Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Blog

  • Condition Black: End the War in Afghanistan

    On any given day NATO hospitals in southern Afghanistan enter “CONDITION BLACK” – a status that alerts military tactical commanders that hospital beds are full and patients should be diverted elsewhere. Commanders’ options are limited however – in the south NATO has only two Role-3 hospitals – those that are capable of dealing with complex polytrauma that is a common result of IED blasts.

    It’s typical for a soldier to arrive from the battlefield with injuries requiring vascular, orthopedic, burn, and general surgery. The most seriously wounded will stop at the British hospital in Helmand province or the US hospital in Kandahar province for stabilization surgery prior to the long flight to Europe for further care. These hospitals are modern-day “trauma factories” dealing with scores of brutally battered patients daily, not all of whom are soldiers.

    Many of the wounded are innocent Afghan civilians whose neighborhoods have become battlefields. In fact, Afghanistan Rights Monitor (ARM) (an independent and impartial Afghan rights group) reports that 1,074 civilians were killed and over 1,500 were injured in the first six months of 2010. And that’s where this gets complicated.

    Even though the NATO hospitals will report CONDITION BLACK, they will always make room for NATO troops requiring care; there just is not another option. Not so for the civilian casualties; in CONDITION BLACK NATO will either refuse to collect them from the battlefield, or deliver them to the poorly-staffed Afghan Army hospital near Kandahar – the only Afghan Army hospital in the entire southern region – and not capable of complex polytrauma surgery. The result is that NATO is triaging patients based on nationality vice on medical need.

    Although the Geneva Conventions require the warring parties to protect civilians and provide medical care to the wounded, the US chose to escalate the war knowing that civilians would increasingly be killed and wounded – without a proper level of trauma care in place. While ARM attributes 60 percent of civilian casualties to the Taliban, they are not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions and have no medical facilities. Such is the condition of conducting a counterinsurgency – the burden lies with the nation states – US/UK.

    The General: In July 2009 General McChrystal issued a directive that required commanders to more carefully consider civilian casualties while engaging the enemy. A 29 June 2010 article by Amnesty International credits this policy with a 28 percent reduction in civilian deaths in the second half of 2009 from the same period in 2008. Ironically, also on 29 June, The New York Times quoted General Petraeus as having a “moral imperative” to protect his troops. General Petraeus has since directed a review of the rules of engagement that will likely result in lessening restraint and increasing civilian deaths. As the principle author of the US counterinsurgency doctrine, General Petraeus must realize what this failure to protect the population will cost in terms of civilian support of foreign troops.

    The Senator: A small group of veterans – part of Veterans For Peace – in Traverse City Michigan – appealed to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee to investigate the lack of medical care to civilians. Senator Levin has yet to respond. Meanwhile, in this poor isolated nation with few true allies, it continues that the most innocent bear the brunt of the suffering; six civilians are killed and eight wounded daily. It’s time to end the war. Short of that the Commander-In-Chief must do the morally right thing – provide medical care to civilians at the same level offered to NATO forces.

  • Howard Zinn’s the Bomb

    The late Howard Zinn’s new book “The Bomb” is a brilliant little dissection of some of the central myths of our militarized society. Those who’ve read “A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments,” by H.P. Albarelli Jr. know that this is a year for publishing the stories of horrible things that the United States has done to French towns. In that case, Albarelli, describes the CIA administering LSD to an entire town, with deadly results. In “The Bomb,” Zinn describes the U.S. military making its first use of napalm by dropping it all over another French town, burning anyone and anything it touched. Zinn was in one of the planes, taking part in this horrendous crime.

    In mid-April 1945, the war in Europe was essentially over. Everyone knew it was ending. There was no military reason (if that’s not an oxymoron) to attack the Germans stationed near Royan, France, much less to burn the French men, women, and children in the town to death. The British had already destroyed the town in January, similarly bombing it because of its vicinity to German troops, in what was widely called a tragic mistake. This tragic mistake was rationalized as an inevitable part of war, just as were the horrific firebombings that successfully reached German targets, just as was the later bombing of Royan with napalm. Zinn blames the Supreme Allied Command for seeking to add a “victory” in the final weeks of a war already won. He blames the local military commanders’ ambitions. He blames the American Air Force’s desire to test a new weapon. And he blames everyone involved — which must include himself — for “the most powerful motive of all: the habit of obedience, the universal teaching of all cultures, not to get out of line, not even to think about that which one has not been assigned to think about, the negative motive of not having either a reason or a will to intercede.”

    When Zinn returned from the war in Europe, he expected to be sent to the war in the Pacific, until he saw and rejoiced at seeing the news of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, 65 years ago this August. Only years later did Zinn come to understand the inexcusable crime of the greatest proportions that was the dropping of nuclear bombs in Japan, actions similar in some ways to the final bombing of Royan. The war with Japan was already over, the Japanese seeking peace and willing to surrender. Japan asked only that it be permitted to keep its emperor, a request that was later granted. But, like napalm, the nuclear bombs were weapons that needed testing. The second bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, was a different sort of bomb that also needed testing. President Harry Truman wanted to demonstrate nuclear bombs to the world and especially to Russia. And he wanted to end the war with Japan before Russia became part of it. The horrific form of mass murder he employed was in no way justifiable.

