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  • 2004 World Citizenship Award Presentation to Mayors for Peace

    2004 World Citizenship Award Presentation to Mayors for Peace

    World citizenship has become essential to our survival as a species. Our powerful technologies have made our problems global, and the solutions to these problems must also be global. If the Earth is destroyed, no country, no matter how powerful, will be spared the devastation. We all have a vested interest in preserving our planet. Our time calls out for world citizenship.

    On our planet today are many greedy plunderers, individuals and corporations that would use up the Earth’s resources for their own short-term profits, polluting the air, water and land without regard for the good of the planet and its inhabitants. These plunderers, who often seek out the weakest national link to gain greater advantage in enhancing their profits, are destroying our wondrous life-supporting planet.

    Some governments have stockpiled thousands of nuclear weapons, the worst of all weapons of mass destruction, weapons that are capable of reducing our great cities to rubble. Despite obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, these governments have clung tenaciously to their large nuclear arsenals, threatening the survival of the human species and most life on Earth.

    Finding global solutions to global problems demands a worldwide constituency for change, a constituency of world citizens, who put the problems of the planet ahead of their concerns for their particular geographic portion of the planet. The number of world citizens on the planet is relatively small, but growing. The growth curve is in a race against time to save the planet from plunder and destruction and to achieve sustainability for future generations.

    In 1998, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation began presenting an annual award for World Citizenship. Previous honorees have been media innovator Ted Turner; Queen Noor of Jordan; poet and philosopher Daisaku Ikeda; artist Frederick Franck; and entertainer and humanitarian Harry Belafonte. This year’s honoree is – for the first time, an organization – Mayors for Peace.

    Mayors for Peace was selected for their innovative approach to the abolition of nuclear weapons. They have initiated an Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons by the year 2020, which they call Vision 2020. Witnessing the strain on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by the failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their treaty obligations for nuclear disarmament and recognizing the dangers that nuclear arsenals pose to all cities, the Mayors for Peace created their Emergency Campaign. The Campaign calls for initiating negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition in the year 2005, concluding these negotiations in the year 2010, and completing the process of eliminating these weapons by the year 2020. The Emergency Campaign brings the issue of nuclear disarmament to cities throughout the world through the commitment of mayors who have a responsibility to protect their constituents.

    In 2004, the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign brought 16 mayors and deputy mayors from 12 countries to the United Nations in New York for the Preparatory Committee meeting to the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT). The organization is currently making preparations to have more than 100 mayors and deputy mayors at the 2005 NPT Review Conference. Their presence made a strong impact in 2004 and will undoubtedly make an even greater impact in 2005.

    The superb leadership of Mayors for Peace has come from its president, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima , and its vice-president, Mayor Iccho Itoh of Nagasaki. It is altogether fitting and proper that the leadership of this organization and campaign should come from these cities that suffered the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons dropped on them. We hope that the survivors of the bombings in these cities, the hibakusha , who are ambassadors of the Nuclear Age, will take particular pride in this World Citizenship Award and the efforts of their mayors for a world free of nuclear weapons. We also hope that this Award will help in mobilizing additional mayors to join in the global effort to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    It is my honor and pleasure to present the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2004 World Citizenship Award to Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba representing the Mayors for Peace.

    David Krieger is a founder and the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org)

  • Towards a Nuclear-Weapon Free World: Accelerating the Implementation of Nuclear Disarmament Commitments

    Draft Resolution for UNGA First Committee NAC- New Agenda Coalition (Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden)

    The General Assembly,

    (pp1) Recalling its resolution 58/51 of 8 December 2003 , and mindful of the upcoming 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,

    (pp2) Expressing its grave concern at the danger to humanity posed by the possibility that nuclear weapons could be used and at the lack of implementation of binding obligations and agreed steps toward nuclear disarmament and r eaffirming that nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation are mutually reinforcing processes requiring urgent irreversible progress on both fronts,

    (pp 3) Recalling the unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament, in accordance with commitments under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and noting that the ultimate objective of the disarmament process is general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control,

    1. Calls upon all States to fully comply with commitments made to nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation and not to act in any way that may be detrimental to nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation or that may lead to a new nuclear arms race;
    2. Calls upon all States to spare no efforts to achieve universal adherence to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and the early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty;
    3. Calls upon all States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to accelerate the implementation of the practical steps for the systematic and progressive efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament agreed at the 2000 Review Conference;
    4. Also calls upon the nuclear-weapon States to take further steps to reduce their non-strategic nuclear arsenals, and not to develop new types of nuclear weapons in accordance with their commitment to diminish the role of nuclear weapons in their security policies;
    5. Agrees to urgently strengthen efforts towards both nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation through the resumption in the Conference on Disarmament of negotiations on a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices, in accordance with the statement of the special coordinator in 1995 and the mandate contained therein taking into account both nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation objectives, as well as the completion and implementation of arrangements by all nuclear-weapon States to place fissile material no longer required for military purposes under international verification;
    6. Calls for the establishment of an appropriate subsidiary body in the Conference on Disarmament to deal with nuclear disarmament;
    7. Underlines the imperative of the principles of irreversibility and transparency for all nuclear disarmament measures, and the need to develop further adequate and efficient verification capabilities;
    8. Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its sixtieth session an item entitled “Towards a nuclear-weapon free world: Accelerating the implementation of nuclear disarmament commitments”, and to review the implementation of the present resolution at that session.

