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  • A Time For Questions

    A Time For Questions

    These are times in which there are many more questions than answers, and many Americans are beginning to form and articulate these questions. Some of the questions on my mind are the following:

    1. If the president gives false information to the American people about the reasons for going to war, should he be held to account?

    2. If the United Nations Security Council does not authorize a preemptive war, can any country proceed to war or is this the sole prerogative of the US government?

    3. If a country proceeds to war without UN authorization, is this “aggressive warfare,” the type of warfare for which German and Japanese leaders were punished after World War II?

    4. When the North Korean government repeatedly states that the nuclear crisis can be defused if the US will negotiate a mutual security pact with them, why is the current US administration dragging its feet in proceeding to enter into negotiations?

    5. Does the United States have a responsibility to participate with UN forces in restoring security to civilians in civil wars, such as that in Liberia?

    6. Should American troops stationed in Iraq have the right to complain about the policies of civilian leaders responsible for our policy there?

    7. With half its combat forces in Iraq, is the US military stretched so thin that it cannot adequately protect Americans at home or participate in needed UN peacekeeping operations abroad?

    8. With the war in Iraq costing American taxpayers nearly $4 billion per month and the US deficit expected to exceed $400 billion this year, was it wise to pass large tax cuts for the richest Americans?

    9. Is the desire to control Iraq’s oil the reason that the US hasn’t asked the United Nations for help in providing peacekeeping in Iraq?

    10. What is the relationship of companies such as Halliburton, Bechtel and the Carlyle Group, which are profiting from the war in Iraq, to members of the current US administration?

    11. Are Americans safer to travel throughout the world after the Iraq War?

    12. Has the credibility of the United States throughout the world increased or decreased in the aftermath of the Iraq War?

    13. What is the current status of respect for the United States throughout the world?

    14. Why has the current US administration been hostile to the creation of an International Criminal Court to hold individual leaders accountable for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity?

    15. Is war an effective way to make peace?

    It is time to start demanding answers from our government to these questions and many more, and their answers should not be given only in secrecy behind closed doors. Questions about war and peace are far too important to be left only to politicians and generals without the voice of the people. It is time for an ongoing public dialogue that includes answers to questions from the public. If democracy is to have meaning, the people have a right to know and they deserve to have their questions answered.

    –David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future (Capra Press, 2003)..

    Readers’ Comments
    If you’d like to send us your comments please e-mail us at: letters@napf.org
    (Please include the name of the article in the subject line)

    Thanks for your message and the 15 questions each human being should be trying to answer today. More and more people actually are asking themselves these questions, so humanity’s slim chances for survival are increasing a little every day!

    – Olivier, Japan

  • The Renewable Switch: Environment-Friendly Energy Available Now to South Coast

    Renewable energy has come of age. A recent report on the state of the renewable energy industry concludes: “Dramatic improvements in performance, as well as government incentives, have resulted in reduced costs that are quickly making renewable energy technologies competitive with traditional forms of electricity generation . . .”

    The report adds that the cost of electricity from solar photovoltaics and wind is only one-tenth what it was 20 years ago. (Report, “The Changing Face of Renewable Energy,” available at www.navigantconsulting.com.)

    Large wind projects already produce energy at costs competitive with natural gas-powered electricity plants, and this will only continue to improve as the cost of natural gas increases and as demand for this finite resource increases. It is only a matter of time before solar, biomass and other renewable energy technologies achieve cost parity.

    It is becomingly increasingly apparent that the real obstacles to leaving the unsustainable fossil fuel era are largely political and legal in nature and less and less economic or technical. Accordingly, legal tools are being crafted throughout the country to help usher in the sustainable renewable energy era.

    Communities across America are now choosing to pursue greater energy independence through renewable and more environmentally friendly technologies, and these same choices are now available to the Santa Barbara region.

