Grassroots Anti-Nuke Activists React to John Bolton’s Firing

Today, President Donald Trump fired national security advisor John Bolton, citing disagreement between the administration and many of the suggestions Bolton made. Bolton is Trump’s third national security advisor to leave or be fired, including Michael Flynn and H.R. McMaster.

It was reported that Trump and Bolton’s disagreement over the President’s decision to host members of the Taliban at Camp David, which ultimately fell apart, led to Trump’s firing of his national security advisor.

Cecili Thompson Williams, executive director of Beyond the Bomb, a people-powered campaign working to free our planet from nuclear violence, issued the following statement in reaction to Bolton’s firing:

“We’ve been saying it from the beginning: Bolton is an ideological extremist who believes in war over diplomacy, and he had no place in the White House. Beyond the Bomb activists have been fighting his war mongering online and on the streets since his appointment and we welcome his departure from any position of power within the U.S. government. His penchant for killing arms control deals, his rigid doctrine on militarism, and his systematic approach to dismantling the guardrails on nuclear proliferation have destabilized our world, and further threatened an already unstable display of ‘diplomacy’ by President Trump.

“During his short tenure, Bolton managed to break the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, the Agreed Framework with North Korea, the Iran Deal, and, most recently, the INF treaty. He had just one major target left before realizing his dream of fully dismantling our nuclear guardrails: New START. This critical, treaty is all that is left to prevent an all out nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Russia.

“With the roadblock of Bolton now out of the way, we must seize the opportunity to begin negotiations on extending this cornerstone nuclear treaty. One person should never have the power to influence international outcomes the way Bolton has, and one person should not be able to launch nukes on a whim.

“But, with Trump still in office, we can’t take any chances on who might be the next National Security Advisor. Unfortunately, to be in Trump’s orbit, it is all but an official job requirement to stoke divisions with once-allies, tear up treaties that spent decades making our world safer, or cozy up to foreign enemies without any real solutions for peace.

“While Trump continues his determined approach to reverse decades of progress on nuclear arms control and risk a new nuclear arms race, it remains vital that Americans hold this administration accountable for its dismantling of US foreign policy. We must demand we stick to the saner course and not revert to nuclear brinkmanship.”