Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • The Real Threat is Nuclear Terrorism

    The terrorist bombs in London caused immense suffering and grief. This crime rightly received nearly universal condemnation. Violence does not solve any problems, it only aggravates them.

    Yet this tragedy only foreshadows much worse future catastrophes if the world continues on its current course.

    As long as the big powers insist on maintaining nuclear weapons, claiming they need them to protect their security, they cannot expect to prevent other countries and terrorist organizations from acquiring such weapons–and using them.

    The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed over 200,000 people. Today’s nuclear bombs are vastly more powerful. If even one nuclear device had been detonated in a parked car or a sailboat on the Thames, the Center of London would be strewn with smoking, radioactive rubble and over a million people might have been killed outright, and scores more would die slowly from radiation disease.

    The double standard, “Nuclear weapons are good for us, but bad for you”, is stupid and unconvincing. Believing that nuclear weapons technology can be kept secret forever is naive.

    Those who still believe in the fairy-tale of “deterrence theory” better wake up to the age of suicide bombers. Anyone convinced to go straight to heaven if blown up cannot be “deterred” by the threat of horrendous retaliation.

    Governments that order tons of bombs to be rained on Iraq and Afghanistan should not be surprised if they plant ideas in the minds of eager imitators. Osama bin Laden once benefitted from support and training financed by the CIA.

    Richard Falk, long a Professor of International Law at Princeton University, rightly pointed out: “The greatest utopians are those who call themselves ‘realists,’ because they falsely believe that we can survive the nuclear age with politics as usual.

    The true realists are those who recognize the need for change.”

    What changes must we make if we want humanity to survive?

    [1] We must stop believing that problems can be solved by applying offensive military force. That only encourages others to pay back in kind. Policing to stop criminals and defense against a foreign attack are justified, but not military interventions abroad.

    [2] Thirty-seven years after signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is time for the nuclear powers to fulfill their commitment to nuclear disarmament.

    We also need a vastly more open world, where all nuclear weapons are verifiably destroyed, and the manufacturing of new ones cannot be hidden. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) can now inspect only sites that member countries voluntarily place under its supervision. If a suspected weapons smuggler could tell a border guard, “You may check under my seat, but don’t open the trunk,” such an “inspection” would be meaningless. The IAEA must have the power to inspect any suspected nuclear facilities, anywhere in the world, without advance warning, otherwise it is impossible to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

    The governments that now possess nuclear weapons object to such intrusive inspections as a “violation of their sovereignty.” Yet many airline passengers also protested at first against having their luggage searched for guns or explosives, when such searches were introduced after a series of fatal hijackings. Today, passengers realize that such inspections protect their own security. Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. Sooner or later, governments will reach the same conclusion. The question is only whether this will happen before or after the first terrorist nuclear bomb explodes.

    [3] We need to address the root causes of terrorism: long festering unresolved conflicts. Peaceful conflict transformation is a skill that can be taught and learned. Johan Galtung, widely regarded as founder of the field of peace research, was able to help end a longstanding border conflict between Ecuador and Peru over which they had fought four wars by suggesting to make the disputed territory into a “binational zone with a natural park”, jointly administered. This peaceful intervention cost nearly nothing compared with a military peacekeeping operation.

    We need a UN Organization for Mediation, with several hundred trained mediators who can help prevent conflicts from erupting into violence. This is a very inexpensive, worthwhile investment in human survival, compared with the trillion dollars the world spends each year to arm millions of troops, which only make the world collectively less secure.

    If we cling to obsolete ways of thinking–that threatening others will make us safe–we face extinction as a human species, like other species that failed to adapt to new conditions.

    Is it a realistic prospect to get rid of all nuclear weapons? Certainly more realistic than waiting until they are used. Some have argued that we cannot disinvent nuclear weapons and therefore will have to live with them as long as civilization exists. But nobody has disinvented cannibalism either, we have simply learned to abhor it. Can’t we learn to abhor equally the incineration of entire cities with nuclear weapons?

    Dietrich Fischer is Academic Director of the European University Center for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria, and a member of TRANSCEND, a peace and development network.

  • I Wrote Bush’s War Words- In 1965

    President Bush’s explanation Tuesday night for staying the course in Iraq evoked in me a sense of familiarity, but not nostalgia. I had heard virtually all of his themes before, almost word for word, in speeches delivered by three presidents I worked for: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. Not with pride, I recognized that I had proposed some of those very words myself.

    Drafting a speech on the Vietnam War for Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara in July 1965, I had the same task as Bush’s speechwriters in June 2005: how to rationalize and motivate continued public support for a hopelessly stalemated, unnecessary war our president had lied us into.

    Looking back on my draft, I find I used the word “terrorist” about our adversaries to the same effect Bush did.

    Like Bush’s advisors, I felt the need for a global threat to explain the scale of effort we faced. For that role, I felt China was better suited as our “real” adversary than North Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, just as Bush prefers to focus on Al Qaeda rather than Iraqi nationalists. “They are trying to shake our will in Iraq — just as they [sic] tried to shake our will on Sept. 11, 2001,” he said.

    My draft was approved by McNamara, national security advisor McGeorge Bundy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, but it was not delivered because it was a clarion call for mobilizing the Reserves to support an open-ended escalation of troops, as Johnson’s military commanders had urged.

    LBJ preferred instead to lie at a news conference about the number of troops they had requested for immediate deployment (twice the level he announced), and to conceal the total number they believed necessary for success, which was at least 500,000. (I take with a grain of salt Bush’s claim that “our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job.”)

    A note particularly reminiscent in Bush’s speech was his reference to “a time of testing.” “We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America’s resolve,” he said.

    This theme recalled a passage in my 1965 draft that, for reasons that will be evident, I have never chosen to reproduce before. I ended by painting a picture of communist China as “an opponent that views international politics as a whole as a vast guerrilla struggle … intimidating, ambushing, demoralizing and weakening those who would uphold an alternative world order.”

    “We are being tested,” I wrote. “Have we the guts, the grit, the determination to stick with a frustrating, bloody, difficult course as long as it takes to see it through….? The Asian communists are sure that we have not.” Tuesday, Bush said: Our adversaries “believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent, and with a few hard blows they can force us to retreat.”

    His speechwriters, like me, then faced this question from the other side. To meet the enemy’s test of resolve, how long must the American public support troops as they kill and die in a foreign land? Their answer came in the same workmanlike evasions that served Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon: “as long as we are needed (and not a day longer) … until the fight is won.”

    I can scarcely bear to reread my own proposed response in 1965 to that question, which drew on a famous riposte by the late U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson during the Cuban missile crisis: “There is only one answer for us to give. It was made … by an American statesman … in the midst of another crisis that tested our resolution. Till hell freezes over.”

    It doesn’t feel any better to hear similar words from another president 40 years on, nor will they read any better to his speechwriters years from now. But the human pain they foretell will not be mainly theirs.

    Daniel Ellsberg is a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council and is currently a Foundation Fellow. He worked in the State and Defense departments under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. He released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971. Daniel Ellsberg is the recipient of the Foundation’s 2005 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

  • Live 8: Corporate Media Bonanza

    Live 8, “the greatest concert” ever aired live, has been presented to World public opinion as an “awareness campaign” in solidarity with Africa. Its stated objective was to put pressure on the Group of Eight leaders (G8) to increase foreign aid flows and cancel the debt of the World’s poorest countries.