    Zinn also goes back to dismantle the mythical reasons the United States was in the war to begin with. The United States, England, and France were imperial powers supporting each other’s international aggressions in places like the Philippines. They opposed the same from Germany and Japan, but not aggression itself. Most of America’s tin and rubber came from the Southwest Pacific. The United States made clear for years its lack of concern for the Jews being attacked in Germany. It also demonstrated its lack of opposition to racism through its treatment of African Americans and Japanese Americans. Franklin D. Roosevelt described fascist bombing campaigns over civilian areas as “inhuman barbarity” but then did the same on a much larger scale to German cities, which was followed up by the destruction on an unprecedented scale of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — actions that came after years of dehumanizing the Japanese. Zinn points out that “LIFE magazine showed a picture of a Japanese person burning to death and commented: ‘This is the only way.’” Aware that the war would end without any more bombing, and aware that U.S. prisoners of war would be killed by the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, the U.S. military went ahead and dropped the bombs.

    Americans allowed these things to be done in their name, just as the Germans and Japanese allowed horrible crimes to be committed in their names. Zinn points out, with his trademark clarity, how the use of the word “we” blends governments together with peoples and serves to equate our own people with our military, while we demonize the people of other lands because of actions by their governments. “The Bomb” suggest a better way to think about such matters and firmly establishes that:

    • what the U.S. military is doing now, today, parallels the crimes of the past and shares their dishonorable motivations;
    • the bad wars have a lot in common with the so-called “good war,” about which there was little if anything good;
    • Howard Zinn did far more in his life for peace than for war, and more for peace than just about anybody else, certainly more than several Nobel Peace Prize winners.

  • Frank Kelly: An Advocate of Joy

    These remarks were delivered at Frank Kelly’s memorial service in Santa Barbara, California on July 16, 2010.

    We are here today to remember a good and decent man, who lived a long life with many notable achievements.  It is not so much what he accomplished, though, as how he lived that makes his life a powerful lesson and one worth celebrating.

    Frank was a very dear friend, the kind of friend that one is graced to have.  I first met Frank when Carolee and I came to Santa Barbara and I worked at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions.  We shared the experience of being a part of that remarkable organization headed by Robert Hutchins.  That was 38 years ago.  

    Ten years later, in 1982, Frank and I would work together to found the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.  Over the 28 years that the Foundation has existed, we were very close, conferring on our work on nearly a daily basis.  For many years before Barbara’s death, Frank and Barbara and Carolee and I shared our birthdays together.

    Frank was a unique individual who lived a unique life.  Here are some of the characteristics that impressed me about Frank:

    He was always generous with his smiles and his praise.

    He always managed to find and encourage the best in each person he knew.

    He believed that all of us are, in his special language, “glorious beings.”

    He recognized that each of us is a miracle and should be celebrated as such.

    He was optimistic that a better world was possible and could be achieved.  

    He believed that each of us deserves a seat at humanity’s table.

    He felt the world needed far more women as leaders at all levels of society, and he was as insistent as he was persistent in urging leadership roles for women.

    He was a loyal and devoted husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather and friend.  He was proud of his children and grandchildren and delighted by his new great-grandson.

    He was a sparkling storyteller and had a rich storehouse of memories to draw upon, ranging from his childhood memories of his father coming home from World War I, to his days at the Kansas City Star, to speechwriting for President Truman, to his work as the assistant to the Senate Majority Leader, and his close relationship to Robert Hutchins and many other luminaries of the 20th century.

    He loved music of all sorts, and had a special fondness for Louis Armstrong’s rendition of “It’s a Wonderful World.”  He also loved the special concerts that his son Stephen performed for him and was Stephen’s greatest fan.

    Frank had a deep spirituality – a spirituality rooted in our connections with each other, with the Earth, and with the infinite.  

    Most of all, Frank was an advocate of joy, and he loved these lines by William Blake, “He who kisses joy as it flies lives in eternity’s sunrise.”  William Blake might well have envisioned Frank as he wrote those lines.

    Frank will live on in the hearts of those who admired and loved him and in the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future.

    I hesitate to say farewell to Frank, as I believe his spirit will remain with us in our efforts to create a more peaceful and decent future for humanity.  If we can build some joy into our efforts, I think we can be assured that Frank will be smiling down on us.

  • El sexagésimo quinto aniversario de la Era Nuclear

    El 16 de julio de 1945 marcó el comienzo de la Era Nuclear. Ese día, Estados Unidos llevó a cabo la primera prueba de un artefacto atómico. La prueba fue nombrada Trinidad y se llevó a cabo en el campo de pruebas de Alamogordo, en el desierto Jornada del Muerto en Nuevo México. La bomba tuvo como nombre clave  “El Artefacto”.


    La prueba utilizó un dispositivo de implosión de plutonio, el mismo tipo de arma que se utilizaría en la ciudad de Nagasaki tan solo tres y media semanas después. Su fuerza explosiva fue de 20 kilotones de TNT.


    Los nombres asociados con la prueba merecen reflexión. “El Artefacto”, que indica algo simple e inocuo, se hizo estallar en un desierto llamado Jornada del Muerto. El plutonio, la fuerza explosiva de la bomba, fue nombrado por Plutón, el dios romano del mundo subterráneo. El isótopo de plutonio que se usó en la bomba, plutonio-239, es uno de los materiales radiactivos más mortales en el planeta. En la Tierra sólo existía en pequeñas cantidades antes de que EE.UU. comenzara a crearlo para su uso en las bombas por la fisión del uranio-238.


    No existe una explicación definitiva de por qué la prueba fue nombrada Trinidad, pero en general parece que se asocia con un concepto religioso de Dios. Los pensamientos de J. Robert Oppenheimer, director científico del proyecto creador de la bomba y quien dio nombre a la prueba, ofrecen algunas pistas.


