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A Further Perspective
The Rev. Martin Sheen Denounces Nukes
The former West Winger joins the Religious Left.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) and the global Religious Left are now looking to Martin Sheen for guidance about nuclear weapons.
True, Sheen did portray a U.S. president in the 1990s television series The West Wing. But it’s not clear what other expertise he offers, except he seemingly shares the utopian left’s long-time perspective that U.S. disarmament is key to world peace.
The Religious Left, including the World Council of Churches (WCC), was present for ICAN’s recent jamboree in Oslo, Norway. One hundred thirty-two governments were represented, as were 500 representatives from “civil society,” i.e. mostly disarmament groups. The focus was on the “humanitarian effects” of nuclear weapons.
Hint: the effects are not good.
Of course, the real question is how to deter nuclear war. The greatest threats today are nuclearized terror states like Iran or North Korea, or al Qaeda type groups procuring nukes. ICAN-type festivals do not typically want to confront actual aggressors who are monstrous enough to initiate a nuclear attack, or at least to make credible threats. So instead, such get-togethers like to pretend that all governments with nukes are equally threatening, and total disarmament is the key to global security.
It’s essentially global gun control writ large. Disarm the dutifully unlikely aggressors, while the likely aggressors are indifferent to international sanction or moral appeals.
“We strongly affirm the responsibility of all governments to examine the impact of nuclear weapons on human health, the biosphere and the means of life,” WCC general chief Olav Fykse Tveit told ICAN, speaking on behalf of “Religions for Peace.” “People everywhere have been denied rigorous, public, evidence-based scrutiny of weapons which are too terrible for any use.”
Surely there are no public doubts about the horrors of nuclear weapons, or their unpleasant impact on “human health” if used. Essentially these talking points are geared toward overall demands for total nuclear disarmament by the West, mostly the U.S. ICAN showed their Oslo audience a “sobering” video about nukes. No doubt.
According to a WCC report, Martin Sheen regaled the ICAN audience by recalling how his own Christian faith was enhanced by watching radical nuns “dance” into a U.S. nuclear test site in Nevada to provoke arrest. So inspired was he that Sheen went on to seek his own similar arrest “scores of times.” So there is part of the key to global peace and disarmament: actors and nuns getting arrested at U.S. nuclear test sites. He also recounted how his work on the movie Gandhi, along with meeting the anti-Vietnam War priests, the Berrigan Brothers, motivated his own activism.
Sheen was accompanied to Oslo by and shared the platform with leftist Jesuit priest and “peace activist” John Dear, a pro-disarmament writer whose website boasts that he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Desmond Tutu. Dear later enthused: “Let’s pray that the work of these Norwegian peacemakers may bring down the walls of fear that support our nuclear weapons industry and that one day, the world will be free of nuclear weapons.”
The WCC report quoted a Zambian physician boasting that regions such as Africa and Latin America have shown “moral leadership” by renouncing nukes and helping to “free the world of nuclear weapons and prevent the global public health disaster that their use would create.”
Very nice, but those regions are nuclear-free either because they are too poor to create nuclear weapons or because they live under the shield of U.S. guaranteed security. The U.S. and other Western nuclear powers also have actively deterred nuclear ambitions by nations such as Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa over the decades. Absent U.S. power, what would discourage these nations and many others from seeking the power and prestige of nuclear weaponry? Also remember that Cuba was nuclearized with Soviet missiles in 1962 until the U.S. compelled their removal.
The Religions for Peace statement that the WCC chief delivered to ICAN was superficial and echoed virtually all Religious Left anti-nuclear statements of the last 40 years, rehashing its themes of moral equivalence between the East Bloc and West during the Cold War. “As religious leaders of different traditions we firmly believe that these weapons are contrary to our religious and ethical principles,” it declared, urging a global treaty to ban nukes.
For religious and other utopian leftists, the key to nirvana is always a ratified international agreement. But successful treaties merely acknowledge a pre-existing strategic situation. The U.S. and Soviet Union/Russia were able to agree to meaningful reductions in nuclear weaponry and beyond at the close of the Cold War because communism’s collapse and U.S. predominance made those weapons far less important. Even a growing China does not seek nuclear parity with the U.S. as the Soviet Union once did because the size of the U.S. arsenal deters such a hope. Wealthy Arab nations are not nuclear armed because they depend on U.S. security guarantees. The same is true for Japan, South Korea, and all of Europe excluding nuclear armed France and Britain.
Treaties and international conferences will never of themselves abolish nuclear weapons, and dreams that they will, if taken seriously by actual policy makers, are potentially dangerous. The real nuclear threats of today, terror states and groups, will pursue nuclear weapons so long as they are allowed by stronger powers to do so. There is the real issue confronting the world. But groups like ICAN and its Religious Left supporters, plus Martin Sheen, prefer their dreams to global and human realities.
