Watch our show Mujahid Talks with Imam Malik Mujahid in conversation with Jonathan Granoff
Interviewed: 11 AM Central Time Wednesday Feb 24, 2021 only on Muslim Network TV #NuclearBomb #HumanSecurity #JonathanGranoff
Guest: Jonathan Granoff - Attorney, Author and International advocate emphasizing the legal and ethical dimensions of human development and security
Host: Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid - President of Sound Vision and Justice for All.
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Unoffical Transcript:
Abdul Malik Mujahid 0:06
Salam, and peace. You're watching Muslim network TV. We're 24/7 on many, many platform you think of it and we're there galaxy 19 satellite, mostly reaching rural America, Canada and Mexico. OTT devices like Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, and you can download our app or look for social media and YouTube, just type Muslim network TV and it will pop up, or website, of course, is Muslim network.tv. Um, a lot of things are happening, the pandemic is there and the economic situation. And then people freezing in Texas, hopefully they will get enough plumbers across the country to fix so many pipes which are busted. But one of the areas in which not many people focus or pay attention to the risk, we all have risking the entire humanity. Risking the whole globe through the nuclear weapons. And people are doing experimentation, experimentation, investing more, making those weapons more dangerous. But wherever I go, there is one person. I thank God for that person. He stands up. And whatever is the current situation, he gradually brings attention to people towards the danger which nuclear weapons pose for us in America and all around the globe. Whether it's the United Nations, the Parliament of the world religions, an opportunity to have one on one conversation somewhere in the middle of Manhattan or at the United Nation. This person is always there. I honor him because of that. I'm happy that he has honored us and Muslim network to talk about his passion today. And there's no other than my friend Jonathan Granoff. Salaam and welcome brother.
Jonathan Granoff 2:23
W/ Salaam to you peace upon you and all listening. Thank you,
Abdul Malik Mujahid 2:28
Jonathan Granoff enough, is an attorney by profession, author, but international advocate against the nuclear weapons. He is on the board of multiple organization, many things. But the more important thing, which I thought if he's the senior advisor of the Permanent Secretary eight of the World Summit of Nobel Peace laureates, so they keep connecting with each other and coming up with ideas to push the world and humanity towards peace. Thank you so much, Jonathan. Let's just start if it's alright with you. By Let me ask you by by answering the question. Do you think America and our citizens and global citizens really know what type of danger nuclear weapons pose for humanity?
Jonathan Granoff 3:23
Absolutely not. You know, let me quote General Lee Butler, who was head of the Strategic Command, head of the entire targeting and readiness of the entire United States nuclear arsenal, what he said about this very specific question. Despite all the evidence, we've yet to fully grasp the monstrous effect of these weapons, and the consequences of their use, defying reason, transcending time, and space, poisoning the earth and its inhabitants. These weapons are inherently dangerous, hugely expensive, militarily inefficient. Accepting nuclear weapons as the ultimate arbiter of conflict condemns the world to live under a dark cloud of perpetual anxiety. Worse, it codifies mankind's most murderous instincts as an acceptable resort when other options for resolving conflict fail. The world has approximately 13 over 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world today. The weapons that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Neither of them exceeded 20 kilotons, which is the size of some of the explosive device part of the explosive device of a hydro nuclear weapon that the triggering device. We have weapons now in the mega ton range, the million ton range of TNT. We have weapons in the multiple. These weapons are a magnitude of destruction that simply defies imagination. We now know that if less than 1% of these weapons were to be used, it would throw at least 5 million tons of soot into the stratosphere, rendering the agricultural base upon which civilization depends, dysfunctional, mass starvation, ozone, ozone depletion, cancer, civilization basically ended. So during the Cold War, we talked about mutually assured destruction. But the science is now showing us that we have something called self assured destruction, if any of the nine countries with these devices on the ready to be used as I speak today, where to use their Arsenal's and shoot them all off, that country itself, along with everyone else would be destroyed. We have a paradox of modernity to two issues of which we could get everything else right, fix the climate, addressed the pandemic, eliminate poverty, if we get this issue wrong, won't matter. It will not matter. And the other paradox is the more we perfect the weapons, the less security we obtain. The more the weapon is accurate and usable, the less its alleged goal is obtained. The weapons are presently in the 96% of the weapons are in the hands of Russia and the United States. And they're presently on a launch on warning status. In other words, if there is a computer error that shows credibly, that Russia is under attack, they have very little time to decide whether it's a computer error, or an actual attack, we've been men, we'll talk about that later, many instances in which the world has almost entirely destroyed itself over this issue. So they're on allowing decision makers less than 10 minutes to decide whether humanity will continue. There's less than 300 seconds between India and Pakistan, should there be a computer error, or a hacker or a renegade character. So the world lives under this very real threat does not provide security to us. The economic costs are astronomical, in the trillions of dollars. And yet, because it's so terrible, and because it's so it's so distorted in the public dialogue. We don't see any leader of any major country articulating the fact of these weapons and what they mean and their posture to the public. So I thank you very much for, you know, for for having this show where we can talk about this very,