    “No está claro por qué elegí el nombre, pero sé bien las ideas que rondaban por mi cabeza. Hay un poema de John Donne, escrito poco antes de su muerte, que yo conozco y amo. Esta es una cita de ese poema: «En Occidente y Oriente / en todos los mapas – yo soy uno- uno solo, / Y la muerte toca la resurrección.”   Eso aún no explica lo de la Trinidad, pero en otro poema, más conocido como devocionario, Donne dice, ‘Golpea mi corazón, tres personas en un Dios.”’


    La reacción de Oppenheimer al ser testigo de la explosión atómica nos hace recordar estas líneas de la escritura sagrada hinduista Bhagavad Gita.


    Si el resplandor de mil soles


    Estallaran de una vez en el cielo,


    Eso sería como el esplendor del Poderoso …


    Me he convertido en la Muerte,


    El destructor de mundos.


    ¿Oppenheimer pensó que ese día había muerto, o más bien, todos nosotros.? Desde luego que esa primera explosión nuclear presagiaba la posibilidad de que el mundo sería destrozado (¿por un “Poderoso”?), Muy pronto eso ocurriría en Hiroshima y Nagasaki.


    Muchas cosas han pasado en estos 65 años de la Era Nuclear. En Hiroshima y Nagasaki hemos visto la devastación que las armas nucleares inflingen sobre las ciudades y sus habitantes. Hemos sido testigos de una carrera armamentista verdaderamente absurda entre Estados Unidos y la antigua Unión Soviética, en la que el número de armas nucleares en el mundo aumentó a 70.000. Hemos aprendido que un arma nuclear puede destruir una ciudad, unas pocas armas nucleares pueden destruir un país, y una guerra nuclear podría destruir la civilización y la mayoría de las formas de vida en el planeta.


    Las armas nucleares han puesto en peligro la especie humana, y aún hoy existen más de 20.000 armas nucleares en el mundo. Nueve países ya poseen estas armas. La humanidad sigue jugando con el fuego del omnicidio – la muerte de todos. Todavía estamos esperando por los líderes que nos llevarán más allá de esta amenaza global hacia un futuro común. En lugar de seguir esperando, tenemos que convertirnos en líderes.


    En este 65 º aniversario del embarque en el camino de la muerte, debemos cambiar de rumbo y eludir el precipicio nuclear. Las armas son ilegales, inmorales, antidemocráticas e innecesarias militarmente. La manera más segura de ponerlas bajo control es mediante la negociación de un nuevo tratado, una Convención de Armas Nucleares, para que en forma transparente, progresiva, verificable e irreversible se logre la eliminación de las armas nucleares.


    Estados Unidos condujo al mundo a la era nuclear. El presidente Obama ha señalado que el país también tiene una responsabilidad moral para encontrar una salida. Esto se puede lograr, pero no con ciudadanos ignorantes, apáticos y en estado de negación. Sesenta y cinco años en el Camino de la Muerte es demasiado tiempo. Llegó el momento para que los ciudadanos despierten y se involucren en este tema como si su futuro dependiera de ello, y en realidad así es.


    La ferviente oración de los hibakusha, los supervivientes de Hiroshima y Nagasaki, es “¡Nunca más!” Ellos hablan para que su pasado no se convierta en nuestro futuro. Es algo en lo que cada uno de nosotros debe participar, tanto con voces y acciones para lograr un mundo libre de armas nucleares.