    California, in the last year alone, has enacted major energy legislation that has brought our state to the forefront in developing renewable energy. This legislation includes SB 1078, which mandates that California obtain 20 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2017; AB 1493, which aims to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks beginning in 2009; and AB 117, the “Community Choice” law. AB 117 allows cities and counties, beginning on July 15, 2003, to combine their residents’ electricity needs to negotiate long-term power contracts directly with energy companies and to administer state-funded conservation and efficiency programs currently administered by investor-owned utilities.

    Community Choice will allow existing investor-owned utilities to maintain all their operations except power procurement negotiation and state-funded conservation and efficiency programs. That is, the incumbent utility will still meter customers, still bill customers, and still earn similar profits to those it currently enjoys.

    For achieving real, on-the-ground, economic and environmental benefits in a fairly short time frame, Community Choice may be the most promising of the new laws for communities like Santa Barbara and the rest of the South Coast.

    Under similar laws passed in Massachusetts, Ohio and California (in a similar, now defunct, program), communities have achieved significant cost savings by negotiating power contracts through renewable energy providers.

    California’s version of Community Choice may allow local governments to save money on their power bills and to obtain state funds to achieve greater conservation and efficiency, leading to additional savings. In addition to taking advantage of economies of scale, combining different types of electricity users (commercial, industrial and residential) will allow local governments to create an attractive “load profile” — the pattern of electricity use throughout the day, which providers like to be as constant as possible — to help negotiate savings.

    Other than the financial benefits Community Choice may bring, local governments will be able to negotiate power contracts with energy suppliers who can provide a significant percentage of renewable power.

    In the past, developing renewable energy generation has been hindered by a “chicken and egg” situation due to the difficulties in penetrating a market controlled by traditional fossil fuel power suppliers. Now, as demand for renewable power grows due to communities opting for it through Community Choice, energy suppliers will be enabled and motivated to bring online new renewable energy projects that are often stalled for lack of reliable contracts to sell such power. There are currently such projects being proposed in Santa Barbara County that may be aided through implementation of Community Choice.

    By promoting the development and use of renewable energy, California’s communities will be doing their part to curb the dangers of global warming, reduce asthma and other air-related health problems in our children, and ameliorate the problem of nuclear waste generation by reducing the need to build new nuclear power plants and creating green power to replace electricity from existing nuclear plants.

    Implementing Community Choice will not be an overnight endeavor and the proposed benefits are not written in stone. But this new legislation is tremendously promising and provides a substantial tool for communities suffering under the twin burdens of a budget crunch and a desire to help create a sustainable future.

    We believe that Community Choice bears consideration by both local governments and community organizations like the Community Environmental Council’s Santa Barbara County Regional Energy Alliance for adoption and implementation.

    It may prove to be the ultimate “win-win” in the quest to obtain energy that rests easy on our pocketbooks as well as our consciences.

    * Tam Hunt is a Santa Barbara attorney; Bud Laurent is CEO of the Community Environmental Council; Peter Jeschke is CEO of MEI Power Corp.; Kristen Morrison is coordinator of the Renewable Energy Project, with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • University of California Passes Ground-Breaking Clean Energy Policy

    The University of California Board of Regents voted unanimously today in favor of a Clean Energy and Green Building policy that raises the bar for environmental leadership by any institution.

    This vote follows a year long “UC Go Solar!” campaign run by students across the state and Greenpeace. The campaign called for the Regents to adopt a comprehensive Clean Energy and Green Building policy to make UC a national leader in environmental stewardship.

    Since last September, students and faculty sent more than 10,000 postcards to the university in support of the campaign, VIPs including Lt. Governor Cruz M. Bustamente endorsed it, and dozens of editorials have appeared in student newspapers urging the Regents to take action.

    “This victory for the environment is the product of collaboration between Students, Faculty, Administrators, Regents and Greenpeace,” explained Kristin Casper, campaigner with Greenpeace. “The UC’s leadership will pave the way for campuses across the U.S. toward a clean, sustainable future. Now there is a clear road map for others to follow.”