Photo: UPI
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (38) | Leave a comment
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old timer| 3.21.13 @ 7:31AM
Your subtitle is very old news. Ramon Estevez had already joined the Religious Left by the time he started using the stage name Martin Sheen.
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Jack in Wi| 3.21.13 @ 5:50PM
How can any Christian support nuclear weapons? Ronald Reagan wanted their total abolition. Was he a religious leftist? This is a disgraceful essay. Have Christians forgotten the words of Jesus?
" Blessed are the peacemakers. Those who live by the sword will ddie by the sword."
chemman| 3.21.13 @ 6:15PM
Why should we believe you know anything about Christianity when you mix two different quotes. One from the Sermon on the Mount (Blessed are the peacemakers) and one from the Garden of Gesemanee when one of the disciples draws a sword and cuts off the ear of the servant of the High Priest. (Those who live by the sword will die by the sword)
You do understand that the disciple was carrying a sword that Jesus took no issue with. Fact is in the same book of Matthew He orders those that don't have swords to go purchase one. What he took issue with was that the disciple was trying to stop Him from doing what He came to earth to do, die on the cross for our sins.
As to the sermon of the mount quote that isn't about imposing peace on warring nations it's about maintaining peaceful relationships with those in your community you live with everyday.
Jack in Wi| 3.21.13 @ 10:51PM
Baloney: Jesus has always been called the Prince of Peace. The early Christians refused to join the army and were marytered for it.
Jack in Wi| 3.21.13 @ 5:57PM
He took the name Sheen because of his respect for Bishop Fulton Sheen. The people who comment here in support of nuclear weapons and atomic genocide should be ashamed of themselves. You are not Chrisitians. Ronal Reagan hated nuclear weapons and wanted them eliminated from the earth.
Alan| 3.22.13 @ 9:41AM
"wanted" has nothing to do with reality, idiot. Nukes are here to stay, thats reality and to accept reality as it is doesn't boil down to whether anybody wants them or supports them. Chemical weapons are banned that doesn't mean they don't exist, they do and will continue to exist because certain people in power deem it as a deterrent to adversaries whether they use them or not.
Pecos Pete| 3.21.13 @ 8:05AM
In a statement posted on the State Department website on March 15, 2013, Secretary of State John Kerry expressed U.S. support for the UN Arms Trade Treaty.
“The United States is steadfast in its commitment to achieve a strong and effective Arms Trade Treaty that helps address the adverse effects of the international arms trade on global peace and stability,” read the statement.
Thus the UN will try to enable gun control laws in the USA. Nuke missiles in North Korea just being bigger guns, they will surely comply with the UN. Nuke bombs in Iran are just bigger calibers of ammunition and they will also surely comply with the UN.
Al Adab| 3.21.13 @ 9:31AM
Good to learn that nukes are dangerous. Someone might want to tell the administration and ask it to deal with N Korea and Iran before we learn just how dangerous they are.
TLP| 3.21.13 @ 2:02PM
Meanwhile, Iran is a Signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
How's that working?
I know. We need ANOTHER Piece of Paper with words on it.
That'll fix it.
And, if it doesn't?
We'll just write another one.
That'll fix it.
And, if it doesn't?................................................................
Jack in Wi| 3.21.13 @ 5:53PM
It's working fine. They are in complete compliance. It's Israel that is the rogue nuclear power, with 600 atomic weapons and a plan to destroy most of the Middle East and Europe. It is called the Samson Option.
Occam's Tool| 3.23.13 @ 10:24PM
Wow, my boys just get more and more nukes, huh, Jack. Just let me know your hometown, boychick, and I'll make sure from my Mossad affiliated JewCave in Bermuda, that we target your house as ground zero.
Biff| 3.24.13 @ 8:51AM
what's the Muslim word for "douchebag", Jack?
Alan| 3.24.13 @ 10:16AM
According to Jane's Defense Weekly Israel has between 100 and 300 nuclear warheads, most of them are probably being kept in unassembled mode but can become fully functional "in a matter of days".
Federation of American Scientists believes that Israel "could have produced enough plutonium for at least 100 nuclear weapons, but probably not significantly more than 200 weapons".
"More than 100 weapons, mainly two-stage thermonuclear devices, capable of being delivered by missile, fighter-bomber, or submarine"
Its always wonderful to debate some idiot who has no idea what he's talking about. As far as the "Masada Option", Its a fancy name for Mutual Assured Destruction, same strategy employed by any Nuclear Power, Russia, USA, Pakistan, China, NK, UK, India. As far as targeting Europeon countries, that strategy if it was ever in place was by most experts phased out due to the end of the Cold War and the liberation of Eastern Europe. Isreal "may" have targeted some of these Warsaw Pact countries because they were supplying "experts" , materials and in some cases actual fighter pilots to Soviet Arab allies during the 60-90's, but nobody knows for sure. Isreal has no exclusive nuclear strategy that any other nuclear power doesn't already have.
