Opinion & Analysis

CND still on the march to nowhere

As CND celebrates its 50th birthday, one thing is certain: it will persist in having no effect, writes Tony Allwright

EASTERTIDE MARKED the golden anniversary of the much lionised Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). In February, Canon Patrick Comerford, now president of Irish CND, wrote it a birthday eulogy in this newspaper.

The headline - "50 years later, CND is still on the march in a nuclear world" - aptly and with unintended irony summarises CND's principal achievement: like the Duracell bunny, it just keeps on marching.

Yet its history remains one of failure, because only two countries have undergone nuclear disarmament. South Africa did so as part of its disavowal of apartheid, and Libya because its president feared the US after Saddam was toppled. CND played no part in either.

The number of nuclear states has increased under CND's watch from three (the US, Soviet Union and Britain) to nine (France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea), with Iran and Syria desperately trying to join the club.

Contrast this non-performance with a couple of other iconic do-good drives, whose resounding victories made them effectively redundant. The slavery abolitionist movement of the 18th century was so successful that, with the help of a robust royal navy, its job was virtually complete by the end of the 19th century. Similarly, the anti-apartheid movement, which began around the same time as CND, achieved stunning success more than a decade ago when South Africa democratised itself.

In its early days, CND was backed by many contemporary luminaries including JB Priestley, Kingsley Martin, Bertrand Russell, AJP Taylor and assorted churchmen. Every Easter they would lead a protest march from London to Aldermaston, home of Britain's Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE). Yet decades of such marches had absolutely no effect on the AWE, which is still operating happily.

CND sponsored protests, court cases and debates in Ireland, Britain and other countries throughout the 1960s and 1970s, which likewise had zero effect on anyone's nuclear policies.

The 1980s invigorated CND when, to counter the Soviets' deployment of nuclear-armed SS-20s in its eastern European vassal states aimed at western Europe, the US deployed Pershing and cruise nuclear missiles in Britain and West Germany. This spawned the CND-endorsed Greenham Common protests, where scruffy-looking women set up camp with their children and looked pathetic for the television cameras. That CND Duracell bunny marched on for 19 years.

The target of the ladies' ire was - incredibly - the US and Britain, rather than the baleful Soviet enemy that had swallowed half of Europe and wanted the other half.

But once again, it was all for naught; the missiles stayed. Eventually the Evil Empire began simply to collapse in 1990 under the sheer economic weight and madness of trying to outgun and outnuclearise the US.

CND claims as a success the removal in 1991 of the Pershing and cruise missiles, which Comerford says proves that "the nuclear arms race can be reversed at any stage". In fact, the Soviet threat had disappeared by then, so the missiles were no longer needed. This shows that wars, in this case the cold war, can be won by the superior side, which fortunately was the US. That's the only reason the nuclear arms race ceased. As usual, CND had nothing to do with it, and perhaps even prolonged it, by encouraging the Soviets to think the West was irresolute and would never fight back.

CND should in fact thank the nuclear-armed US. For without US arms, soldiery and backbone, neither the Japanese empire nor Nazi Germany would have been crushed and then democratised. Nor would democracy have been restored across Europe.

Without US troops and nuclear missiles stationed in Europe, the Soviet empire would not have been kept at bay and eventually imploded. This created the space for Europeans to rebuild, to construct the EU and, since the US took care of their defence against the Soviets, left spare cash for social programmes.

Apparently, CND now worries about Pakistan, India, Israel, nuclear materials in the hands of "corrupt regimes and terrorists", and the (benign) environmental effects of nuclear energy. But you hear little about the existential nuclear threat of the moment: namely Iran's efforts to acquire a bomb in order to, in president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's words, "wipe Israel off the map".

CND's website says it "opposes both the use of force against Iran and any acquisition of nuclear weapons capabilities by Iran", tellingly relegating Iran's nuclear threat to second place. Moreover, no anti-nuclear rallies seem to be planned for outside the Iranian embassy in Dublin or elsewhere.

But it's all irrelevant anyway. One thing is sure: the CND Duracell bunny will persist in having no effect on any of these problems. Yet it is "still on the march" (to nowhere), which no doubt makes its members feel righteous and virtuous. Others might say deluded.