     

  • The Challenge of Hiroshima: Alternatives to Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defenses, and Space Weaponization in a North East Asian Context

    Conference Statement

    Six non-governmental organizations* brought together experts and activists from nine countries** in Hiroshima, Japan to discuss issues of global and regional peace and security. Almost 60 years after this city suffered the first atomic bombing, we confront new and continuing nuclear dangers in North East Asia and around the world.

    An inspiring opening to the conference was provided by Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, who discussed the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons by 2020. A prominent sentiment that underlay the discussions during the meeting was the suffering experienced by the survivors of the atomic bombing, the hibakusha , and their courage and determination in their efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

    Despite the efforts of the hibakusha and the efforts of millions of other people for more than half a century to eliminate nuclear weapons, over twenty thousand remain deployed worldwide. Under the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed to negotiate for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. Unfortunately, there are no such negotiations in progress or even on the horizon for further nuclear reductions. Entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty also remains an unrealized goal, in no small part due to the refusal of the United States to ratify the Treaty.

    North Korea has announced its withdrawal from the NPT, and that it has the capacity to develop nuclear weapons. It justifies this decision in part because the United States government has listed North Korea as a potential nuclear target. North Korea also cites other implied United States threats to use force against it, manifested by the continued deployment of powerful United States military forces in the region.

    The United States and Japan are also proceeding with joint ballistic missile defense research, claiming a need to counter a North Korean missile threat. Missile defense deployment, and the possibility that it could be extended further to Taiwan , is viewed with great concern by China , and by other governments and peace movements throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

    The United States is pursuing ambitious programs for the modernization of its nuclear forces, from its missiles and the warheads they deliver to the systems used to plan and execute nuclear strikes. China and Russia , the major nuclear powers in the region, also continue to modernize some elements of their nuclear arsenals, although at a far slower pace than the United States . In addition, the United States continues to develop new kinds of high technology conventional weapons, including increasingly accurate and long-range conventionally armed missiles. A growing proportion of United States military forces are being deployed in the Pacific region.

    All countries in North East Asia and the surrounding region have a strong interest in a stable and peaceful environment. The development and deployment of dangerous weapons systems in the region undermines this goal.

    After extensive discussions, the conference participants concluded:

    • Every available diplomatic means should be employed to resolve the current standoff between the United States and North Korea , ranging from the existing six-party talks between North Korea , South Korea , Japan , China , Russia and the United States , to bilateral negotiations between North Korea and the United States.
    • Joint ballistic missile defense research by Japan and the United States complicates the relationship between the three major nuclear powers, and furthers proliferation of sophisticated military technologies. Missile defense development will make a regional arms race more likely. Therefore, joint ballistic missile defense development should not proceed, and the United States should not deploy anti-ballistic missile systems in the region.
    • Normalization of diplomatic relations between North Korea and Japan and between North Korea and the United States should be encouraged.
    • China , Russia , and the United States , the three nuclear weapons states with forces in the region, should actively pursue global negotiations for the elimination of all nuclear arsenals, consistent with their disarmament obligations under the NPT. These negotiations should involve all nuclear weapons states, including those not party to the NPT.

    As a way forward, the conference participants agreed that the six-party talks should be considered a starting point for long-term discussions to address further regional security-enhancing measures, including:

    • the withdrawal of missiles to such locations as would reduce perceived threats to countries in the region;
    • limitations and reductions of missiles in the region;
    • the creation of a North East Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone; and
    • the withdrawal of foreign military forces based in the region.

    The conference participants recognized that regional security also depends on the global security environment. They were particularly concerned about the weaponization of space, and wide-ranging United States plans for space dominance and the use of space for war fighting. The conference participants recommended the beginning and early conclusion of negotiations for a treaty banning these developments.

    The participants agreed that the outcome of the 2005 NPT Review Conference will be critical for the future of non-proliferation and disarmament. The cry of the hibakusha – no more Hiroshimas, no more Nagasakis – must be taken up by the people of the world, strongly enough this time that the governments finally must listen and act to fulfill their legal obligations for the total elimination of their nuclear weapons.

    *Convened by the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, the Hiroshima Peace Institute, the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP), Mayors for Peace, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), and the Peace Depot. This was the fourth in a series of conferences in the project Moving Beyond Missile Defense, sponsored by INESAP and NAPF.

    ** Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.

  • Who Will Make Us Safer from the Biggest Threat Facing the US?

    If you watched or heard about the first Presidential debate on September 30th, then you probably already know that one thing both presidential candidates agree upon is that nuclear proliferation poses the biggest threat to the US. What you might not know is which candidate will actually make Americans far safer and more secure. Understanding how the presidential candidates will deal with nuclear proliferation is essential in allowing US citizens to make an informed decision on who is best suited to lead this great country.

    One thing President Bush failed to mention is that, despite calls from past Presidents, nuclear weapons have assumed a far more central role in US security policy. The new, more “usable” role that the US government has assigned to nuclear weapons and its doctrine of pre-emptive warfare can encourage other nations to obtain nuclear weapons (and other weapons of mass destruction) in pursuit of their own security needs. These policies diminish US national security and attempts to control the spread of weapons of mass destruction, increasing the risk that other countries and terrorists will obtain and use nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against the US.