    According to a Greenpeace study released today, the combination of the Los Angeles Community College District’s pledge to generate 10% of new buildings’ energy use with onsite

    renewable energy, and this UC victory, the current total amount of grid-connected solar power in the US could increase by nearly 30% above today’s levels. The study also notes that it is academic institutions that are a driving force in building a clean energy economy for our country. A full copy of the study is available at http://www.cleanenergynow.org.

    The University of California policy is a comprehensive initiative that mandates:

    • 10 megawatts (equivalent to power used by 5,000 homes) of renewable energy be installed across the 10 campuses (currently only 40 MW of solar energy are grid-connected in California and 52 MW total in the U.S.).
    • The purchase of 10% of the university’s utility purchased energy from clean energy sources immediately and ramping up to 20% by 2017, enough to power 26,000 homes.
    • All new campus building across the state will be built to green building standards (except acute care facilities)
    • Reduction of system-wide energy use to 10% below 2000 levels by 2014 in order to reduce consumption of non-renewable energy sources.

    Following the UC’s lead, students on more than 50 campuses across the country are expected to launch Clean Energy campaigns this fall, to inspire their schools to replicate the UC system. The Greenpeace report shows that if every U.S. college campus were to match the UC solar energy policy, the total grid-connected solar installations in the United States would increase more than 50 fold. With this surge, prices of solar could be expected to drop by some 23%, making it competitive with conventional, polluting energies in many areas.

  • Machiavelli, Bush and Blair

    “The end justifies the means… two wrongs do make a right.”

    Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) “The Prince”

    Hearing the press conference on July 17th of President George W.Bush and British Primer Minister Tony Blair it is not difficult to realize that the rhetoric of modern politicians is not that far from Machiavelli’s teachings.

    Mr. Bush dodged the question about whether he was taking personal responsibility for the wrong statement about Iraq looking for uranium in Africa. His reply,
    ” I take responsibility for putting our troops into action. And I made that decision because Saddam Hussein was a threat to our security and a threat to the security of other nations. I take responsibility for making the decision, the tough decision to put together a coalition to remove Saddam Hussein, because the intelligence — not only our intelligence, but the intelligence of this great country — made a clear and compelling case that Saddam Hussein was a threat to security and peace”

    In other words, he defended his own actions as commander -in-chief of the U.S. armed forces, while avoiding a response to the direct question. It is not difficult to “hear”in his answer the advice of the great philosopher of the Renaissance in his famous treatise, The Prince: ” navigate successfully the waves of deception and prudence to gain the support of the masses”

    A few hours before, the embattled Prime Minister, addressing the U.S. Congress, had said “If we’re wrong, the Iraqi war was justified even if the banned weapons (the most important excuse for the war) are not found in Iraq.” A different scenario portrayed by the two leaders. Mr. Blair saying “If we’re wrong” and Mr. Bush stating. “I strongly believe he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program… And the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There’s no doubt in my mind”

    The fact that Saddam’s regime was despotic, cruel and criminal has never been argued by anyone. The trouble here is the MEANS used by the U.S. and British governments to justify a pre-emptive war because he represented a direct threat to the U.S. fundamentally based on “intelligence reports.”

    The REAL reasons behind all this cover-up becomes darker day by day? This affair is becoming more like a snowball growing bigger by the hour. As I write this article another part of this “puzzle” seems to be developing. In England, Dr. David Kelly, a scientist involved in the now infamous British dossier with the argument that Saddam was looking for uranium in Africa has been missing since Thursday and a body found 5 miles from his home seems to match Dr. Kelly’s. He was named as the source for the story claming that the office of Prime Minister Blair had “sexed up” a dossier about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

    If this news should be true speculations will rise to a dangerous level. This situation could become bigger than Watergate on both sides of the Atlantic. The following weeks will be without a doubt full of “surprises”. Meanwhile, more American soldiers are dying in Iraq.
    * Ruben Arvizu is Director for Latin America of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • New Bomb Plant Would Pose Safety Threat by the Institute for Environmental and Energy Research

    More than one-fourth of the potential accidents analyzed for a new facility designed to manufacture plutonium triggers for the U.S. nuclear arsenal would violate the DOE’s own guideline for radiation exposure to the public, some by as much as 400%, according to an independent analysis of government documents. In addition, the accidents analyzed by the government represent only a fraction of possible scenarios, thus preventing any clear understanding of the overall risk posed to the public by the facility.