Jonathan Granoff 8:24
this very intimate reality. One nuclear bomb, on one major city would close down all of the economic markets in the world, it would completely destroy the trust amongst nations, one, just one. And all of the medical, whether it was the World Health Organization, physicians for social responsibility, international physicians for the prevention of nuclear war, which won the Nobel Prize, all explained that there are no medical services that would be available to take care of a city subject to a major nuclear explosion.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 9:13
How do you I know that you have dedicated your life to this particular cause of stopping this madness, which people don't know exists to most of the people on the street are not concerned about it? How you got on this track? How did you get started on focusing as as a prime value in your life?
Jonathan Granoff 9:37
I was in 1967, I was interning for a congressman in Washington. And a young senator from New York. Robert Kennedy. Took a bunch of interns I think five or six of us to lunch. And he explained to us what happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis when the Soviet Union was deploying nuclear weapons in Cuba. And he explained to us how close we came to ending civilization that he went when when when he went home at night, he didn't know whether he'd be coming back to work the next day or whether there would be any place to come back to. It turned out, it turns out, then I found out later, as did most security people, that the CIA's analysis that they were in the process of deploying weapons was not right, the weapons, there were dozens of weapons fully deployed, and had the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States which wanted to invade actually prevailed and invaded, those weapons would have been used. And you and I wouldn't be here today. We became within a hair's breadth of destroying the world. And Robert Kennedy ended that discussion, and said that nuclear weapons present the litmus test of modernity, we will either destroy them or they will destroy us. It's both a moral, moral and practical litmus test. So I was seized of the issue then. And I really couldn't do much meaningful work in the area until the 1980s, when I was actively practicing law and I joined a lawyers group called lawyers Alliance for World security. Very, very establishment lawyers and and a bunch of young turks like myself then. And one of the things we did was we brought lawyers from the den Soviet Union to the United States, which was very powerful citizen diplomacy. You know, we were just we were citizens. We didn't do this as part of the government. And we brought the we brought the lawyers to, to see jury trials, which they didn't have anything like that in the Soviet Union, where citizens are dispensing justice bankruptcy court, where the state intervenes to protect the debtor. And they met us attorneys who were beyond partisanship, unlike the last several years we've had under the Trump administration. But we're nonpartisan. And more importantly, they met a judge who was holding the city of Philadelphia in contempt of court for overcrowding of prisons, the idea that the that the judge that a judge could hold the state in contempt, the rule of law, those lawyers became the strongest advocates for glasnost and perestroika and ending the Cold War. And similarly, we sent lawyers from the United States over to the then Soviet Union. And they came back reporting that in, in the Soviet Union, our mothers and children and families, just like we have here, human beings. And that kind of bridge building was very empowering for me. It took the framework of the issue away from national security to human beings and human security. So when Senator Alan Cranston and Mikhail Gorbachev decided that it was important to create an organization to focus on the principle, that nuclear weapons are unworthy of civilization, and formed the global security Institute, and asked me to be the chief executive officer. I stopped practicing law and, and and devoted myself full time to this issue. So that's sort of the history of my own evolution in it. But, you know, I mean, I think you can walk into the doorway of looking at this issue from a lot of different ways. One is just the sheer economics of it, the approximately $7 trillion that have been spent on this and the commitment to spend trillions, more trillions, not billions, trillions. So you're seeing that the nuclear weapons are becoming costlier. And it's the number 7 trillion which you're seeing is all across or just the US? No, that would be just the US from the beginning of the venture to the present.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 14:17
is the world increasing their investment towards nuclear weapons?