    So, let’s take a moment to examine exactly where President Bush and Senator Kerry stand on just four key policies that would protect Americans and their families.

    Oppose creating dangerous new nuclear weapons that will lead others to follow our example.

    President George W. Bush requested some $36.6 million in the 2005 Budget for research on dangerous new nuclear weapons, including the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator or “bunker-buster” and “mini-nukes.”

    John Kerry has stated, “As president, I will stop this administration’s program to develop a whole new generation of bunker-busting nuclear bombs. This is a weapon we don’t need. And it undermines our credibility in persuading other nations. What kind of message does it send when we’re asking other countries not to develop nuclear weapons but developing new ones ourselves?”

    Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and continue the current moratorium on nuclear testing, which are essential elements to promoting the international non-proliferation regime and protecting American security.

    President Bush opposes ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, already ratified by 115 countries, and has proposed $30 million in the 2005 Budget for reducing the time to resume nuclear testing from 24 months to 18 months.

    Senator Kerry supports ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and has emphasized its importance in promoting the international non-proliferation regime.

    Cancel funding for and plans to deploy offensive missile “defense” systems that could ignite a dangerous nuclear arms race and offer no security against terrorist weapons of mass destruction.

    In 2001, President Bush unilaterally withdrew the US from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the former Soviet Union in order to deploy a missile “defenses.” He is seeking to deploy an inadequately tested missile defense system this year, and has requested a budget of more than $10 billion for this unproven system in 2005.

    Senator Kerry has stated that he believes in further missile defense research, but he does “not believe in rapid deployment of a system that hasn’t been adequately tested.” He has stated that “to abandon [the ABM Treaty] altogether is to welcome an arms race that will make us more vulnerable, not less.”

    Work with Russia to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both countries and ensure that nuclear weapons and materials stay out of the hands of terrorists or countries seeking to acquire nuclear capabilities.

    President Bush signed a treaty with the Russians that calls for bringing down the number of deployed strategic weapons to between 2,200 and 1,700 by the year 2012. The treaty, however, does not provide for verification and does not make the reductions irreversible. The treaty also terminates in the year 2012. Since weapons taken off active deployment will be kept on the shelf in reserve, they will be a tempting target for terrorists. President Bush has also called for reductions of more than nine percent in the funding for the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to secure nuclear weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union.

    Senator Kerry has stated that the treaty that President Bush entered into “runs the risk of increasing nuclear theft by stockpiling thousands of warheads.” He further stated that “if we are to make America safer, and we must, it will take more than cosmetic treaties that leave Russia’s nuclear arsenal in place.” Kerry has called for increased joint efforts with the Russians to dispose of stocks of existing nuclear materials. He has stated that he will make securing nuclear weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union a priority in relations between the US and Russia and work with our allies to establish global standards for the safekeeping of nuclear materials.

    It is up to us voters to elect a President who will make us safer from the biggest threat facing the US. If you want to see the US implement more responsible nuclear policies, then visit www.chartinganewcourse.org to learn more and take action today.

    Carah Ong is the Development and Communications Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

  • Gorbachev Wages the Good Fight Against WMDs

    The term statesman, in its positive sense, can be applied to only a few current and former heads of state. One of them is Mikhail Gorbachev.

    The former Soviet president spoke out forcefully in London last week at the kickoff of a new campaign called Come Clean. Launched by Greenpeace, Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and other non-governmental organizations, the campaign is designed to rid the world of weapons of mass destruction. “If they exist, sooner or later there will be disastrous consequences,” he said. “It is not enough to safeguard them. They must be abolished.”

    This forthright repudiation of such weapons is not an afterthought for the man who once ruled the world’s largest nation. Quite the contrary. He began speaking out against nuclear dangers even before he assumed the top leadership post in the Soviet Union and initiated the transformation of his country into a relatively peaceful, democratic society. Addressing the British parliament in December 1984, Gorbachev declared that “the nuclear age inevitably dictates new political thinking. Preventing nuclear war is the most burning issue for all people on earth.”

    After becoming Soviet party secretary in March 1985, Gorbachev stepped up his attack upon nuclear weapons. Speaking to the French parliament that October, he declared that, as there could be “no victors in a nuclear war,” the time had come “to stop the nuclear arms race.” Faced with the “self-destruction of the human race,” people had to “burn the black book of nuclear alchemy” and make the 21st century a time “of life without fear of universal death.” In January 1986, Gorbachev unveiled a three-stage plan to eliminate all nuclear weapons around the world by the year 2000.

    As these elements of such thinking were put into place, Eduard Shevardnadze, the new Soviet foreign minister, exulted. Henceforth, he wrote, Soviet security would be “gained not by the highest possible level of strategic parity, but the lowest possible level,” with “nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction … removed from the equation.” The world was well on its way to the INF treaty, the START I treaty, and the end of the Cold War.

    American conservatives, of course, have dished up a very different version of events. In it, Gorbachev and other courageous Soviet reformers are simply airbrushed out of the picture. Instead, the Reagan administration’s military buildup is said to have overawed Soviet bureaucrats and “won” the Cold War.

    But this triumphalist interpretation has nothing behind it but the self-interest of U.S. officials. None of the Soviet leaders of the time have given it any credit whatsoever. Gorbachev himself shrugged off the idea of Soviet capitulation to U.S. power as American political campaign rhetoric, but added: “If this idea is serious, then it is a very big delusion.”

