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  • New Strategies to Meet New Threats: Remarks of Senator John Kerry

    In West Palm Beach Florida on June 1, 2004, John Kerry explained why his highest priority as President will be leading the world to lock up and safeguard nuclear weapons material so terrorists can never acquire nuclear weapons.

    Thank you and thank you all for being here.

    This weekend, thousands of men and women and children lined the streets in Florida to watch the Memorial Day Parades.  They waved flags.  Sons and daughters sat on their fathers’ shoulders and cheered as high school marching bands and bands of brothers-and sisters-marched passed them with their heads held high.

    It is a great time in America-a common scene to honor uncommon valor.   Every year we gather in our cities and towns to remember.  We praise our fathers and mothers.  We mourn lost  brothers and sisters.  We miss best friends.  And we thank God that we live in a country that is good as well as great.

    In America, we are blessed to have World War II veterans like Debra Stern to lead us in the “Pledge of Allegiance.”  We are blessed that hundreds gathered at Royal Palm Memorial Gardens to dedicate a memorial to our most recent veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq.   We are blessed that so many in Florida could stop and pause to remember their neighbors and friends and the 35 who have fallen Iraq.

    In America, we are blessed.  When you stop and think about what it takes for people to risk their lives, say good-bye to their families, and go so far away to serve their country – it is a profound gesture of honor.

    It symbolizes the spirit of America – that there are men and women who are ready to do what it takes to live and lead by our values.  I met so many of them when I fought in Vietnam and I have met them since from Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Their love of country is special.  And we will never tire of waving a flag, saying a prayer, or laying a wreath for those who fell to lift the cause of freedom.

    Their sacrifice calls us to a higher standard.  In these dangerous times and in our determination to win the war on terror, we need to be clear about our purposes and our principles.  When war and peace, when life and death, when democracy and terror are in the balance, we owe it to our soldiers and our country to shape and follow a coherent policy that will make America safer, stronger, and truer to our ideals.

    Last week, I proposed a new national security policy guided by four imperatives:  First, we must lead strong alliances for the post 9-11 world.  Second, we must modernize the world’s most powerful military to meet new threats.  Third, in addition to our military might, we must deploy all that is in America’s arsenal — our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas. Fourth, to secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Middle East oil.

    These four imperatives are a response to an inescapable reality: the world has changed and war has changed; the enemy is different – and we must think and act anew.

    These imperatives must guide us as we deal with the greatest threat we face today-the possibility of al Qaeda or other terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear weapon.  We know what al Qaeda and terrorists long to do.  Osama bin Laden has called obtaining a weapon of mass destruction a sacred duty.

    Take away politics, strip away the labels, the honest questions have to be asked.  Since that dark day in September have we done everything we could to secure these dangerous weapons and bomb making materials?  Have we taken every step we should to stop North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs?  Have we reached out to our allies and forged an urgent global effort to ensure that nuclear weapons and materials are secured?

    The honest answer, in each of these areas, is that we have done too little, often too late, and even cut back our efforts or turned away from the single greatest threat we face in the world today, a terrorist armed with nuclear weapons.

    There was a time not so long ago when dealing with the possibility of nuclear war was the most important responsibility entrusted to every American President. The phrase “having your finger on the nuclear button” meant something very real to Americans, and to all the world.  The Cold War may be over, the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States may have ended, but the possibility of terrorists using nuclear weapons is very real indeed. The question before us now is what shadowy figures may someday have their finger on a nuclear button if we don’t act. It is time again that we have leadership at the highest levels that treats this threat with the sense of seriousness, urgency, and purpose it demands.

    I can think of no single step that will do more to head off this catastrophe than the proposal I am laying out today.  And that is why I am here today to ask that America launch a new mission, that America restore and renew the leadership we once demonstrated for all the world, to prevent the world’s deadliest weapons from falling into the world’s most dangerous hands.  If we secure all bomb making materials, ensure that no new materials are produced for nuclear weapons, and end nuclear weapons programs in hostile states like North Korea and Iran, we can and will dramatically reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism.

    We can’t eliminate this threat on our own.  We must fight this enemy in the same way we fought in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, by building and leading strong alliances. Our enemy has changed and is not based within one country or one totalitarian empire.  But our path to victory is still the same.  We must use the might of our alliances.

    When I am president, America will lead the world in a mission to lock up and safeguard nuclear weapons material so terrorists can never acquire it.  To achieve this goal, we need the active support of our friends and allies around the world.  We might all share the same goal: to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but we can’t achieve it when our alliances have been shredded.

    It will take new leadership-the kind of leadership that brings others to us.  We can’t protect ourselves from these nuclear dangers without the world by our side.

    Earlier this year, my colleague Senator Joe Biden announced the results of a challenge he issued.  He asked the directors of our national laboratories whether terrorists could make a nuclear bomb.  The bad news is they said “yes” – and when challenged to prove it, they constructed a nuclear bomb made entirely from commercial parts that can be bought without breaking any laws, except for obtaining the nuclear material itself.  The good news is the materials-the highly enriched uranium and plutonium needed to detonate a bomb-do not occur in nature and are difficult for terrorists to produce on their own-no material, no bomb.

    The weapons are only in a few countries, but the material to make a bomb exists in dozens of states around the world.  Securing this material is a great challenge.   But as President Truman said, “America was not built on fear.  America was built on courage, on imagination and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”

    We know how to reduce this threat.  We have the technology to achieve this goal – and with the right leadership, we can achieve it quickly.

    As president, my number one security goal will be to prevent the terrorists from gaining weapons of mass murder, and ensure that hostile states disarm.  It is a daunting goal, but an indisputable one-and we can achieve it.

    I think of other great challenges this nation has set for itself.  In 1960, President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon.  Our imagination and sense of discovery took us there.  In 1963, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly brought the world to nuclear disaster President Kennedy called for a nuclear test ban treaty.  At the height of the Cold War, he challenged America and the Soviet Union to pursue a strategy “not toward .annihilation, but toward a strategy of peace.”   We answered that challenge.   And in time, a hotline between Moscow and Washington was established.  The nuclear tests stopped.  The air cleared and hope emerged on the horizon.

    When America sees a great problem or great potential, it is in our collective character to set our sights on that horizon and not stop working until we reach it.  In our mission to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, we should never feel helpless. We should feel empowered that the successes in our past will guide us toward a safer, more secure world.

    Vulnerable nuclear material anywhere is a threat to everyone, everywhere.

    We need to employ a layered strategy to keep the worst weapons from falling into the worst hands.  A strategy that invokes our non-military strength early enough and effectively enough so military force doesn’t become our only option. America must lead and build an international consensus for early preventive action.

    Here’s what we must do.  The first step is to safeguard all bomb making material worldwide.  That means making sure we know where they are, and then locking them up and securing them wherever they are.  Our approach should treat all nuclear materials needed for bombs as if they were bombs.

    More than a decade has passed since the Berlin Wall came down. But Russia still has nearly 20,000 nuclear weapons, and enough nuclear material to produce 50,000 more Hiroshima-sized bombs.

    For most of these weapons and materials, cooperative security upgrades have not been completed – the world is relying on whatever measures Russia has taken on its own. And at the current pace, it will take 13 years to secure potential bomb material in the former Soviet Union. We cannot wait that long. I will ensure that we remove this material entirely from sites that can’t be adequately secured during my first term.

    It is hard to believe that we actually secured less bomb making material in the two years after 9/11 than we had in the two years before.

    At my first summit with the Russian President, I will seek an agreement to sweep aside the key obstacles slowing our efforts to secure Russia’s nuclear stockpiles.    But this threat is not limited to the former Soviet Union.

    Because terror at home can begin far away, we have to make sure that in every nation the stockpiles are safeguarded. If I am president, the United States will lead an alliance to establish and enforce an international standard for the safe custody of nuclear weapons and materials.

    We will help states meet such standards by expanding the scope of the Nunn-Lugar program passed over a decade ago to deal with the unsecured weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union.  For years, the administration has underfunded this vital program.  For a fraction of what we have already spent in Iraq, we can ensure that every nuclear weapon, and every pound of potential bomb material will be secured and accounted for.

    This is not just a question of resources.   As president, I will make it a priority and overcome the bureaucratic walls that have caused delay and inaction in Russia so we can finish the important work of securing weapons material there and around the world.

    The Administration just announced plans to remove potential bomb material from vulnerable sites outside the former Soviet Union over the next ten years.  We simply can’t afford another decade of this danger.  My plan will safeguard this bomb making material in four years.  We can’t wait-and I won’t wait when I am president.

    The second step is to prevent the creation of new materials that are being produced for nuclear weapons.  America must lead an international coalition to halt, and then verifiably ban, all production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for use in nuclear weapons — permanently capping the world’s nuclear weapons stockpiles.

    Despite strong international support for such a ban, this Administration is stalling, and endlessly reviewing the need for such a policy.

    In addition, we must strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to close the loophole that lets countries develop nuclear weapons capabilities under the guise of a peaceful, civilian nuclear power program.

    The third step is to reduce excess stocks of materials and weapons.  If America is asking the world to join our country in a shared mission to reduce this nuclear threat, then why would the world listen to us if our own words do not match our deeds?

    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?

    We must work with the Russians to accelerate the “blending down” of highly enriched uranium and the disposition of Russian plutonium stocks so they can never be used in a nuclear weapon.

    We don’t need a world with more usable nuclear weapons.  We need a world where terrorists can’t ever use one.  That should be our focus in the post 9/11 world.

    Our fourth step is to end the nuclear weapons programs in states like North Korea and Iran.

    This Administration has been fixated on Iraq while the nuclear dangers from North Korea have multiplied.   We know that North Korea has sold ballistic missiles and technology in the past.  And according to recent reports, North Korean uranium ended up in Libyan hands.  The North Koreans have made it clear to the world – and to the terrorists – that they are open for business and will sell to the highest bidder.

    We should have no illusions about Kim Jong II, so any agreement must have rigorous verification and lead to complete and irreversible elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.  For eighteen months, we’ve essentially negotiated over the shape of the table while the North Koreans allegedly have made enough new fuel to make six to nine nuclear bombs.

    We should maintain the six party talks, but we must also be prepared to talk directly with North Korea.  This problem is too urgent to allow China, or others at the table, to speak for us.  And we must be prepared to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that addresses the full range of issues of concern to us and our allies.

    We must also meet the mounting danger on the other side of Asia.  While we have been preoccupied in Iraq, next door in Iran, a nuclear program has been reportedly moving ahead.  Let me say it plainly: a nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable.  An America, whose interest and allies could be on the target list, must no longer sit on the sidelines.  It is critical that we work with our allies to resolve those issues.

    This is why strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is so critical. The Iranians claim they’re simply trying to meet domestic energy needs.  We should call their bluff, and organize a group of states that will offer the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes and take back the spent fuel so they can’t divert it to build a weapon.  If Iran does not accept this, their true motivations will be clear.  The same goes for other countries possibly seeking nuclear weapons.  We will oppose the construction in any new countries of any new facilities to make nuclear materials, and lead a global effort to prevent the export of the necessary technology to Iran.

    We also need to strengthen enforcement and verification. We must make rigorous inspection protocols mandatory, and refocus the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency to stop the spread of nuclear weapons material.

    Next, we must work with every country to tighten export controls, stiffen penalties, and beef up law enforcement and intelligence sharing, to make absolutely sure that a disaster like the AQ Khan black market network, which grew out of Pakistan’s nuclear program, can never happen again.  We must also take steps to reduce tension between India and Pakistan and guard against the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands there.

    So let it be clear: finally and fundamentally,  preventing nuclear terrorism is our most urgent priority to provide for America’s long term security.  That is why I will appoint a National Coordinator for Nuclear Terrorism and Counterproliferation who will work with me in the White House to marshal every effort and every ally, to combat an incalculable danger.

    We have to do everything we can to stop a nuclear weapon from ever reaching our shore-and that mission begins far away.  We have to secure nuclear weapons and materials at the source so that searching the containers here at the Port of Palm Beach isn’t our only line of defense-it is our last line of defense.

    This is not an easy topic: it can be frightening.  At this hour, stockpiles go unguarded, bomb making materials sit in forgotten facilities, and terrorists plot away.  They sit in unassuming rooms all across the globe.  They have their technology.  They have their scientists.  All they need is that material.  But we can stop them.  Remember.  No material.  No bomb.  No nuclear terrorism.