  • The Anniversary of the Nuclear Age

    The Anniversary of the Nuclear Age

    [fusion_builder_container type=”flex” hundred_percent=”no” hundred_percent_height=”no” min_height_medium=”” min_height_small=”” min_height=”” hundred_percent_height_scroll=”no” align_content=”stretch” flex_align_items=”flex-start” flex_justify_content=”flex-start” flex_wrap_medium=”” flex_wrap_small=”” flex_wrap=”wrap” flex_column_spacing=”” hundred_percent_height_center_content=”yes” equal_height_columns=”no” container_tag=”div” menu_anchor=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” status=”published” publish_date=”” class=”” id=”” spacing_medium=”” margin_top_medium=”” margin_bottom_medium=”” spacing_small=”” margin_top_small=”” margin_bottom_small=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_dimensions_medium=”” padding_top_medium=”” padding_right_medium=”” padding_bottom_medium=”” padding_left_medium=”” padding_dimensions_small=”” padding_top_small=”” padding_right_small=”” padding_bottom_small=”” padding_left_small=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” link_hover_color=”” link_color=”” border_sizes=”” border_sizes_top=”” border_sizes_right=”” border_sizes_bottom=”” border_sizes_left=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_radius_top_left=”” border_radius_top_right=”” border_radius_bottom_right=”” border_radius_bottom_left=”” box_shadow=”no” box_shadow_vertical=”” box_shadow_horizontal=”” box_shadow_blur=”0″ box_shadow_spread=”0″ box_shadow_color=”” box_shadow_style=”” z_index=”” overflow=”” background_color_medium=”” background_color_small=”” background_color=”” gradient_start_color=”” gradient_end_color=”” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ background_image_medium=”” background_image_small=”” background_image=”” skip_lazy_load=”” background_position_medium=”” background_position_small=”” background_position=”center center” background_repeat_medium=”” background_repeat_small=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_size_medium=”” background_size_small=”” background_size=”” background_custom_size=”” background_custom_size_medium=”” background_custom_size_small=”” fade=”no” background_parallax=”none” enable_mobile=”no” parallax_speed=”0.3″ background_blend_mode_medium=”” background_blend_mode_small=”” background_blend_mode=”none” background_slider_images=”” background_slider_position=”” background_slider_skip_lazy_loading=”no” background_slider_loop=”yes” background_slider_pause_on_hover=”no” background_slider_slideshow_speed=”5000″ background_slider_animation=”fade” background_slider_direction=”up” background_slider_animation_speed=”800″ background_slider_blend_mode=”” video_mp4=”” video_webm=”” video_ogv=”” video_url=”” video_aspect_ratio=”16:9″ video_loop=”yes” video_mute=”yes” video_preview_image=”” pattern_bg=”none” pattern_custom_bg=”” pattern_bg_color=”” pattern_bg_style=”default” pattern_bg_opacity=”100″ pattern_bg_size=”” pattern_bg_blend_mode=”normal” mask_bg=”none” mask_custom_bg=”” mask_bg_color=”” mask_bg_accent_color=”” mask_bg_style=”default” mask_bg_opacity=”100″ mask_bg_transform=”left” mask_bg_blend_mode=”normal” render_logics=”” logics=”” absolute=”off” absolute_devices=”small,medium,large” sticky=”off” sticky_devices=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” sticky_background_color=”” sticky_height=”” sticky_offset=”” sticky_transition_offset=”0″ scroll_offset=”0″ animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_color=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_delay=”0″ animation_offset=”” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ layout=”1_1″ align_self=”auto” content_layout=”column” align_content=”flex-start” valign_content=”flex-start” content_wrap=”wrap” spacing=”” center_content=”no” column_tag=”div” link=”” target=”_self” link_description=”” min_height=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” sticky_display=”normal,sticky” class=”” id=”” type_medium=”” type_small=”” flex_grow_medium=”” flex_grow_small=”” flex_grow=”” flex_shrink_medium=”” flex_shrink_small=”” flex_shrink=”” order_medium=”0″ order_small=”0″ dimension_spacing_medium=”” dimension_spacing_small=”” dimension_spacing=”” dimension_margin_medium=”” dimension_margin_small=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” padding_medium=”” padding_small=”” padding_top=”” padding_right=”” padding_bottom=”” padding_left=”” hover_type=”none” border_sizes=”” border_color_hover=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” border_radius=”” box_shadow=”no” dimension_box_shadow=”” box_shadow_blur=”0″ box_shadow_spread=”0″ box_shadow_color=”” box_shadow_style=”” z_index_hover=”” z_index=”” overflow=”” background_type=”single” background_color_medium=”” background_color_small=”” background_color_medium_hover=”” background_color_small_hover=”” background_color_hover=”” background_color=”” gradient_start_color=”” gradient_end_color=”” gradient_start_position=”0″ gradient_end_position=”100″ gradient_type=”linear” radial_direction=”center center” linear_angle=”180″ background_image_medium=”” background_image_small=”” background_image=”” background_image_id_medium=”” background_image_id_small=”” background_image_id=”” lazy_load=”none” skip_lazy_load=”” background_position_medium=”” background_position_small=”” background_position=”left top” background_repeat_medium=”” background_repeat_small=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” background_size_medium=”” background_size_small=”” background_size=”” background_custom_size=”” background_custom_size_medium=”” background_custom_size_small=”” background_blend_mode_medium=”” background_blend_mode_small=”” background_blend_mode=”none” background_slider_images=”” background_slider_position=”” background_slider_skip_lazy_loading=”no” background_slider_loop=”yes” background_slider_pause_on_hover=”no” background_slider_slideshow_speed=”5000″ background_slider_animation=”fade” background_slider_direction=”up” background_slider_animation_speed=”800″ background_slider_blend_mode=”” render_logics=”” sticky=”off” sticky_devices=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” sticky_offset=”” absolute=”off” absolute_props=”” filter_type=”regular” filter_hover_element=”self” filter_hue=”0″ filter_saturation=”100″ filter_brightness=”100″ filter_contrast=”100″ filter_invert=”0″ filter_sepia=”0″ filter_opacity=”100″ filter_blur=”0″ filter_hue_hover=”0″ filter_saturation_hover=”100″ filter_brightness_hover=”100″ filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″ transform_type=”regular” transform_hover_element=”self” transform_scale_x=”1″ transform_scale_y=”1″ transform_translate_x=”0″ transform_translate_y=”0″ transform_rotate=”0″ transform_skew_x=”0″ transform_skew_y=”0″ transform_scale_x_hover=”1″ transform_scale_y_hover=”1″ transform_translate_x_hover=”0″ transform_translate_y_hover=”0″ transform_rotate_hover=”0″ transform_skew_x_hover=”0″ transform_skew_y_hover=”0″ transform_origin=”” transition_duration=”300″ transition_easing=”ease” transition_custom_easing=”” motion_effects=”” scroll_motion_devices=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_color=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_delay=”0″ animation_offset=”” last=”true” border_position=”all” first=”true”][fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_spacing=”” rule_style=”” rule_size=”” rule_color=”” hue=”” saturation=”” lightness=”” alpha=”” content_alignment_medium=”” content_alignment_small=”” content_alignment=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” sticky_display=”normal,sticky” class=”” id=”” margin_top=”” margin_right=”” margin_bottom=”” margin_left=”” fusion_font_family_text_font=”” fusion_font_variant_text_font=”” font_size=”” line_height=”” letter_spacing=”” text_transform=”” text_color=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_color=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_delay=”0″ animation_offset=”” logics=””]

    July 16, 1945 marked the beginning of the Nuclear Age. On that day, the United States conducted the first explosive test of an atomic device. The test was code-named Trinity and took place at the Alamogordo Test Range in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto Desert. The bomb itself was code-named “The Gadget.”