    What did move Gorbachev to take his antinuclear stand was the critical perspective on nuclear weapons advanced by the mass nuclear disarmament campaign of the era. Meeting frequently with leaders of this campaign, he adopted their ideas, their rhetoric and their proposals.

    “The new thinking,” he said, “absorbed the conclusions and demands of … the public and … of the movements of physicians, scientists and ecologists, and of various antiwar organizations.”

    Although President Reagan also deserves credit for fostering nuclear disarmament and the end of the Cold War, it is not for his dangerous and expensive weapons systems. As Colin Powell observed, what Reagan contributed was “the vision and flexibility, lacking in many knee-jerk Cold Warriors, to recognize that Gorbachev was a new man in a new age offering new opportunities for peace.”

    Gorbachev’s sincerity in seeking nuclear disarmament is further exemplified by his activities since leaving public office in 1991. Time and again, he has spoken out against the dangers of nuclear weapons. In January 1998, he joined an array of other former national leaders who signed an appeal for nuclear abolition.

    It is sad to see how far the U.S. government has strayed from that vision. Although the Bush administration talks about the danger of WMDs, they are only the WMDs of other nations. It has no plan for comprehensive nuclear disarmament. Furthermore, it has withdrawn from the ABM treaty, rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and is currently promoting legislation to build new nuclear weapons.

    What this nation badly needs is a farsighted statesman like Mikhail Gorbachev.

    Lawrence S. Wittner teaches at the University at Albany. His latest book is “Toward Nuclear Abolition.”

  • Truths Worth Telling

    Kensington, California – On a tape recording made in the Oval Office on June 14, 1971, H. R. Haldeman, Richard Nixon’s chief of staff, can be heard citing Donald Rumsfeld, then a White House aide, on the effect of the Pentagon Papers, news of which had been published on the front page of that morning’s newspaper:

    “Rumsfeld was making this point this morning,” Haldeman says. “To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can’t trust the government; you can’t believe what they say, and you can’t rely on their judgment. And the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it’s wrong, and the president can be wrong.”

    He got it exactly right. But it’s a lesson that each generation of voters and each new set of leaders have to learn for themselves. Perhaps Mr. Rumsfeld – now secretary of defense, of course – has reflected on this truth recently as he has contemplated the deteriorating conditions in Iraq. According to the government’s own reporting, the situation there is far bleaker than Mr. Rumsfeld has recognized or President Bush has acknowledged on the campaign trail.

    Understandably, the American people are reluctant to believe that their president has made errors of judgment that have cost American lives. To convince them otherwise, there is no substitute for hard evidence: documents, photographs, transcripts. Often the only way for the public to get such evidence is if a dedicated public servant decides to release it without permission.

    Such a leak occurred recently with the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was prepared in July. Reports of the estimate’s existence and overall pessimism – but not its actual conclusions – have prompted a long-overdue debate on the realities and prospects of the war. But its judgments of the relative likelihood and the strength of evidence pointing to the worst possibilities remain undisclosed. Since the White House has refused to release the full report, someone else should do so.

    Leakers are often accused of being partisan, and undoubtedly many of them are. But the measure of their patriotism should be the accuracy and the importance of the information they reveal. It would be a great public service to reveal a true picture of the administration’s plans for Iraq – especially before this week’s debate on foreign policy between Mr. Bush and Senator John Kerry.

    The military’s real estimates of the projected costs – in manpower, money and casualties – of various long-term plans for Iraq should be made public, in addition to the more immediate costs in American and Iraqi lives of the planned offensive against resistant cities in Iraq that appears scheduled for November. If military or intelligence experts within the government predict disastrous political consequences in Iraq from such urban attacks, these judgments should not remain secret.

    Leaks on the timing of this offensive – and on possible call-up of reserves just after the election – take me back to Election Day 1964, which I spent in an interagency working group in the State Department. The purpose of our meeting was to examine plans to expand the war – precisely the policy that voters soundly rejected at the polls that day.

    We couldn’t wait until the next day to hold our meeting because the plan for the bombing of North Vietnam had to be ready as soon as possible. But we couldn’t have held our meeting the day before because news of it might have been leaked – not by me, I’m sorry to say. And President Lyndon Johnson might not have won in a landslide had voters known he was lying when he said that his administration sought “no wider war.”

    Seven years and almost 50,000 American deaths later, after I had leaked the Pentagon Papers, I had a conversation with Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, one of the two senators who had voted against the Tonkin Gulf resolution in August 1964. If I had leaked the documents then, he said, the resolution never would have passed.

    That was hard to hear. But in 1964 it hadn’t occurred to me to break my vow of secrecy. Though I knew that the war was a mistake, my loyalties then were to the secretary of defense and the president. It took five years of war before I recognized the higher loyalty all officials owe to the Constitution, the rule of law, the soldiers in harm’s way or their fellow citizens.

    Like Robert McNamara, under whom I served, Mr. Rumsfeld appears to inspire great loyalty among his aides. As the scandal at Abu Ghraib shows, however, there are more important principles. Mr. Rumsfeld might not have seen the damning photographs and the report of Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba as soon as he did – just as he would never have seen the Pentagon Papers 33 years ago – if some anonymous people in his own department had not bypassed the chain of command and disclosed them, without authorization, to the news media. And without public awareness of the scandal, reforms would be less likely.