    We are living through days of great and unprecedented risks.  But Americans have never surrendered to fear.  Today, we must not avert our eyes, or pretend it’s not there-or think that we can simply wait it out.  That is not our history-or our hope.

    Last Saturday, I attended the dedication of the World War II memorial.  I had the honor to sit next to a brave man, Joe Lesniewski who was one of the original “Band of Brothers” from the ‘Easy Company” of the 101st Airborne Division.  He’s part of the Greatest Generation and jumped into enemy territory during the invasion of Normandy.  Like so many other young men that day, he looked fear in the face and conquered it.  June 6th-this coming Saturday-marks the anniversary of that day which saved the free world.

    Sixty years ago, more than 43,000 young men were ready to storm Omaha Beach.  Their landing crafts were heading for an open beach, where they averted a wall of concrete and bullets.  They knew there was an overwhelming chance that they might die before their boots hit the sand.

    But they jumped into the shallow waters and fought their way ashore. Because at the end of the beach, beyond the cliff was the hope of a safer world.  That is what Americans do.  We face a challenge-no matter how ominous-because we know that on the other side of hardship resides hope.

    As president, I will not wait or waver in the face of the new threats of this new era.  I will build and lead strong alliances.  I will deploy every tool at our disposal.   I know it will not be easy, but the greatest victories for peace and freedom never are.  There are no cake-walks in the contest with terrorists and lawless states.

    We have to climb this cliff together so that we, too, can reach the other side of hardship and live in a world that no longer fears the unknowable enemy and the looming mushroom cloud on the horizon.

    We must lead this effort not just for our own safety, but for the good of the world.  As President Truman said, “Our goal is collective security.If we can work in a spirit of understanding and mutual respect, we can fulfill this solemn obligation that rests upon us.”

    Just as he led America to face the threat of communism, so too, we must now face the twin threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism.  This is a great challenge for our generation-and the stakes are as high as they were on D-Day and in President Truman’s time.  For the sake of all the generations to come, we will meet this test and we will succeed.

  • War Memorials Only Honor Failure

    We don’t need a National World War II Memorial. War memorials are only markers of failure. You disagree? Then, read on.

    My credentials: I speak for the voiceless millions of brave warriors killed in battle, many of whom are buried in far-away graves. I have seen many of these brave men killed and wounded on the beachheads and battlefields from Sicily to Salerno, to Anzio, to Isle of Elba, to France.

    I watched the litter bearers carry blood-stained bodies down to the beach where they were buried in shallow graves. Their rifles, with hanging dog tags capped by a helmet, served as a burial marker. There was no time for a graveside service. I thought of their families and their future shock and grief. These grim scenes will forever haunt me.

    I saw an ammunition ship hit by German dive bombers explode, leaving only a scene that looked like a nuclear mushroom cloud. I watched as my own ship was bombed. I accompanied the ship’s doctor as he dispensed morphine to the wounded lying on stretchers that covered both the main deck and the tank deck.

    Two of my high school classmates were killed: one over Germany and the other in the Mediterranean when his LCI (landing craft, infantry) hit a mine. On my return home I met with the latter’s family to grieve his death and celebrate his life.

    If we allow the Defense Department to chart our future safety, we are foolhardy. Let’s face it. The military extablishment is, at times, without a moral compass.

    Here’s a case in point. In WWII the United States and Britain felt the need to rehabilitate France after its crushing defeat by the Germans. In the Mediterranean the Germans used Elba to attack allied ships, so the Allied Command elected to “take out” Elba. The plan was for the United States to supply the ships, the British their commandos, the French their colonial troops (from Africa) with French officers.

    Before the launching of the invasion, the American land forces broke through the German lines and proceeded well beyond Elba, which made it no longer strategic. Instead of canceling the invasion, the Allied Command went ahead with the invasion causing the slaughter of hundreds of French colonial troops and French officers. This was totally immoral. A simple blockade would have sufficed.

    We should stop building memorials celebrating failure. It is obvious that we lack the tools for peace. The souls of our fallen warriors must be saying: “They’ve got it all wrong. Let them erect peace memorials in the form of a Peace Department and a Peace Academy to counterbalance the Defense (War) Department and the military academies.”

    These brave souls would also advise our leaders to stop shouting remarks such as “Bring it on,” “We’ll chase you down and kill you” and “We don’t need a permission slip from the United Nations.”

    A Peace Department and a Peace Academy can study the art and science of peacemaking and the causes of war, something a cold, hard granite memorial fails to do. What do we have to lose? If the “greatest generation” is to leave a meaningful legacy, then we must follow up by establishing a Peace Department and erecting a Peace Academy so that our fallen brothers will not have died in vain.

    Otherwise, we will continue building war memorials and will run out of space on the Mall in Washington. I firmly believe that if Congress had created a Peace Department after WWII, we would not be in Iraq today. We wouldn’t be looking fearfully for mushroom clouds and wouldn’t have had to create a Department of Homeland Security. We have been reacting rather than acting.

    U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich has filed a bill to create a Peace Department. So, I say to our senators and represenatives, we, the “greatest generation,” have done our job. Please do yours by supporting this bill and making a Peace Department a reality.

    Coleman P. Gorham of Cape Elizabeth, Maine is a retired U.S. Navy officer.

  • Remarks by Al Gore

    Former US Vice President Al Gore delivered a major foreign policy address in New York City on May 26, 2004 , sponsored by MoveOn PAC, linking the Abu Ghraib prison abuses to deep flaws in President Bush’s Iraq policy and calling for the resignation of 6 members of the Bush Administration responsible for the failed policy and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

    George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.

    He promised to “restore honor and integrity to the White House.” Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.

    Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as “a decent respect for the opinion of mankind.” He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.

    How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words “We Are All Americans Now” and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world — to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.

    To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of “preemption.” And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush’s team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat – and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.

    More disturbing still was their frequent use of the word “dominance” to describe their strategic goal, because an American policy of dominance is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance does.

    Dominance is not really a strategic policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And as always happens – sooner or later – to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul.

    One of the clearest indications of the impending loss of intimacy with one’s soul is the failure to recognize the existence of a soul in those over whom power is exercised, especially if the helpless come to be treated as animals, and degraded. We also know – and not just from De Sade and Freud – the psychological proximity between sexual depravity and other people’s pain. It has been especially shocking and awful to see these paired evils perpetrated so crudely and cruelly in the name of America.

    Those pictures of torture and sexual abuse came to us embedded in a wave of news about escalating casualties and growing chaos enveloping our entire policy in Iraq. But in order understand the failure of our overall policy, it is important to focus specifically on what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison, and ask whether or not those actions were representative of who we are as Americans? Obviously the quick answer is no, but unfortunately it’s more complicated than that.

    There is good and evil in every person. And what makes the United States special in the history of nations is our commitment to the rule of law and our carefully constructed system of checks and balances. Our natural distrust of concentrated power and our devotion to openness and democracy are what have lead us as a people to consistently choose good over evil in our collective aspirations more than the people any other nation.

    Our founders were insightful students of human nature. They feared the abuse of power because they understood that every human being has not only “better angels” in his nature, but also an innate vulnerability to temptation – especially the temptation to abuse power over others.

    Our founders understood full well that a system of checks and balances is needed in our constitution because every human being lives with an internal system of checks and balances that cannot be relied upon to produce virtue if they are allowed to attain an unhealthy degree of power over their fellow citizens.

    Listen then to the balance of internal impulses described by specialist Charles Graner when confronted by one of his colleagues, Specialist Joseph M. Darby, who later became a courageous whistleblower. When Darby asked him to explain his actions documented in the photos, Graner replied: “The Christian in me says it’s wrong, but the Corrections Officer says, ‘I love to make a groan man piss on himself.”

    What happened at the prison, it is now clear, was not the result of random acts by “a few bad apples,” it was the natural consequence of the Bush Administration policy that has dismantled those wise constraints and has made war on America’s checks and balances.

    The abuse of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib flowed directly from the abuse of the truth that characterized the Administration’s march to war and the abuse of the trust that had been placed in President Bush by the American people in the aftermath of September 11th.

    There was then, there is now and there would have been regardless of what Bush did, a threat of terrorism that we would have to deal with. But instead of making it better, he has made it infinitely worse. We are less safe because of his policies. He has created more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation — because of his attitude of contempt for any person, institution or nation who disagrees with him.

    He has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every U.S. town and city to a greater danger of attack by terrorists because of his arrogance, willfulness, and bungling at stirring up hornet’s nests that pose no threat whatsoever to us. And by then insulting the religion and culture and tradition of people in other countries. And by pursuing policies that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children, all of it done in our name.

    President Bush said in his speech Monday night that the war in Iraq is “the central front in the war on terror.” It’s not the central front in the war on terror, but it has unfortunately become the central recruiting office for terrorists. [Dick Cheney said, “This war may last the rest of our lives.] The unpleasant truth is that President Bush’s utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States. Just yesterday, the International Institute of Strategic Studies reported that the Iraq conflict ” has arguable focused the energies and resources of Al Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition.” The ISS said that in the wake of the war in Iraq Al Qaeda now has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks.

    The war plan was incompetent in its rejection of the advice from military professionals and the analysis of the intelligence was incompetent in its conclusion that our soldiers would be welcomed with garlands of flowers and cheering crowds. Thus we would not need to respect the so-called Powell doctrine of overwhelming force.

    There was also in Rumsfeld’s planning a failure to provide security for nuclear materials, and to prevent widespread lawlessness and looting.

    Luckily, there was a high level of competence on the part of our soldiers even though they were denied the tools and the numbers they needed for their mission. What a disgrace that their families have to hold bake sales to buy discarded Kevlar vests to stuff into the floorboards of the Humvees! Bake sales for body armor.

    And the worst still lies ahead. General Joseph Hoar, the former head of the Marine Corps, said “I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss.”

    When a senior, respected military leader like Joe Hoar uses the word “abyss”, then the rest of us damn well better listen. Here is what he means: more American soldiers dying, Iraq slipping into worse chaos and violence, no end in sight, with our influence and moral authority seriously damaged.

    Retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, who headed Central Command before becoming President Bush’s personal emissary to the Middle East, said recently that our nation’s current course is “headed over Niagara Falls.”

    The Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, Army Major General Charles H. Swannack, Jr., asked by the Washington Post whether he believes the United States is losing the war in Iraq, replied, “I think strategically, we are.” Army Colonel Paul Hughes, who directed strategic planning for the US occupation authority in Baghdad, compared what he sees in Iraq to the Vietnam War, in which he lost his brother: “I promised myself when I came on active duty that I would do everything in my power to prevent that … from happening again. ” Noting that Vietnam featured a pattern of winning battles while losing the war, Hughes added “unless we ensure that we have coherence in our policy, we will lose strategically.”

    The White House spokesman, Dan Bartlett was asked on live television about these scathing condemnations by Generals involved in the highest levels of Pentagon planning and he replied, “Well they’re retired, and we take our advice from active duty officers.”

    But amazingly, even active duty military officers are speaking out against President Bush. For example, the Washington Post quoted an unnamed senior General at the Pentagon as saying, ” the current OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense) refused to listen or adhere to military advice.” Rarely if ever in American history have uniformed commanders felt compelled to challenge their commander in chief in public.

    The Post also quoted an unnamed general as saying, “Like a lot of senior Army guys I’m quite angry” with Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush Administration. He listed two reasons. “I think they are going to break the Army,” he said, adding that what really incites him is “I don’t think they care.”

    In his upcoming book, Zinni blames the current catastrophe on the Bush team’s incompetence early on. “In the lead-up to the Iraq war, and its later conduct,” he writes, “I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worst, lying, incompetence and corruption.”

    Zinni’s book will join a growing library of volumes by former advisors to Bush — including his principal advisor on terrorism, Richard Clarke; his principal economic policy advisor, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who was honored by Bush’s father for his service in Iraq, and his former Domestic Adviser on faith-based organizations, John Dilulio, who said, “There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you’ve got is everything, and I mean everything, run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.”

    Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require “several hundred thousand troops.” But because Rumsfeld and Bush did not want to hear disagreement with their view that Iraq could be invaded at a much lower cost, Shinseki was hushed and then forced out.

