront us. Just when it seems we're most divided, we suddenly show a remarkable solidarity. The 20th century may be leaving us with a host of problems, but I've also noted that it does seem darkest before the dawn. There's reason to hope for the 21st century. And that's the way it will be.
-- Walter Cronkite
“Anger and hatred cannot bring harmony. The noble task of arms control and disarmament cannot be accomplished by confrontation and condemnation. Hostile attitudes only serve to heat up the situation, whereas a true sense of respect gradually cools down what otherwise could become explosive. We must recognize the frequent contradictions between short-term benefit and long-term harm.”
~ Dalai Lama
* "The nuclear arms race is like two people sitting in a pool of gasoline spending all their time making matches."
-- John Denver
I will continue to forcefully support nonproliferation activities around the world.
-- Pete Domenici
"Wherever arms flow, violence follows. Bullets replace ballots as the solution to political disputes."
-- Michael DouglasI have met with political leaders, legislators, and diplomats, seeking the next steps to press in reducing and eliminating the nuclear threat in this century. I have participated in public coalitions developing programmes for action to combat the global rash of small arms. All are trying and making a difference.
-- Michael Douglas
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
-- Bob Dylan
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.
-- Bob Dylan
* Controlled, universal disarmament is the imperative of our time. The demand for it by the hundreds of millions whose chief concern is the long future of themselves and their children will, I hope, become so universal and so insistent that no man, no government anywhere, can withstand it.
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerDisarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower
* It is time for the rest of the world to join ... in demanding that ALL the nuclear weapons states -including Israel, India and Pakistan, but above all the US and Russia - negotiate concrete steps on a definite time - table toward the global, inspected abolition of nuclear weapons.
-- Daniel Ellsberg
When faced with world problems – like hunger, overpopulation, nuclear weapons, the arms trade – you may be among those who are overwhelmed by a feeling of “Help! What on earth can I, just one person, do about this?” Take heart. That’s a sane response. It’s the basis for a whole new attitude to world problems, where change at the level of the individual is more and more recognised as essential to change in huge world systems.
-- Scilla ElworthyInstead of starting a new nuclear arms race, now is the time to reclaim our Nation's position of leadership on nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
-- Dianne Feinstein
* We have been led to believe that we have come a long way toward world nuclear disarmament. But that is not the case. Our government is not doing all that it could. We must urge our leaders to fulfill the obligations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States must assume world leadership to end once and for all the threat of nuclear war. It is our moral responsibility.
~ Harrison Ford
”A civilization built on dualism and war within and between persons, one that puts its most creative minds and its best engineers to sadistic work building more and more destructive weapons, is no civilization at all. It needs a radical transformation from the heart outwards. It needs to outgrow and outlaw war just as in the last century it outlawed slavery. The human race has outgrown war, but it hardly knows it yet.
-- Matthew Fox
"It is really a moral and ethical question. Should we be moving the already insane and expensive global arms race into space or should the U.S. be doing everything it can now, before it is too late, to create international agreements to keep space for peace?"
~ Bruce Gagnon“The role of the U.S. in the new world corporate order is going to be to export security. That means endless wars and weapons in space. The Pentagon will send our kids off to foreign lands to suppress opposition to corporate globalization. How will we ever end America’s addiction to war and violence as long as our communities are dependent on military spending for jobs? We must work to convert the military industrial complex to sustainable technologies like windpower, solar, and mass transit.”
~ Bruce Gagnon
From the point of view of the economy, the sale of weapons is indistinguishable from the sale of food. When a building collapses or a plane crashes, it?s rather inconvenient from the point of view of those inside, but it?s altogether convenient for the growth of the gross national product, which sometimes ought to be called the "gross criminal product."
-- Eduardo Galeano
We should put away the militaristic outlook. The U.S. should start talking about disarmament, nuclear disarmament, of the region.
