Antinuclear

Australia’s hypocrisy over nuclear disarmament

The Forgotten Nightmare: Global Cooling

By Robin Davis

21 October, 2009
Countercurrents.org

Here in Australia, advocates of uranium mining and export claim that this gives us a more credible voice in the world arena than we would otherwise have. They say our position as the largest source of uranium and the second largest exporter after Canada makes us more effective in preventing nuclear proliferation than we would otherwise be. In other words, by selling the stuff from which nuclear weapons are made, we are helping to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

This absurd reasoning extends to the so-called “safeguard” agreements – essentially book-keeping entries – that supposedly track every morsel of “Australian Obligated” uranium during its travels around the world, including its reprocessing and on-selling. We can rest assured that Australian uranium won’t be used to make nuclear weapons – or free up other uranium for that purpose – because we say it can’t and the buyer nations say it won’t.

History tells a different story. Of about 60 countries that have nuclear power or research reactors more than 20 have used their “peaceful” facilities for covert nuclear weapons research or production or both…….

It seems the straight-faced hypocrisy of successive Australian governments is boundless: joining in the vilification of the latest designated nuclear “rogue” states, worrying over nuclear terrorism and mouthing non-proliferation platitudes on the one hand while allowing exports of the raw material for nuclear proliferation on the other. If Australia were sincere it would leave its uranium in the ground.

The Forgotten Nightmare: Global Cooling By Robin Davis

October 22, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 1, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, weapons and war | antinuclear, Australia, nuclear, nuclear weapons