    In the words of its promoter Bob Geldof, Live 8 has provided a “unique opportunity” to save a continent from a humanitarian disaster.

    The Live 8 concerts organized in the eight major industrial countries (as well as in South Africa), however, were not intended to raise money for the World’s poorest countries.

    In fact quite the opposite.

    Live 8 is a multimillion dollar undertaking, which will result in huge profits for its corporate sponsors including AOL Time Warner, the US based media giant, the Ford Motor company, through its Swedish affiliate Volvo and Nokia, the cell phone company, not to mention Britain’s EMI Music Group, which has entered into a highly lucrative arrangement with the Live 8 organizers.

    AOLTime Warner controls the US broadcasting rights which it has licenced to the Walt Disney Company for broadcast TV on ABC and a myriad of affiliated TV and radio stations, including Premiere Radio Networks, XM Satellite Radio and Viacom’s MTV Networks (for cable TV). AOL also holds the exclusive online rights for the event on the internet.

    TV air-time has been auctioned off around the world. Millions of dollars of advertising revenues are expected from the broadcasting of the event, not to mention the repeats, the video-clips, the internet broadcasting and the DVDs, which will be available commercially.

    According to the producers, Live 8 will go down as “the biggest global broadcast in history“. The organizers expect –through TV, radio and the internet– to reach some 5.5 billion people, or 85 per cent of the world’s population. The advertising industry places the number of potential viewers at a conservative two billion, approximately one third of the World’s population.

    By far this is largest media advertising operation in history, which will line the pockets of the promoters, producers, corporate sponsors, not to mention the royalties accruing to the performers and “celebrities”. A small percentage of the proceeds might accrue to charitable organizations involved in developing countries but this is not the stated objective of Live 8.

    The Ford Motor Company has used the event to promote its “up-market” Swedish car division Volvo, with advertising spots during the US broadcast.

    Volvo has also provided for artist transportation to and from the London and Philadelphia concerts as well as a VIP entertainment suite at the Philadelphia concert. (See www.adage.com/news, June 30, 2005).

    “The event, said company spokesman Soren Johansson, “fits with the DNA of the company” and “appeals to peoples emotions.” One of Volvo’s TV spots features ’Volvo for Life” award-winner Rosamond Carr, “who operates an orphanage in Rwanda, and two others talking about Volvos values and their reasons for Live 8 involvement.” (Ibid)

    Moreover, Vonage, the US based phone company is said to have spent “’six figures’ to become a primary sponsor of Premiere Radio Networkscoverage“. And will also run a Live 8 schedule on MTV Networks.

    The EMI Deal

    In a multimillion dollar agreement with the Live 8 organizers, Britain’s EMI Music Group has secured the exclusive rights on the DVDs of the concerts in six of the G8 countries including the US, France, Britain, UK, Italy and Germany:

    “An EMI spokeswoman said that once sales had paid for the advance, Live 8 would pay a ’very generous royalty rate’ to Live 8 on the rest of the sales.”

    In the words, of Bob Geldof, “I hope this will be the biggest-selling DVD of all time.”

    Meanwhile, the event has contributed to boosting stock market values with EMI’s share price triple its 2003 level.

    Distorting the Causes of Global Poverty

    The concerts are totally devoid of political content. They concentrate on simple and misleading clichés.

    They use poverty as a marketing tool and a consumer-advertising gimmick to increase the number of viewers and listeners worldwide.

    Live 8 creates an aura of optimism. It conveys the impression that poverty can be vanquished with the stroke of the pen. All we need is good will. The message is that G8 leaders, together with the World Bank and the IMF, are ultimately committed to poverty alleviation.

    In this regard, the concerts are part of the broader process of media disinformation. They are used as a timely public relations stunt for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is hosting the G-8 Summit at Gleneagles, Scotland. Tony Blair is presented as stepping up his campaign to convince other G8 nations “to take action on poverty“.

    The G8’s Debt Forgiveness Proposal

    Live 8 fails to challenge or comprehend the G8 policy agenda which directly contributes to creating poverty, nor does it question the role of the World Bank, now under the helm of Paul Wolfowitz, the neo-conservative architect of the invasion of Iraq,

    In addressing the issue of debt forgiveness, Live 8 does not even acknowledge the impacts of IMF-World Bank “economic medicine” imposed on the World’s poorest countries on behalf of Western creditors.

    These deadly macro-economic reforms have contributed to the impoverishment of miillions of people. They oblige countries to close down their schools and hospitals, privatize their public services and sell off the most profitable sectors of their national economy to foreign capital. In return, the G8 promises to increase foreign aid and provide token debt relief. These reforms kill and the G8 is not the solution but the cause. Actor Will Smith addressed the crowds at the concert venues “to snap their fingers” as a reminder that every three seconds a child dies in Africa. What he failed to mention is that the main cause of child mortality in Africa are the deadly macroeconomic reforms.

    Bob Geldof sees an increase in foreign aid completely out of context, as a “unique opportunity” to eradicating poverty, when in fact the proposed increase in aid flows by the rich G8 countries will lead to exactly the opposite results.

    A large percentage of the debt of these countries is owed to the World Bank, the IMF and the African Development Bank

    To address this issue, G8 finance ministers had indeed put forth a proposal which consisted in “foregiving” the outstanding debt owed to these three international financial institutions by the 18 highly indebted countries. The debt forgiveness figure mentioned was of the order of 40 billion dollars. Concurrently, there was a vague commitment to eventually increasing foreign aid flows to the 0.7% of GDP target. (http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/finance/fm050611_dev.htm)

    Where is the hitch behind this seemingly reasonable “debt forgiveness” proposal?

    The IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank, never cancel or forgive outstanding debts.

    Because they do not forgive debts, the G8 has committed itself to reimbursing the multilateral creditors acting on behalf of the World’s poorest countries.

    Where will they get the money?

    For each dollar of “debt cancellation” to the international financial institutions, the G8 will reduce the flow of foreign aid to these countries. In other words, the foreign aid earmarked to finance much needed social programs will now go directly into the coffers of the IMF and the World Bank.

    There is nothing new in this financial mechanism. It has been used time and again since the onslaught of the debt crisis.

    “Social Safety Net” for the IMF and the World Bank

    What we are dealing with is not a debt forgiveness program, but a “reimbursement” process which directly serves the interests of the creditors.

    The deal constitutes a much needed “social safety net” for the multilateral creditors. It ensures a cash flow towards these institutions, while maintaining the World’s poorest countries in the stranglehold of the IMF and the World Bank. It also prevents these countries from declaring default on their external debt.

    President Bush has made it very clear. The money paid to the World Bank on behalf of the countries, will be “taken out of existing aid budgets.”

    The “debt forgiveness” program, even if it is accompanied by an increase in foreign aid commitments, will result in a significant compression of real foreign aid flows to the highly indebted countries.

    The proposed increases in foreign aid commitments are ficticious since the money is intended for the multilateral creditors. And the deal will only be implemented if the indebted countries promise to carry out the usual gamut of “free market” reforms, under IMF/World Bank supervision.