Jonathan Granoff 14:22
Right now? There' it right now every country with There are nine There are nine countries with the weapons 90 over 90% 90 over 95% are in the hands of Russia in the United States. Then the other countries that have them are the United Kingdom, France, China. And the these plus the US are the permanent five members of the Security Council. They're also members of a treaty regime in which they've promised to negotiate the elimination. Then there are four countries that are outside of that regime. That outside of the nuclear non proliferation treaty regime that can that by law requires them to negotiate elimination. And those countries are India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. Those are the nine countries with the weapons. And, and so the each of them is either expanding and or modernizing their Arsenal's so in order for the START Treaty, which has lowered the deployed weapon warheads of the United States and Russia to 1500 each a very good Treaty, which, to his credit, President Biden has just renewed for another five years, very important in order to get it out of committee in the US Senate, even President Obama when the treaty was negotiated, had to pledge a trillion dollars to upgrade and modernize the American nuclear arsenal, thus stimulating an arms race with China, Russia and the other nuclear weapon states. Senator Ed Markey says that the amount of money that was pledged now under the Trump administration is somewhere around 1.8 trillion. That's a lot of money. And that amount of money could be used to eliminate poverty, protect the climate, provide health care schools, hospitals
Abdul Malik Mujahid 16:21
mentioned, Jonathan, there is not much of a discussion about it. I mean, people have been writing article after article since the last couple of months of President Trump and now a couple of months President Biden, about $1.7 trillion being given to rescue package and all that everybody has articles, discussion and all that. But those $1.8 trillion, there is no discussion anywhere. So let's take a short break. This is Imam Malik Mujahid. And we're talking with undefined, who is a leader of a struggle against nuclear weapons in America and around the world. And we'll be right back after these messages.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 17:31
Welcome back to Muslim network TV. This is Imam Malik Mujahid. And I'm talking with Jonathan getting off. Um, why why there's not much discussion and debate about $1.8 trillion US has allocated for modernizing the nuclear weapons
Jonathan Granoff 17:52
while it's spread out over time, but sort of in the immediate in the immediate funding cycle is about 100 billion for the intercontinental ballistic missiles, there's less than 500 of them, and they're stationary missiles in, in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana. And these weapons are first strike weapons, they're they're stationary. And they if there was a nuclear exchange with another nuclear power country, those weapons would be struck, and therefore their use them or lose them weapons very provocative, very dangerous, very destabilizing, and very expensive. But the economies of these states, and the the the the politicians who depend on the votes of the people there are largely dependent on those allocations. So you don't find the politicians, even progressive politicians from those areas, saying anything about it. So it doesn't it
Jonathan Granoff 19:09
doesn't that just you didn't give one very one example of a very irrational, irrational deployment, that does not enhance our security, but enhances insecurity. That that doesn't, that doesn't provide any military benefit to us. But that is remains in place because of the economics of our political system. But that, of course, doesn't explain the entire venture. I think that it is clear that people don't don't don't vote on the issue. They're unaware of it in the 1980s 1980s. We had this the issue of nuclear weapons was very prominent. We had over a million people marching in the street and in New York. We had foundations funding nuclear disarmament, advocacy. There was a TV called the Day After, that Ronald President Reagan watched and affected him. And where are they, it was a very powerful expression of, of the destruction that a nuclear exchange would, would would entail. 1985 President Reagan and President Gorbachev met in Geneva and went public and said, a nuclear war can never be won and therefore must never be fought. That changed. That's really what put us on a trajectory to end the Cold War. We have not had, we had President Obama, one of his first speeches was in Prague in 2009, when he became president, and he said he pledged to seek the security of a nuclear weapons free world. But he was jammed in the in the Senate, he couldn't make the kind of progress he wanted to make. Because the military industrial complex of the United States is so powerful. And so influential.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 21:04
Is theere something called nuclear industrial complex along with the military.