    The Trinity test used a plutonium implosion device, the same type of weapon that would be used on the city of Nagasaki just three and a half weeks later.  It had the explosive force of 20 kilotons of TNT.

    The names associated with the test deserve reflection. “The Gadget,” something so simple and innocuous, was exploded in a desert whose name in Spanish means “Journey of Death.”  Plutonium, the explosive force in the bomb, was named for Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld. The isotope of plutonium that was used in the bomb, plutonium-239, is one of the most deadly radioactive materials on the planet.  It existed only in minute quantities on Earth before the US began creating it for use in its bombs by the fissioning of uranium-238.

    There is no definitive explanation for why the test was named Trinity, but it generally seems most associated with a religious concept of God. The thoughts of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientific director of the project to create the bomb and the person who named the test, provide insights into the name:

    “Why I chose the name is not clear, but I know what thoughts were in my mind. There is a poem of John Donne, written just before his death, which I know and love. From it a quotation: ‘As West and East / In all flatt Maps—and I am one—are one, / So death doth touch the Resurrection.’ That still does not make a Trinity, but in another, better known devotional poem Donne opens, ‘Batter my heart, three person’d God.’”

    Oppenheimer’s reaction to witnessing the explosion of the atomic device was to recall these lines from the Bhagavad Gita:

    If the radiance of a thousand suns
    Were to burst at once into the sky,
    That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One…
    I am become Death,
    The shatterer of Worlds.

    Did Oppenheimer think that he had become death that day, or that all of us had?  Certainly that first nuclear explosion portended the possibility that worlds would be shattered (by a “Mighty One”?), as they were soon to be in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    This year marks the 65th anniversary of the Trinity test. We are now 65 years into the Nuclear Age.  At Hiroshima and Nagasaki we have seen the devastation that nuclear weapons can inflict on cities and their inhabitants. We have witnessed a truly mad arms race between the United States and the former Soviet Union, in which the number of nuclear weapons in the world rose to 70,000. We have learned that one nuclear weapon can destroy a city, a few nuclear weapons can destroy a country, and a nuclear war could destroy civilization and most of the complex life forms on the planet.

    Nuclear weapons have endangered the human species, and yet today there are still more than 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Nine countries now possess these weapons. Humanity is still playing with the fire of omnicide – the death of all. We are still waiting for the leaders who will take us beyond this overarching threat to our common future. Instead of continuing to wait, we must ourselves become these leaders.

    On this 65th anniversary of embarking on the Journey of Death, we must change course and move back from the nuclear precipice. The weapons are illegal, immoral, undemocratic and militarily unnecessary. The surest way to bring them under control is by negotiating a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention, for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons.

    The United States led the world into the Nuclear Age. President Obama has pointed out that the country also has a moral responsibility to lead the way out. This can be done, but not with a citizenry that is ignorant, apathetic and in denial. Sixty-five years on the Journey of Death is long enough. It is past time for citizens to awaken and become engaged in this issue as if their future depended upon it, as it does.

    The fervent prayer of the hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is “Never Again!”  They speak out so that their past does not become our future. It is a prayer that each of us must join in answering, both with our voices and actions to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.

    [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

  • Choose Peace – End the Siege of Gaza

    Choose Peace – End the Siege of Gaza and the
    Occupation of Palestine

    On Saturday June 5, 2010, thirty-five heavily armed Israeli Navy Seals
    commandeered our boat, the MV Rachel Corrie, one of the Freedom Flotilla, in international
    waters (30 miles off the coast of Gaza). 
    As they did so, we eighteen humanitarian activists and crew, sat on the
    deck.  We were quietly anxious, aware of the solitary figure in the
    wheelhouse with his hands held high against the window. He was in full view of
    the three Israeli warships, four approaching zodiacs and two commando carriers,
    whose guns were pointing in his direction.  I personally wondered if the
    courageous Derek Graham would live to tell the tale, conscious of what happened
    on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, earlier in the week.

    On Monday May 31, 2010, we heard via satellite phone that the Israeli
    Commandoes had boarded the Turkish Ship, MV Mavi Marmara, in international
    waters from a helicopter and Zodiacs killing and injuring many people.  It
    was later confirmed that eight unarmed Turkish civilians and one Turkish-American
    civilian were shot (two were shot in the head and several were shot in the back).
    During Israel’s attack, which
    injured over forty people, all six boats on the Freedom Flotilla were commandeered
    by the Israeli Navy and were taken to back Israel.  

    The killing of unarmed civilians was unexpected and devastating news to us all. Everyone
    participating in the Freedom Flotilla was there because they were moved by the people
    of Gaza
    suffering.  The people aboard the Freedom Flotilla were not terrorists;
    they were human beings who cared for others who were suffering.  Gaza is land locked and
    sea locked as its port has been closed since the Israeli occupation. If the
    Free Gaza Rachel Corrie cargo boat had been able to enter Gaza, it would have been the first cargo boat
    ever to do so. Gaza has rightly been described
    as the largest open air prison in the world, with Israel holding all the keys for its
    one and a half million people living under a policy of collective
    punishment.  Under siege for over three years now with a shortage of
    medicine and basic building materials, the twenty-two day bombardment by Israel in December 2009 and January 2010 left Gaza and its people in a
    place of suffering and isolation. The Flotilla’s purpose was to not only to
    bring humanitarian aid, books for children, toys, and writing materials, but also
    to help break the siege of Gaza
    which is slowly strangling its people.

