Hagel supports nuclear arms cuts, then elimination

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chuck Hagel, the likely next secretary of defense, would be the first to enter the Pentagon having publicly advocated for sharply reducing the number of U.S. nuclear weapons, possibly without equivalent cuts by Russia. He supports an international movement called Global Zero that favors eliminating all nuclear weapons.

That puts him outside the orthodoxy embraced by many of his fellow Republicans but inside a widening circle of national security thinkers — including President Barack Obama — who believenuclear weapons are becoming more a liability than an asset, less relevant to 21st century security threats like terrorism.

"Sen. Hagel certainly would bring to office a more ambitious view on nuclear reductions than his predecessors," said Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "While he would likely take a less dramatic position in office, it might not be a bad thing to have a secretary of defensequestion what nuclear deterrence requires today."

Pentagon press secretary George Little said Tuesday that Hagel does not support unilateral nuclear cuts "and, if confirmed, would not as secretary of defense. Suggestions to the contrary are inaccurate."

The customary stance of defense secretaries in the nuclear age has been that the weapons are a necessary evil, a required ingredient in American defense strategy that can be discarded only at the nation's peril.

Hagel, 66, takes a subtly different view — one shared by Obama but opposed by those in Congress who believe disarmament is weakness and that an outsized American nuclear arsenal must be maintained indefinitely as a counterweight to the nuclear ambitions of anti-Western countries like North Korea and Iran.

Hagel argues for doing away with nuclear weapons entirely, but not immediately and not unilaterally.

In a letter to Obama two months after his former Senate colleague entered the White House in 2009, Hagel wrote that Global Zero was developing a step-by-step plan for achieving "the total elimination of all nuclear weapons," but with a "clear, realistic and pragmatic appreciation" for the difficulty of realizing that goal.

Dozens of prominent politicians, diplomats and retired military leaders signed the letter. One month later Obama spoke in Prague of "a world without nuclear weapons," while saying it might not happen in his lifetime. Obama declared that "as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it, we can start it."

Hagel, a Republican whose nomination has drawn heated criticism for his past statements on Israel, Iran and gays, is likely to also face questions on nuclear issues at his Senate confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday. A Vietnam War veteran, he served in the Senate from 1997 to 2009.

The questions actually began last week at the confirmation hearing for John Kerry, Obama's nominee for secretary of state. Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican, said he found Hagel's affiliation with Global Zero "very concerning," and he worried that Hagel's views appeared to make him "very different than previous defense leaders."

Kerry said he believes Hagel is a realist on the topic of nuclear arms reductions. But he also acknowledged that when he first heard about Global Zero's central vision — the elimination of all nuclear weapons - "I sort of scratched my head and I said, 'What? You know, how's that going to work?'" But then he came to see this as nothing more than a long-range goal — "it's not something that could happen in today's world."

Hagel, indeed, is thinking long term.

"Getting to global zero will take years," Hagel wrote in the March 2009 letter to Obama on behalf of Global Zero. "So it is important that we set our course toward a world without nuclear weapons now to ensure that our children do not live under the nuclear shadow of the last century."

Hagel stands out in this regard in part because history — first the demise of the Soviet Union, then the rise of terrorism as a global threat — has changed how many people think about the deterrent value of nuclear weapons. For decades after the birth of the atomic age in the 1940s the chief concern was controlling the growth, and later managing the shrinkage, of nuclear arsenals without upsetting the balance of power.

Today the thinking by many national security experts has shifted as the threat of all-out nuclear war has faded and terrorist organizations with potentially global reach, like al-Qaida, are trying to get their hands on a nuclear device.

"Hagel's views reflect the growing bipartisan consensus in the U.S. security establishment that whatever benefits nuclear weapons may have had during the Cold War are now outweighed by the threat they present," said Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, which supports efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Hagel was co-author of a Global Zero report last May that proposed, as an interim step, reducing the U.S. arsenal to 900 weapons within a decade, with half deployed and the other half in reserve. That compares with a current U.S. stockpile of 5,000, of which 1,700 are deployed and capable of striking targets around the globe.

The report said these cuts could be taken unilaterally if not negotiated with the Russians or carried out through reciprocal U.S. and Russian presidential directives. It called the unilateral approach "less good" but feasible. At a later stage China and other nuclear weapons countries would be brought to the table for negotiations on further cuts on the path to global zero, it said.

The White House last year weighed options for substantial new cuts in the number of deployed weapons, possibly to about 1,000 or 1,100 and probably as part of a negotiation with Moscow. But a decision, following a lengthy review of U.S. nuclear targeting requirements, was put off prior to the November election. Officials and private experts close to the administration believe Obama will soon embrace those cuts.

Previous secretaries of defense have supported reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile under certain circumstances and have paid lip service to the United States' commitment under the 1970 nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to eventually eliminate its nuclear arms. But none has pushed these ideas like Hagel has.

"It's historic," said Bruce Blair, a co-founder of Global Zero and a former Air Force nuclear missile launch control officer.

"We will have, if he's confirmed, a secretary of defense who's committed to the sharp reduction of nuclear weapons, leading down a path toward their elimination," Blair said in an interview last week. "I don't think any sitting secretary of defense has ever come anywhere close to Hagel's advocacy for this cause."

Leon Panetta, the current defense secretary, has not taken a public stance on future nuclear reductions.

Some Pentagon chiefs, like William Perry, became public advocates for eliminating nuclear weapons after leaving office.

At least one apparently harbored doubts about the conventional wisdom while still serving.

In his 1995 memoir, Robert McNamara, who served as President John F. Kennedy's defense secretary, wrote that by the time he entered the Pentagon in 1961 he had privately concluded that nuclear arms served no useful purpose. But he could not say that publicly, he wrote, because it contradicted established U.S. policy.

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Life changes when certain realizations occur. Here’s a big change for me.

Realizing the huge significance of the divine qualities is something that continues to grow and have a tremendous impact on me – in fact, continues to capture my attention and hold it.

Archangel Michael said recently that “the beginning, the middle and the end of creating Nova Earth is the incorporation of these [divine] qualities within you.” (1)

I asked him if in fact mastering the divine qualities was our marching orders from now through the whole of our return journey home and he confirmed that this was the case.

“Yes,” he said, “it is your marching orders until the end of time, until such time as you merge back into the One.”

I hope you get this as deeply as I am. I really do. We have found the treasure buried in the field. Now it’s time to sell all we have and buy that field. (2) AAM continues:

“Each of those divine qualities never ceases growing and expanding, both within you and as it expands within you, within your planet, upon your planet, and also within your planet, and within your galaxy, and within your universe. So the ripple effect is infinite.”

He added: “You may tire of hearing me say this. That does not matter. We are going to continue anyway.”

Yes, indeed, please do continue anyway.

“The creation of Nova Earth comes with the kind, considerate, what you consider Divine, qualities, what this channel [Linda Dillon] has called blessings and virtues. It comes with the anchoring of those qualities not only within thee, but in every interaction — in the microcosm, within and without, in the macrocosm.”

So this being the case, prepare for a radical personality shift in me. You may recall what it felt like to start something new when we were young – collecting marbles, baseball cards, beads, whatever. In the beginning you couldn’t stop from searching for the new.

Well, this is like the beginning of the rest of my life … lives … so to speak.

So you might see me emphasizing qualities where before there was an emphasis on events. You may wonder if I’ve flipped my wig, but I haven’t. I just see clearly the work that needs to be done.

And there is more “clearly” to see. As Archangel Michael said, “the beginning, the middle, and the end” of our work is about mastering these qualities. In a certain sense, there is no other work to do. Not in the sense that transcends time and place. Not in the sense of what you and I are here for, in life, in all our lives.

We are here to know ourselves as God. And being like God brings the knowledge of God. So was life designed.

If we were attending the University of the Divine Life, it wouldn’t be the case that we’d see two entries on the curriculum, like this:

My Task 101. Discovering Who I Am

My Task 102. Being the Divine Qualities

There would be only one:

My Task 101. Discovering Who I Am: Being the Divine Qualities

AAM saying that acting from the divine qualities is the beginning, middle and end of building Nova Earth is very close to Gandhi saying: “Be the change you wish to see.”

Would it not be a radical shift in understanding to see our work in building Nova Earth to be the manifesting of the divine qualities in all of us, one person at a time?

But even putting the matter that way is only an interim and very partial expression of it because I am the divine qualities (love, equanimity, truth, patience) so I don’t need to manifest or develop or incorporate them. I am them. At the most I need to unconceal them, to remove the layers of debris, old business, or vasanas, that lie on top of and obscure them.

Realizing this is the kind of event that organizes life. After an event like this, at least for me, I turn to all that I own in life and begin throwing things out and streamlining. And then I begin to concentrate on what I’ve newly discovered.

