No nukes in my name

As the threat of nuclear war continues to escalate, I urge us all to take a closer look at Los Alamos National Laboratory, right here in our backyard, and its planned mission of industrial-scale plutonium pit production.

During his administration, President Barack Obama committed nearly a trillion taxpayer dollars to “modernizing” the United States nuclear weapons arsenal, including 80 new pits per year by 2030. Plutonium pits are needed to trigger the nuclear explosion of thermonuclear weapons. A “pit” is required for each nuclear warhead to detonate its payload.

Research shows that plutonium pits have reliable lifetimes of at least 80 years, maybe more. The oldest war reserve pit is 43 years old. The United States has tens of thousands of usable pits in storage at the Pantex Plant in Texas and, enough nuclear warheads to destroy all life on Earth many times over.

Why, then, is our government trying to make thousands of “pits,” while spending many billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars for its proxy war in Ukraine, beating the drums of war with provocative statements about “weakening Russia” and regime change in Moscow, all while ramping up militaristic rhetoric portraying China’s economic rise as an existential threat to the United States? I think this behavior is insane.

Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján like to cite that LANL has a multibillion-dollar economic impact on New Mexico. If so, why does New Mexico remain one of the poorest states in the country, while Los Alamos County is among the four wealthiest counties in the entire nation?

While New Mexico’s government and many nongovernmental organizations are working on mitigating the climate crisis, they appear to ignore the undeniable fact of LANL’s enormous carbon footprint.

The climate movement should join the tiny, marginalized peace movement, which at one time was large enough, informed enough, and powerful enough to help end the Vietnam War and obstruct nuclear weapons proliferation and U.S. wars of aggression worldwide.

We could use its strength and its voice to revive and grow the once powerful anti-war movement to end the United States government’s wars of aggression and subvert its drive to maintain global hegemony.

If we agree with Pope Francis and Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester that nuclear weapons are immoral, do we in Northern New Mexico have an obligation to acknowledge and speak out against the uncomfortable truth of the nuclear weapons enterprise’s primary mission at LANL, which it justifies under the false names of “national security” and “keeping us safe”?

I say, “Not in my name!”

Suzanne Schwartz has lived in Taos County for over 35 years.