    An added condition emanating directly from the Bush administration pertains to “governance”. It requires these countries to “democratize” on the US model under Western supervision, as well as carry out “free elections” on the example of Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Concluding Remarks

    The concerts serve to usefully distract public attention from the US-UK led war on Iraq and the broader relationship between war and global poverty. Not a word is mentioned in the concerts on the fact that George W. Bush and Tony Blair are considered “war criminals” under international law.

    Moreover, Live 8 tends to undermine all forms of meaningful and articulate dissent to the G8 policy agenda. With the exception of the South African venue, which included the appearance of Nelson Mandela, the concerts are devoid of a broader understanding and commitment.

    Live 8 undermines both the anti-globalization and anti-war movements. It diverts public opinion and distracts media attention from the G8 protest movement. It also serves to undermine the articulation of more radical voices against the New World Order.

    More generally, the event instills an atmosphere of ignorance among the millions who listen to the music and who have the feeling of doing something positive and constructive. But none of the core elements needed to understand the causes of global poverty are presented.

    To the Live 8 corporate sponsors, including Bob Geldof, the EMI Group, AOL Time Warner, The Ford Motor Company, Nokia, MTV, the Walt Disney Company, etc. “Put your money where you mouth is.”

    If you are really committed to poverty alleviation, give the entire proceeds of this multimillion dollar media operation, including the revenues generated by the corporate sponsors, TV networks, advertising firms, royalties accruing to celebrities and performers, to the people of Africa. Let them use this money as they see fit, without interference from donors and creditors.

    To the people of Africa. Do not let yourself be deceived by a giant corporate media stunt where poverty is used as a logo, to attract consumers and make money. Default on your debt to the IMF and the World Bank.

    Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and the New World, Second Edition, Global Research, 2003.

  • Why 2017 Is Optimistic

    Iraq’s water is as important to the United States as control of Iraq’s oil. The Middle East is home to five percent of the world’s population and only one percent of the world’s renewable water supply.[1] In addition, the population in the Arab world is 280 million people. This population, comparable in size to the population of the United States, is on track to double by the year 2025.[2] Iraq is a critical strategic location for both al Qaeda and the United States not just because of Iraq’s oil, but because Iraq has the most extensive fresh water system in the Middle East.

    A nation without enough water is in a worse position than a nation without enough oil. Understanding the role of water in the Middle East explains why there is no exit strategy from Iraq and why many Middle East experts predict the United States will be in Iraq for decades. Even Donald Rumsfeld, with a track record of being overly optimistic about the cost and duration of the Iraq war, is now setting expectations that the war will continue until 2017.[3]

    There is a saying in the Arab world that the person who controls the well also controls the people. Knowing that Iraq’s water is a key reason our soldiers are being maimed and killed, can help you evaluate what is really going on in the Middle East. Pieces to the puzzle, like the locations of the 14 “enduring” or permanent military bases and likely duration of the American occupation, can suddenly become crystal clear when you consider the locations of the Euphrates, Tigris, Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers. One only need look at the Nasiriyah “enduring base” on the Euphrates in South-East Iraq to understand the strategic value of water.

    Water conflicts have been frequent in the Middle East. Israel is another country that needs a new source of fresh water to satisfy the needs of a growing population. As background, Israel and its neighbors experienced water-related fighting in 1951, 1953, 1965-66, 1967, 1969, 1982 and 2001.[4] Today, about 30 percent of Israel’s water comes from the Jordan, 40 percent from ground water, and 30 percent from treated wastewater.[5] Even if Israel does not withdraw from the Golan Heights, where the Mountain Aquifer is located, the supply of fresh water is insufficient for the area’s population.[6] Syria is unwilling and unable to help. Turkey’s Manavgat River could provide some relief. The problem with obtaining water from Turkey is, without alternative sources of water, Israel will increasing become dependent on a Muslim nation for a strategic resource.

    Iraq , with the region’s most abundant water resources, was out of the question as an Israeli source of water prior to the Iraq war. Israel for reasons that include and extend beyond water, hopes that the U.S. will be successful in pacifying Iraq. Control of Iraq’s rivers could alter the destiny of the Middle East for decades. While the Bush administration fears that Americans will not support fighting a war to control Iraq’s water, Americans deserve to know the truth. The truth is that in addition to oil, water is a real reason for the invasion of Iraq. Our soldiers, their parents, and all citizens have a right to know when the price that is required is in blood and in billions of dollars. Don’t be fooled by the occasional messages that our troops will leaving in a few years. The Pentagon is planning on occupying Iraq for decades. The Pentagon’s long-range strategic plan is likely to require an American occupation far beyond Donald Rumsfeld’s optimistic 2017 forecast.

    David J. Dionisi is a former military intelligence officer and author of American Hiroshima. American Hiroshima describes the next 9/11 attack in the United States and what can be done to prevent it. For information about the book, visit www.americanhiroshima.info.

    1. Diane Raines Ward, Water Wars: Drought, Flood, Folly and the Politics of Thirst ( New York, New York: Riverhead Books, June 2003), 188.
    2. Arab Human Development Report 2004: Towards Freedom in the Arab World, United Nations Development Programme Regional Bureau for Arab States, 2005.
    3. “Rumsfeld braces for more violence in Iraq: Says insurgency could endure ‘for any number of years,’ perhaps until 2017,” Associated Press, 26 June 2005 .
    4. Peter Gleick, The Worlds Water 2002-2003: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources ( Washington, DC: Island Press, 2002), 198-205.
    5. Ibid., 269.
    6. Yedidya Atlas, “ Israel’s Water Basics,” commentator for Arutz-7 Israel National Radio, article online on 20 September 2004. Internet address is www.freeman.org/m_online/nov99/atlas.htm. The West Bank provides 25% of Israel’s water. The water supply is stored in three main sources (i.e., Lake Kinneret, the Coastal Aquifer, and the Mountain or Yarkon-Taninim Aquifer).
    7. Marq De Villers, Water: The Fate Of Our Most Precious Resource ( New York, New York: First Mariner Books, 2001), 200. In 1997, Minister of Agriculture Refael Eitan said that Israel would be in mortal danger if it lost control of the Mountain Aquifer.

  • Nuclear Power: No Solution for Global Warming

    There is simply no way global warming can be stopped without significant reductions in the current energy consumption levels of developed countries. Whatever else one could say about nuclear power in the old days, it was certainly not considered environment-friendly. Over the past few years, however, a number of so-called environmentalists, generally Western, have come out in support of nuclear power as an essential component of any practical solution to global warming. Predictably, flailing nuclear establishments everywhere have grabbed this second opportunity to make a claim for massive state investments and resurrect an industry that has collapsed in country after country due to its inability to provide clean, safe, or cheap electricity. But just as the old mantra”too cheap to meter” proved ridiculously wrong, the claims that nuclear energy can contribute significantly to mitigating climate change do not bear scrutiny.

    Most prominent of these so-called environmentalists turned pro-nuclear advocates is James Lovelock, who propounded the Gaia hypothesis of the Earth as a self-regulating organism. Last year he entreated his”friends in the [Green] movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.” Lovelock’s article had several factual errors. For example,”nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources” One wonders which of the many renewable energy sources promoted by the Green movement – photovoltaics, wind energy, and so on – has had an accident that even remotely compares with Chernobyl.