Jonathan Granoff 21:11
Of course, of course, there's a there's an infrastructure and intellectual infrastructure, as well, to justify this irrational practice.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 21:22
There's some people say, because of the deterrence you know, we have the longest time of without any major wars, and our nuclear weapons have made the world safer. What do you think about that argument?
Jonathan Granoff 21:43
Well, I, you know, I think let's just say I think that the that that, that pursuing security threatening to annihilate the future, has there's a moral there's a moral issue here. So first, I want to I want to address it morally. And let me quote George Kennan. George Kennan was the economist and the architect of the Cold War, no one could accuse him of being progressive or leftist or radical or anything. I mean, he was the establishment economists of our time. He said, George Kennan, the readiness to use nuclear weapons against other human beings against people we do not know whom we've never seen, and whose guilt or innocence is not for us to establish. And in doing so to place in jeopardy, the natural structure upon which all civilization rests, as though the safety and perceived interests of our own generation were more important than everything that has taken place or could take place in civilization. This is nothing less than a presumption of blasphemy, and indignity and indignity of monstrous dimensions offered to God. So there's a moral flaw in training 1000s of young people to make them ready to annihilate the future of humanity that determines rests upon, it must be credible, and there must be people willing to do it. That's why the Pope has said that deterrence in the possession of nuclear weapons is inherently immoral. But then there of course, is the the risks which we'll talk about in a minute, the risks are huge, of madness, mistake, human mistake or computer mistake, precipitating the use as long as we have them on the readiness to be used. But I think the most persuasive argument of the moment is the one that Henry Kissinger, George shells who may rest in peace who just passed away, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, former Secretary of Defense, and Sam Nunn, who was head of armed services in the Senate to help build the arsenal, wrote a series of op eds in the Wall Street Journal, certainly nobody could accuse that of being a progressive, you know, publication, arguing that they believe that during the Cold War, that there was a value in the deterrence framework. But that today, the weapons themselves are more of a stimulant to proliferation of promoting insecurity and have no military political value, and that they are hazardous and thus we must commit to a pathway to achieve their universal legally verifiable elimination. So they argue that there was a time where you could say that they're that they had a qualified value in bringing stability. But I've looked very carefully at how the arguments about stability are really played out and the international community, Russia and the United States lead in saying to other nations of the world, trust us Our weaponry brings strategic stability, we balance out our interests so that we don't have a larger configuration a larger war. Trust us. You shouldn't have these weapons, because we can't trust you. Now over 180 countries in the world that have forsworn nuclear weapons, we can't trust you with the weapons, but trust us because we're so intelligent and morally upright, you can trust us, which is inherently inherently irrational and unstable. And then domestically, their leadership argues, we need more money to pursue military advantage, which is incoherent with the international argument they make for strategic stability. So as each of these countries pursues military advantage over one another, India and Pakistan, for example. And now China trying to become the superpower of its region, with nuclear weapons, expanding their nuclear arsenal,
Jonathan Granoff 26:09
the hazard and likelihood of use dramatically increases. And we now are, we are now at a at a at a moment in which this issue is Foursquare before President Biden, who, under who, thank God is a very moral and sane man who understands this issue. But the American public, and the public of the world doesn't understand it, the people of Pakistan celebrated when Pakistan got nuclear weapons. You know, I mean, I mean, one of their leaders said, we will eat hay, rather than give up this is this expression of potency, that was the expression that they used. And it's a global problem. maleek It's not just a bilateral problem between the US and, and, and, and, and Russia. Let's talk about South Asia, you're from your your heritage is from Pakistan, right? Right. So Pakistan has an existential threat. with India, with India's Arsenal, if India used a very small portion of its arsenal, Pakistan as a nation would be over I mean, if they use 10 of them, the country would end and the end and India has several 