    Israel
    violated international law and the incident is well documented by the UN and
    many independent human rights bodies. These violations of international
    law were committed under the guise of ‘national security’ and a policy of isolating
    Gaza to weaken
    Hamas.  It is a policy that is clearly not working.  As we have
    learned in Northern Ireland,
    violence never works. So why not try talking to Hamas just as the British
    Government had to talk to representatives of IRA and Loyalist paramilitaries in
    order to move toward peace.  

    The brutal and illegal attack of aid ships in international waters on May
    3lst and the subsequent boarding of the MV Rachel Corrie, also in international
    waters, is a symptom of the culture of impunity under which Israel
    operates. The Israeli government was quick to blame the activists on board the
    MV Mavi Marmara, claiming they attacked the Israeli Navy first and that they
    were members of terrorist groups. They also claimed that the HLL, the Turkish humanitarian
    group who organized the Mavi Marmara, had terrorist links.  The HLL is not
    a banned organization in Turkey
    and has no links to terrorist organizations.  It was disappointing to see
    how many international governments and media outlets immediately accepted Israel’s
    version of the story without further investigation.  While there have been
    calls for a ‘prompt, impartial, credible and transparent’ investigation into
    the events of May 3lst by the United Nations Security Council, the United
    States and others still seem to think that Israel can conduct such an investigation
    on its own.  In the words of my colleague, Nobel Laureate Jody Williams,
    this is like “the fox accounting for the number of chickens left in the
    henhouse”.  Such a response cannot stand, and nothing less than an independent
    investigation will be acceptable to the international community.

    The attack on the Freedom Flotilla is a tipping point.  It is time for
    the international community to finally stop allowing Israel to act with blatant
    disregard for human life, human rights, and international law.  The
    partial lifting of the siege shows what international pressure can achieve, but
    it is not enough. Only a full lifting of the siege can bring real freedom to
    the people of Gaza.
    It is time for Israel
    to choose peace.  It is time for world leaders and the international community
    to join together and call on Israel
    to lift the siege of Gaza completely, end the
    occupation of Palestine,
    and allow the Palestinian people their right to self-determination. We can all
    do something to help bring the day of reconciliation closer to reality. Supporting
    the BDS campaign, calling for an end to EU special trading status with Israel, and insisting that the USA end its economic and military assistance to Israel
    until it upholds its international commitments, are important initiatives in
    the steps toward peace. Palestine is a key to
    peace in the Middle East. If everyone refuses
    to be ‘silent’ in the face of Israel’s
    continued apartheid policies, we can move closer to ending all violence in the Middle East.

    Mairead Maguire (Nobel Peace Laureate)

    www.peacepeople.com

    19th June, 2010  

     

  • Tale of Two Nuclear Whistleblowers

    Reliable sources have revealed that as a result of a secret trial, Iranian nuclear whistleblower Amid Nasri has been sentenced to 18 years in solitary confinement.  Nasri, a former worker at an Iranian uranium enrichment plant, revealed to the The Sunday Times in London that Iran was developing nuclear materials as part of a program to create nuclear weapons.  Lured to Rome by a strikingly beautiful Iranian secret agent, Nasri was kidnapped by the secret service and returned to Iran for trial.  

    The government of Iran issued a brief statement in which they claim that Nasri violated the national security of the Islamic Republic of Iran and was tried and punished accordingly.  They state that he had a contractual obligation not to release any information concerning the work of the uranium enrichment plant where he worked.  

    Nasri has been incarcerated in Iran’s highest level security prison and has not been allowed to speak to the press or to foreign officials.  He is under such severe restrictions that he is not allowed even to speak with other prison inmates.  

    There have been widespread protests from Western governments about Nasri’s treatment at the hands of the Iranian government.  A high-level UK official called the secret trial a “sham of the first order,” and harshly criticized the Iranian government for its heavy handed treatment of Nasri.   US officials have also protested Nasri’s conviction, calling him a hero for making public the information on the Iranian nuclear weapon program. 

    Before you become too concerned about the harsh treatment of this Iranian whistleblower acting for the common good, I need to tell you that he is fictional.  He does not exist.  There is no Iranian whistleblower Amid Nasri.  There is also no proof of an Iranian nuclear weapon program, although there are concerns about its nuclear enrichment program.

    The story, though, is not entirely false.  There is an Israeli nuclear whistleblower by the name of Mordechai Vanunu.  He worked as a nuclear technician at the Negev Nuclear Research Center in Israel.  He revealed information on the Israeli nuclear weapon program to the The Sunday Times in London in 1986.  He was lured from London to Rome by a beautiful Israeli secret agent, where he was kidnapped by Israel’s secret service and returned to Israel.  There he was given a secret trial, convicted and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.  He served more than 11 years of his sentence in solitary confinement.  The Israelis claimed that Vanunu violated his contractual obligations of secrecy and was a national security risk. 

    Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, but under harsh parole terms.  He is not allowed to leave Israel or to travel too close to the Israeli border.  Nor is he allowed to talk to foreign journalists.  In 2007, Vanunu was sentenced to six more months in prison for violating the terms of his parole for speaking to the foreign media in 2004.  The sentence was later reduced by half, and in May 2010 Vanunu was returned to prison for three months.  Amnesty International has called Vanunu a prisoner of conscience.  Although he has received many awards for his courage in blowing the whistle on Israel’s nuclear weapons program and has been nominated many times for the Nobel Peace Prize, he has received virtually no support from Western governments.

    What are we to learn from this tale of two whistleblowers, one fictional, one real?  One important lesson is the danger of nuclear double standards.  We cannot be content to make a hero of a fictional Iranian nuclear whistleblower, while turning a blind eye to the treatment of a real-life Israeli nuclear whistleblower and to the Israeli nuclear arsenal.