    These conclusions are based on a review of the May 2003 draft Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Impact Statement on its proposed Modern Pit Facility (MPF) conducted by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER) in Takoma Park, Maryland. The plutonium “pits” to be made at the proposed facility are the triggers that initiate the explosion in modern multi-stage thermonuclear warheads and are similar to the plutonium explosive in the bomb that the United States used to destroy Nagasaki during the Second World War.

    Sites under consideration for the DOE’s Modern Pit Facility include the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Carlsbad, both in New Mexico; the Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina; the Nevada Test Site, 60 miles from Las Vegas; and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. At three of these sites (LANL, Carlsbad, and the Pantex Plant), one-third to one-half of the accidents analyzed for a plant capable of producing 450 pits per year (ppy) would lead to exposures in excess of the DOE guidelines for a member of the public. The maximum allowed exposure to a person offsite under the DOE guideline is 25 rem, which is 50 times the annual exposure limit to the population allowed from the normal operation of nuclear facilities. The most serious accident considered would lead to exposures from twice to nearly four times the DOE guideline depending upon the site.

    The DOE document claims that once a specific site is chosen, it will then determine how to bring it into compliance with the regulations. “It is unacceptable that the DOE has proposed a facility that would violate its own guidelines,” notes Dr. Brice Smith, a research scientist at IEER. “Without knowing the actual exposures that the DOE will eventually allow at each location following an accident, it is impossible to accurately compare the risk they pose to the public.”

    Additionally, the DOE report analyzes only a subset of the potential accidents that may occur at an MPF. Because the total risk from independent accidents is cumulative, the draft report offers no basis for determining the actual threat to the public at any of the proposed sights for pit production .

    However, it is not just accidents at an MPF that have the potential for serious human consequences. “Normal operation of a 450 pit per year facility would lead to average worker exposures in excess of the internal DOE recommended administrative standard at nuclear facilities,” notes IEER President Dr. Arjun Makhijani. In addition, an examination of the data tables presented in the draft report indicate that the DOE estimates that over a 40 year operating period roughly 9 workers will die due to radiation induced cancer. “This proposed plutonium explosives factory will be dangerous for its employees,” concluded Dr. Makhijani.

    The Modern Pit Facility is supposedly part of the DOE’s “Stockpile Stewardship Program” to maintain the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. But no problems that would materially affect the reliability of plutonium pits in the current U.S. arsenal are identified in the draft report or in the scientific literature. On the contrary, the results of current research indicate that aging of pits affects neither the safety nor the reliability of nuclear weapons. “Given the remarkably consistent and positive findings of studies concerning the lack of age-related damage in plutonium, there is no scientific justification for the claim that pits needs to be replaced anytime in the foreseeable future,” concluded Dr. Smith. “We have determined from our analysis that even the 20 pit per year capacity that the DOE hopes to have developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory by 2007 is likely to be unnecessary, to say nothing of a massive new facility,” adds Dr. Makhijani.

    In its discussion of the case for the MPF, the DOE document wraps itself in the cloak of “classified analyses.” In response, Dr. Makhijani noted that “following the closure of the Rocky Flats pit production facility in 1989 due to violations of health, safety, and environmental laws, the Department of Energy assured the public that classified analysis proved national security was at risk if the complex remained closed, however the country has done quite well without Rocky Flats for over a decade.”