100. Pakistan similarly is getting getting it getting it right. They'll soon have, they'll soon have several 100, they have a little less than that now. But well, well enough to to completely annihilate India and and in fact, if they if India and Pakistan had a full scale nuclear exchange would annihilate civilization itself. But India didn't get the weapon because of Pakistan. India got the weapon, because of China. Pakistan got the weapon because of India, India got the weapon because of China. So you can't solve the problem of disarmament between India and Pakistan. between India and Pakistan, you have to bring China into the equation, because that's what drove India to get the weapon. But you can't solve the problem between India and China bilaterally, between India and China, because China got the weapon because of the Soviet Union or because of Russia. And you can't solve the problem between China and Russia, because Russia got the weapon because of the United States. And the United States got the weapon because of Adolphe Hitler. So the only solution to the regional problem of India and Pakistan is a global solution. Because Because the chain of events and the chain of security relations that lead to the problem in South Asia is global. So the nuclear problem, very much like the climate or pandemics forces us to a recognition that the the moral insight of the wise since time immemorial. Whether it's the tradition of the prophets, leading to Mohammed may blessings be upon him, to to see the human family as one to treat one's neighbor as oneself to care for others the golden rule as a moral admonition, in which neighborhood treat your neighbor as yourself in which neighborhood is now a moral location, not a geographic location has become not only a moral necessity, but it is now become a practical necessity. Because as long as some nations have these weapons, others will want them and by accident designer badness, they will be used.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 30:00
So Our country, United States of America becomes very critical for this struggle against nuclear weapons. Because everybody will say, well, you got it, and it has started the chain. And we will probably gain the moral authority if we are controlling and eliminating these weapons in agreement with others. So what is the alternate? I mean, the when I come back, we'll take a short break. When we come back, I like to dwell on it that okay, if at one time Henry Kissinger's and other people are that in the Cold War, it helps. In future if major war breaks out between people, traditional warfare, or the international institutions are strong enough to stop that. You're watching Muslim network TV, and this is Imam MallikMujahid Medina, and I'm talking with CFO says that the gaming-card shortage is expected to continue in first quarter, when chip maker expects to exceed $5 billion again Nvidia Corp. reported Wednesday that quarterly topped $5 billion for the first time in the fourth quarter, as holiday gaming chip demand and renewed interest in cryptocurrency mining met with supply shortages., who has been a leader and is a leader of human beings is standing up against the nuclear weapons to safeguard themselves and their humanity and the world. We'll be right back after these messages.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 31:45
Welcome back to Muslim network TV. This is Imam Malik Mujahid, and I'm talking with Jonathan good enough to know I was in Pakistan, when Pakistan decided to have a nuclear weapon. I remember India exploded. And the Pakistan Prime Minister, if I remember correctly, he said it was late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that we will eat grass, but we'll make the atomic power. I don't know about the grass. But they did make the atomic bomb and they thought it is for their National survival. So hopefully, they campaign based in America, as you said, you know, India develops talking about China, Pakistan developed talking about India, and China developed talking about Russia and the United States. So we are the one who had it. We're the only one who used it first. So we have moral obligation. Suppose we have a powerful campaign once again, as we had in the 80s. against the nuclear weapons, I remember, you're correct in the 80s, because I went to University of Chicago. And that's where the Murphy's lab, there is a monument there of human being achieving the control chain reaction. Every year, there will be two three processions forming from there and going around and that no longer happens. So the only thing happens is the tourists busses stopping by and taking photos with the everyday man when which is in the shape of the skull shape? How do you believe when you're around in the United Nations and you move these issues there? Is the international system is strong enough to protect smaller nations against the bigger nations? If it is the if they're relying only on the conventional weapons without counting the nuclear weapons, biological weapons?