    Nuclear weapons are not reasonable weapons in the hands of any nation – not Israel, not Iran, not the US, the UK, or any other nation.  We should not be complacent with the punishment of truth-telling messengers such as Vanunu.  We should laud them and work to assure that no nation holds in its hands the nuclear power of mass annihilation. 

    The Final Document of the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference calls for a Middle East Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, a long time aspiration of the people of this region.  If such a zone is created, it will mean that Iran and other countries in the region will not be able to develop nuclear weapons, but it will also mean that Israel will not be able to continue to possess its nuclear arsenal, which is thought to contain some 200 nuclear weapons. 

    If we are going to prevent future replays of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or even worse scenarios, we must rid the world of nuclear weapons.  It will not be easy, but it is necessary if we are to assure the continuation of human life on our planet.  President Obama has told us that America seeks “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”  In that world, whistleblowers like Mordechai Vanunu will be respected and honored for the courage they displayed in revealing the truth in the face of the overwhelming power and hypocrisy of the state and of a global system that unwisely supported nuclear double standards.

  • Why We Wage Peace

    Some things are worth Waging Peace for: our planet and its diverse life forms, including humankind; our children and their dreams; our common future.  All of these are threatened by the possibility of nuclear catastrophe.

    We live on an amazing planet, the only one we know of in the universe that supports life, and does so in abundance and diversity.  Our planet is worth Waging Peace for – against those who are despoiling and ruining its delicate and beautiful environment.  

    On our unique planet are creatures of all shapes and sizes: Birds that fly, fish that swim, animals that inhabit jungles and deserts, mountains and plains, rivers and oceans.  Life is worth Waging Peace for – against those who are disrespecting and destroying the habitats of creatures great and small.

    Among the diverse creatures on our planet are human beings.  We are homo sapiens, the knowing ones, and are relative newcomers to the planet.  Yet, our impact has been profound.  We are creatures capable of learning and loving, of being imaginative and inventive, of being compassionate and kind.  We are worth Waging Peace for – against those who would diminish us by undermining our dignity and human rights.

    Human beings, like other forms of life, produce offspring who are innocent and helpless at birth.  These human children, all children, require care and nurturing as they grow to maturity.  The world’s children are worth Waging Peace for – against those who would threaten their future with war and other forms of overt and structural violence.

    Children as they grow have dreams of living happy and decent lives, dreams of building a better future in peaceful and just societies.  These dreams are worth Waging Peace for – against those whose myopia and greed rob children anywhere of a better future.

    Each generation shares a responsibility to pass the planet and civilization on intact to the next generation.  Accepting this responsibility is an important part of Waging Peace.  It is a way of paying a debt of gratitude to all who have preceded us on the planet by assuring that there is a better future.

    In the Nuclear Age, we humans, by our cleverness, have invented tools capable of our own demise.  Nuclear weapons are not really weapons; they are instruments of annihilation and perhaps of omnicide, the death of all.  Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age requires that we awaken to the dangers that these weapons pose to humankind and all life, and work to rid the world of these insane tools of global devastation.

    For too long humanity has lived with nuclear policies of Mutually Assured Destruction, with the appropriate acronym of MAD.  We need a new and distinctly different formulation: Planetary Assured Security and Survival, with the acronym PASS for passing the world on intact to the next generation.

    Among the greatest obstacles to assuring survival in the Nuclear Age are ignorance, apathy, complacency and despair.  These can only be overcome by education and advocacy; education to raise awareness of what needs to change and advocacy to increase engagement in bringing about the needed change.   

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has three major goals: the abolition of nuclear weapons, the strengthening of international law, and the empowerment of new peace leaders.   The Foundation was created in 1982 in the belief that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age and that the people must lead their leaders if we are to assure a safe and secure human future.  We need your generous support to continue to educate and advocate for a brighter future for humanity.

  • Obey’s Afghanistan: At Long Last, It’s Guns vs. Butter

    One of the many destructive legacies of the Reagan Era was the effective Washington consensus that wars and other military spending exist on their own fiscal planet. Reagan got a Dixiecrat Congress to double military spending at a time when the U.S. was not at war (unless you were a poor person in Central America.) Meanwhile, Reagan got the Dixiecrat Congress to cut domestic spending – we just couldn’t afford those costly social programs. Reagan pretended the two things were totally unrelated, and the Dixiecrat Congress went along.

    Ever since, the Democratic leadership and the big Democratic constituency groups have largely collaborated in maintaining the destructive fiction that we can shovel tax dollars to war and to corporate welfare called “defense spending” without having any impact on our ability to provide quality education, health care, effective enforcement of environmental, civil rights, and worker safety laws, and other basic services to our citizens that are taken for granted by the citizens of every other industrialized country.

    But maybe – maybe – that destructive connivance is coming to an end.

    This week, House Appropriations Committee Chair David Obey told the White House that he was going to sit on the Administration’s request for $33 billion more for pointless killing in Afghanistan until the White House acted on House Democratic demands to unlock federal money to aid the states in averting a wave of layoffs of teachers and other public employees.

    Obey didn’t just link the two issues rhetorically; he linked them with the threat of effective action.

    At last, at long last.

    But why is David Obey standing alone?

    Perhaps, behind the scenes, the big Democratic constituency groups are pulling for Obey.

    But you wouldn’t know it from any public manifestation. Why? This should be a “teachable moment,” an opportunity to mobilize the majority of America’s working families to push to redirect resources from futile wars of empire and the corporate welfare of the “base military budget” to human needs at home and abroad. Where is the public mobilization of the Democratic constituency groups?