    Even more inexplicable is the assertion: “We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation. Nearly one third of us will die of cancer anyway, mainly because we breathe air laden with that all pervasive carcinogen, oxygen.” Despite such nonsense, Lovelock’s article was circulated widely, both by the nuclear lobby and by other environmentalists who were either confused or felt that this sort of argument had to be refuted strongly.

    Lovelock’s bloomers aside, the fact that some environmentalists have endorsed nuclear power as a solution to global warming deserves serious consideration and response. The enormity of the potential impact of climate change adds to this imperative.

    Two implicit but flawed assumptions underlie most claims about the significance of nuclear energy for the climate-change issue. The first is that climate change can be tackled without confronting and changing Western, especially American, patterns of energy consumption – the primary causes and continuing drivers for unsustainable increases in carbon emissions and global warming. This is plain impossible; there is simply no way global warming can be stopped without significant reductions in the current energy consumption levels of Western/developed countries. Efforts by various developing countries to match these consumption levels only intensify the problem.

    The second flawed assumption is that the adoption of nuclear power will lower aggregate carbon emissions. In a strictly technical sense, each unit of electricity produced by a nuclear plant would cause the emission of fewer grams of carbon than a unit of electricity generated by thermal plants. (A false myth often propagated by the nuclear lobby is that nuclear energy is carbon free. In reality, several steps in the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mining to enrichment to reprocessing, emit copious amounts of greenhouse gases.) And so, the assumption goes, installing a large number of nuclear power stations will lower carbon emission rates.

    The problem is that the assumption holds true only if all else remains constant, in particular consumption levels. But that is never the case. In fact, there is no empirical evidence that increased use of nuclear power has contributed to actually reducing a country’s carbon dioxide emissions. The best case study is Japan, a strongly pro-nuclear energy country. As Japanese nuclear chemist and winner of the 1997 Right Livelihood Award, Jinzaburo Takagi pointed out, from 1965 to 1995 Japan’s nuclear plant capacity went from zero to over 40,000 MW. During the same period, carbon dioxide emissions went up from about 400 million tonnes to about 1200 million tonnes.

    There are two reasons why increased use of nuclear power does not necessarily lower carbon emissions. First, nuclear energy is best suited only to produce baseload electricity. That only constitutes a fraction of all sources of carbon emissions. Other sectors of the economy where carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are emitted, such as transportation, cannot be operated using electricity from nuclear reactors. This situation is unlikely to change anytime in the near future.

    A second and more fundamental reason is provided by John Byrnes of the University of Delaware’s Centre for Energy and Environmental Policy, who observed that nuclear technology is an expensive source of energy service and can only be economically viable in a society that relies on increasing levels of energy use. Nuclear power tends to require and promote a supply-oriented energy policy and an energy-intensive pattern of development.

    The high cost of nuclear power also means that any potential decreases in carbon emissions due to its adoption are expensive, certainly higher than energy efficiency improvements as well as other means to lower emissions from thermal power plants.

    One other argument advanced by some of these so-called environmentalists is that nuclear power is just an interim solution while better solutions are worked out. The idea is wholly at odds with the history of nuclear establishments around the world and completely underestimates the remarkable capabilities of powerful institutions to find resources for continuing existence and growth. Once such institutions are established, they will find ways to ensure that they are not disempowered.

    For nuclear power to make a significant dent in global warming, nuclear capacity must grow manifold (ten-plus). The notion that nuclear power can increase manifold from current levels and then be phased out is wishful thinking, to say the least. Such a projection also completely ignores existing realities – uncompetitive costs, safety concerns, the unresolved problem of radioactive waste, and the link to the bomb – that come in the way of any significant expansion of nuclear power.

    Global warming is a serious issue. Providing ill-thought out answers is no way to address such a grave problem.

    Originally published by The Friday Times.

  • Perfect Poems of Peace

    “The world is ruled by madmen.” – David Krieger

    When writers win prizes, something valuable beyond distinction flairs into being: Folks actually reach for their honored books and read them. One recent contest winner published by Santa Barbara’s Capra Press should interest anyone hoping for the survival of the human race. The poetry collection Today Is Not a Good Day for War gained David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the 2005 Peace Writing Award from the Omni Center for Peace, Justice, & Ecology. Recently, at the City University of New York’s Lifting the Shadow: Toward a Nuclear-Weapons-Free World disarmament conference, Krieger read from this latest volume and shared the stage with such noted poets as Yusef Komunyakaa, Marilyn Hacker, C.K. Williams, and Quincy Troupe.

    A remarkable achievement occurs when political protest poetry – poetry that deals with the raw events of contemporary history – also survives as art. Krieger’s satiric, passionate, and hopeful collection broods over the many disasters of violence we’ve experienced, from Hiroshima to Iraq. Often, poetry that speaks to immediate horrors and woes – certainly worthy subject matter – tips over into the sort of harangue and bare assertion best suited to an editorial page. It takes supreme ingenuity to bring such work alive to the heart and mind.

    “Patriotic words always mean that someone soon / will die,” one poem insists, and another mourns the 500th death of an American soldier in Iraq: “Let us lay the heavy bag at your feet / like a terrible wreath.” Krieger’s urgency to think peace constantly shifts tactics, from the evocation of a politician’s face – “a face with furtive eyes . . . that falls hard and fast / like the blade of a guillotine” – to the aftermath of 9/11 when “White flowers grow from bloodstained streets,” to God responding to the slow descent of the Hiroshima bomb “with tears that fell far slower / than the speed of bombs. / They still have not reached Earth.”

    Some of these pieces do fall away from poetic force into straight-out teaching and testimony, as in the longer, essayistic “On Becoming Human,” where undeniable ideas droop from being offered flat-out: “To be human is not always to succeed, but it is always to learn. / It is to move forward despite the obstacles.” But what’s remarkable about Krieger’s book is how seldom it falls out of freshness while attacking stupid pain and bloodshed from ever new angles. The pieces to whom the book is dedicated – the Hibakusha, those survivors of the Japanese nuclear devastations – are particularly moving:

    For every hibakusha many must obey.

    For every hibakusha many must be silent.

    The volume also ranges out to related topics, from giving advice to graduating seniors and celebrating the poet Robert Bly “who gave us the gift of freshness,” to expressing a longing for a simpler time when men “could read the stars” and “knew how to greet bears.” A shatteringly stark alphabetical listing of 52 “Unhealed Wounds of Humanity” – “Kent State, Kosovo, Kuwait, / Manhattan, Midway, My Lai” – shares these pages with a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr., a visionary visit of Einstein to the poet’s garden, and “Fifty-One Reasons for Hope,” a listing that includes “Pablo Neruda,” “Teachers,” “The Ascendancy of Women,” and “Our Capacity to Love.”

    From WWII to Abu Ghraib, here we have a voice that will not let us forget or turn away. What Terry Tempest Williams wrote of an earlier volume of poems edited by Krieger, The Poetry of Peace, holds equally well for this collection: “May we read each of these poems as a prayer.”

    Originally published by the Santa Barbara Independent.