Jonathan Granoff 33:46
No, They are they militarily strong enough for the smaller nations militarily strong enough to protect themselves? Well, certainly, military superiority has not really prevailed in Afghanistan, nor did it prevail in Vietnam. So the Soviet Union was crushed in in Afghanistan and NATO is not NATO. NATO's has not prevailed there either. And the United States couldn't win with huge amounts of money and deployments of troops in Vietnam. But Vietnam couldn't conquer the United States. So in the modern world, however, the ability of a small group of people committed to do enormous damage is going to increase as science provides more ways for fewer people with less resources to do more damage more quickly. But let's talk about the nuclear which is different, which is different. Where are we in the international community so after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the KGB and the CIA looked at the situation and reported to their respective heads of state that absent some form of legal cooperative restraint, there would be dozens of nuclear weapons states by the 1970s, addressing what you're talking about the prestige, the prestige of the weapons, and the perceived deterrent effect, to play, to, to to countervail counteract the power of the big players. So they negotiated what's called the nuclear non proliferation treaty that went into effect in the administration of Richard Nixon, in 1970. And they're that treaty now is almost universal. All but four countries in the world are in that treaty. And that treaty is very simple. It has a core bargain, that, that in exchange for the Peaceful Uses of nuclear energy. All but five countries forswear having nuclear weapons. And those five countries, the United States, Russia, China, France, and, you know, in Russia, the P five promise in the treaty to negotiate the elimination of the weapons. And the treaty had within it a provision that after 25 years, it would be reviewed, to to be determined whether it would be indefinitely extended, extended for a period of time, or terminated. And it was agreed that it would be indefinitely extended. But every five years, progress on Disarmament, and incremental steps leading to a nuclear weapons free world would be pursued. That included ending nuclear testing, that included proceeding to stop the production of any more nuclear fissile material material for nuclear use nuclear weapons, promoting a nuclear and weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East, lowering the salience of nuclear weapons in policy. And that treaty, it has been reviewed every five years. And there's a series of commitments that incrementally change the status and reliance on nuclear weapons. That so that that's one pathway that is legally legally binding on all but four countries. So another pathway, that's that another route to move the world in a progressive way, is there are regional nuclear weapons free zone treaties, sort of like a belt and suspenders of these countries. So all of Latin America, the Caribbean and Central America are parties to a treaty called the tree plat alko because Brazil and Argentina were going down the path to get nuclear weapons and a great diplomat in Mexico Ambassador ablaze won a Nobel Prize for this stepped in and said, let's make the whole region nuclear weapons free and have spot inspections and bring security and not have an arms race. And they did it. This was persuasive. There's similarly a treaty now, in Africa, the Treaty of pelindaba, South Africa had nuclear weapons. One of the first things that Willem de Klerk and Nelson Mandela got rid of them.
Jonathan Granoff 38:20
There's a treaty of the South Pacific the Treaty of our Tango, making the South Pacific nuclear weapons free treaty of Bangkok, making Southeast Asia nuclear weapons free treaty, Avastin and making Central Asia. So there's 150 nations in nuclear weapons free zones. Then, in this past year, a treaty went into force a treaty prohibiting the possession of nuclear weapons, called the the the the ban treaty, it's known as the international campaign against nuclear arms won the Nobel Prize last year for the work and promoting this treaty. There's there are no nuclear weapon states in the treaty. It doesn't have a strong verification regime, and it has it doesn't have a lot. But it is a clear line in the sand of a moral statement that can help galvanize public opinion. And let me remind you that the very first resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations was to a commitment to get rid of nuclear weapons. So we have what's important to me is we have a pathway in the nuclear non proliferation treaty if we would live up to our commitments. Take, for example, the commitment to promote a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East. That in itself is that's in process. I was there before the COVID before the COVID pandemic hit. And I had a meeting of all the nations in the region and there wasn't one nation that argued that it wasn't a good thing to do. Not one of them. And
Abdul Malik Mujahid 40:02
Did Israel participate in the pardon me, did Israel participate in that
Jonathan Granoff 40:07
They didn't participate in that conference that took place it was, but they're not against it. Their position, if you want to, very simple their position is that we fight they say, we find it, I actually hosted a conference with diplomats from, from the region, including, including the top Israeli diplomat, and the top Egyptian diplomats, and so forth. And their position was interesting. Their position was we can negotiate with countries that that state that we are legitimate, and that we shouldn't exist, that they want to kill us. Egypt said, we are but if you negotiate, and we sit together that will build the confidence that could change the equation. And the problem that I have is they both have they both have, both of these positions are quite reasonable. It's very difficult for Israel to negotiate with
Abdul Malik Mujahid 41:02
Pakistan has been calling for several years for the South Asia to be nuclear free zone. That conversation I haven't seen in last few years, but historically it has been calling for that are there is some movement in that area to make it nuclear free.