    And as a direct result of this incompetent plan and inadequate troop strength, young soldiers were put in an untenable position. For example, young reservists assigned to the Iraqi prisons were called up without training or adequate supervision, and were instructed by their superiors to “break down” prisoners in order to prepare them for interrogation.

    To make matters worse, they were placed in a confusing situation where the chain of command was criss-crossed between intelligence gathering and prison administration, and further confused by an unprecedented mixing of military and civilian contractor authority.

    The soldiers who are accused of committing these atrocities are, of course, responsible for their own actions and if found guilty, must be severely and appropriately punished. But they are not the ones primarily responsible for the disgrace that has been brought upon the United States of America.

    Private Lynndie England did not make the decision that the United States would not observe the Geneva Convention. Specialist Charles Graner was not the one who approved a policy of establishing an American Gulag of dark rooms with naked prisoners to be “stressed” and even – we must use the word – tortured – to force them to say things that legal procedures might not induce them to say.

    These policies were designed and insisted upon by the Bush White House. Indeed, the President’s own legal counsel advised him specifically on the subject. His secretary of defense and his assistants pushed these cruel departures from historic American standards over the objections of the uniformed military, just as the Judge Advocates General within the Defense Department were so upset and opposed that they took the unprecedented step of seeking help from a private lawyer in this city who specializes in human rights and said to him, “There is a calculated effort to create an atmosphere of legal ambiguity” where the mistreatment of prisoners is concerned.”

    Indeed, the secrecy of the program indicates an understanding that the regular military culture and mores would not support these activities and neither would the American public or the world community. Another implicit acknowledgement of violations of accepted standards of behavior is the process of farming out prisoners to countries less averse to torture and giving assignments to private contractors

    President Bush set the tone for our attitude for suspects in his State of the Union address. He noted that more than 3,000 “suspected terrorists” had been arrested in many countries and then he added, “and many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our allies.”

    George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he did. As many as 37 prisoners may have been murdered while in captivity, though the numbers are difficult to rely upon because in many cases involving violent death, there were no autopsies.

    How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.

    How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people. How dare they subject us to such dishonor and disgrace. How dare they drag the good name of the United States of America through the mud of Saddam Hussein’s torture prison.

    David Kay concluded his search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq with the famous verdict: “we were all wrong.” And for many Americans, Kay’s statement seemed to symbolize the awful collision between Reality and all of the false and fading impressions President Bush had fostered in building support for his policy of going to war.

    Now the White House has informed the American people that they were also “all wrong” about their decision to place their faith in Ahmed Chalabi, even though they have paid him 340,000 dollars per month. 33 million dollars (CHECK) and placed him adjacent to Laura Bush at the State of the Union address. Chalabi had been convicted of fraud and embezzling 70 million dollars in public funds from a Jordanian bank, and escaped prison by fleeing the country. But in spite of that record, he had become one of key advisors to the Bush Administration on planning and promoting the War against Iraq.

    And they repeatedly cited him as an authority, perhaps even a future president of Iraq. Incredibly, they even ferried him and his private army into Baghdad in advance of anyone else, and allowed him to seize control over Saddam’s secret papers.

    Now they are telling the American people that he is a spy for Iran who has been duping the President of the United States for all these years.

    One of the Generals in charge of this war policy went on a speaking tour in his spare time to declare before evangelical groups that the US is in a holy war as “Christian Nation battling Satan.” This same General Boykin was the person who ordered the officer who was in charge of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay to extend his methods to Iraq detainees, prisoners. … The testimony from the prisoners is that they were forced to curse their religion Bush used the word “crusade” early on in the war against Iraq, and then commentators pointed out that it was singularly inappropriate because of the history and sensitivity of the Muslim world and then a few weeks later he used it again.

    “We are now being viewed as the modern Crusaders, as the modern colonial power in this part of the world,” Zinni said.

    What a terrible irony that our country, which was founded by refugees seeking religious freedom – coming to America to escape domineering leaders who tried to get them to renounce their religion – would now be responsible for this kind of abuse..

    Ameen Saeed al-Sheikh told the Washington Post that he was tortured and ordered to denounce Islam and after his leg was broken one of his torturers started hitting it while ordering him to curse Islam and then, ” they ordered me to thank Jesus that I’m alive.” Others reported that they were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol.

    In my religious tradition, I have been taught that “ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit… Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

    The President convinced a majority of the country that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11th. But in truth he had nothing whatsoever to do with it. The President convinced the country with a mixture of forged documents and blatantly false assertions that Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda, and that he was “indistinguishable” from Osama bin Laden.

    He asked the nation , in his State of the Union address, to “imagine” how terrified we should be that Saddam was about to give nuclear weapons to terrorists and stated repeatedly that Iraq posed a grave and gathering threat to our nation. He planted the seeds of war, and harvested a whirlwind. And now, the “corrupt tree” of a war waged on false premises has brought us the “evil fruit” of Americans torturing and humiliating prisoners.

    In my opinion, John Kerry is dealing with this unfolding tragedy in an impressive and extremely responsible way. Our nation’s best interest lies in having a new president who can turn a new page, sweep clean with a new broom, and take office on January 20th of next year with the ability to make a fresh assessment of exactly what our nation’s strategic position is as of the time the reigns of power are finally wrested from the group of incompetents that created this catastrophe.

    Kerry should not tie his own hands by offering overly specific, detailed proposals concerning a situation that is rapidly changing and unfortunately, rapidly deteriorating, but should rather preserve his, and our country’s, options, to retrieve our national honor as soon as this long national nightmare is over.

    Eisenhower did not propose a five-point plan for changing America’s approach to the Korean War when he was running for president in 1952.

    When a business enterprise finds itself in deep trouble that is linked to the failed policies of the current CEO the board of directors and stockholders usually say to the failed CEO, “Thank you very much, but we’re going to replace you now with a new CEO — one less vested in a stubborn insistence on staying the course, even if that course is, in the words of General Zinni, “Headed over Niagara Falls.”

    One of the strengths of democracy is the ability of the people to regularly demand changes in leadership and to fire a failing leader and hire a new one with the promise of hopeful change. That is the real solution to America’s quagmire in Iraq. But, I am keenly aware that we have seven months and twenty five days remaining in this president’s current term of office and that represents a time of dangerous vulnerability for our country because of the demonstrated incompetence and recklessness of the current administration.

    It is therefore essential that even as we focus on the fateful choice, the voters must make this November that we simultaneously search for ways to sharply reduce the extraordinary danger that we face with the current leadership team in place. It is for that reason that I am calling today for Republicans as well as Democrats to join me in asking for the immediate resignations of those immediately below George Bush and Dick Cheney who are most responsible for creating the catastrophe that we are facing in Iraq.

    We desperately need a national security team with at least minimal competence because the current team is making things worse with each passing day. They are endangering the lives of our soldiers, and sharply increasing the danger faced by American citizens everywhere in the world, including here at home. They are enraging hundreds of millions of people and embittering an entire generation of anti-Americans whose rage is already near the boiling point.

    We simply cannot afford to further increase the risk to our country with more blunders by this team. Donald Rumsfeld, as the chief architect of the war plan, should resign today. His deputies Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and his intelligence chief Stephen Cambone should also resign. The nation is especially at risk every single day that Rumsfeld remains as Secretary of Defense.

    Condoleeza Rice, who has badly mishandled the coordination of national security policy, should also resign immediately.

    George Tenet should also resign. I want to offer a special word about George Tenet, because he is a personal friend and I know him to be a good and decent man. It is especially painful to call for his resignation, but I have regretfully concluded that it is extremely important that our country have new leadership at the CIA immediately.

    As a nation, our greatest export has always been hope: hope that through the rule of law people can be free to pursue their dreams, that democracy can supplant repression and that justice, not power, will be the guiding force in society. Our moral authority in the world derived from the hope anchored in the rule of law. With this blatant failure of the rule of law from the very agents of our government, we face a great challenge in restoring our moral authority in the world and demonstrating our commitment to bringing a better life to our global neighbors.

    During Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, Secretary of Labor Ray Donovan was accused of corruption, but eventually, after a lot of publicity, the indictment was thrown out by the Judge. Donovan asked the question, “Where do I go to get my reputation back?” President Bush has now placed the United States of America in the same situation. Where do we go to get our good name back?

    The answer is, we go where we always go when a dramatic change is needed. We go to the ballot box, and we make it clear to the rest of the world that what’s been happening in America for the last four years, and what America has been doing in Iraq for the last two years, really is not who we are. We, as a people, at least the overwhelming majority of us, do not endorse the decision to dishonor the Geneva Convention and the Bill of Rights….

    Make no mistake, the damage done at Abu Ghraib is not only to America’s reputation and America’s strategic interests, but also to America’s spirit. It is also crucial for our nation to recognize – and to recognize quickly – that the damage our nation has suffered in the world is far, far more serious than President Bush’s belated and tepid response would lead people to believe. Remember how shocked each of us, individually, was when we first saw those hideous images. The natural tendency was to first recoil from the images, and then to assume that they represented a strange and rare aberration that resulted from a few twisted minds or, as the Pentagon assured us, “a few bad apples.”

    But as today’s shocking news reaffirms yet again, this was not rare. It was not an aberration. Today’s New York Times reports that an Army survey of prisoner deaths and mistreatment in Iraq and Afghanisatan “show a widespread pattern of abuse involving more military units than previously known.’

    Nor did these abuses spring from a few twisted minds at the lowest ranks of our military enlisted personnel. No, it came from twisted values and atrocious policies at the highest levels of our government. This was done in our name, by our leaders.

    These horrors were the predictable consequence of policy choices that flowed directly from this administration’s contempt for the rule of law. And the dominance they have been seeking is truly not simply unworthy of America – it is also an illusory goal in its own right.

    Our world is unconquerable because the human spirit is unconquerable, and any national strategy based on pursuing the goal of domination is doomed to fail because it generates its own opposition, and in the process, creates enemies for the would-be dominator.

    A policy based on domination of the rest of the world not only creates enemies for the United States and creates recruits for Al Qaeda, it also undermines the international cooperation that is essential to defeating the efforts of terrorists who wish harm and intimidate Americans.

    Unilateralism, as we have painfully seen in Iraq, is its own reward. Going it alone may satisfy a political instinct but it is dangerous to our military, even without their Commander in Chief taunting terrorists to “bring it on.”

    Our troops are stretched thin and exhausted not only because Secretary Rumsfeld contemptuously dismissed the advice of military leaders on the size of the needed force – but also because President Bush’s contempt for traditional allies and international opinion left us without a real coalition to share the military and financial burden of the war and the occupation. Our future is dependent upon increasing cooperation and interdependence in a world tied ever more closely together by technologies of communications and travel. The emergence of a truly global civilization has been accompanied by the recognition of truly global challenges that require global responses that, as often as not, can only be led by the United States – and only if the United States restores and maintains its moral authority to lead.

    Make no mistake, it is precisely our moral authority that is our greatest source of strength, and it is precisely our moral authority that has been recklessly put at risk by the cheap calculations and mean compromises of conscience wagered with history by this willful president.

    Listen to the way Israel’s highest court dealt with a similar question when, in 1999, it was asked to balance due process rights against dire threats to the security of its people:

    “This is the destiny of democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all practices employed by its enemies are open before it. Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. Preserving the Rule of Law and recognition of an individual’s liberty constitutes an important component in its understanding of security. At the end of the day they (add to) its strength.”

    The last and best description of America’s meaning in the world is still the definitive formulation of Lincoln’s annual message to Congress on December 1, 1862:

    “The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise – with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history…the fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation…We shall nobly save, or meanly lose the last best hope of earth…The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just – a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.”

    It is now clear that their obscene abuses of the truth and their unforgivable abuse of the trust placed in them after 9/11 by the American people led directly to the abuses of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison and, we are now learning, in many other similar facilities constructed as part of Bush’s Gulag, in which, according to the Red Cross, 70 to 90 percent of the victims are totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

    The same dark spirit of domination has led them to – for the first time in American history – imprison American citizens with no charges, no right to see a lawyer, no right to notify their family, no right to know of what they are accused, and no right to gain access to any court to present an appeal of any sort. The Bush Admistration has even acquired the power to compel librarians to tell them what any American is reading, and to compel them to keep silent about the request – or else the librarians themselves can also be imprisoned.