  • Human Rights and the US/UK Illegal Attack on Iraq

    Distinguished Members of the Jury of Conscience; Fellow Advocates; Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends –

    The testimonies have brought the reality of an Iraq tortured by the US/UK (and a coalition of willing clients) illegal attack, and illegal occupation, into our minds and hearts. With a sense of deep anger at the continued aggression and deep compassion with the victims we have witnessed the reality of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including nuclear war through the use of depleted, radioactive uranium, on top of the genocidal economic sanctions, and the general “softening up” of Iraq for a quick, decisive war and remolding to the taste of the aggressors.

    Members of the Jury: what we are witnessing is the geo-fascist state terrorism of US imperialism, following the defunct British Empire, soon to follow it into the graveyard of empires. In my research-based opinion at the latest by 2020, but, past experience being a guide, there is more to come. By some counts the attack on Iraq is US aggression no. 239 after the Thomas Jefferson start in the early 19th century and no. 69 after the Second World War; with between 12 and 16 million killed in that period alone. All in flagrant contradiction of the most basic human rights, like the “right to life, liberty and security of persons” (UD:3) and the condemnation of the “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (UD:5). In a Pentagon Planner’s chilling words: “The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing”. [1]

    And in my drier words: “Imperialism is a transborder structure for the synergy of killing, repression, exploitation and brain-washing.”

    I hold up against this organized atrocity–whether attempted legitimized through packs of lies about weapons of mass destruction and links to Al Qaeda, or by invoking a divine mandate or a mandate to export democracy and human rights through dictatorship and world crimes–a slip of paper, Article 28 of the Universal Declaration:

    Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized. (UD:28)

    This admirable formulation provides an excellent linkage between various levels of social organization, from the individual level at which these rights are implemented or violated, to the structure of the social and world spaces. It indicates the spaces in which these conditions may be identified. The basic needs served by human rights are located inside the individual, but the conditions for their satisfaction are social and/or international, generally speaking. UD:28 is a meta-right, a right about rights, with nothing short of revolutionary implications.

    US imperialism in general, and its articulation in Iraq in particular, invokes the whole International Bill of Rights, but the focus is on the UD:3 right to life, in the context of Article 29:

    Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible. (UD:29)

    There are no rights without duties, and right-holder and duty-bearer may also be the same actor. The word “community” rather than, but not excluding, “country” is used. This is very realistic as human beings developed personalities long before there were countries run by states and peopled by nations in our sense. But “communities” are as old as humankind itself. To a growing part of humanity the most important are non-territorial, like the NGOs.

    Problem: What are the rights that flow from the conjunction of UD:3 with UD:28, and what are the corresponding UD:29 duties?

    First Exercise: The entitlement to a social and international order where everything is done to resolve conflicts nonviolently.

    Obvious, but worth emphasizing: the US/UK continued warfare is not only criminal, even by intent as demonstrated by the Downing Street Memorandum, but also plainly stupid, a folly. The criminal and the stupid can operate singly, but they also often combine and reinforce, due to a simple mechanism. Criminal acts have to be planned in secret, also to deceive their own peoples, by small gangs with cojones, in Bush’s words. They do not benefit from the dialogue of open agreements openly arrived at in an open society, also known as a democracy. Democracy’s traitors easily become its fools.

    Barbara W. Tuchman, in her fine book The March of Folly, [2] gives us some leads. She studies Troy in the Battle of Troy, the Renaissance Popes during the Protestant Reformation, England and the American Revolution, and the USA in Viêt Nam and concludes that their action was simply foolish. [3] And she presents three criteria for a policy to be characterized as a “folly” [4]:

    [1] It was perceived as counter-productive in its own time; [2] A feasible alternative course of action was available; and [3] The policy was not the policy of one particular ruler only.

    All criteria are met in the US/UK illegal attack on Iraq. Hardly ever has a policy been so massively critiqued for being “counterproductive”, including the 15 February 2003 demonstration of 11 million in 600 places around the world, the biggest in human history. As I shall indicate, alternative courses were available. And there was more than one ruler involved, a whole coalition defying their people, headed by 2B, Bush-Blair, followed by clients like 2b, Berlusconi-Bondevik (the Norwegian fundamentalist prime minister). Only two countries were democratic in the sense that executive, legislature and public opinion coincided: the USA for the war, and our host country, Turkey, against. EU, take note.

    Two Security Council members, France and Germany, put forward an alternative course of action: continued, deeper inspection that could then be extended to a human rights inspection, gradually eliminating two of the pretexts for a war which obviously was for geo-economic. geo-political and geo-cultural (Judeo-Christian anti Islam, that is what the content of the torture and the desecration of the Qur’an are about). This proposal could easily have been developed into something that could serve to organize a General Assembly Uniting for Peace resolution, possibly also using the highly successful Helsinki Conference for Security and Cooperation of 1973-75 as a model (also to avoid US/UK veto).

    But this was not the road traveled. Not to do so was not a US/UK brutal act of commission, but an act of omission that always comes as a poor second in Judeo-Christian philosophy and Western jurisprudence. Many can be blamed, including France and Germany themselves for not having followed up, lesser coalition members, the UNGA for not mustering the collective courage against the bullying by Colin Powell telling that Uniting for Peace (in the UNSC-run UN) is seen by the USA as an “unfriendly act”.

    We are sensing here a missing human right with corresponding duty: the right to live in a “social and international order” where everything is done to solve conflicts nonviolently. That right can only be implemented if others fulfill certain duties. It is not for everybody to have an impact on the “social and international order” in such concrete and partly technical issues. In other words, for the right to be implemented somebody “high up”, socially and/or internationally, indeed including the media, will have to do a better job, being more open to nonviolent alternatives and more closed to violence, war and the “military option” in general.

    This point becomes even more clear in the next example, Saddam Hussein’s peace proposal in the New York Times (6 November 2003) ” Iraq said to have tried to reach last minute deal to avert war”:

    In February 2003 Hassan Al-Obeidi, chief of foreign operations of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, met with Imad Hage, a Lebanese-American Businessman in his Beirut office. Mr. Obeidi told Mr. Hage that Iraq would make deals to avoid war, including helping in the Mideast peace process. He said, “If this is about oil, we will talk about U.S. oil concessions. If this is about weapons of mass destruction, let the Americans send over their people.” Mr. Obeidi said Iraq would agree to hold elections within the next two years. Of all people Richard Perle seems to have been willing to pursue this channel, but was overruled by higher officials. Said Perle: The message was, “Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad”.

    The blame for this act of omission falls on the U.S. itself. But this is entirely in line with a very transparent U.S. approach: the U.S. reports its own proposals but not the other side, like in Viêt Nam, in the Rambouillet negotiations over to bomb or not to bomb Serbia, or in general over Israel-Palestine. When the other side, denied access to public space by the compliant media of the military-corporate-media complex, fails to accept U.S. proposals they can more easily be portrayed as being “against peace”.

    In a Helsinki style Conference for Security and Cooperation In and Around Iraq these proposals would be on the table, as “it” was about all those issues, holding Saddam Hussein to his words. “Oil issues” could be translated into quotas and put the U.S. in a negotiating rather than dictating position. WMD: the U.S. knew the program had been discontinued in 1995; the CIA is hardly that badly informed. And even if Hussein is not credible as a guardian of democracy these elections would not be under the U.S./corporate press/”one dollar one vote” control that gives democracy such a bad name, close to a synonym for “US client state”. However that may be, to have closed this channel was both criminal and stupid.