    A federal judge has ordered the administration to issue a list of all documents relating to the scandal by Oct. 15. Will Mr. Rumsfeld release the remaining photos, which depict treatment that he has described as even worse? It’s highly unlikely, especially before Nov. 2. Meanwhile, the full Taguba report remains classified, and the findings of several other inquiries into military interrogation and detention practices have yet to be released.

    All administrations classify far more information than is justifiable in a democracy – and the Bush administration has been especially secretive. Information should never be classified as secret merely because it is embarrassing or incriminating. But in practice, in this as in any administration, no information is guarded more closely.

    Surely there are officials in the present administration who recognize that the United States has been misled into a war in Iraq, but who have so far kept their silence – as I long did about the war in Vietnam. To them I have a personal message: don’t repeat my mistakes. Don’t wait until more troops are sent, and thousands more have died, before telling truths that could end a war and save lives. Do what I wish I had done in 1964: go to the press, to Congress, and document your claims.

    Technology may make it easier to tell your story, but the decision to do so will be no less difficult. The personal risks of making disclosures embarrassing to your superiors are real. If you are identified as the source, your career will be over; friendships will be lost; you may even be prosecuted. But some 140,000 Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq. Our nation is in urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials.

    Daniel Ellsberg is the author of “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers” and a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council.

    Originally published by the New York Times.

  • Seeking Peace in the Nuclear Age

    Seeking Peace in the Nuclear Age

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982 by a small group of citizens who believed that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age – that our powerful technologies, particularly nuclear weapons, have brought us to the stage in human development when we must put an end to war before war puts an end to us. We created the Foundation in the belief that citizens can make a difference by influencing other citizens and government officials.

    The Foundation began with only a handful of individuals and now reaches millions of people annually through our programs, publications and websites. We operate internationally and are on the Roster in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The Foundation has been named a United Nations Peace Messenger organization, and among our advisors are many Nobel Peace Laureates from throughout the world.

    The work of the Foundation is based upon a commitment to achieve a more secure and decent future for humanity. We have three principal goals: to abolish nuclear weapons; to strengthen international law and institutions; and to inspire and empower a new generation of peace leaders. We seek these goals by means of education and advocacy.

    Abolishing nuclear weapons may seem like an impossible goal, but it is critical to pursue because these weapons can destroy cities, civilizations and even the human species. The stated purpose of nuclear weapons has always been deterrence, to prevent others from using nuclear weapons by threatening to retaliate with massive force. But now that the Cold War has ended there are no nuclear weapons states that remain enemies, excepting possibly India and Pakistan , and even they are attempting to work out their differences.

    Nuclear weapons are not needed to deter friends, and they cannot deter terrorists who cannot be located. Thus, our most practical and safest course of action is the phased and verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons. To succeed in this endeavor, the US must take the lead, for without the US it will not happen. The Foundation works with other organizations around the world on these issues. We helped form a network of over 2000 organizations working for a nuclear weapons-free future. We have also initiated a national campaign to chart a new course for US nuclear policy. The campaign is called Turn the Tide and it allows citizens to learn about US nuclear policies and to play a role in changing them.

    Each year the Foundation hosts a symposium on international law that looks at strengthening some aspect of the global legal structure. One of our symposiums focused on creating a United Nations Emergency Peace Service – a small UN rapid deployment force that could be used to stop genocides and crimes against humanity from occurring by moving rapidly to prevent them. Another symposium focused on the importance of supporting an International Criminal Court that will hold all individuals, including national leaders, accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

    The Foundation is also active in reaching out to young people. We are working to create a new generation of peace leaders. Michael Coffey , our Director of Youth Programs, travels around the country speaking to and working with youth on high school and college campuses. In 2005, the Foundation will host a conference of 50-60 young nuclear activists from around the country to learn from each other and from a team of experienced activists about being more effective in creating a nuclear weapons-free future. We are very excited about the potential of this youth conference to have a multiplier effect in reaching a broad audience of young people and influencing them to play a role in shaping their future.

    We do much more at the Foundation, which you can find out about at our principal web site, www.wagingpeace.org. You can also visit our other web sites,www.nuclearfiles.org and www.ucnuclearfree.org.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is an organization that works daily to build a peaceful and nuclear weapons free world. It is a persistent voice for peace in our troubled world. We invite you to add your voice and help support our efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, strengthen international law and reach out to young people. Help us create a world we can be proud to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. This is an edited version of remarks made at the kick-off event for the Foundation’s 20th Anniversary Campaign.

  • Ending the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity: New Thinking and Effective Campaigns are Needed

    Ending the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity: New Thinking and Effective Campaigns are Needed

    We need new thinking and effective campaigns if we are to succeed in quelling the growing nuclear dangers in the world. The existing nuclear weapons states are failing to fulfill their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. North Korea has withdrawn from the NPT, and claims to have become a member of the nuclear weapons club. Iran is enriching uranium for what it claims are peaceful purposes. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently reminded the world that there are forty countries capable of converting their “peaceful” nuclear programs to weapons programs.