Happy 50th birthday, CND. But I wouldn't bother with a 51st.

_____________________________________________________________

Tony Allwright is an engineering consultant and blogger www.tallrite.com/blog.htm

Madam, - As far as I know, it is a factual error to say that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map". Certainly neither Peter Hirschberg (World News, April 8th) nor Tony Allwright (Opinion & Analysis, April 23rd) offers any clues as to where or when they think he made such a threat.

The hazard this oft-repeated allegation poses to global security is evident in threats from former Israeli defence minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer and US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that Iran will be destroyed if it attacks Israel.

The unverified allegation seems to arise from remarks the newly elected Iranian President Ahmadinejad made in Farsi at a conference in Tehran in October 2005.

During this speech, Ahmadinejad made repeated mention of the "Zionist regime" in Israel, which he saw as a bridgehead for the West to dominate the Islamic world. He listed three other regimes that had recently been abolished: those of the Shah of Iran, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein. And he referred to comments by Ayatollah Khomeini: "The Imam said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods [ Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.'" A translation by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute, published on the web, uses the word "regime" 15 times.

Now, there is a vast difference between threatening to wipe a country off the map, and calling for the elimination of a hostile regime from the pages of history. Few readers of The Irish Times would call for the United States or China to be wiped off the map, but many might call for the abolition of the regimes that are currently occupying Baghdad and Lhasa - just as they were delighted to read of the overthrow of the Ba'ath Party regime in Iraq.

If President Ahmadinejad has ever uttered any real threat against Israel, explicit or implicit, The Irish Times ought to publish details of where and when, and a meticulous translation of exactly what he said. Otherwise, it should avoid contributing to international misunderstanding.

While the editors may not have full control over the pages of history, they might at least eliminate unverified allegations from the pages of their paper. - Yours, etc,

COILÍN Ó hAISEADHA, Bóthar Inse Chór, Baile Átha Cliath 8.

CLINTON THREAT TO ‘OBLITERATE’ IRAN - 27th April 2008

Madam, - It is not a “factual error” that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to “wipe Israel from the map” (April 25th).

This threat has been widely reported, including by Al Jazeera (eg http://tinyurl.com/36yv6c), since he uttered it to 4,000 students on Wednesday October 16th 2005 at a conference in Tehran entitled “The World without Zionism”.

If it were a mistranslation from Farsi, as Coilín Ó hAiseadha suggests, Mr Ahmadinejad has had over two years to make a correction, not to mention those 4,000 students. He has not, and neither have they. - Yours, etc,

Madam, - The allegation that Iran's President Ahmadinejad threatened to "wipe Israel off the map" has all the features of an urban legend - a scary story that circulates in the popular consciousness, referring to secondhand sources to identify a lurking threat which cannot be verified by efforts to track the original source.

Testimony to the unreliability of secondhand sources is provided by the seánfhocal: "Dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean léi. . ." This applies also to anonymous articles on the Al-Jazeera website.

For a more plausible translation of what President Ahmadinejad said about "the regime occupying Jerusalem" at the "World without Zionism" conference in Tehran in October 2005, I invite readers to see the Middle East Media Research Institute's translation: http://tinyurl.com/3ldgqy - and also Arash Norouzi's account of the origins of what she calls the rumour of the century: http://tinyurl.com/ytx8uu. - Yours, etc,

COILÍN ÓHAISEADHA,
Bóthar Inse Chór,
Cill Mhaighneann,
Baile Átha Cliath 8.

Madam, Regardless of what President Ahmadinejad did or didn't say in October 2005 (letters, April 25th and 28th), what isn't in doubt is what Shimon Peres, the vice-president of Israel at the time, retorted some months later: "The president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map" (Jerusalem Post, May 8th, 2006).

Can someone please point out to me who stands on the lower moral ground? I'm having some trouble deciding. - Yours, etc,

Gift Idea
Cuddly Teddy Bears
looking for a home

Good to report that as at
14th September 2009
he is at least alive.

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