    They have launched an unprecedented assault on civil liberties, on the right of the courts to review their actions, on the right of the Congress to have information to how they are spending the public’s money and the right of the news media to have information about the policies they are pursuing.

    The same pattern characterizes virtually all of their policies. They resent any constraint as an insult to their will to dominate and exercise power. Their appetite for power is astonishing. It has led them to introduce a new level of viciousness in partisan politics. It is that viciousness that led them to attack as unpatriotic, Senator Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in combat during the Vietnam War.

    The president episodically poses as a healer and “uniter”. If he president really has any desire to play that role, then I call upon him to condemn Rush Limbaugh – perhaps his strongest political supporter – who said that the torture in Abu Ghraib was a “brilliant maneuver” and that the photos were “good old American pornography,” and that the actions portrayed were simply those of “people having a good time and needing to blow off steam.”

    This new political viciousness by the President and his supporters is found not only on the campaign trail, but in the daily operations of our democracy. They have insisted that the leaders of their party in the Congress deny Democrats any meaningful role whatsoever in shaping legislation, debating the choices before us as a people, or even to attend the all-important conference committees that reconcile the differences between actions by the Senate and House of Representatives.

    The same meanness of spirit shows up in domestic policies as well. Under the Patriot Act, Muslims, innocent of any crime, were picked up, often physically abused, and held incommunicado indefinitely. What happened in Abu Ghraib was difference not of kind, but of degree.

    Differences of degree are important when the subject is torture. The apologists for what has happened do have points that should be heard and clearly understood. It is a fact that every culture and every politics sometimes expresses itself in cruelty. It is also undeniably true that other countries have and do torture more routinely, and far more brutally, than ours has. George Orwell once characterized life in Stalin’s Russia as “a boot stamping on a human face forever.” That was the ultimate culture of cruelty, so ingrained, so organic, so systematic that everyone in it lived in terror, even the terrorizers. And that was the nature and degree of state cruelty in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

    We all know these things, and we need not reassure ourselves and should not congratulate ourselves that our society is less cruel than some others, although it is worth noting that there are many that are less cruel than ours. And this searing revelation at Abu Ghraib should lead us to examine more thoroughly the routine horrors in our domestic prison system.

    But what we do now, in reaction to Abu Ghraib will determine a great deal about who we are at the beginning of the 21st century. It is important to note that just as the abuses of the prisoners flowed directly from the policies of the Bush White House, those policies flowed not only from the instincts of the president and his advisors, but found support in shifting attitudes on the part of some in our country in response to the outrage and fear generated by the attack of September 11th.

    The president exploited and fanned those fears, but some otherwise sensible and levelheaded Americans fed them as well. I remember reading genteel-sounding essays asking publicly whether or not the prohibitions against torture were any longer relevant or desirable. The same grotesque misunderstanding of what is really involved was responsible for the tone in the memo from the president’s legal advisor, Alberto Gonzalez, who wrote on January 25, 2002, that 9/11 “renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”

    We have seen the pictures. We have learned the news. We cannot unlearn it; it is part of us. The important question now is, what will we do now about torture. Stop it? Yes, of course. But that means demanding all of the facts, not covering them up, as some now charge the administration is now doing. One of the whistleblowers at Abu Ghraib, Sergeant Samuel Provance, told ABC News a few days ago that he was being intimidated and punished for telling the truth. “There is definitely a coverup,” Provance said. “I feel like I am being punished for being honest.”

    The abhorrent acts in the prison were a direct consequence of the culture of impunity encouraged, authorized and instituted by Bush and Rumsfeld in their statements that the Geneva Conventions did not apply. The apparent war crimes that took place were the logical, inevitable outcome of policies and statements from the administration.

    To me, as glaring as the evidence of this in the pictures themselves was the revelation that it was established practice for prisoners to be moved around during ICRC visits so that they would not be available for visits. That, no one can claim, was the act of individuals. That was policy set from above with the direct intention to violate US values it was to be upholding. It was the kind of policy we see – and criticize in places like China and Cuba.

    Moreover, the administration has also set up the men and women of our own armed forces for payback the next time they are held as prisoners. And for that, this administration should pay a very high price. One of the most tragic consequences of these official crimes is that it will be very hard for any of us as Americans – at least for a very long time – to effectively stand up for human rights elsewhere and criticize other governments, when our policies have resulted in our soldiers behaving so monstrously. This administration has shamed America and deeply damaged the cause of freedom and human rights everywhere, thus undermining the core message of America to the world.

    President Bush offered a brief and half-hearted apology to the Arab world – but he should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions. He also owes an apology to the U.S. Army for cavalierly sending them into harm’s way while ignoring the best advice of their commanders. Perhaps most importantly of all, he should apologize to all those men and women throughout our world who have held the ideal of the United States of America as a shining goal, to inspire their hopeful efforts to bring about justice under a rule of law in their own lands. Of course, the problem with all these legitimate requests is that a sincere apology requires an admission of error, a willingness to accept responsibility and to hold people accountable. And President Bush is not only unwilling to acknowledge error. He has thus far been unwilling to hold anyone in his administration accountable for the worst strategic and military miscalculations and mistakes in the history of the United States of America.

    He is willing only to apologize for the alleged erratic behavior of a few low-ranking enlisted people, who he is scapegoating for his policy fiasco.

    In December of 2000, even though I strongly disagreed with the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to order a halt to the counting of legally cast ballots, I saw it as my duty to reaffirm my own strong belief that we are a nation of laws and not only accept the decision, but do what I could to prevent efforts to delegitimize George Bush as he took the oath of office as president.

    I did not at that moment imagine that Bush would, in the presidency that ensued, demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law and work at every turn to frustrate accountability…

    So today, I want to speak on behalf of those Americans who feel that President Bush has betrayed our nation’s trust, those who are horrified at what has been done in our name, and all those who want the rest of the world to know that we Americans see the abuses that occurred in the prisons of Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and secret locations as yet undisclosed as completely out of keeping with the character and basic nature of the American people and at odds with the principles on which America stands.

    I believe we have a duty to hold President Bush accountable – and I believe we will. As Lincoln said at our time of greatest trial, “We – even we here – hold the power, and bear the responsibility.”

  • Nuclear Weapons in Iran: Plowshare or Sword?

    A recurring fear haunts the West’s increasingly tense confrontation with Iran: Is its work on civilian nuclear power actually a ruse for making a deadly atomic arsenal, as has been the case with other countries?

    Next month, the United Nations plans to take up that question at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna . The diplomatic backdrop includes possible sanctions and even the threat of war.

    “If Iran goes nuclear, you worry that Hezbollah goes nuclear,” said Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a private group in Washington , referring to the Iran-backed terrorist group.

    The Iranian crisis, and related ones simmering in North Korea and also around Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani expert who recently confessed to running nuclear black markets, are giving new urgency to limiting proliferation, a central danger of the atomic era. Recently, international inspectors discovered that North Korea may have clandestinely supplied uranium to Libya , demonstrating how an aspiring state can secretly reach for nuclear arms.

    The development of such arsenals is often hard to hide, because it takes place in large industrial complexes where nuclear power and nuclear weapons are joined at the hip – using technologies that are often identical, or nearly so. Today, with what seems like relative ease, scientists can divert an ostensibly peaceful program to make not only electricity but also highly pure uranium or plutonium, both excellent bomb fuels.

    Experts now talk frankly about a subject that was once taboo: “virtual” weapon states – Japan, Germany, Belgium, Canada, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Taiwan and a dozen other countries that have mastered the basics of nuclear power and could, if they wanted, quickly cross the line to make nuclear arms, probably in a matter or months. Experts call it breakout.

    The question now, driven largely by the perception that the world is entering a dangerous new phase of nuclear proliferation, is whether the two endeavors can be separated. And as difficult as that may seem, new initiatives are rising to meet the challenge.

    Last year, North Korea stunned the world by withdrawing from the Nonproliferation Treaty. It was the first time a nation had dropped out of the 1968 pact, setting a grim precedent and prompting warnings of the accord’s demise.

    If another virtual power crosses the line, experts fear, it could start a chain reaction in which others feel they have no alternative but to do likewise.

    Yet a country like Iran can retain its virtual-weapons status – and the threat of breakout – even if the International Atomic Energy Agency gives it a clean bill of health. That kind of quandary is driving the wider debate on ways to safeguard nuclear power, especially given that the world may rely on it increasingly as worries grow about global warming and oil shortages.

    “We can’t give absolute guarantees,” said Graham Andrew, a senior scientist at the agency. “But there will be technological developments to make the fuel cycle more proliferation-resistant.”

    Other experts agree. “The future looks better than the past in terms of this whole problem,” said Rose Gottemoeller, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “At the moment, it’s a very, very fast-moving arena that a lot of people are into and thinking about.”

    The central compact of the nuclear age – what critics call a deal with the devil – is that countries can get help from other nations in developing nuclear power if they pledge to renounce nuclear arms. That principle was codified in the 1968 treaty and has produced a vast apparatus of the International Atomic Energy Agency that not only helps nations go peacefully nuclear but also monitors them for cheating.

    But surveillance has proved far from perfect, and states have proved far from trustworthy.

    “If you look at every nation that’s recently gone nuclear,” said Mr. Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute, “they’ve done it through the civilian nuclear fuel cycle: Iraq , North Korea , India , Pakistan , South Africa . And now we’re worried about Iran .”

    The moral, he added, is that atoms for peace can be “a shortcut to atoms for war.”

    Moreover, the raw material is growing. The world now has 440 commercial nuclear reactors and 31 more under construction.

    Experts say Iran provides a good example of the breakout danger. With the right tweaks, its sprawling complex now under construction could make arms of devastating force. Recently, mistrust over that prospect soared when inspectors found that Iran had hidden some of its most sensitive nuclear work as long as 18 years.

    In the central desert near Yazd , the country now mines uranium in shafts up to a fifth of a mile deep.

    At Isfahan , an ancient city that boasts a top research center, it is building a factory for converting the ore into uranium hexafluoride. When heated, the crystals turn into a gas ideal for processing to recover uranium’s rare U-235 isotope, which, in bombs and reactors, easily splits in two to produce bursts of atomic energy.

    Nearby at Natanz, Iran aims to feed the gas into 50,000 centrifuges – tall, thin machines that spin extraordinarily fast to separate the relatively light U-235 isotope from its heavier cousin, U-238. It recently came to light that Iran had gained much help in making its centrifuges from Dr. Khan and his secretive network.

    Iran says it wants to enrich the uranium to about 5 percent U-235, the level needed for nuclear reactors.

    But enrichment is one place that good power programs can easily go bad, nonproliferation experts say. By simply lengthening the spin cycle, a nation can enrich the uranium up to 90 percent U-235, the high purity usually preferred for bombs.

    Moreover, a dirty little secret of the atomic world is that the hardest step is enriching uranium for reactors, not bombs. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, an arms control group in Washington , said the step from reactor to weapon fuel took roughly 25 percent more effort.

    The whirling centrifuges at Natanz could make fuel for up to 20 nuclear weapons every year, according to the Carnegie Endowment. Others put the figure at 25 bombs a year.

    The Iranians are building a large power reactor at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf meant to be fueled with low-enriched uranium from Natanz. Here too, experts say, a good program can go bad.

    Normally, uranium fuel stays in a reactor for three or four years and, as an inadvertent byproduct of atomic fission, becomes slowly riddled with plutonium 239, the other good material for making atom bombs. But the spent fuel also accumulates plutonium 240, which is so radioactive that it can be very difficult to turn into weapons.

    But if the reactor’s fuel is changed frequently – every few months – that cuts the P-240 to preferable levels for building an arsenal. (And since less plutonium than uranium is needed for a blast of equal size, it is the preferred material for making compact warheads that are relatively easy to fit on missiles.)

    John R. Bolton, the State Department’s under secretary for arms control, recently told Congress that after several years of operation, Bushehr could make enough plutonium for more than 80 nuclear weapons.

    Iran strongly denies such ambitions.

    “That we are on the verge of a nuclear breakthrough is true,” Hashemi Rafsanjani , Iran ‘s former president, said recently, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. “But we are not seeking nuclear weapons.”

    If Iran wanted to recover plutonium from Bushehr, or a different reactor under construction at Arak , it would have to extract the metal from spent fuel, a hard job because of the waste’s high radioactivity. Such reprocessing plants have legitimate commercial uses for turning nuclear detritus into new fuel, as France , Britain , Japan and Russia do.