~ Akbar Ganji
The fact that lately some circles, not less powerful by their small size, have been actively promoting certain theories, as dangerous as they are illusory, of a "limited", "winnable" or "protracted" nuclear war, as well as their obsession of "nuclear superiority", make it advisable to bear always in mind that the immediate goal of all States, as was expressly declared in the Final Document of the Special Assembly of 1978, "is that of the elimination of the danger of a nuclear war".
~ Alfonso García RoblesIf disarmament, as I have taken the liberty to suggest, were in the future to become the decisive criterion for the evaluation by the Nobel Committee of the activities for peace, it would constitute, just as the Campaign which I have mentioned, another invaluable element to convince all nuclear powers, including those which have been more reluctant up to now, of the necessity to respect the "vital interests" of all peoples and to become fully aware of the profound truth of the following conclusion which the United Nations approved by unanimity four years ago: "Mankind is confronted with a choice: we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihilation".
~ Alfonso García Robles
* It is my firm belief that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason.
~ Mikhail Gorbachev
* Nuclear weapons have forced us to consider whether we will be the last generation. They challenge the moral dimension of our humanity. Our technological abilities must not outstrip our moral insights, rendering us less than fully human. For in this age, acting without reliance on the gifts of law, morality and wisdom will be lethal. What right do we have to place all life on the planet at risk in the service of a human construction, the state, when it is presently legally required and within our political means to globally eliminate all nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons elimination will make all states and their people safer. It is time to assert our right to live in a nuclear weapons free world.
-- Jonathan Granoff
American foreign policy is not understood by the vast majority of American people. And that this is due to a media that in this country is suppressed by Washington and by the owners of this media, who often tend to be corporate entities close to the [White House] and very often are arms manufacturers with a vested interest in chaos [in] the Middle East. And as a result Americans do not actually get both sides of the story.
-- Denis HallidayMuch of the big media outlets in North America are owned by arms manufacturers, like Westinghouse, or G.E. [General Electric]. That’s unacceptable. So we’re not getting editorial policy, we’re not getting a vision of truth. People just don’t know what is going on anymore, and that’s really dangerous stuff.
-- Denis Halliday"I support a very active programme on disarmament and arms control for Iraq, and of course every other country in the world... That does not require economic sanctions...I think we've got to take the risk and give up economic sanctions while hanging on to the disarmament programme and allow the Iraqis to get on with rebuilding their country."
- Denis Halliday
-- Denis HallidayI appeal to the responsibility of the blocs and the major powers, not to seek security in the arms race, but rather in a meeting for joint disarmament and arms limitations.
-- Gustav Heinemann
The world wants disarmament, the world needs disarmament. We have it in our power to help fashion future history.
-- Arthur HendersonAs a first step there must be an offer to achieve equality of rights in disarmament by abolishing the weapons forbidden to the Central Powers by the Peace Treaties.
-- Arthur HendersonIt has become impossible to give up the enterprise of disarmament without abandoning the whole great adventure of building up a collective peace system.
-- Arthur HendersonPerhaps the grimmest aspect of this great paradox is that the very nations that are chiefly responsible for starting and for maintaining the Disarmament Conference are also the nations that have begun a new arms race.
-- Arthur Henderson
For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end
-- Hubert Humphrey
We invite people working for peace to span generations and national boundaries, and gather together to communicate. Let us firmly join hands and foster an even stronger network for nuclear abolition and peace.
-- Iccho Itoh* The time has come for those nations that rely on the force of nuclear armaments to respectfully heed the voices of peace-loving people, not least the atomic bomb survivors, to strive in good faith for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and to advance towards the complete abolishment of all such weapons.
-- Iccho ItohThe best way to begin disarming is to begin-and the United States is ready to conclude firm agreements in these areas and to consider any other reasonable proposal.
-Lyndon Baines JohnsonDISARMAMENT QUOTES
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DISARMAMENT
HERO PIX
Dwight D. Eisenhower | John F. KennedyDisarmament Week - October 24-30
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