    There are still well over 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world, perhaps closer to 30,000, mostly in the arsenals of the US and Russia. These two countries also continue to maintain over 2,000 nuclear weapons each on hair-trigger alert, creating the ongoing and increasing possibility of an accidental nuclear launch. Other nuclear weapons states include the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and likely North Korea .

    Throughout the world, terrorism is on the rise with groups such as Al Qaeda openly expressing a desire to obtain nuclear weapons. Should such a group succeed in this quest, they could not be deterred from using these weapons, since deterrence implies being able to locate the attacking party in order to retaliate. Thus, existing arsenals of thousands of nuclear weapons cannot deter a small group of terrorists from attacking the cities of the militarily most powerful states.

    The US attacked Iraq because of Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, and has made threats of preemptive action to North Korea and Iran based on their nuclear arsenals. For geopolitical reasons, the US has turned a blind eye to Israel ‘s nuclear weapons and those of other allied nations, while attacking Iraq, a country that it falsely accused of having such weapons. The US has basically adopted a “do as I say, not as I do” strategy of nuclear arms control. Such a strategy, based on clear double standards, is extremely dangerous and destined to fail.

    The world is walking a dangerous tightrope, while facing harsh prospects of potential nuclear disaster. The only way to prevent a nuclear 9/11 is to dramatically reduce the nuclear weapons, technologies and materials in the world and to bring the remaining ones under international control. This will require US leadership as the world’s most powerful country. Without US leadership, the world will continue its flirtation with nuclear disaster, increasing the likelihood that the US itself could become the victim of its own double standards.

    Unfortunately, the US, under the Bush administration, has not only failed to show leadership to prevent nuclear terrorism and nuclear double standards, but has actively sought to improve its nuclear arsenal. It has failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and is moving toward lowering the time needed to resume nuclear testing. It has been allocating funds to research “bunker busting” nuclear weapons and “mini-nukes.” And it has forged ahead with deployment of untested missile defense systems that have caused Russia and China to make offensive improvements in their nuclear arsenals in order to maintain their deterrent capabilities.

    If we are to avert future nuclear catastrophes it is necessary to change the course of current nuclear policy. In order to do this, we need a new way of thinking about nuclear weapons that reflects the view that they undermine rather than enhance our security. This is the conclusion reached by General George Lee Butler, the former head of the US Strategic Command. General Butler was once in charge of all US strategic weapons. He stated, “Sadly, the Cold War lives on in the minds of men who cannot let go the fears, the beliefs, the enmities of the Nuclear Age. They cling to deterrence, clutch its tattered promise to their breast, shake it wistfully at bygone adversaries and balefully at new or imagined ones. They are gripped still by its awful willingness not simply to tempt the apocalypse but to prepare the way.”

    Nearly fifty years ago, Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of the 20th century, argued, “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Shortly before Einstein’s death, he joined Bertrand Russell in issuing a short manifesto signed by themselves and nine other prominent scientists, including Joseph Rotblat , the one scientist who left the Manhattan Project when he realized that the Germans would not succeed in developing a nuclear weapon. The document, known simply as the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, set forth the case that nuclear weapons make the abolition of war necessary. “Here, then, is the problem that we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.”

    The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was Einstein’s final warning and plea to humanity. The manifesto urged that humanity has a choice: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels?” The document went on to urge: “Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    To succeed in ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity, ordinary people must engage in the issue and it must become a top priority issue. At present, most people are not engaged in this issue, or may even incorrectly believe that nuclear weapons provide prestige and enhance rather than undermine their security. What is needed is a massive, well-funded campaign of public education and advocacy in order to arouse ordinary people and officials everywhere to action.

    I will mention two encouraging campaigns that are in their early stages. The first is the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons. 1 This campaign seeks to activate mayors around the world to engage their populations to pressure their national leaders to begin in 2005 negotiations on eliminating nuclear weapons, to complete these negotiations by 2010, and to eliminate all nuclear weapons by the year 2020. This campaign, led by the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki , holds promise, but at this point in time it remains dramatically under-funded. Nonetheless, it is moving forward with the expectation that more than 100 mayors and deputy mayors will state their case for nuclear disarmament at the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference at the United Nations. The Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign is receiving support from Abolition 2000, which has created Abolition Now! to help further the Mayors Campaign. 2

    A second campaign now underway is called Turn the Tide. 3 It was created by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation to focus on changing US nuclear policies. It is a campaign that reaches out to US citizens via the internet and urges them to communicate with their elected representatives to support actions set forth in their 13-point Campaign Statement:

    1. Stop all efforts to create dangerous new nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
    2. Maintain the current moratorium on nuclear testing and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
    3. Cancel plans to build new nuclear weapons production plants, and close and clean up the toxic contamination at existing plants.
    4. Establish and enforce a legally binding US commitment to No Use of nuclear weapons against any nation or group that does not have nuclear weapons.
    5. Establish and enforce a legally binding US commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nations possessing nuclear weapons.
    6. Cancel funding for and plans to deploy offensive missile “defense” systems which could ignite a dangerous arms race and offer no security against terrorist weapons of mass destruction.
    7. In order to significantly decrease the threat of accidental launch, together with Russia , take nuclear weapons off high-alert status and do away with the strategy of launch-on-warning.
    8. Together with Russia , implement permanent and verifiable dismantlement of nuclear weapons taken off deployed status through the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).
    9. Demonstrate to other countries US commitment to reducing its reliance on nuclear weapons by removing all US nuclear weapons from foreign soil.
    10. To prevent future proliferation or theft, create and maintain a global inventory of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons materials and place these weapons and materials under strict international safeguards.
    11. Initiate international negotiations to fulfill existing treaty obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty for the phased and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.
    12. Initiate a moratorium on new nuclear power reactors and gradually phase out existing ones, as these are a primarily means for the proliferation of nuclear materials, technology and weapons; simultaneously establish an International Sustainable Energy Agency to support the development of clean, safe renewable energy.
    13. Redirect funding from nuclear weapons programs to dismantling nuclear weapons, safeguarding nuclear materials, cleaning up the toxic legacy of the Nuclear Age and meeting more pressing social needs such as education, health care and social services.

