Peace Action quoted in the Associated Press, Washington Post, NY Times and Washington Times regarding Obama visit to Hiroshima

 In Nuclear Weapons, Obama

Kudos to our Senior Director for Policy and Politics, Paul Kawika Martin, for his stellar media outreach work.

The Associated Press article has a great quote by the wonderful 91 year old Hibakusha (A-bomb survivor) Sunao Tsuboi, who we had the honor of hosting at our 2002 student conference in California. Neither he, nor any Hibakusha I know, nor the Japanese govt, is asking for an apology for the A-bombings, we should state that if needed and move on from this “apology tour” distraction.

If anything, the president should ask forgiveness of the Hibakusha for not doing more in his time in office to move toward nuclear weapons abolition, but that’s likely unnecessary if he goes to Hiroshima with concrete actions.

From the Washington Post article:

Kevin Martin, president of Peace Action, which advocates for the abolition of nuclear weapons, said that Obama must take concrete steps toward that goal.

“It’s not enough to repeat the words Obama has said several times since his historic Prague speech [in 2009] calling for the abolishment of nuclear weapons,” Martin said. “Obama must announce actions he will take in the his remaining months as president that will actually bring the world closer to being free of nuclear weapons.”

The president, Martin said, “will look insincere if his words espouse ridding the world of nuclear weapons while at the same time his administration continues its plan to spend a trillion dollars over thirty years to upgrade nuclear weapons.”

From the New York Times article:

But while Mr. Obama has spoken often of his hope for a world without nuclear weapons, peace activists said he needed to pursue more concrete steps.

“We would like to see him take some action with this visit so that it’s not just empty words,” said Paul Kawika Martin, the senior director of policy and political affairs at Peace Action.

From the Washington Times article:

Kevin Martin, the president of Peace Action, said Mr. Obama should take steps to reduce the number of nuclear warheads in reserve and strategic warheads, remove nuclear weapons from “hair-trigger alert” that allows weapons to be launched within minutes, and cancel a long-range nuclear cruise missile program.

“Obama will look insincere if his words espouse ridding the world of nuclear weapons while at the same time his administration continues its plan to spend a trillion dollars over 30 years to upgrade nuclear weapons,” Mr. Martin said.

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