And communicating this, just as I’ve done right now, fulfills a part of the mission on which I (at least) have come, as a lightworker and starseed. We’ve all agreed to go through this Ascension process as starseeds and to mirror back how it is for us. So here I am, anyways, mirroring back my own process.

AAM said:

“Are you … declaring what you believe to be true? Are you declaring that this is an opportunity for change or sharing just some of the subtle changes you are feeling within yourself? … Begin the communication. Expand the communication.”

Communicating the dawning awarenesses related to matters such as this is building Nova Earth, I see.

Footnotes

(1) All quotes from “Archangel Michael: It is Time to Declare Yourself,” January 29, 2013, at http://goldenageofgaia.com/2013/01/archangel-michael-it-is-time-to-declare-yourself/

Jesus: For You All to Experience the Awakening is Unavoidable

As channelled by John Smallman – January 30, 2013

http://wp.me/p1B8dY-ba

John’s reading if today’s message:http://johnsmallman2.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/01-30-2013-jesus-audio-blog-for-wednesday-january-30.mp3

Humanity’s increasing awareness of its spiritual origin and heritage is allowing a more open view of spirituality to develop. It is sorely needed, and with the vastly intensified spiritual energies that have recently enveloped the planet, it is becoming a subject that is of interest to growing numbers of people.

An awareness of and an interest in spirituality is an essential step towards awakening into full consciousness, and the new energies are stimulating such an awareness in many who previously had given no thought to the possibility of life continuing after physical death.

When you awaken into your natural fully conscious state, the idea of death will seem quite laughable because there is no such thing, and all sentient beings, all the children of God, know that they are immortal. In the illusion, however, death is an ever-present threat from which you believe you must be protected at all costs, even to the extent of killing others who appear to be threatening you.

Of course, once you lay down your human bodies at physical death, it becomes immediately apparent that you still exist. This can be very confusing for those who have never considered the possibility of an afterlife, or who have dismissed the prospect as laughable. Some refuse to accept their new state and shut themselves off from the Love that waits to embrace them, but deep within them there remains the knowledge that they are divine beings, and in the spiritual realms it is impossible to remain permanently shut down and closed off from the field of Love in which all of creation has its eternal existence. As you have been told repeatedly all will awaken.

Here on Earth, as you play your parts as Light-bearers and wayshowers, the field of divine Love is having ever greater effects on all sentient beings because your Father wants you all to wake up. This period in your spiritual evolution is not a random or chance event, where a momentary surge in the creative energy field that contains all that exists has temporarily engulfed your planet. This energy field is eternally expanding as creation itself expands.

There is nothing outside it because it contains all that exists, but – using an analogy to give` you a picture with which you can resonate – Earth, which was in its outer reaches, is effectively being drawn in nearer to its center where its power and strength are less easily ignored. This was planned eons ago and is occurring precisely on schedule to help humanity awaken from the nightmare of separation and abandonment in which it seems to have been enclosed, unaware of anything but this illusory realm of pain, suffering, and finally death.

To awaken is your divine destiny; for you all to awaken is inevitable; and for you all to experience that awakening is unavoidable. The truth of this is reason for constant celebrations and it would behoove you well to recall this information whenever you find yourselves experiencing doubts of any kind about the existence of God and his infinite Love for you all.

Within your present arena of experience, with all the problems and worries with which it is constantly presenting you, it is frequently very difficult to focus — let alone remain focused — on this basic truth. You are, as you have so often been told throughout the eons, divine spiritual beings of immense power and wisdom, having a severely restricted educational experience so that you may learn lessons of great significance that you could have learnt in no other way.

When the discomfort, anxiety, uncertainty, or suffering that you are undergoing seems to be overwhelming, go within, ask for help, know that you will receive it, and maintain your faith. Just by restating your intention to be wayshowers and Light-bearers you strengthen your connection to the divine field of Love surrounding and enveloping you, even if you cannot sense it. Deep within yourselves — each and every one of you — you do have the knowledge, you do have the faith, you do have the courage, and you do have the determination that will carry you forwards to your divine destination.

Love is the infinite and eternal field in which all of creation is forever growing and expanding. You are all held lovingly secure within that field in every moment of your immortal existence. Your present unawareness is a very temporary state from which you will awaken. The brilliance of the Light into which you will awaken is indescribable. The Light within each one of you is eternally one with the Light into which you are to awaken. You are divinely loved, cherished, and taken care of in every moment. So relax into that certain knowledge as you move rapidly towards your awakening.