    There is no magic formula for accomplishing these goals or, for that matter, for changing the world in any direction. Change often occurs one person at a time. The problem with the nuclear weapons threat is that there may not be time for such a progression of involvement. People must immediately change their thinking and they must engage in this issue as if their very lives depended upon it because they do. Many people think that this will probably not happen until another major city has been destroyed by a nuclear weapon. It would be a terrible failure of imagination if the destruction of a city is required to move us to take significant action to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity.

    We know that the danger is lurking in the dark recesses of our collective consciences. Why else would we give our tacit assent to nuclear weapons programs, even in our most prestigious universities where the next generation of leaders is being educated? We must bring the hidden fears and dangers of the Nuclear Age into the light and act with resolve to change the course of history, which sadly now seems to be racing toward inevitable future nuclear catastrophes, unless there is a real awakening.

    David Krieger is a founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.

    1 See http://www.mayorsforpeace.org
    2 See http://www.abolitionnow.org
    3 See https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com

  • You Scare Us: Bush Is Giving Latin America the Willies

    The United States is strong. Latin America is weak. This is the basic truth that shapes their relationship. There is no irrational animosity toward the U.S. in Latin America. There is a measure of suspicion balanced by enormous admiration for the culture of Herman Melville to Walt Whitman to William Faulkner, of Hollywood and jazz, of Eugene O’Neill to Arthur Miller. Nor is there envy of the United States. Latin America is deeply aware of its cultural values. Our personality is not assailed by gringo fashions. We absorb and adapt to the cultures of the world, including that of the U.S.

    The problem lies in foreign policy. Too often, the United States is seen as a benevolent Dr. Jekyll at home and a malevolent Mr. Hyde abroad. The wars against Mexico (1846-1848) and Spain (1898), Teddy Roosevelt’s “big stick,” Woodrow Wilson’s well-intentioned but counterproductive intervention in Mexico during its revolution, incessant and arrogant meddling in Central America. Not an easy menu to swallow. One moment shines through, however: Franklin Roosevelt’s “good neighbor” policy, his decision to win Latin American support during World War II through negotiation rather than confrontation.

    And after that war, a limpid admiration for the Roosevelt and Truman policies of international cooperation through organizations based on the rule of law. “We all have to recognize,” Harry Truman said in 1945, “[that] no matter how great our strength – we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please.” The United Nations was a creation of U.S. diplomacy. Its principles were clearly stated and universally accepted. Even when the U.S. violated them in practice during the Cold War, the principles were never renounced.

    This brings us to what Latin Americans find so shocking about the Bush administration. Instead of multilateralism, unilateralism. Instead of diplomacy and negotiation and a search for consensus and the use of force only as a last resort, the barbaric principle of preventive war.

    U.S. support for brutal dictatorships in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay in the name of anti-communism caused great suffering. The overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala and Salvador Allende in Chile. The Central American wars in the 1980s and their high body counts. These Latin American grievances were balanced by a perception that the U.S. never formally renounced the principles of international law and the hope that it would reaffirm them again.

    What is alarming about the Bush administration is its formal denunciation of the basic rules of international intercourse. With us or against us, President Bush declares starkly and simplistically. The U.S. acts according to its own interests, “not those of an illusory international community,” asserts national security advisor Condoleezza Rice.

    Is it strange that many Latin Americans should see in these statements an aggressive denial of the only leverage we have in dealing with Washington: the rule of law, the balance obtained through diplomatic negotiation?

    Not only out of self-interest, but also as participants in the global society, many Latin Americans worry that U.S. unilateralism is incompatible with the multilateralist nature of globalization. This was the warning issued by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo at last year’s Harvard commencement. Add Chilean President Ricardo Lagos’ perception that the world community is postponing the urgent global agenda of creating an adequate social-program fund, strengthening human rights and overcoming the chasms between haves and have-nots. And top it with former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso’s plea to the French National Assembly: Fight vigorously against terror but also against the underlying causes of terror: hunger, ignorance, inequality and distorted perceptions of other cultures.

    Fortunately, these composite voices of Latin American statesmen found a powerful echo in North America, when former President Clinton warned that you do not defeat terror if you do not figure out how to work with an interdependent world.

    These voices, these warnings, these hopes have been disowned by the Bush administration. “With us or against us,” Bush has said. It hardly matters. Offensive as these words are to the international community, I believe that Latin America, in particular, will not forget the outright deceptions of the Bush era: the shifting rationales for an unnecessary war and a disastrous postwar occupation; the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; the targeting of one tyrant (Saddam Hussein) among many (Kim Jong II, Robert Mugabe, Moammar Kadafi); the utter lack of foresight that an occupied Iraq would rise against the foreign occupiers and try to fashion its own political future out of its complex religious, tribal and cultural realities, all of them ignored by the neoconservatives in Washington.