TLP| 3.21.13 @ 10:08AM
Long story Short: The usual Subjects got together for a Confab on how to turn Lead into Gold by Wishing really hard for it.
Somebody got the wrong message from watching the Ghandi Movie. (Which might actually be the last flick Martin Outta His Mind was in) it wasn't so much about Peacful Resistance, as it was about the ENGLISH PEOPLE.
The same could be said about the Civil Rights Movement, in this Country. Yeah, Martin Luthor King Jr. deserves the Lion's Share of the Credit. But, one wonders how things would've been different, if he had to do it in East Germany, Bulgaria, or Mother Russia, itself. Or, if he did NOT get the help from White Christians and Jews.
I think it woulda been a Bloodbath.
Martin Outta His Mind, and his Bougolais Drinking Leftist Nobodies seem to have Short Memories on such things. Not only did the first two Nukes SAVE a Million Lives. It probably allowed most of these Pro Abortion Champions to be BORN. And the Nuclear Arsenals of both sides of The Iron Curtain (That their guys put up) were the only thing that prevented a Third World War.
The saying goes that you can't Fix Stupid.
One look at the Accompanying Picture to this Article, and it would seem that: You can't Fix Outta Your Mind, either.
SUBVET| 3.21.13 @ 10:28AM
Tim.....I think his last movie was "The Way".
TLP| 3.21.13 @ 2:04PM
I wasn't counting Straight to Video Movies.
Alan| 3.21.13 @ 8:47AM
You don't undiscover a technology. Nuclear technology will be here until something bigger replaces it. Leftist utopianist idiocy is not that replacement technology. Until that day a balance of power is the deterrent.
gene| 3.21.13 @ 9:17AM
Want peace? Be prepared for war. Washington said it best and it is true today.
Although Martin Sheen has good intentions, he will never understand that his action would lead to war and the death of millions.
markenoff| 3.21.13 @ 9:25AM
"Let him who desires peace prepare for war," also paraphrased as si vis pacem para bellum ("If you want peace, prepare for war"). From De Re Militari by Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, late 4th Century Roman write. Washington was quoting him.
CJW| 3.21.13 @ 9:45AM
Clemenza, a descendant of Flavius Vegetius Renatus, to Michael Corleone:
"This is a street thing, Let's kill them all while we have the men, the muscle."
gene| 3.21.13 @ 10:23AM
I only mentioned that he said it best, not that he was being original. The poibt being is that it is true today as it was in the time of Washington, or even the 4th Century and it will be true tomorrow.
Chicago has the toghest gun control laws in the country and hundreds of people are being shot to death in the Windy City Streets. Maybe someday Martin will wake up and see the blood he is spilling and the people he is killing.
markenoff| 3.21.13 @ 9:27AM
Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords. Attributed to Ben Franklin
Alan| 3.21.13 @ 12:03PM
Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords. Attributed to Ben Franklin
or
Those who beat their swords into plowshares get the food they grow with their plowshares stolen by those who kept their swords.
fmm| 3.21.13 @ 12:17PM
Gun control, nuclear arms control, soft drink size control, minimum wage control, and on and on ....... At least they are consistent in their insanity.
Mark30339| 3.21.13 @ 2:20PM
I take no pride in assenting here. The article and comments certainly do hold logic, but should show more compassion for the unfortunate Japanese civilians who suffered horribly from deployment of our nuclear powers. Our material lives are of such a value that we wish to harbor destructive powers that presumably frighten and coerce potential invaders. Yet our Judeo-Christian tradition harkens back to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed'nego, who refused to be coerced by the the fearsome Nebuchadnez'zar. They "yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God." If we are both Christian and supportive of the nuclear deterent, let us at least acknowledge the embarrassment of being too feeble in faith to face our enemies with the same forgiving and weaponless grace that Jesus modeled for us.
chemman| 3.21.13 @ 6:22PM
You are mixing up what we as individuals are called to do in the face of our individual enemies with that which a nation is called to do. They are not necessarily the same.
Mark30339| 3.22.13 @ 6:20PM
Or rather, they are not necessarily different things. I cannot advocate for our government to unilaterally disarm because that kind of faith leap can't be imposed on a population by decree. But it embarrasses me that we enjoy our peace and security because we are willing to rain down nuclear annihilation on other populations. Note that the citizenry of Poland was counseled to resist and confront non-violently. It was not just a coincidence that the US was applying pressures on the Soviets without provoking armed conflict. Reagan and John Paul II (and especially their staffs) were in constant coordination in this non-violent confrontation. See The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism by Paul Kengor (Sep 18, 2007) and its related youtube speech at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqjQadIE954.