    Second Exercise: The entitlement to a social and international order where perpetrators of (major) crimes are brought to justice.

    With major perpetrators having major power through major veto, the UN today is not an adequate instrument for bringing US/UK to justice; the USA even having exempted itself from ICC adjudication. Yet they should not get away with impunity. Justice has to be done.

    When a government fails to live up to its duty civil society, meaning nongovernment, has to step in. When the major international instrument of governments, the UN, fails to live up to its duty the international civil society has to step in. This World Tribunal on Iraq is an example of a tribunal based on the international civil society. But how about the instruments of punitive justice?

    The answer is that the international civil society, everyone of us, has that instrument: an economic boycott of US/UK products. A boycott could include consumer goods (drinks and food of iconic nature, fuels), capital goods (like not using Boeing, a major death factory, aircraft whenever there are alternatives), and financial goods (like using other currencies than dollars for international transactions including tourism and price denomination; divestment from US/UK stock and bonds). It could relate to all products, or only to products from the most obnoxious, empire-related companies, like US/UK oil companies. It could be combined with a “girlcott” favoring non-coalition countries and acceptable US/UK companies.

    Members of the Jury: Everybody could find his/her own formula, seeing some boycott not only as a human duty but as a human right not to be interfered with. For Iraq a focus on oil is recommended.

    However, channels of communication should be kept open for dialogues. The goal is less to inflict pain than to bring about an end to an illegal aggression and, by implication and atrocities, illegal occupation. When the occupation is over, so is the boycott.

    Third Exercise: The entitlement to a social and international order without imperial structures perverting the order.

    We are today talking about a US empire, which may or may not have successors, in which case what follows also applies to them.

    The empire is a structure based on unequal exchange in the military, political, economic and cultural fields, and has to be counteracted in all four fields. Being the negation of the social and international order in the sense of UD:28 there is not only a human duty for people at all levels to counteract an empire but also a human right, not to be interfered with, to do so.

    Unequal exchange is injustice. To counteract it will be construed as hostile action, as “terrorism”, interfering with the “normal” flow of resources and products, “normal” as established by the empire (see Article 24 of the new NATO Pact of 1999).

    In reality, not to interfere is complicity, and to interfere is justice, and more particularly restorative justice. It restores not only victim countries, groups and individuals, but also the perpetrator, to normalcy and sanity, coexisting peacefully in a world of more equal, or at least less flagrantly unequal, exchange.

    The country to benefit most from the dismantling of the US Empire is the U.S. which, while enriching its upper classes at the same time has degenerated into a paranoid, angst-ridden country tormented by the existential fear that “one day they will do to us what we have done to them” (yes, one day they did: 9/11 2001.).

    I join the ranks of those who say “I love the US Republic, and I hate the US Empire”. The question is how to engage in these colossal acts of restorative justice. And the answer is that it is happening all the time militarily and politically, that more can and should be done, and that there is a need for action in the economic and cultural fields. And who are the actors? Everybody.

    How can it be done? Four examples, covering the four fields:

    Militarily this is happening all places in the world where that “most powerful country” is challenged by people shedding their uniform, dressing and living like the people around them with their total support and more dedicated than soldiers fed packs of lies.

    Members of the Jury: All resistance against an illegal attack is legitimate, and the Iraqi resistance is fighting for us all. But I also blame us in the peace movement for having been unable to share our insights in nonviolent resistance with our Iraqi friends.

    Politically regionalization is happening all over the world, in part motivated by getting out of the US grip: the EU, the AU and similar incipient movements in Latin America, OIC and East Asia.

    Economically there is the economic boycott, adding to punitive justice the restorative, gandhian aspect of taking on the challenge of developing your own products and helping the U.S. accommodate to a reasonable and equitable niche in world trade. In John Perkins Confessions of an Economic Hit Man lies the depth of U.S. insanity.

    Culturally we are confronted with US/UK legitimacy. It used to be that “the U.S. is chosen by God; the UK by the U.S.” like a pale moon reflecting that divine Anglo-American light. Today the idea of God using Bush as his instrument is sheer blasphemy, and countries chosen by the USA should ask, “what is wrong about me”. If you are so immature as to need a strong father seek psycho-therapy, not a mafia boss. To kill Iraqis as therapy is despicable.

    Members of the Jury: My own buddhism is sufficiently close to the gentle Christianity of a St Francis to sense the blasphemy. I call on the Jury to call on Christian communities to protest this blasphemy, including Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who had the task of protecting the faith. The time to act is now.

    Notes: [1] From Susan George, “The Corporate Utopian Dream”, The WTO and the Global War System, Seattle, November 1999. He is missing the political dimension and might have added “a fair amount of bullying” or “arm-twisting” after killing. [2] The March of Folly, From Troy to Vietnam (New York: Knopf, 1984) [3] Visitors today to the ruins of Troy (in Turkey, near the Dardanelles, on the Asian side) will find a model of the famous wooden horse, and can judge for themselves the wisdom of letting such a thing within their walls. In the other three cases a little patience, flexibility, willingness to listen, and real dialogue might have come a far way. But then we might have had neither economic growth and individualizing democracy as we know them, if we accept that both are related to the world view of Protestantism, nor the end of the beginning of the US Republic, nor the beginning of the end of the US Empire. [4] Op.cit.., p. 5

    Johan Galtung, Dr. hc mult serves on the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council, is founder of the Oslo Peace Research Institute, founder of Transcend, and a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award.

  • Opening Speech at the World Tribunal on Iraq

    Let me express at the outset, on behalf of the Panel of Advocates our profound gratitude to the convenors of this Istanbul session of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) for their exceptional effort, and at the same time acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of the twenty earlier sessions of the WTI that have produced invaluable testimony and results that have increased awareness the world over of the criminality of the Iraq War. This unprecedented process of truth-telling about an ongoing war has produced what can best be described as ‘a tribunal movement’ of which this Istanbul session is the culminating phase to date of this process.

    The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) is remarkable for two principal reasons: WTI bears witness to the depth and persistence of the popular mobilization of people throughout the world in opposition to the Iraq War. Such a mobilization against a particular war has never occurred before on such a scale. It started with the massive street demonstrations before the war on Feb. 15, 2003 in which some 11 million people took part in 80 countries and more than 600 urban communities. The WTI gives a continuing legal, moral, and political expression to this anti-war opposition which itself has entered a new phase: an insurgent war of liberation being waged in resistance to the illegal occupation of the country by the greatest military power in the history of the world. In this struggle, the Iraqi people are being denied their fundamental rights of self-determination, first by aggression and then by a cruel and criminal dynamic occupation.

    The second reason for claiming historical significance on behalf of WTI relates to this initiative of, by, and for citizens to hold leaders accountable for severe violations of international law, especially in relation to matters of war and peace. It is not that this is an entirely new idea. The first such effort was inspired by the eminent British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, who convened such a tribunal back in 1967 to assess the legal responsibility of the United States and its leaders for the Vietnam War. It gathered testimony and documented the massive abuses of Vietnamese sovereignty by a devastating war that took millions of innocent Vietnamese lives. Above all, this citizens’ tribunal was a cry of anguish intended to break the wall of silence behind which the crimes associated with the Vietnam War were daily committed. The Russell Tribunal in turn led to the formation of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal, located in Rome, operating since 1976 to reinforce the claims of international law by filling in the gaps where governments and even the United Nations are unable and unwilling to act, or even to speak. The WTI continues and extends this tradition of refusing to be silent or to be silenced. It accepts as a responsibility of democracy the obligation of citizens to insist on the relevance and applicability of international law to every use of force. This insistence includes a demand for criminal accountability, whenever a government disavows its commitment to respect international law. It is primarily to honor this commitment to uphold international law that this tribunal has been organized, and its mission is to confirm the truth of the allegation directed at the United States and the United Kingdom, while also extending to all governments that support directly or indirectly the Iraq War.