    But while not forgetting these mistakes and deceptions, we would put the accent on the restoration of the rule of law, the thrust of cooperation and the attention due to 3 billion human beings living in poverty, ignorance and illness. When Bush and his bellicose minions are gone, these problems will still be around. We in Latin America should try to bring them forward as the real agenda for this troubling century.

    Carlos Fuentes is the author, most recently, of “Contra Bush,” which will be translated into seven languages. Originally published in the Los Angeles Times on September 26, 2004.

  • Letter from Ben Ferencz on the ICC

    Dear Friends:

    As a former combat veteran, with five battle stars received with my honorable discharge after World War Two, I owe it to the forty-million people who died in that war not to remain silent in the face of official calumnies that endanger our nation and the brave young people who serve in its military forces. I write as a graduate of the Harvard Law School and a former Chief prosecutor for the United States in one of the Nuremberg war crimes trials and one who has devoted almost all of my life trying to help create a more humane and peaceful world under the rule of law.

    What follows is an extract from the official US Congressional Record, House of Representatives debate on July 15, 2004, under the heading H. 5881 and H 5882. to Amend the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. The views expressed by the Chairman of the House of Representatives, Republican Tom DeLay of Texas , in strongly opposing the International Criminal Court (ICC) are widely shared by other members of the Republican party, as well as some conservative Democrats. The arguments advanced in opposition to the new court are, in my very considered judgment, demonstrably false and deliberately deceptive. They do not serve the interests of the United States or any of its citizens.

    Extract from Congressional Record:

    Amendment No. 6 offered by Mr. Nethercutt: At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following: LIMITATION ON ECONOMIC SUPPORT FUND ASSISTANCE FOR CERTAIN FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS THAT ARE PARTIES TO THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT    SEC. __. None of the funds made available in this Act in title II under the heading “ECONOMIC SUPPORT FUND” may be used to provide assistance to the government of a country that is a party to the International Criminal Court and has not entered into an agreement with the United States pursuant to Article 98 of the Rome Statute preventing the International Criminal Court from proceeding against United States personnel present in such country.

    The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) and a Member opposed each will control 5 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt).

    Mr NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman,…We have an obligation to protect our Armed Forces from unconstitutional extraterritorial prosecution. Moreover, this amendment sends a powerful message to the world community that when we commit U.S. troops overseas we will insist that they be protected by Article 98 agreements, if the Security Council will not do its part….

    The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) is recognized for 5 minutes.

    Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I agree with the motivations of this amendment, but I absolutely have to oppose the substance of it. The reason I do so is because I think it is going to accomplish exactly the opposite of the intent of this amendment….If we accept it, the U.S. will be hamstringing itself, placing a straitjacket on its diplomatic tools, when we have a lot of U.S. national security objectives that must carry the same or equal weight as securing Article 98 agreements. I urge a “no” vote on this…  Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader.

    Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman,  Let me see if I have got this straight: The United Nations has created an International Criminal Court, a shady amalgam of every bad idea ever cooked up for world government. The United States, its President, this Congress and the American people has categorically, unequivocally and completely rejected the ICC and its insistence on threatening the American people with prosecution. We reject its laughable legitimacy, we reject its U.N.-American denial of civil rights, and we reject its anti-American politics. And yet the ICC still asserts jurisdiction over the American people, including American soldiers fighting the war on terror and still salivates at the prospect of prosecuting one of us for anything the U.N. does not like. Now, some nations who receive economic support from the United States may use the money we give them to arrest and hand over American citizens to the U.N.’s kangaroo court? I do not think so. President Bush has shown great leadership by removing the United States from the treaty creating the ICC, and Congress has passed legislation, the American Servicemembers Protection Act, to ensure our soldiers and peacekeepers around the world are protected from prosecution in it. Federal law now requires all countries who seek American military assistance sign an agreement assuring us they will not hand over our soldiers to the ICC; and, since its enactment, more than 90 countries have signed such an agreement. The ASPA has proven to be a valuable tool in the war on terror, and the Nethercutt amendment takes that leverage to the next step, making American economic support contingent on a promise not to turn over our troops to the ICC. The Nethercutt amendment will forestall any attempt by a foreign country that receives American economic aid to arrest and extradite American soldiers to Kofi Annan’s kangaroo court. Now, let us be real clear: The ICC presents a clear and present danger to the war on terror and Americans who are fighting it all over the world. The United Nations just last month refused to extend protection from the ICC to American troops abroad. This was at once an ominous sign of things to come and an urgent call for Congress to do its duty and protect our men and women in uniform. That is exactly what this vote is. If you want to go home to your constituents and tell them that you think that their tax dollars should go to foreign countries who allow American soldiers to be imprisoned and shipped off to Brussels without their constitutional rights, then, by all means, vote no on the Nethercutt amendment. If, however, you think American troops should retain their human and constitutional rights even when they step on foreign soil and if you think American economic support should only go to countries who guarantee such protection for our soldiers, then stand with the American people, the President and the men and women winning the war on terror and vote yes ….

    (End of extract)