    Iran , too, has announced that it wants to master the complete nuclear fuel cycle, apparently including reprocessing. Last year, President Mohammad Khatami said the country wanted to recycle power-plant fuel. “We are determined,” he said in a televised speech, “to use nuclear technology for civilian purposes.”

    Around the globe, experts are struggling to find ways to guarantee such good intentions: not just in Iran , but everywhere.

    Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is calling for “multinational controls” on the production of any material that can be used for nuclear arms. If accepted, that would mean no single country could enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium on its own, but only in groups where members would verify each other’s honesty.

    Early this month, Iran signaled that it might be interested in teaming with Russia and Europe to enrich uranium, giving arms controllers some hope of a peaceful resolution to the current crisis.

    Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, has called for sweetening the deal by guaranteeing members of a consortium lifetime fuel supplies and spent-fuel removal if they forgo enrichment and reprocessing plants.

    “What you need is an incentive,” he said. One challenge, he added, would be convincing states that consortiums “won’t change their minds,” given that nuclear policy makers have often done so in the past.

    President Bush has taken a harder line, proposing in a February speech to limit drastically the number of nations allowed to produce nuclear fuel. Only states that already have enrichment and reprocessing plants, he said, should do such work, and they in turn would service countries that aspire to nuclear power.

    While many experts praise Mr. Bush’s attention to the nonproliferation issue, some have faulted his specifics. “It’s all sticks and no carrots,” said Mr. Bunn, adding that the Bush plan would only feed global resentment toward the nuclear club. “I think you can couch this to be more carrotlike.”

    Down the road, a different approach involves developing new classes of reactors that would better resist nuclear proliferation, especially by making the recovery of plutonium 239 much harder. Many studies, including one last year at M.I.T., have championed better fuel cycles and security.

    “There is potentially a pathway – diplomatic, technical – to see a significant global deployment” of safer technologies and strategies, said Ernest J. Moniz, a former Energy Department official who helped lead the M.I.T. study. “But it can’t happen without U.S. leadership and the U.S. partnering with other countries, and that will require a re-examination of our policies.”

    Mr. Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute said too many of the proposals were too timid. Most fundamentally, he said, nations have to turn away from the commercial use of plutonium, which grows more abundant every day.

    “Only denial and greed” can explain the world’s continuing to want plutonium for peaceful uses, he said, and added, “It may take the unthinkable happening before the political process can screw up the courage to put an end to this ridiculously dangerous industry.”

  • A Time to Weep 2004 Commencement Address at the New School University

    This is not a speech. Two weeks ago I set aside the speech I prepared. This is a cry from the heart, a lamentation for the loss of this country’s goodness and therefore its greatness.

    Future historians studying the decline and fall of America will mark this as the time the tide began to turn – toward a mean-spirited mediocrity in place of a noble beacon.

    For me the final blow was American guards laughing over the naked, helpless bodies of abused prisoners in Iraq. “There is a time to laugh,” the Bible tells us, “and a time to weep.” Today I weep for the country I love, the country I proudly served, the country to which my four grandparents sailed over a century ago with hopes for a new land of peace and freedom. I cannot remain silent when that country is in the deepest trouble of my lifetime.

    I am not talking only about the prison abuse scandal, that stench will someday subside. Nor am I referring only to the Iraq war – that too will pass – nor to any one political leader or party. This is no time for politics as usual, in which no one responsible admits responsibility, no one genuinely apologizes, no one resigns and everyone else is blamed.

    The damage done to this country by its own misconduct in the last few months and years, to its very heart and soul, is far greater and longer lasting than any damage that any terrorist could possibly inflict upon us.

    The stain on our credibility, our reputation for decency and integrity, will not quickly wash away.

    Last week, a family friend of an accused American guard in Iraq recited the atrocities inflicted by our enemies on Americans, and asked: “Must we be held to a different standard?” My answer is YES. Not only because others expect it. WE must hold ourselves to a different standard. Not only because God demands it, but because it serves our security.

    Our greatest strength has long been not merely our military might but our moral authority. Our surest protection against assault from abroad has been not all our guards, gates and guns or even our two oceans, but our essential goodness as a people. Our richest asset has been not our material wealth but our values.

    We were world leaders once – helping found the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, NATO, and programs like Food for Peace, international human rights and international environmental standards. The world admired not only the bravery of our Marine Corps but also the idealism of our Peace Corps.

    Our word was as good as our gold. At the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, President Kennedy’s special envoy to brief French President de Gaulle, offered to document our case by having the actual pictures of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba brought in. “No,” shrugged the usually difficult de Gaulle: “The word of the President of the United States is good enough for me.”

    Eight months later, President Kennedy could say at American University: “The world knows that America will never start a war. This generation of Americans has had enough of war and hate … we want to build a world of peace where the weak are secure and the strong are just.”

    Our founding fathers believed this country could be a beacon of light to the world, a model of democratic and humanitarian progress. We were. We prevailed in the Cold War because we inspired millions struggling for freedom in far corners of the Soviet empire. I have been in countries where children and avenues were named for Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. We were respected, not reviled, because we respected man’s aspirations for peace and justice. This was the country to which foreign leaders sent not only their goods to be sold but their sons and daughters to be educated. In the 1930’s, when Jewish and other scholars were driven out of Europe, their preferred destination – even for those on the far left – was not the Communist citadel in Moscow but the New School here in New York.

    What has happened to our country? We have been in wars before, without resorting to sexual humiliation as torture, without blocking the Red Cross, without insulting and deceiving our allies and the U.N., without betraying our traditional values, without imitating our adversaries, without blackening our name around the world.

    Last year when asked on short notice to speak to a European audience, and inquiring what topic I should address, the Chairman said: “Tell us about the good America, the America when Kennedy was in the White House.” “It is still a good America,” I replied. “The American people still believe in peace, human rights and justice; they are still a generous, fair-minded, open-minded people.”

    Today some political figures argue that merely to report, much less to protest, the crimes against humanity committed by a few of our own inadequately trained forces in the fog of war, is to aid the enemy or excuse its atrocities. But Americans know that such self-censorship does not enhance our security. Attempts to justify or defend our illegal acts as nothing more than pranks or no worse than the crimes of our enemies, only further muddies our moral image. 30 years ago, America’s war in Vietnam became a hopeless military quagmire; today our war in Iraq has become a senseless moral swamp.

    No military victory can endure unless the victor occupies the high moral ground. Surely America, the land of the free, could not lose the high moral ground invading Iraq, a country ruled by terror, torture and tyranny – but we did.

    Instead of isolating Saddam Hussein – politically, economically, diplomatically, much as we succeeded in isolating Khadafy, Marcos, Mobutu and a host of other dictators over the years, we have isolated ourselves. We are increasingly alone in a dangerous world in which millions who once respected us now hate us.

    Not only Muslims. Every international survey shows our global standing at an all-time low. Even our transatlantic alliance has not yet recovered from its worst crisis in history. Our friends in Western Europe were willing to accept Uncle Sam as class president, but not as class bully, once he forgot JFK’s advice that “Civility is not a sign of weakness.”

    All this is rationalized as part of the war on terror. But abusing prisoners in Iraq, denying detainees their legal rights in Guantanamo, even American citizens, misleading the world at large about Saddam’s ready stockpiles of mass destruction and involvement with al Qaeda at 9/11, did not advance by one millimeter our efforts to end the threat of another terrorist attack upon us. On the contrary, our conduct invites and incites new attacks and new recruits to attack us.

    The decline in our reputation adds to the decline in our security. We keep losing old friends and making new enemies – not a formula for success. We have not yet rounded up Osama bin Laden or most of the al Qaeda and Taliban leaders or the anthrax mailer. “The world is large,” wrote John Boyle O’Reilly, in one of President Kennedy’s favorite poems, “when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide, but the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side.” Today our enemies are still loose on the other side of the world, and we are still vulnerable to attack.

    True, we have not lost either war we chose or lost too much of our wealth. But we have lost something worse – our good name for truth and justice. To paraphrase Shakespeare: “He who steals our nation’s purse, steals trash. T’was ours, tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches our good name … makes us poor indeed.”

    No American wants us to lose a war. Among our enemies are those who, if they could, would fundamentally change our way of life, restricting our freedom of religion by exalting one faith over others, ignoring international law and the opinions of mankind; and trampling on the rights of those who are different, deprived or disliked. To the extent that our nation voluntarily trods those same paths in the name of security, the terrorists win and we are the losers.

    We are no longer the world’s leaders on matters of international law and peace. After we stopped listening to others, they stopped listening to us. A nation without credibility and moral authority cannot lead, because no one will follow.

    Paradoxically, the charges against us in the court of world opinion are contradictory. We are deemed by many to be dangerously aggressive, a threat to world peace. You may regard that as ridiculously unwarranted, no matter how often international surveys show that attitude to be spreading. But remember the old axiom: “No matter how good you feel, if four friends tell you you’re drunk, you better lie down.”

    Yet we are also charged not so much with intervention as indifference – indifference toward the suffering of millions of our fellow inhabitants of this planet who do not enjoy the freedom, the opportunity, the health and wealth and security that we enjoy; indifference to the countless deaths of children and other civilians in unnecessary wars, countless because we usually do not bother to count them; indifference to the centuries of humiliation endured previously in silence by the Arab and Islamic worlds.

    The good news, to relieve all this gloom, is that a democracy is inherently self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can be replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be reversed.

    When, in 1941, the Japanese Air Force was able to inflict widespread death and destruction on our naval and air forces in Hawaii because they were not on alert, those military officials most responsible for ignoring advance intelligence were summarily dismissed.

    When, in the late 1940’s, we faced a global Cold War against another system of ideological fanatics certain that their authoritarian values would eventually rule the world, we prevailed in time. We prevailed because we exercised patience as well as vigilance, self-restraint as well as self-defense, and reached out to moderates and modernists, to democrats and dissidents, within that closed system. We can do that again. We can reach out to moderates and modernists in Islam, proud of its long traditions of dialogue, learning, charity and peace.

    Some among us scoff that the war on Jihadist terror is a war between civilization and chaos. But they forget that there were Islamic universities and observatories long before we had railroads.

    So do not despair. In this country, the people are sovereign. If we can but tear the blindfold of self-deception from our eyes and loosen the gag of self-denial from our voices, we can restore our country to greatness. In particular, you – the Class of 2004 – have the wisdom and energy to do it. Start soon.

    In the words of the ancient Hebrews:

    “The day is short, and the work is great, and the laborers are sluggish, but the reward is much, and the Master is urgent.”

    *Theodore Sorensen was special counsel to President Kennedy and a member of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm) that met during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  • A Call to Conscience

    The diplomat who quit over Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia asks Americans on the front lines of foreign service to resign from the “worst regime by far in the history of the republic.”

    Dear Trustees:

    I am respectfully addressing you by your proper if little-used title. The women and men of our diplomatic corps and intelligence community are genuine trustees. With intellect and sensibility, character and courage, you represent America to the world. Equally important, you show the world to America. You hold in trust our role and reputation among nations, and ultimately our fate. Yours is the gravest, noblest responsibility. Never has the conscience you personify been more important.

    A friend asked Secretary of State Dean Acheson how he felt when as a young official in the Treasury Department in the 1930s, he resigned rather than continue to work for a controversial fiscal policy he thought disastrous — an act that seemed at the time to end the public service he cherished. “Oh, I had no choice,” he answered. “It was a matter of national interest as well as personal honor. I might have gotten away with shirking one, but never both.” As the tragedy of American foreign policy unfolded so graphically over the past months, I thought often of Acheson’s words and of your challenge as public servants. No generation of foreign affairs professionals, including my own in the torment of the Vietnam War, has faced such anguishing realities or such a momentous choice.

    I need not dwell on the obvious about foreign policy under President Bush — and on what you on the inside, whatever your politics, know to be even worse than imagined by outsiders. The senior among you have seen the disgrace firsthand. In the corridor murmur by which a bureaucracy tells its secrets to itself, all of you have heard the stories.