    If we could shorten the Afghanistan war by a month, that would free up the $10 billion that Obey is asking for domestic spending. Rep. Jim McGovern’s bill requiring a timetable for military redeployment from Afghanistan currently has 94 co-sponsors in the House (act here.) If McGovern’s bill became law, it would surely save the taxpayers at least $10 billion. Why aren’t the big Democratic constituency groups aggressively backing the McGovern bill, demanding that it be attached to the war supplemental?

    This isn’t just a question of missing an opportunity. There is a freight train coming called “deficit reduction.” If the big Democratic constituency groups continue to sit on their hands on the issue of military spending, then we can predict what the cargo of that freight train is likely to be: cut Social Security benefits, cut Medicare benefits, raise the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare, cut domestic spending for enforcing environmental regulations and civil rights and worker safety.

    Ending the war in Afghanistan with a timetable for withdrawal would likely save hundreds of billions of dollars. That’s money that could be used to prevent cuts from jobs and services at home.

    And we can cut the “base military budget” – the money we are purportedly spending to prepare for wars in the future, whether those wars have any measurable probability of occurring or not – without having any impact on our security.

    The Sustainable Defense Task Force – initiated by Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. Walter Jones, Rep. Ron Paul, and Sen. Ron Wyden – has modestly proposed a trillion dollars in cuts to the military budget over ten years, targeting long-derided weapons systems like F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, and the V-22 Osprey. As Joshua Green notes in the Boston Globe, even Dick Cheney says the V-22 is “a turkey.” As the current annual military expenditure of the U.S. is roughly $660 billion, this would roughly amount to a 15% cut. Note that the U.S. is currently spending about 4.3% of its GDP on the military, more than twice what China spends as a percentage of its economy (2%.) If we cut our military spending 15%, we’d still be spending far more as a percentage of our economy (3.7%) than China, and far more than Britain (2.5%) and France (2.3%). And in absolute terms, we’d still be spending more than the next ten countries combined – most of whom are our allies. Such a cut would free $100 billion a year for deficit reduction and protecting domestic spending from cuts.

    The president’s Deficit Reduction Commission will recommend a package of cuts to Congress in December for an up-or-down vote. Will the Deficit Reduction Commission recommend real cuts to military spending?

    On June 26, the deficit reduction freight train may be coming to your town. The well-financed America Speaks is hosting a “national town hall” discussion in twenty cities on June 26 about ways to cut the deficit, promising that they will push the result into the Washington deficit-cutting decision. Check to see if the freight train is coming to your town. If it is, why not go and see if you can stow away some military spending cuts – like ending the war and cutting the V22 – on board the train?

  • US Opposes ICC Bid to Make ‘Aggression’ a Crime Under International Law

    This article was originally published by the Christian Science Monitor.

    The United States under the Obama administration has developed an increasingly close working relationship with the International Criminal Court in The Hague. But that growing engagement with a controversial institution of international law was unable to prevent the ICC from expanding the scope of its work to include the murky crime of “aggression,” a move the US had vehemently opposed.

    At the 111-nation ICC’s first review conference that wrapped up last week in Kampala, Uganda, delegates decided to expand the international court’s purview to include the crime of aggression – a crime that only the US has successfully tried, in the post-World War II tribunals in Nuremburg and Tokyo.

    State Department officials say the US, which is not a signatory to the ICC, was able to mitigate the drawbacks of such an expansion of the court’s reach, primarily by putting off any prosecution of the newest international crime until at least 2017.

    But some critics say the US failure to stop the enshrining of “aggression” as an international crime demonstrates the limits of President Obama’s multilateralist vision – and sets the US on a collision course with the ICC when the issue comes up again later in the decade.

    “The fact remains that the Obama administration’s vaunted ‘engagement’ strategy was only able to check the ICC’s move towards defining ‘aggression,’ not stop it entirely,” says Brett Schaefer, an expert in international institutions at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “And it sets the US up for another battle in 2017 when the ICC’s advocates will make another push to activate the ICC’s jurisdiction over ‘aggression.’”

    The US confirmed its new footing with the world’s first permanent court for trying war crimes and crimes against humanity, US officials say, although they acknowledge that the US did not get everything it wanted in Kampala. The Rome Statute establishing the ICC was finalized in 1998, but the court did not begin to function until 2002, when the minimum 60 countries ratified it.

    US participation in the Kampala conference “reset US relations with the court from hostility to positive engagement,” says State Department legal adviser Harold Koh. He says the US focus at the review conference was on efforts to “strengthen justice on the ground” in countries so that eventually their judicial systems will be strong enough to take on the kinds of human-rights work the ICC addresses.

    Mr. Koh says that focus was particularly well-received in Africa, “where there is a strong desire to have these cases tried at the national level.”

    Some ICC critics have also noted that the court has only taken up two cases so far, both involving African countries – one involving the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, and the other regarding Sudan – and they dismiss the largely European-Union funded court as a colonial institution pressing Western interests.

    But the US increasingly sees the value of the ICC, especially as it has tried cases that begged for international intervention.

    “If it weren’t for the ICC [in cases like Sudan or Uganda] you would have had to set up a special tribunal,” says Stephen Rapp, the State Department’s coordinator for war crimes issues.

    One of the main US concerns in seeing “aggression” added to the ICC’s jurisdiction was the impact it could potentially have on US military operations abroad. But Koh says the US successfully negotiated the “aggression” statute’s wording so that US forces won’t be susceptible to it.

    “No US national can be prosecuted for ‘aggression’ while the US is not a signatory” to the ICC, he says.