The Greenpeace 'Most Wanted' deck of nuclear evil-doers.
When the NPT was agreed in 1968, there were approximately 38,000
weapons in the world. Today, there are approximately 30,000. What
have these guys been doing for the last 35 years, playing
poker?
Well, if so, we figured we had to adopt our communication
methods to the audience. So instead of putting another 30 million
people out on the streets worldwide to shout for peace, we made
them a special deck of playing cards.
If cards are good enough for the US military to use to educate
soldiers in how to spot bad guys, we figured they were good enough
for us.
Our "most wanted" pack includes pictures of some real
deal-welshers -- world leaders who promised to disarm and get rid
of their weapons of mass destruction, but didn't do so. Leaders who
never signed the treaty, and went off to pursue nuclear weapons on
their own. And one leader whose country did sign the treaty, and
then went off and developed nuclear weapons anyway.
We hope these pictures will help the delegates to the NPT spot
the evil doers. If they need help finding the evidence, we also
published a handy map
with the known locations of plenty of Weapons of Mass
Destruction.
To remind the delegates of just how big a job they've got to do,
and to help them with their speeches, we've also included a set of
easy-to-understand nuclear factoids, with our deck, one per
card.
They're just chock full of surprises for anybody who's been
concentrating on cutting the deck instead of cutting back on nukes.
Like this one, from the 5 of diamonds: "The latest US/Russia
nuclear disarmament treaty, signed in 2002, will not involve the
destruction of any nuclear weapons." Huh? What was all that fanfare
about when Putin and Bush were being all buddy buddy? Good heavens,
you don't think it could have been PR spin, do you?
And this one, from the 9 of clubs: "The US wants to build a
facility capable of producing 450 nuclear weapons cores annually."
That ought to raise the stakes!
One really great thing about our deck of cards is that they were
partially subsidized by the US military. Not knowingly, of course.
We went to the same printers that they used for their "Iraqi
Leadership Most Wanted" deck, and since the printing plates had
already been made up, we got a discount. So in fairness, we ought
to give them a little plug here:
"All of these facts about how the world is bristling with
nuclear weapons are made possible by the US Government."
(Let it not be said we don't give credit where credit is
due.)
While we only intended to give our cards to delegates and
journalists at the NPT, the story got out into the press, and
suddenly we were being asked how much the cards cost and where
folks can get them. We initially printed 600 of them, and those are
all gone... with the exception of a few our
fund raising department snagged and are auctioning off on Ebay.
(Don't be fooled by the scammers that are selling PDF files for
US$3.99. The PDF files are available free
here.)
We'll be doing a reprinting of the cards soon, but in the
meantime, you can amuse yourself and learn just how effectively the
NPT is working by playing our
It features the same cards we gave out to the delegates,
presented (appropriately enough for a 35-year-old treaty that
hasn't accomplished much) in the perennial time-wasting and
unilateralist format of a game of Solitaire.
Enjoy.
And if after a few hands you find yourself inspired to help do
something about nuclear weapons, why not become a cyberactivist?
Just go to http://act.greenpeace.org and
register for a free newsletter, cyberalerts, your own home page,
and free membership in our online community.