    We should be aware that such a commitment by the WTI is part of a longer journey of international law that has evolved by stages that can be identified.

    The initial stage was to create in some authoritative way the norms of law, morality, and politics associated with the prohibition of wars of aggression. The legal culmination of this process occurred in 1928 when leading states, including the United States and the UK, ratified without qualification the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War as an instrument of National Policy, also known as the Kellogg-Brand Pact;

    This was followed by a second stage that attached criminal consequences to the violation of this norm prohibiting aggressive war through establishing accountability. The criminal trial of German and Japanese leaders after World War II, the Nuremberg Judgment issued in 1945 was a milestone in this process. The Judgment declared: “To initiate a war of aggression…is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole,” and although Nuremberg was flawed by being an example of “victors’ justice,” the American prosecutor, Justice Robert Jackson, made what has been described as the Nuremberg Promise in his closing statement: “If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us” This promise has been broken, but such behavior is not acceptable, and we are gathered in part to insist even now that the promise that every state will pay the consequences if it wages a war of aggression.

    This treaty pledge to renounce aggressive war informed the United Nations Charter. The Charter imposes a core obligation on Members to refrain from the use of force in international relations except in circumstances of self-defense strictly defined and under the authority of the Security Council. It also, in a spirit relevant to the WTI, confirmed in its opening words that it is the peoples of the world and not the governments or even the UN that have been entrusted with the ultimate responsibility for upholding this renunciation of war: “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…” that set forth the duties of states in the UN Charter. This tribunal is dedicated to precisely this undertaking as a matter of law, as an imperative of morality and human rights, and as an engagement with the politics of global justice.

    Of course, this tribunal does not pretend to be a normal court of law with powers of enforcement. At the same time, it is acting on behalf of the peoples of the world to uphold respect for international law. When governments and the UN are silent, and fail to protect victims of aggression, tribunals of concerned citizens possess a law-making authority. Their unique contribution is to tell the truth as powerfully and fully as possible, and by such truthfulness to activate the conscience of humanity to resist. The US Government told a pack of lies in its feeble attempt to find a legal justification for the invasion of Iraq. The WTI will expose these lies by presenting evidence and testimony. The task of exposing lies and confirming truth has become easier as a result of the release of the Downing Street memos. These official documents show that British and American officials understood fully that the Iraq War was unlawful, and not only did they go ahead, but they fabricated evidence to build a completely dishonest legal case. Neither governments, nor the UN, nor most of the media will tell this story of deception, destruction, and criminality. It is the mission of the WTI, building on the efforts of the 20 or so earlier citizens’ tribunals, to tell this story and to appeal to the peoples of the world to join with the people of Iraq in opposing aggression against Iraq. The tribunal is formed on the basis of a Panel of Advocates and a Jury of Conscience. The Panel will present the evidence and the Jury will draw legal, moral, and political conclusions and offer recommendations. The pledge of advocates and jurors is to act in an honest, non-partisan, independent, and objective spirit to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

    This tribunal differs from a normal court of law in the following main respects:

    –it is an organ of civil society, not of the state;

    –its essential purpose is to confirm the truth, not to discover it;

    –its jurors are dedicated, informed, and committed citizens of the world, not neutral and indifferent individuals of the community;

    –its advocates are knowledgeable, wise and decent, but not legally trained specialists;

    –its trust for the future is not based on violence and police, but on conscience, political struggle, and public opinion.

    Nevertheless, we claim for this tribunal the authority to declare the law and to impose its judgment and to hope — hope that a demonstration of this criminality will not fall on deaf ears, but will awaken and exercise the peoples of the world to intensify their resistance to America’s plans for world domination and stand in solidarity with the Iraqi people.

    We need to realize that the Iraq war is the eye of a larger global storm. The storm expresses the fury of this American project to dominate the world by force of arms, to exploit the peoples of the world through the medium of economic globalization, and to administer its idea of security from its Washington headquarters. This project of World Empire hides its true colors beneath the banner of anti-terrorism. It justifies every abuse by pointing to the September 11 attacks. These attacks, even if they are what is claimed, do not justify aggression against states or the torture of individuals. We should remember that the imperial brain trust said before September 11 that only “a new Pearl Harbor” would produce the political climate needed to achieve global hegemony. And they got a new Pearl Harbor, or did they? Read David Griffin’s The New Pearl Harbor and you will never be able to take 9/11 at face value in the future. The convenors of the WTI are mindful of this wider context of the Iraq War.

    It should also be observed that Turkey is an appropriate site for this culminating session of the WTI, remembering that earlier sessions of the WTI in all regions of the world have gathered evidence of the illegality of the Iraq War and the criminal policies and practices that have been associated with its conduct. To begin with, Turkey stands at the crossroads between the old European geopolitical core and the Third World periphery. Earlier Russell, PPT initiatives were European. Now the moral, political, and legal platform is moving away from the Christian West. It was Turkey’s proudest moment when its parliament refused the request of the US Government to mount the invasion of Iraq from Turkish territory; this represented an expression of an increasingly robust democratic process here in Turkey. Turkey is also a natural site for the tribunal because it is an important neighbor of Iraq, and suffers a variety of bad consequences from the war and the turmoil in the region that has resulted. And further, the Turkish government has been complicit with the Iraq war, as well as with the preceding period of sanctions, by allowing its territory to be used for a strategic base that has been extensively used for the bombing of Iraq ever since 1990. It is a purpose of this tribunal to show that such complicity engages legal responsibility for Turkey, and for other governments in the region that support directly or indirectly such aggressive war making.

    A special concern of the WTI is to take sharp issue with American claims of exception whether based on an alleged freedom to wage war anywhere on the planet as a result of the 9/11 attacks or securing an exemption for itself in relation to the basic obligation to uphold international law. The pernicious American exceptionalism contradicts completely the role played by the United States in seeking to promote the Rule of Law, the Nuremberg approach, and the UN Charter after 1945. The claim of exception moves in two directions: it operates, first of all, as an explicit effort to exempt Anerican leaders from individual accountability for violating international law, specifically in relation to the recently established International Criminal Court; and secondly, in relation to the lawless barbarism of the detention of alleged terrorist and insurgency suspects being held in such notorious outposts of torture and official evil as Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq and Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo. This tribunal stands against such outrageous claims of exception, and operates beneath the jurisprudential principle that no government or leader is above the law and that every government and leader is criminally accountable for failures to uphold international law. If governments and the UN are unwilling to pass judgment, it is up to initiatives by citizens of the world to perform this scared duty. The WTI has been formed against the background of these essential beliefs.