    You know how recklessly a cabal of political appointees and ideological zealots, led by the exceptionally powerful and furtively doctrinaire Vice President Cheney, corrupted intelligence and usurped policy on Iraq and other issues. You know the bitter departmental disputes in which a deeply politicized, parochial Pentagon overpowered or simply ignored any opposition in the State Department or the CIA, rushing us to unilateral aggressive war in Iraq and chaotic, fateful occupations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

    You know well what a willfully uninformed and heedless president you serve in Bush, how chilling are the tales of his ignorance and sectarian fervor, lethal opposites of the erudition and open-mindedness you embody in the arts of diplomacy and intelligence. Some of you know how woefully his national security advisor fails her vital duty to manage some order among Washington’s thrashing interests, and so to protect her president, and the country, from calamity. You know specifics. Many of you are aware, for instance, that the torture at Abu Ghraib was an issue up and down not only the Pentagon but also State, the CIA and the National Security Council staff for nearly a year before the scandalous photos finally leaked.

    As you have seen in years of service, every presidency has its arrogance, infighting and blunders in foreign relations. As most of you recognize, too, the Bush administration is like no other. You serve the worst foreign policy regime by far in the history of the republic. The havoc you feel inside government has inflicted unprecedented damage on national interests and security. As never before since the United States stepped onto the world stage, we have flouted treaties and alliances, alienated friends, multiplied enemies, lost respect and credibility on every continent. You see this every day. And again, whatever your politics, those of you who have served other presidents know this is an unparalleled bipartisan disaster. In its militant hubris and folly, the Bush administration has undone the statesmanship of every government before it, and broken faith with every presidency, Democratic and Republican (even that of Bush I), over the past half century.

    In Afghanistan, where we once held the promise of a new ideal, we have resumed our old alliance with warlords and drug dealers, waging punitive expeditions and propping up puppets in yet another seamy chapter of the “Great Game,” presuming to conquer the unconquerable. In Iraq — as every cable surely screams at you — we are living a foreign policy nightmare, locked in a cycle of violence and seething, spreading hatred continued at incalculable cost, escaped only with hazardous humiliation abroad and bitter divisions at home. Debacle is complete.

    Beyond your discreetly predigested press summaries at the office, words once unthinkable in describing your domain, words once applied only to the most alien and deplored phenomena, have become routine, not just at the radical fringe but across the spectrum of public dialogue: “American empire,” “American gulag.” What must you think? Having read so many of your cables and memorandums as a Foreign Service officer and then on the NSC staff, and so many more later as a historian, I cannot help wondering how you would be reporting on Washington now if you were posted in the U.S. capital as a diplomat or intelligence agent for another nation. What would the many astute observers and analysts among you say of the Bush regime, of its toll or of the courage and independence of the career officialdom that does its bidding?

    “Let me begin by stating the obvious,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said at the Abu Ghraib hearing the other day. “For the next 50 years in the Islamic world and many other parts of the world, the image of the United States will be that of an American dragging a prostrate naked Iraqi across the floor on a leash.” The senator was talking about you and your future. Amid the Bush wreckage worldwide, much of the ruin is deeply yours.

    It is your dedicated work that has been violated — the flouted treaties you devotedly drew and negotiated, the estranged allies you patiently cultivated, the now thronging enemies you worked so hard to win over. You know what will happen. Sooner or later, the neoconservative cabal will go back to its incestuous think tanks and sinecures, the vice president to his lavish Halliburton retirement, Bush to his Crawford, Texas, ranch — and you will be left in the contemptuous chancelleries and back alleys, the stiflingly guarded compounds and fear-clammy, pulse-racing convoys, to clean up the mess for generations to come.

    You know that showcase resignations at the top — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or flag officers fingered for Abu Ghraib — change nothing, are only part of the charade. It is the same with Secretary of State Colin Powell, who may have been your lone relative champion in this perverse company, but who remains the political general he always was, never honoring your loss by giving up his office when he might have stemmed the descent.

    No, it is you whose voices are so important now. You alone stand above ambition and partisanship. This administration no longer deserves your allegiance or participation. America deserves the leadership and example, the decisive revelation, of your resignations.

    Your resignations alone would speak to America the truth that beyond any politics, this Bush regime is intolerable — and to an increasingly cynical world the truth that there are still Americans who uphold with their lives and honor the highest principles of our foreign policy.

    Thirty-four years ago this spring, I faced your choice in resigning from the National Security Council over the invasion of Cambodia. I had been involved in fruitful secret talks between Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese in 1969-1970, and knew at least something of how much the invasion would shatter the chance for peace and prolong the war — though I could never have guessed that thousands of American names would be added to that long black wall in Washington or that holocaust would follow in Cambodia. Leaving was an agony. I was only beginning a career dreamed of since boyhood. But I have never regretted my decision. Nor do I think it any distinction. My friends and I used to remark that the Nixon administration was so unprincipled it took nothing special to resign. It is a mark of the current tragedy that by comparison with the Bush regime, Nixon and Kissinger seem to many model statesmen.

    As you consider your choice now, beware the old rationalizations for staying — the arguments for preserving influence or that your resignation will not matter. Your effectiveness will be no more, your subservience no less, under the iron grip of the cabal, especially as the policy disaster and public siege mount. And your act now, no matter your ranks or numbers, will embolden others, hearten those who remain and proclaim your truths to the country and world.

    I know from my own experience, of course, that I am not asking all of you to hurl your dissent from the safe seats of pensioners. I know well this is one of the most personal of sacrifices, for you and your families. You are not alone. Three ranking Foreign Service officers — Mary Wright, John Brady Kiesling and John Brown — resigned in protest of the Iraq war last spring. Like them, you should join the great debate that America must now have.

    Unless and until you do, however, please be under no illusion: Every cable you write to or from the field, every letter you compose for Congress or the public, every memo you draft or clear, every budget you number, every meeting you attend, every testimony you give extends your share of the common disaster.

    The America that you sought to represent in choosing your career, the America that once led the community of nations not by brazen power but by the strength of its universal principles, has never needed you more. Those of us who know you best, who have shared your work and world, know you will not let us down. You are, after all, the trustees.

    Respectfully,

    Roger Morris

  • Exiting the Nuclear Doorway

    SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Fantasy versus reality: While more than 100,000 American and other troops were splashing around Iraq ostensibly to create a democracy out of that war-torn nation of 25 million mainly Sunni and Shiite Muslims, a Hindu-Muslim nation of more than 1 billion people was actually committing democracy.

    More than 380 million people voted in the recent nationwide elections in India , results counted and made known within days. This was a different story from the Philippines , where they are still counting, or even from the United States , where they counted, recounted, then tabulated chads and still the country had to appeal to the high court to figure out who won. And then the prize went to the candidate with fewer votes.

    Say what you want about India , but it’s the world’s largest, truly practicing and thus the most wonderfully messy democracy.

    This recent reminder was not lost on the delegates who attended the conference of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation last weekend in this gorgeous California-coast resort town. This little-publicized retreat attracted some of the liveliest political minds, from Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame to Richard Falk, a leading intellectual proponent of international law as a global order-shaping force, to internationally known disarmament and environmental advocate Helen Caldicott.

    These delegates, having all but despaired (for the time being, anyway) that the world’s second-largest democracy would do the right thing on issues of war and peace, began to hope that maybe the South Asian country of Gandhi and Nehru might have a few precedent-setting answers for the world.

    They imagined a reverse nuclear-arms race in which those who have nuclear arsenals would voluntarily relinquish them, thus triggering a historic armaments down-spiral and shaming the two big boys into doing the same.

    For the United States and Russia together possess something like 97 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, and together could blow the Earth to smithereens, and probably set the moon off course as well.

    Both India and Pakistan have bombs, though many fewer. Pakistan has nuclearized because India has done so; India keeps them because Pakistan has them. “But what if those who hold them decided not to keep them?” wondered Ellsberg, the ever-feisty septuagenarian. “Maybe India and Pakistan might lead the way?”

    As preposterous as that might seem, there’s a better chance of that happening than Washington and Moscow leading (which they should have done after the fall of the Berlin Wall). But should Pakistan and India lead the way to a safer, more secure world by negotiating bilateral nuclear disarmament, not only would South Asia – and by extension the world – be more secure, the entire region would start to become less poor.

    It’s now, as a totality, the world’s single poorest region (mainly defined by India , Pakistan , Bangladesh and Sri Lanka ). Some half a billion there live below the poverty level. More children are out of school there than in the rest of the world; so, not surprisingly, the region is home to half the globe’s illiterates. More than 337 million lack safe drinking water; 400 million go hungry every day; 830 million lack rudimentary sanitation.

    Pakistan doesn’t have enough money to feed, clothe and educate its people, but it somehow can find the dough to buy three submarines from France . India has a titanic rural poverty problem – which the victorious Congress party skillfully exploited. But it still finds money for multibillion-dollar fighter aircraft.

    What’s unclear is whether the current age’s obsession with seeking security through arms – instead of education, justice and economic stability – will pass.

    How about a nice whiff of optimism from professor Falk: “What occurs in history is often what we cannot foresee. Let us prefer the politics of impossibility as opposed to the conventional wisdom of politics as the art of the possible.”

    Imagine a world in which almost all children went to bed properly fed and woke up to be properly educated.

    UCLA professor Tom Plate, whose column appears regularly in The Advertiser, is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy and founder of the nonprofit Asia Pacific Media Network. Reach him at tplate@ucla.edu

  • Lessons for Youth

    Lessons for Youth

    1. Learn from others, but think for yourself. (Use your mind and judgment.)
    2. Decide for yourself what is right or wrong. (Use your conscience.)
    3. Speak out for what you believe in. (Use your voice.)
    4. Stand up for what is right. (Use your power as an individual.)
    5. Set goals and be persistent in working for them. (Use your vision and determination.)
    6. Live by the Golden Rule. (Use your feelings as a point of reference.)
    7. Recognize the miracle that you are. (Be spiritually aware.)
    8. Never harm another miracle. (Be nonviolent.)
    9. Believe in yourself. (Be trustworthy, even to yourself.)
    10. Help others. (Be giving.)
    11. Be a citizen of the world. (Be inclusive and embrace all life.)
    12. Be a force for peace and justice. (Be courageous and committed.)

  • Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy 2004 International Law Symposium

    From 13-15 May, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation held its 2004 International Law Symposium on Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy in Santa Barbara, California . The Symposium brought together experts in the fields of nuclear policy, communications and campaign strategy to develop creative ways in which to reverse the current trends of US nuclear policy. Participants included: Dr. Brent Blackwelder, Friends of the Earth; Michele Boyd, Public Citizen; Dr. John Burroughs, Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy; Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation; Dr. Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Policy Research Institute; Dr. Urs A. Cipolat, Middle Powers Initiative; Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, independent international security analyst; Professor Richard Falk, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Dr. Michael Flynn, Center on Violence and Human Survival; Dr. Randall Forsberg, Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies; Dr. David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Professor George Lakoff, The Rockridge Institute; Professor Adil Najam, The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy/Tufts University; Carah Ong, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Professor Thomas G. Plate, UCLA Speech and Communication Studies; Dr. Bennett Ramberg, independent international security analyst; Dr. Tom Reifer, University of California at Riverside; Hon. Douglas Roche, Middle Powers Initiative; Jonathan Schell, The Nation Institute; Alice Slater, Global Resource Action Center for the Environment; and Rob Stuart, AdvocacyInc.

    US Nuclear Policy and the Geopolitical Landscape

    Richard Falk, Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, delivered opening remarks to set the backdrop for the Symposium. He noted that there are three formidable challenges to charting a new course for US nuclear policy including post-realism, the “Hiroshima Temptation” and bipartisan nuclearism.

    The US , as the leading nuclear weapons state, has its first post-realist political leadership. It interprets conflict from the perspective of good versus evil, and illusion, rather than assessing risks and costs. It’s a struggle between good and evil, no rational calculations are appropriate. When it comes to illusions, none is greater than the US claimed mission to bring “democracy” to the beleaguered peoples of the Middle East . The reality is that it is a region that is only remotely compatible with American goals. The current administration is post-realist in the sense that earlier leaders prided themselves, especially in the context of nuclear weapons, on their sense of rationality, their awareness of limits, and their exclusion of moralizing the justification for use of force. The post-realist American world view is reinforced by the suicidal extremism of the al Qaeda engagement with conflict.

