No Longer Under the Radar: A Congressional Nuclear Victory
It is a busy time for the United States Congress. With the holiday break fast approaching, many bills that even two weeks ago appeared to be at a virtual standstill have moved to floor votes. Some such votes are victories to which the activism of Reform Jews strongly contributed. Among these are the unanimous passage of the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act (SADA), which will allow states to divest from the Khartoum government funding the genocide, and the passage of the Farm Bill, which will help hungry families across the country. Others are more disappointing, like the renewal of funding for the war in Iraq without a clear timetable for withdrawal, and the failure to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
However, one major success which we simply cannot allow to fall under the radar is the end of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).
This program, which the House and Senate agreed to “zero out” last week, was one which facilitated the creation of a new kind of nuclear weapon at the cost of more than $66 million a year. This new weapon was, however, neither reliable nor necessary. For this reason, many in our Movement have been sending letters to their Senators calling on them to end the program. RAC Director Rabbi David Saperstein participated in a major faith-based advocacy letter pushing Congress to end this program.
This zeroing out of funds (and reduction of our current arsenal) sends an important message that we cannot talk seriously about preventing future war without beginning to dismantle the tools which would make such war possible. Second, it allows us to redirect funds from programs that would create more tools of war toward efforts to dismantle these tools of war both in the United States and around the world. Finally, as we and others fight to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons we can show in good faith that the creation of new nuclear weapons is not a part of our activities either.
In the world of nuclear proliferation there are of course still many problems. If you want to learn, for example, about the amount of money we spend to maintain our “old” nuclear arsenal check out activist Ben Cohen (of Ben and Jerry’s) video. Yet, as is so often the case in politics this is an integral step in the right direction and it is important that we take time to pause and celebrate.