Jonathan Granoff 41:22
Not meaningfully at this point there is but there is meaningful progress in the Middle East. And, and as an analogy, the treaty that made Latin America nuclear weapons free was created and enter and entered into force. Before the most important players joined it, Brazil and Argentina. And when, as all of their neighbors joined it as they went forward, they they brought them in. And so so there is there are many avenues in which progress could be made, if the people that we're talking to push the political currency for it.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 42:02
Okay, so So tell me when people and scholars talk about these things, that how a nuclear war might begin,
Jonathan Granoff 42:16
there are many instances in which we came very close. Let's say 1983, shortly after the Korean airliner was shot down, tensions were very high between there was a crisis atmosphere between Russia and the United States. Stanislav Petrov, there's a great movie called The man who saved the world was in charge of watching the computers that were monitoring the targeting of the Soviet Union by the United States. And I'll just give a collapse, you know, history of what happened. The computers all showed that there was a full scale American launch. And he knew that if he passed it up the chain of command, they wouldn't have sufficient time to make a rational decision. And it would be likely that 11,000 nuclear warheads would rain down on the United States and basically destroy the world. He violated his protocols and didn't pass it up. And he saved the world. By doing that. The FBI, he violated his orders what he was supposed to do, because he, he said he was a computer engineer, and he knew computers made mistakes. And he actually told me because I interviewed him, that God didn't want him to end the world. And, and he said that his superiors were very upset that he had violated his protocols. And of course, some of them were very happy that he saved the world, which they should have celebrated giving him a medal, but that most of them were very angry that he believed in God. They cared more about the ideology than about the fact that he saved humanity. William Perry, former Secretary of Defense tells stories of which about which he was awakened, in which it appeared that our computers made an error. And it appeared that there was a full scale Soviet launch against us. After the Cold War, for example, Boris Yeltsin was told that, that a trident missile had been launched off the coast of Norway that was headed for to be electromagnet, one weapon, high and high up in the stratosphere blowing up creates an electromagnetic pulse that fries all of the computers and communication systems. So the first step in a nuclear exchange would be taking out the command and control of your adversary, as a one in Washington would No, no telephones, no cell phones, no cars could run frigerators hospitals all would close down because they all depend on the electrical grid that would contain one company
Jonathan Granoff 45:01
So he had eight minutes to decide whether this appear a parent parent, Trident launch was going to explode over Moscow. And the football is such the codebook was opened. It turned out the Norwegians had told the Russians that they were doing that they were sending a weather satellite over the North Pole. But it didn't get passed up the command and control. And yeltsin said that the reason why he would didn't do anything, was that he trusted that bill clinton wouldn't do something so stupid. That's what it came down to the world hung in the balance of that. There are dozens and dozens of these kinds of errors. The the the you had you had nuclear submarines, like trial and fall, and British submarine in the North Sea, I think was 2005 collided with each other. during the Bush administration, there were six nuclear warheads unaccounted for for an entire afternoon that had mistakenly been loaded, on a plane flying around America. There was a there was a nuclear bomb fell on North Carolina, in which six of the seven safety features of it failed. And that would have it was a megaton bomb, that would have taken out a big portion of the state. Human beings can't create things that are more efficient than we are. We can't make something that is invulnerable. And the the fact that there is insufficient time to reflect should under the under these computer errors, or human errors. What if people understood how hazardous it would be? How hazard it is on a daily basis? I don't think they would accept it.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 46:59