    When it comes to nuclear weapons, we are witnessing a revival of what Falk labels the “Hiroshima Temptation,” the absence of an inhibiting restraint arising from the prospect of retaliation. This is part of a larger, dangerous condition in which the US is inclined to use force to uphold its position of global dominance, given its decline in economic and diplomatic leverage. The US has dismissed international law – from the failure to observe the Geneva Conventions with respect to prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to the defiant attitude of the White House with respect to recourse to wars of choice. President Bush has stated that the US will never seek a “permission slip” when its security is at stake, indicating his disregard for international law.

    The nature of the policy and structural issues associated with nuclear weapons are deeper than the Bush administration. Both Bush, Sr. and, even more so, Clinton missed a golden opportunity to advocate nuclear disarmament in the 1990s – after the Soviet Union collapsed – to achieve a regime of total abolition of weapons of mass destruction. Not only was this not done, it was not even seriously considered. Holding open a nuclear option was no longer premised on deterrence, but rather it became associated with dominance. It was during the 1990s that the Pentagon began speaking of “full-spectrum dominance.” And it should not be forgotten that the neo-conservatives were thirsting for a second Pearl Harbor . One of the present dangers is a willed complacency regarding the possibility of a second 9/11.

    The only hope for charting a new course for US nuclear policy is to restore realism in the US leadership. US leadership must also make a self-interested repudiation of the “Hiroshima Temptation” and rebuild a cooperative multi-polar world order. US leadership will be greatly enhanced by the rejection of nuclearism, the only clear path to non-proliferation.

    The US and the Non-Proliferation Regime

    Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., gave a report on the 2004 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) Meeting, which concluded six days prior to the start of the Symposium. It is clear the NPT, the cornerstone of the non-proliferation regime, is in crisis. To examine how the crisis came about and what to do about it, we must look at the role of the US . While the other declared Nuclear Weapons States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China are all also in contravention of their responsibilities to the NPT, it is the US that sets the pace. The US is the leading military power in the world by far, the lynchpin of NATO, and the dominant voice at the United Nations. With 31 members, the US delegation was the largest at the recent NPT PrepCom. US views deeply affect the policies of all Western nations and Russia .

    The US astounded many delegates at the 2004 PrepCom by disowning its own participation in the 2000 consensus that produced the “unequivocal undertaking.” It refused to allow the 2000 Review Conference to be used as a reference point for the 2005 Review. The result was turmoil and a collapse of the PrepCom.

    What delegates from around the world are deeply concerned about is the US attempt to change the rules of the game. At least before, there was a recognition that the NPT was obtained in 1970 through a bargain, with the nuclear weapons states agreeing to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear weapons in return for the non-nuclear states shunning the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Adherence to that bargain enabled the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 and the 13 Practical Steps of 2000. Now the US is rejecting the commitments of 2000 and premising its aggressive diplomacy on the assertion that the problem of the NPT lies not in the actions of the nuclear weapons states but in the lack of compliance by states such as North Korea and Iran .

    The whole international community, nuclear and non-nuclear alike, is concerned about proliferation, but the new attempt by the nuclear weapon states to gloss over the discriminatory aspects of the NPT, which are now becoming permanent, has caused the patience of the members of the Non-Aligned Movement to snap. They see a two-class world of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots” becoming a permanent feature of the global landscape. In such chaos, the NPT is eroding and the prospect of multiple nuclear weapons states, a fear that caused nations to produce the NPT in the first place, is looming once more.

    But the US vigorously defended its policies, giving no ground to its critics. From the opening speech by John R. Bolton, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, US representatives insisted that attention not be diverted from the violations of the NPT by would-be nuclear powers “by focusing on Article VI issues that do not exist.”

    A March 2004 report to Congress reveals that the US is employing a double standard concerning compliance with the NPT. Whereas the US wants to move forward with a new generation of nuclear weaponry, it adamantly rejects the attempt by any other state to acquire any sort of nuclear weapon. The US clearly wants to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons; of that there can be no doubt. But it does not want to be questioned on what it regards as its right to maintain enormous stocks (despite numerical reductions) and to keep nuclear weapons as a cornerstone of its military doctrine. The US is widely criticized around the world for this double standard.

    There is no way to reconcile this resurgence of nuclear weapons development ( Germany called it a nuclear “renaissance”) with disarmament. Even as it says it is adhering to the NPT, the US is flouting it. Only a change in attitude by the US administration can now save the Treaty.

    Responding to US Nuclear Policy in a Climate of Violence

    Daniel Ellsberg noted in his presentation that humans are not a species to be trusted with nuclear weapons. We need to understand ourselves as humans in relation to this deadly technology. The US has always had as its plan to act first or preemptively. Ellsberg noted that nuclear weapons have been used many times as a threat like a gun pointed at someone’s head.

    Tom Reifer observed that the Bush administration reserves the right to invade countries on the basis of the threat of weapons of mass destruction. There is a need to reframe the message to talk about the real dangers. While some are afraid that nuclear weapons may fall into the wrong hands, we must realize that there are no right hands for nuclear weapons. We need to connect to the global economic movement and connect nuclear weapons issues to militarism issues.

    Bennett Ramberg began his presentation noting that Libya is no longer a nuclear aspirant and Iraq is no longer a nuclear threat. Iran is now a nuclear threat and it is likely that the US or Israel may preemptively strike Iran . Ramberg proposed that Israel should be encouraged to give up its nuclear weapons and in exchange be brought under the NATO nuclear umbrella. We must also work for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, and create a nuclear taboo around the world.

    Civic, Moral and Legal Responses to Nuclear Weapons

    John Burroughs said that among the overarching themes under which to place nuclear abolition have been “human security,” the “right to peace,” and the “rule of law”. The Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy and the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research pursued the latter theme in the 2003 book, Rule of Power or Rule of Law? An Assessment of U.S. Policies and Actions Regarding Security-Related Treaties . The book places US non-compliance with the NPT disarmament obligation in the broader context of US rejection or undermining of a range of global security treaties concerning global warming, international justice, landmines, and biological and chemical weapons. “Rule of law” clearly is an important element of the message. However, it doesn’t seem to be the best overall theme, rather a sub-theme. It does not wholly persuade the US policy elite, much of which accepts US hegemony and has a highly skeptical attitude about international law and institutions. It has some resonance with the public, because the rule of law is associated with US traditions and constitutionalism. But it is not a galvanizing theme.

    The rule of law message can help in the essential work of counteracting ongoing US reliance on threat or execution of preventive war against nuclear proliferation. This may be the shape of years and decades to come if the US does not adopt a policy of relying instead on preventive diplomacy and reciprocal and cooperative action that includes reduction and elimination of the US arsenal. See Peter Weiss’s remarks at http://lcnp.org/disarmament/nuclearweaponspreventivewar.htm

    One critical task for nuclear abolition outreach and organizing is to relate seriously to other movements, not only in the use of rhetoric but also through concrete contributions. An example is LCNP’s work on the World Tribunal on Iraq , which held its New York session on May 8, 2004 . For information and presentations, see www.worldtribunal-nyc.org . Organizers included highly motivated and competent graduate students and activists.

    Jonathan Schell stated that the Bush Administration is pursuing a path that will lead to a multitude of disasters. We need an alternative path. We have been deceived about the Nuclear Age. The US establishment did not want nuclear weapons discredited after Hiroshima and Nagasaki because they planned to rely upon them. Reagan and Gorbechev understood the danger of nuclear weapons. There was radical neglect of addressing the nuclear threat during the Clinton years. Under the Bush Administration there has been a nuclear “unlearning.” Deep truths have been cast aside. Even President Reagan understood that nuclear weapons cannot win wars and must never be used. The US must make its nuclear arsenal visible to Americans. We are facing layer upon layer of deception. We need to reincorporate the nuclear story.

    Helen Caldicott stated that killers throughout history have been put on pedestals. American people are good people. How do we teach the American people? We have to make an emotional appeal and reach their hearts as well as their minds.

    Setting Priorities for US Nuclear Policy

    Adil Najam stated that if the planet were a country, it would be a poor, divided, degraded, insecure, poorly governed, country of apartheid, as well as a third world country. We need to understand nuclearism in a feudal context. South Asia contains 40% of the world’s poor, ½ of all illiterates in the world. 260 million live without basic health facilities, 337 million do not have safe drinking water, 400 million go hungry and 500 million people live below the poverty line. Alas, South Asia is the most militarized area of the world. Spending money for military purposes has a real cost to the security of people. There is a new politics of nuclearism. Nuclear weapons are the poor man’s weapon. There is no argument one can make to disarm if the US does not take the lead. Najam quoted his grandmother saying, “If you point your finger at someone, three fingers will point back at you.”

    Urs Cipolat said that International Law is the most powerful antidote to the acceptance of nuclear weapons. The only tool human society uses to prevent the abuse of power is law. The rule of law is not intended to be the language of elite but rather to restrict the power of the elite. Absent the rule of law, force rules.

    Jackie Cabasso said that the US now relies on extended deterrence. The US is now spending $6.5 billion a year on nuclear weapons. “It’s too expensive” or “it won’t work” are fatally flawed arguments.

    Alice Slater asked, “What is the difference between the commercial nuclear industry that seeks to sell nuclear materials ‘at reasonable cost’ and the international Mafia that is now trading and profiting from the same materials? It is the delusory vision held by the “legal” nuclear industrialists that proliferation can be controlled. We will never be able to guard all the loose nuclear materials and black market smuggling while we constantly generate ever more lethal nuclear waste. The time for nuclear arms control fixes while continuing business as usual is over. The game is up.

    There is only one way to move forward. The nations of the world must call not only for complete nuclear disarmament, but for an end to “peaceful” nuclear power. At this critical moment, with a world mired in poverty and the constant threat of war and terrorism, our survival depends on implementing a plan for sustainable energy abundant in nature-local renewable resources-the sun, the wind, the tides. Urgent action is needed to fund and harness these natural treasures by establishing an International Sustainable Energy Fund.

    Developing a Blueprint for US Nuclear Policy

    David Krieger answered the question, “What would be the basic contours of a new course for US nuclear policy?” There are many forms and timeframes that a new US nuclear policy could take. Most important, however, must be a commitment to achieve the multilateral phased elimination of nuclear weapons within a reasonable timeframe and the further commitment to provide leadership toward that goal. The US will have to demonstrate by its actions, not only its words, that it is committed to this goal.

    The US must use its convening power to bring all nuclear weapons states together to the negotiating table to negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Convention. This would be consistent with the unanimous conclusion of the International Court of Justice in its 1996 Advisory Opinion on the Illegality of Nuclear Weapons: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    In terms of a timeframe, one proposal, put forward by the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, calls for starting negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons in 2005, the completion of negotiations by 2010, and the elimination of all nuclear weapons by the year 2020. The exact date of completing the process of nuclear disarmament may be less important than the demonstration of political will to achieve the goal combined with substantial steps toward the goal. It is clear that the world will become far safer from nuclear catastrophe when there are a few tens of nuclear weapons rather than tens of thousands.

    The US must forego provocative policies in nuclear weapons research and development leading to new and more usable nuclear weapons (“bunker busters” and “mini-nukes”). It must also stop working toward reducing the time needed to resume nuclear testing; and cease planning to create a facility to produce plutonium pits for large numbers of new or refurbished nuclear warheads.

    The US will need to reevaluate building defensive missile systems and weaponizing outer space, both projects that stimulate offensive nuclear responses.

    The US will have to make its nuclear reduction commitments irreversible by dismantling the weapons taken off active deployment.

    Finally, the US must give assurances to other countries that it is not relying upon its nuclear weapons for use in warfare. Such assurances could take the form of legally binding negative security assurances (the US will not use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapons state) and an agreement to No First Use against other nuclear weapons states, as well as taking its arsenal off hair-trigger alert.

    Krieger also answered the question, “What would be needed to achieve this change in course in US nuclear policy?” It is unlikely that US leaders will come to the conclusion of their own accord that it is necessary to chart a new course in US nuclear policy. They need serious prompting, both from American citizens and from the rest of the world. Other countries have been trying to influence the US government on this issue throughout the post-Cold War period to little avail. While other countries should certainly continue in this pursuit, the burden of responsibility for changing the course of US nuclear policy remains primarily with US citizens. It is an awesome responsibility, one on which the future of the world depends.

