• Opinion by Jonathan Granoff, Bishop Bill Swing (new york)
• Monday, January 11, 2021
• Inter Press Service
• Bishop Bill Swing, Founder and President United Religions Initiative in collaboration with Jonathan Granoff, President Global Security Institute

NEW YORK, Jan 11 (IPS) - Between now and January 20,2021, the President of the United States has almost run out of arenas in which to impose his will. His reelection has soured in infamy. His concern for the COVID-19 pandemic faded long ago. There is only one last pursuit available to him to demonstrate that he is the most powerful man on earth, i.e. using the nuclear weapons at his disposal.

What if? This man who once suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on the eye of a hurricane, what if he decided to drop a nuclear warhead on Iran? What if Iran retaliated and sent rockets into Israel? What if Israel nuked Iran? What if the Middle East exploded and other nuclear nations chose sides and piled on expanded targets with their nukes?

Right now, the citizens of the United States and the people of the world need to be protected from the “what if” of an unhinged President armed with nuclear weapons.

Two questions quickly arise: 1) is this President, with nuclear weapons at his fingertips, sound of mind with a healthy moral compass? 2) Why should any President be given “sole authority” to order the launch of a nuclear arsenal? To launch in five minutes without the counsel of anyone else?

The entire enterprise of having weapons capable of destroying most all life on this planet – in five minutes - is morally absurd. Like dropping a nuke capriciously on a hurricane or giving a dangerously flawed President 5,800 nuclear weapons to play with in his last delusional days in office?

The President has “sole authority” to destroy without having “soul authority” to understand the moral gravity of this decisions. He has to be denuded of his nukes for all of our sakes.

And the nine countries with nuclear weapons merely mirror, over time, Donald Trump in his last days of reign. Trump is our nuclear problem immediately. But in the longer run, every one of these nations is deranged in thinking that nuclear weapons make us secure and solve problems.

With the weapons hanging over us, we are anything but secure. As for solving problems, nuclear weapons did nothing to stop the damage of COVID-19 or lessen the effects of climate change. What most ails the world is not addressed by a nuclear arsenal.

The United States of America has to sweat out these last days of President Trump, but the world has to sweat out the years ahead until we blow ourselves up or whittle our stockpiles of nuclear weapons down, eventually, to zero. We are all unhinged with nuclear weapons at our fingertips.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-danger-of-nukes-with-an-unhinged-Trump-15856851.php

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© Inter Press Service (2021) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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