    It should also be understood that the WTI views the Iraq War as part of this wider assault by the United States, and the UK, against wider prospects for a just world order. These prospects depend upon respecting the sovereign rights of all states, of working to achieve human rights, including economic, social, and cultural rights for all peoples, and to struggle on behalf of a humane world order, including a far more equitable world economy that is indispensable for achieving a sustainable world peace.

    There was a tart in this direction made during the 1990s, although amid an array of contradictions. But it is worth noting these progressive moves that have been stymied by the wars of aggression launched by the United States by relying upon the pretext of a war against terrorism. It is worth observing because it is important to revive these moves toward humane global governance based on the principles of global justice:

    –the spread of democracy, and especially the rise of global civil society and of global social movements in the area of environment, human rights, women, and peace;

    –the increased support for human rights by civil society actors and governments around the world;

    –the attention given to the remembrance and partial erasure of historic grievances toward indigenous peoples on all continents, toward the victims of forced labor, including so-called “comfort women” during World War II, toward the descendants of slavery;

    –and most of all, to the revival of Nuremberg ideas about criminal accountability, challenging impunity – the Chilean dictator Pinochet was indicted by Spain and detained by Britain; the UN established tribunals to prosecute those responsible for ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in former Yugoslavia and for genocide in Rwanda; and over the objections of the leading states, the ICC was brought into existence due to the active coalition of hundreds of NGOs working together with dozens of governments dedicated to establish a framework for applying international criminal law.

    Such positive steps have been derailed, at least temporarily, by the firestorm released in the world by the US Government since the September 11 attacks. This tribunal hopes that truth-telling with respect to Iraq will also revive the emergent normative revolution of the 1990s, making us move again in the Puerto Alegre direction of insisting that “another world is possible,” and adding, “if possible, it is necessary,” and with this affirmation, the WTI will not only stimulate resistance to appression and solidarity with victims, but will revive the vision of the 1990s that can be best summarized as the cause of “moral globalization.”

  • Statement of Richard Falk at Press Conference for World Tribunal

    The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) is a worldwide civil society undertaking to reclaim justice. The project consists of commissions of inquiry and sessions held around the world investigating various issues related to the war on Iraq, such as the legality of the war, the role of the United Nations, war crimes and the role of the media. On June 23rd to the 27th 2005, at the start of the third year of the occupation of Iraq, the culminating session took place in Istanbul, Turkey. Richard Falk, Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Board of Directors, delivered the opening remarks to the tribunal. Below is Falk’s statement at the WTI press conference. For more information, visit their website at www.worldtribunal.org.

    The World Tribunal on Iraq is an undertaking of historic importance. It is the culmination of a process of tribunal sessions on the legal dimensions of the Iraq War that have been held in all parts of the world. This kind of spontaneous initiative of concerned people around the world has never taken place before. It represents an expression of what might be called “moral globalization,” acting on the belief that no state and no leader is above the law when it comes to matters of war and peace. And it expresses the overwhelming sentiments of peoples throughout the world that the Iraq War was against international law and morality. This initiative here in Istanbul has a quality of urgency as people are dying and suffering every day in Iraq as we speak. This is not an academic gathering of experts to find out the relevance of law. It is primarily an expression of popular democracy, of ethical conscience about what is right and wrong in world politics, and an expression of resistance to what is understood around the world as an American project to achieve world domination. The Iraq War is the eye of the storm at the moment. But the wider concern of the WTI is with America’s hegemonic global ambitions that is bringing danger, violence, and exploitation to many parts of the world at present.

    The idea of a tribunal to judge legal responsibility of a state and its leaders for war is not new. After World War II the victorious governments convened tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo, and held the German and Japanese leaders responsible. The Nuremberg Judgment, a celebrated document, called aggressive war, that is, Crimes Against Peace, as the greatest of all crimes. The UN Charter has carried forward the idea that all wars that are not fought in self-defense or with the approval of the UN Security Council are illegal wars, and hence a Crime Against Peace. The WTI has been initiated by citizens of many countries who share the belief that the Iraq War is such an illegal war, and that the leaders of the USA and United Kingdom are individually and criminally responsible for its initiation and for the violations of the Law of War that have accompanied the occupation of Iraq.

    The work of the Tribunal is divided into a Panel of Advocates and a Jury of Conscience. The role of the Panel of Advocates is to document these charges through analysis and witnesses in a persuasive manner, and to appeal to a Jury of Conscience, composed of distinguished moral authority personalities from around the world, to pass judgment on the actors and their actions from the perspective of international law. We understand that the WTI is not a court of law with powers of enforcement. It is rather an informed inquiry by concerned, independent, non-partisan, and honest persons into the relevance of international law that is designed to discredit any claims by the governments who have supported the Iraq War that their action is somehow legal and morally and politically acceptable. It is designed to tell the truth as clearly and powerfully as possible with respect to all aspects of the Iraq War. In the end if democracy is to be the true basis of political authority, then leaders must be made accountable, especially if they fail to uphold the Rule of Law in the area of war and peace. If governments and the United Nations are unable and unwilling to discharge this responsibility, then citizens acting on behalf of civil society have the duty to challenge and oppose an illegal war and practices that violate international humanitarian law. It is after all, in the famous words of the UN Charter, “We the peoples of the world” who are “determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.”

    The WTI takes these words seriously as a call to action. We who are participating in this Tribunal are speaking here in Turkey as ‘citizens of the world’ who are part of a global movement to oppose aggressive wars and to resist the wider ambitions of the United States Government to override the sovereignty and independence of states. And we of the WTI are calling on others in every country who seek global peace and justice, including the protection of human rights, to join us in doing this vital work. It is time to understand that aggressive war has become something more than a struggle between particular states. It is an assault on the well being of people everywhere, and must be opposed everywhere. Aggressive war is not only a Crime Against Peace, it has also become the greatest Crime Against Humanity.

    The WTI is opposing aggressive war, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It is not opposing the governments or the United Nations. Indeed it hopes to create pressure from below that will encourage law-abiding governments and the UN to do their proper job of protecting weaker countries and their populations against such illegalities. And beyond this protection we are promoting a world movement of peoples and governments to realize a humane form of globalization that is equitable with respect to the world economy, legitimate in upholding the human rights of all, and dedicated above all else to creating the conditions for sustainable peace based on justice for every nation on earth.

  • Searching for the Words

    “Poetry is an act of peace.” — Pablo Neruda

    I want to write a poem that feeds the hungry, a poem that makes the world healthy, one that ends torture and replaces greed with compassion.

    I want to write a poem that awakens people to the horror of war, a poem that ends our addiction to violence, one that reveals the obscenity of sending young men and women to war.

    I want to write a poem that defeats nationalism and militarism and every other “ism,” a poem that celebrates human dignity and the beauty and abundance of the earth.

    I want to write a poem that brings down leaders before they commit genocide and other intolerable crimes, a poem that ends impunity.

    I want to write a poem that celebrates the miracle of life, one that makes young people aware of their own beauty and fills them with courage to fight for justice.

    I am searching for the words, the grammar, the language, the rhythms to write such a poem.

    Such words are still forming like cooling lava, and the rules of grammar are as uncertain as mist. But the language, the language must be of the heart’s pulse. And the rhythms must be those of the wind and tides.

    A poem of such magic cannot be found in books or on ancient scrolls. Such a poem cannot be written in stone, or ink or even blood. It can only be lived.