    A massive education and advocacy program is needed in the United States to mobilize widespread support for a new course in US nuclear policy. It will require resources, professionalism and persistence. The issue must be framed in a way that US citizens can grasp its importance and raise it to a high level in their hierarchy of policy priorities. The messages must be simple, clear and compelling. It is a challenge that demands our best thinking and organized action. It will require the wedding of old fashioned policy promotion with new technologies such as the internet. It will also require greater cooperation among advocacy groups and creativity in expanding the base of involvement by individuals and civil society groups that care not only about peace and disarmament, but also about the environment, human rights, health care and many other issue areas.

    Michael Flynn stated that the possible use of nuclear weapons will remain as long as states maintain dominance. 9/11 was a low tech affair. Since then, we have just been waiting for the next attack, and we are expecting that it will be a more sophisticated affair. Most claims by the current administration are stated in such a matter-of-fact way that journalists do not source facts and they take what is said at face value.

    War has always shown men what they are capable of under stress, and war always brings out the best in technology. Many theorists write about the salvational power of nuclear weapons. People have been led to believe that our security depends on them, and many who believe in them know little about them.

    Randy Forsberg said we need a campaign to reverse US nuclear policy. She said we should not limit the campaign to just the nuclear issue. We need to recapture the American dream. We need to coalesce the efforts of all nuclear disarmament and arms control organizations. We also need to allow those organizations buy-in to a US campaign for a new direction in US nuclear policy.

    Issue Framing

    George Lakoff spoke about issue framing. The right wing has created a self-sustaining system. They train all legislators, candidates for office, judges, lawyers and kids down to the age of 15. There is a reason they have invested this way. If you look at their moral system – they defend and extend their moral system itself. They look and plan ahead. The highest value on the right is to defend the moral structure and build infrastructure for it. The highest value on the left is to help individuals. The right has state-of-the-art facilities. 80% of talking heads are from right-wing think tanks. Their message of discipline is enforced across the entire spectrum.

    The right wing understands the nature of thought and the relationship between thought and language. If someone tells you not to think of an elephant, that is the only thing you will be able to think about. A word is defined relative to a frame. If you negate it, you still have the same frame.

    Rule # 1: don’t negate their frame. Find your own.

    Rule # 2: In most cases, it takes a long time to get a frame into most peoples’ brains. If a fact contradicts a frame, the frame remains. Frames do not occur alone. They are in systems that support each other. You can’t just negate one frame because other frames support it.

    Deep-framing is about largely unconscious world views. The metaphorical thought for morality is different between liberals and conservatives. We all have a metaphor for the nation’s founding.

    There are two different understandings of the nation and two different understandings of the family. We can therefore look at the metaphor of the nation as a family. There are two models. For the right, James Dobson is in the forefront for setting family values. He is heard on 3,000 radio stations across the country every day. He is also the author of Dare to Discipline . The right believes that the world is a dangerous place and that there will always be competition. They also believe kids are born bad and they will do what they want. Thus, kids need a strict father – who will give painful punishment. In order for kids to be made moral, they must be physically disciplined. This physical discipline will lead to mental discipline and this leads to a belief in the link between morality and prosperity.

    The right believes that there are winners and losers and the losers deserve to lose. Thus, it is moral to pursue self-interests. For the right, retribution is the main model. If you do something bad, there must be a consequence. Power and morality should go together. For the right, there is also a moral hierarchy: God over man, man over nature, parents over children, straights over gays, whites over non-whites. And, the strict father is the moral authority. For the right, giving up nuclear weapons would be giving up a means of discipline.

    The other model is the progressive model. They believe in having two nurturing parents and they raise their children to be nurturers. Progressives empathize with their children and if you empathize with your child, you will want them to be protected. PROTECTION, then, is a value for progressives. Progressives want their children to be treated FAIRLY, they want their child to be FULFILLED, to have OPPORTUNITY . Progressives are also interested in maintaining COMMUNITY, COOPERATION, TRUST, HONESTY and OPEN, TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION.

    Every person has both these models in their lives and we live and vote by these models. At least 38 to 40 percent percent of people have chosen one of these models. A swing voter is someone in the middle; i.e. they have both models in different parts of their life.

    Centrism is doubly mistaken. Both family models are in your brain. When one side uses your language, they are activating their models. We must therefore approach the issue from the level of shared morality and use our own language and rename theirs.

    Communications Strategies

    Rob Stuart spoke about communications strategies and also network-centric versus ego-centric models. BURST! Media surveyed 12,000 Web users. Of those surveyed, 53.4% were definite voters and 70% of the definite voters between the ages of 18 – 24 plan to use the Internet for information on the 2004 election. The survey also found that 61% of senior voters plan to use the Internet as a source for political information. This is a big increase over Internet usage during the mid-term 2002 elections. The number of women who will use the Internet for political information for the upcoming 2004 election will also dramatically increase from the mid-term 2002 elections, making the numbers of likely women almost equal to the numbers of likely men to use the Internet for political information.

    Stuart also offered some statistics related to current Internet users. According to AOL, 43% of broadband subscribers have multiple Internet sessions per day, in contrast to only 19% of narrow band users. 73% of broadband users call the Internet a better source of information than newspapers or television. The Internet is their preferred source for getting information. Broadband users do much more blogging and content offering. 60% have created online content or shared files. Broadband users spend 5 times as much time online vs. dial-up users. On AOL, broadband users have 80% more community sessions and share 40% more files.

    While the Internet is changing everything, natural forces are all around us. People share a deep connection to the Earth, their community and to each other. The goal then is to use the Internet’s infrastructure to tap into these connections and foster growing networks of effective supporters for coordinated campaigns and actions.

    Ego-Centric Model

    The ego-centric model focuses on building organizational morale and internal team cohesion. Key staff are evaluated on internal organizational goals and value is placed on raising organizational profile, development and centralizing organizational resources. In the ego-centric model, leadership focuses on goals and managing staff to achieve specific goals. Ego-centric organizations are generally resistant to information sharing. In the ego-centric model, there is a hierarchal decision making structure, members contribute money but not ideas and the organization defines programs as unique or original.

    Network-Centric Model

    The network-centric model is focused on expanding the number of people and organizations reached. It is also focused on expanding capacity of the network to perform. In the network-centric model, more attention is paid to information sharing. A network-centric organization values social contact between staffs of partner organizations and facilitates the rise of multiple leaders by enabling coordinated action. A network-centric model has a distributed power structure, and leverages and shares resources with partners. The leadership of a network-centric organization provides vision and energy to the network.

    What’s Needed

    For a campaign or organization to be successful, it must provide tools that connect and inform people as well as tools that model best practices and establish a “code.” A successful campaign or organization also needs strategies that facilitate individual and community “bottom up” action as well as strategies that will facilitate messages that aggregate power and stimulate new learning.

    Shaping the Message: Influencing the Public and Policy Makers

    Tom Plate said there is no such thing as free press. He noted that editors are interested in stories, not ideas. In general, the media is not interested in foreign issues because it is hard to get the US public to focus on it. It is more important to be seen on web pages than in hard copy because that is where most people are getting their information.

    Brent Blackwelder stated that the most important thing that the disarmament community can do is to be part of a larger framework. The progressive community has to get its hands dirty and mobilize the electorate. We also need to participate in broader issues as part of our long-term goals.

    Michele Boyd stated that members of Congress are always looking for political cover. Nothing will happen in Congress unless an outside force pushes it. If we want something done in Congress, there needs to be prior public discourse. We need to get Rotary clubs and businesses interested in our campaigns. Editorials in the press are not democratic, but they are powerful in moving congress and can influence votes.

    Carah Ong said that the Bush Administration has afforded us an opportunity to reinvigorate a movement for human and environmental security. A movement to chart a new course for US nuclear policy must re-frame the message in the current geopolitical context. A new movement must also include age, race and gender diversity, and it must re-empower citizens everywhere. A new movement must address the sanitization of violence that prevails in our society and delegitimize excuses for violent behavior.

    Carah also said that we should spend time finding out what resonates with young people today. We need to link with the music culture and use it as a means to disseminate our message. We also need to link university involvement in nuclear weapons issues to broader issues of militarization. We must also actively register young people to vote.

    Young people need mentors to be more involved in the movement. There is also a need for sustainable jobs and living wages within the nuclear disarmament movement. The movement must also do a better job of empowering and providing organizing tools and networking opportunities for youth and encourage networking with other issue areas. The campaign needs to develop curricula and distribute it to university professors, particularly in Global Security, International Studies and International Relations fields.

    The media is not the enemy, it is a tool. We have to remember that members of the media are not experts in the nuclear disarmament field. Today, we are not only in the “Age of image over content,” as Tom Plate stated, but we are also in the age of short attention span. As such, we must have an attractive and sexy message. We also need to focus on Internet media, including OneWorld, Alternet, and Common Dreams, because they service millions of Internet users and rapidly distribute information. We need to have a constant coordinated response to world events and link those issues/events to the nuclear issue. We need a spokesperson who is credible and well-known to speak on behalf of the campaign.

    Next Steps

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the participants of the 2004 Symposium will continue to work together to develop a campaign to Chart a New Course for US Nuclear Policy this year. The participants have set up an email listserve to continue discussion and planning. At the end of the Symposium, a working group was established to develop a set of Talk ing Points on Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy based on progressive core values. The campaign will support existing nuclear disarmament campaigns, but also bring the “New Course” nuclear issues into larger fora connected with peace and disarmament, social justice, nuclear power, the environment, and human rights issues. Members of the campaign will also pitch stories about US nuclear policy and nuclear issues to editorial boards and other members of the media. The campaign seeks to mentor and involve more youth in the effort.

  • Nuclear Weapons Exact a Terrible Price

    In today’s world, nuclear weapons no longer create security, they threaten it. In 1996, the World Court declared the use of nuclear weapons illegal under international humanitarian law, because these weapons of mass destruction cannot distinguish between combatants and innocent civilians and create unnecessary suffering. Maintaining the current U.S. nuclear arsenal of more than 10,000 warheads is extremely expensive. This year alone, it will cost the U.S. taxpayer $6.5 billion, or $18 million per day.

    If we know that nuclear weapons pose an acute danger to our security; that their use is illegal because of their inhumane and indiscriminate power; and that maintaining them is consuming enormous resources, which could otherwise be used to improve our ailing public schools and universities or strengthen our exhausted conventional military forces, how can we tacitly accept our government’s and the National Weapons Labs’ push for the development of new generations of nuclear weapons and increased nuclear weapons spending of up to $30 billion over the next four years?

    Under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of 1970, the United States remains committed to the gradual reduction and eventual elimination of its nuclear arsenal. Article VI of the treaty stipulates that “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” Accordingly, the United States is obliged to disengage from activities that risk fueling a new nuclear arms race, and to continuously reduce its nuclear arsenal. This has been confirmed at the last Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2000, when the United States signed on to “An unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties [to the NPT] are committed under Article VI.”

    The nuclear weapons activities at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories are in direct violation of these international commitments.

    The ongoing research into new generations of nuclear weapons — so-called bunker busters and mini-nukes — and the related expansion of laboratory capabilities represent vertical proliferation prohibited under the treaty. In addition to providing the other eight nuclear-weapon states, including North Korea, with a powerful incentive to put the reduction of their arsenals on hold and develop similar new nuclear weapons, these activities give the 180 non-nuclear-weapon states an equally powerful incentive to break their non-proliferation commitment under the treaty and start working toward the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Recently discovered nuclear weapons programs in Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and possibly Iran underscore this logic.

    One cannot go around with a cigarette in one’s mouth, asking the rest of the world not to smoke. Yet this is precisely what the United States is doing. Only the total elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide in compliance with legal commitments under the treaty and under the strict control of the International Atomic Energy Agency can stop nuclear proliferation. New nuclear weapons research and design programs, combined with the expansion of nuclear weapons labs, undermine the international non-proliferation regime, stimulate the spread of nuclear weapons, and enhance the risk of these horrific weapons actually being used.

    The impending expiration of its lab oversight contracts with the Department of Energy offers UC [University of California] a unique opportunity to disengage from aiding and abetting in the violation of international law and the potential commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws of war. Conversely, successful bids for the continued management of Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Labs could mean that UC and its weapons scientists may one day be sued under emerging international criminal law.

    *Urs Cipolat is a lecturer on Law, Ethics and Science at UC Berkeley. He serves as program director at the Global Security Institute in San Francisco.