Tell me, brother, we are coming close to the end of our show. Just two, three minutes left. Tell me people who are watching people who are concerned people who are willing to do something, what are the ideas do you have? I mean, is there a possibility to revive the movement which at went to the level that foundations were funding it and all that, how it could be brought up to the level of consciousness because the way you describe it, that the US is the one who started it, us is the only one who used that bomb. And because of that Russian came in because of Russian Chinese came in because of the Chinese, at least the excuse was Chinese India came in and Pakistan came in because of the and and Israel is doing it because he thinks other countries have decided to annihilate them. So how, you know so so burden comes on us substantially in America, in the USA, to make this a point of conversation and point of education. And I feel extraordinary when I see young young people marching for climate change. I mean, younger people who have adopted that as a movement of their own, I think they are more vocal and more active than anybody else, how it can reach to those people that they say, hey, climate change, we're destroying in our hand, but we've got this, this bomb sitting which will not only destroy the climate, but at the same time, far faster than climate change.
Jonathan Granoff 48:38
Well, let me say it's the United States actually, the venture began because Einstein and other other scientists realized that the Nazis were building to build a bomb. And, and in fact, there was a great a great leader Joseph rotblat. When it was clear that Nazis couldn't build a bomb, he left the Manhattan Project and and, and said that if we build it, others will build it. So he saw it and started the Pugwash movement. Pugwash won the Nobel Prize with conferences of scientists around the world to address this. And they won the Nobel Prize in 1995. For this, I think that we're in a moment that the pandemic has made very clear that our common humanity does not have a passport. The virus has no passport. I think we're in a moment in human history, in which people all over the world have realized that the health of the oceans that provides 50 to 70% of our oxygen, the phytoplankton that provides our oxygen, just like the rain forest doesn't have a passport. And the health of the oceans is necessary for human health to for us to breathe. I think That the realization that the climate of the planet, which is being destroyed by the way, we heat our homes and move our bodies around in automobiles, our addiction to fossil fuel, doesn't have a passport. It's based on a series of economic relations and ideas that are universal. Our economic or financial system in the world basically doesn't have a passport, it the financial system is unified and integrated. I think that people realize that our communications are unified and integrated, this show is going is available all over the world. The security of anybody anywhere now depends on globally, addressing the climate, human health, the pandemic, the food chain, the financial system, the health of the oceans, the health of the rain forests, the top soil, and the freshwater, these are global issues that cannot be solved at a national level. And they all require cooperation, our humanity, our common humanity, they all require us to have an identity that transcends our religious, gender, racial, ethnic, and national identities.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 51:22
It got half a minute brother to conclude.
Jonathan Granoff 51:24
And, and, and and that this change of consciousness because of the COVID renders the clarity that nuclear weapons, no matter how much we protect them, no matter how many we have, cannot help solve those problems, but in fact, are a barrier, economically and culturally, to the cooperation needed for us as human beings, to thrive in an opportunity and a new opportunity in history, to work together that we must. It's not something that we only should do. We must work together as one human family and nuclear weapons don't fit into that equation.
Abdul Malik Mujahid 52:05
Thank you so much, Jonathan Granoff. Thank you so much for your time Jonathan Granoff, is an attorney who left his practice to pursue the cause of eliminating nuclear weapon from this world is still at it. Are you with him? That's my question for you. Thank you so much for watching. And thank you Sherdil and Abdul Waheed for producing today's show. You're watching Muslim network TV Stay tuned for other programming. We're 24 seven on galaxy 19 satellite Apple, TV, Amazon Fire TV Roku and you can download our apple watch us on youtube or any of the social media just type Muslim network TV. We always have interesting conversation here and our website is Muslim network.tv peace. Indeed peace, salam.
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