Alan| 3.24.13 @ 10:35AM
"But it embarrasses me that we enjoy our peace and security because we are willing to rain down nuclear annihilation on other populations"
Why? Because before the advent of nuclear weapons we enjoyed our peace and security because we were willing to rain down conventional annihilation instead as men did for numerious centuries before. Now tin horn dictators have to give pause as to what happens when they decide to roll tanks accross somebodies border.
crankitup| 3.21.13 @ 2:54PM
this sheen punk has no good intentions, he's just a troll for the left. "Leave the gun, take the canolis" .
howard lohmuller| 3.21.13 @ 3:30PM
Most of us ordinary folk scratch our heads and wonder if celebrities are ignorant, naive, stupid or looking for publicity when they proffer opinions about important subjects. They tend to show off their sincerity by talking of grandiose ideas. They pick a special concern that other celebrities have not already taken as their own. They fly of to conferences and inspection tours to prove their sincerity. Why?
Like most humans they want to be thought of as good people. But it goes deeper. Their lives are entwined in publicity, perceptions and imagination. It is the way they make progress in their profession. Their fan clubs and news making sources plan their presentation to the public that buys their tickets to performances or watches their program. They assume their occupation is real, valuable and the same as everyone whom work for a living. Most of them never realize that make believe and reality are two different worlds. Like Norma Desmond in the film Sunset Boulevard, they can only live in the fictional life they have created.
cicero| 3.21.13 @ 4:49PM
Cry not for the Japanese. They brought total war to the Pacific region for the purpose of conquest only. What they did to the Chinese people, the Filipinos, the people of Southeast Asia, and anyone within their reach, to say nothing of the American and British prisoners of war, was deploreable. The devastation they brought down on their own people was criminal. The two bombs dropped probably saved the Allies at least 1 million cashialties, and the Japanese about 7 to 8 million on the home islands. The dropping of those two bombs have saved the world from further general wars. The fact that pissant dictators, and wannabe conquerors with spurilous ideologies have still been able to bring whole societies to grief does not dispel that fact.
If we would pursue the present generation of thugs with the centrality of purpose that we defeated the Japanese, many lives would have already been saved, and fewer small wars would have had to be waged. We lose sight of the forest while we contemplate the trees.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 3.21.13 @ 7:41PM
Any sane person on earth be they politically conservative or politically liberal should want the complete elimination of nuclear weapons in the world.
Alan| 3.21.13 @ 10:43PM
And how pray tell do you plan to "eliminate" nuclear weapons? Maybe if everybody starts wearing "ban nuclear weapons" colored wrist bands they'll just dissappear, right?
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 3.21.13 @ 11:51PM
Of course its not pragmatic in the meantime, but that doesn't mean that shouldn't be the ultimate goal and we shouldn't work towards that end. If I'm not mistaken Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev worked towards such an end. No one should be ridiculed for seeking the elimination of nuclear weapons in the world.
Alan| 3.24.13 @ 10:29AM
How many people have Nuclear Weapons killed since WW2 and how many people have AK-47's killed since WW2?
Occam's Tool| 3.23.13 @ 10:22PM
You are always welcome to commit suicide anyway you would like, Jack. Just so long as you leave my family and me alone.
Nuclear weapons greatly reduced the number of coasualties that we would have sufffered in the Cold War, dumbbell.
Mr. Tooley, for an Estevez whose work and poltical views you would enjoy, might I suggest Martin's vastly better looking, smarter, and more talented brother Joe Estevez. Start with his magnificent film "Soultaker." You can get it from MST3K's Best Brains, Inc. as part of a boxed set, I believe. Or his equally brilliant performance in "Werewolf," also available with incisive commentary by Mike, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot.
Seriously, Joe was in some grade D horror stuff, but, hey, he was working, AND he's a Navy vet and a Political Conservative. And he is a better actor than Martin.
Dimitry_Aleksandrovich| 3.24.13 @ 12:36AM
I've come to the realization that violence towards any of God's creations is tantamount to violence against God himself. That's why you cannot be both pro-life and pro-war. Of course that doesn't mean pacifism for those of us who are not monks. Those of us who are men have a duty to defend our families, extended families, neighborhood, city, country etc. This is also our duty before God as men but waging a preventative war is just as wrong because you think another nation or people "might do wrong" to you is just as bad as shooting someone (who is not endangering your life or the lives of those around you) on the street because you thought they might be a threat. Of come to the conclusion that the killing of any and all non-combatants even in a time of war is a sin before God and I fully understand that realities on the background often make "collateral damage" inevitable but a Christian country should avoid it at all costs and harshly discipline soldiers who would enact their revenge on the elderly, women and children. Of course usually when war begins all bets are off, but we should at least strive to uphold such Christian values and I would think that Jews would do the same.