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Not since 1953 when the United States and the Soviet Union exploded thermonuclear bombs has the world been such a powder keg. Last week the Pentagon released its Nuclear Posture Review. It seeks to make use of nuclear weapons more acceptable and plausible. It recommends the spending of $1 trillion to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal and it appears to end the United State’s commitment to pursue nuclear disarmament.
Last November Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, convened a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the limits of presidential authority to use nuclear weapons. President Trump had been making incendiary comments about North Korea, threatening to totally destroy the country and to unleash fire and fury like the world has never seen.
There are no reliable limits on the president‘s power to order use of nuclear weapons. The International Court of Justice declared in 1996 ruled that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is illegal under international law. The United States is not legally bound by the ICJ opinion. Moreover, the United Nations last summer adopted a Treaty On the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It states that the use of nuclear weapons would be against the principles of humanity in the dictates of public conscience. The United States is not legally bound by the new UN treaty either. The United States under President Obama and now Trump has vowed to increase the size of America’s nuclear arsenal. The United States will not agree to simply declare that it is against the first use nuclear weapons.
Guest – Attorney John Burroughs, Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee for Nuclear Policy. John Burroughs represents LCNP and IALANA in Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review proceedings, the United Nations, and other international forums. Dr. Burroughs is contributor, Unspeakable suffering – the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons (2013) (available here); contributor, Assuring Destruction Forever: Nuclear Weapon Modernization Around the World (2012) (available here); co-editor and contributor, Nuclear Disorder or Cooperative Security? U.S. Weapons of Terror, the Global Proliferation Crisis, and Paths to Peace (2007) (available here); co-editor and contributor, Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties (2003); and author of The Legality of Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons: A Guide to the Historic Opinion of the International Court of Justice (1998). He has additionally published articles and op-eds in journals and newspapers including the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the World Policy Journal, and Newsday. Dr. Burroughs has taught international law as an adjunct professor at Rutgers Law School, Newark. He has a J.D. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. from Harvard University.
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Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Five Foundation
In July 2004 federal agents raided the homes of five Palestinian-American families, arresting the five dads. The first trial of the Holy Land Foundation Five ended in a hung jury. The second, marked by highly questionable procedures, resulted in very lengthy sentences for supporting terrorism by donating to charities with whom the US government itself and several respected international agencies work.
Capitalizing on post 911 Islamaphobic hysteria, the US government used secret evidence and conflated charity with terrorism to convict the five men of providing material support for terrorism.
The destruction of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Muslim charity in the United States, constitutes one of the great judicial injustices in the so called war on terror
of which there have been many. The US government, relying on the testimony of anonymous Israeli security experts, convicted the five men of the crime of providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians suffering under an illegal and punishing occupation.
This case is one of several repressive post 911 US prosecutions that have been brought with the assistance of Israeli security police, targeting US-based Palestinian Muslim activists.
Guest – Miko Peled is an Israeli writer and activist living in the US. He was born and raised in Jerusalem. His father was the late Israeli General Matti Peled. Driven by a personal family tragedy to explore Palestine, its people and their narrative. He has written a book about his journey from the sphere of the privileged Israeli to that of the oppressed Palestinians. Peled speaks nationally and internationally on the issue of Palestine. He supports the creation of a single democratic state in all of Palestine, and a firm supporter of BDS. Author of Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Five Foundation and The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine.