Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, on Tuesday submitted the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Santa Barbara Declaration rejecting the doctrine of nuclear deterrence into the Congressional Record.
As the official record of the proceedings and debates of the U.S. Congress, the Congressional Record is a permanent public archive, published since 1873.
Capps introduced the Santa Barbara Declaration as follows:
“Mr. Speaker, I rise to enter into the Congressional Record the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Santa Barbara Declaration, drafted Feb. 17, 2011.
“The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization based in Santa Barbara that has worked for peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons since 1982, hosted a conference in February 2011 on the dangers of nuclear deterrence. The statement, drafted by experts from around the world, outlines many reasons to work toward the eradication of nuclear weapons.
“I urge my colleagues to read the Santa Barbara Declaration and strive to build a more peaceful world.”
Participants in the drafting of the declaration included experts in nuclear proliferation, international law, the environment, former military personnel and peace activists who came from across the United States and as far away as New Zealand.
The Santa Barbara Declaration calls upon the public to reject the doctrine of nuclear deterrence and highlights its major problems, including:
» Its power to protect is a dangerous fabrication
» It assumes all leaders will be rational at all times
» Threatening or using nuclear weapons is illegal and criminal
» It is deeply immoral to threaten indiscriminate death and destruction
» It diverts resources desperately needed to meet human needs
» It has no effect against nonstate extremists
» It is vulnerable to sabotage, cyber attack and human or technical error
» It encourages nuclear proliferation in other countries
— Debra Roets is development and communications director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.