    “Given the lack of any need for the MPF to maintain the current stockpile, the likely reason for its development will be to manufacture new pit designs for new types of weapons,” says Dr. Smith. “The production of new weapons such as the ‘mini-nuke’ and the ‘bunker-buster’ is a dangerous drift towards usable nuclear weapons that is in violation of U.S. commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” adds Dr. Makhijani. Dr. Makhijani also noted “it is highly unlikely, given current certification procedures, that pits of new designs would be mass manufactured for incorporation into the U.S. arsenal unless they were fully tested.” This consideration raises the likelihood of an end to the current U.S. nuclear test moratorium and the collapse of the international Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

    The final public hearing concerning plans to construct the new pit manufacturing facility is scheduled for today in Washington, D.C. Previous hearings have been held at locations near each of the five proposed sites throughout the summer.

    It is the conclusion of the IEER analysis that the “No Action Alternative” is the correct choice and that plans for the Modern Pit Facility should be scrapped.

  • The University of California & the Nuclear Weapons Labs: The Role of Academia in the Development of Nuclear Weapons

    Student Pugwash USA Educational Seminar
    “Nuclear Weapons: Science and Policy”
    July 13-17, 2003; American University; Washington, DC

    INTRODUCTION

    I am not a defense intellectual or degreed scientist. I am a young concerned citizen who recognizes patterns of aggression and violence done in may name and perpetrated by leaders of a country I call home. I imagine that many of you all fit a similar self-description simply based on your being here today. I thank you and commend you all for stepping outside of the matrix of corporate media, cold war theology, and public apathy. One of the mottos and mantras that I’m beginning to use with the young interns and volunteers at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is think for yourself, see for yourself, and help others. By being here today, you’re taking the crucial steps of gathering information toward thinking for yourself.

    Today’s theme, the role of academia and scientists in the development of nuclear weapons, is a large one. The increasing militarization of US colleges and universities is a national trend that influences the courses available to students, faculty hiring, the presence of military recruiters on campus, internship and fellowship opportunities, and potentially many aspects of your high school, undergraduate, graduate, professional, and adult lives. In the interest of time, I’ll focus my comments on the University of California system which along with such prestigious campuses as Berkeley, UCLA, and UCSB includes 2 pillars of the US nuclear weapons complex: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. These are massive institutions involved in cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary scientific research. Billions of dollars flow through them annually as do thousands of employees, including UC faculty and students. The individuals who make decisions regarding this contract are not faculty or students. UC has Regents which are essentially like a Board of Directors. For the most part, they are wealthy, influential people who have made significant financial contributions to political campaigns. The California governor appoints them; the state legislature approves them. They serve 12-year terms. It is easy to be overwhelmed and confused by the role these labs serve, but the key point to remember is that the lab’s historical and current core purpose involves the research and development of nuclear weapons.

    BASIC QUESTION & MYTHS

    So we have to ask ourselves is it appropriate for an institution of higher learning with the creed to nurture values and morals within its many students to be in the nuclear weapons business? To help you develop your own personal answer for that question, I want to share with you my list of 5 myths about the role of academia in nuclear weapons development. These are ideas that I’ve heard during UC Regents meetings, read in newspaper articles and lab reports, and heard expressed by lab representatives during panel discussions just like this one.

    #1 Public Service, Prestige, and National Security

    Many people believe that managing nuclear labs boosts UC’s status and prestige in comparison to other research institutions. This belief is based on the notion that nuclear weapons are vital to our national security. Also, the belief is based on the notion that UC performs a public or community service by managing nuclear labs. UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale who worked on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty delivered a lecture in February of last year titled “Rethinking National Security.” Based on his over 20 years of experience in the international peace and security field, he lectured on how the US has been hypocritical in our efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons while maintaining our own stockpile. I wonder what Carnesale has to say now that his university system is being considered as a site to develop new nuclear weapons? Whatever his answer, one way to refute the service and status myth is by drawing attention to the dangers and pitfalls of nuclear weapons development: the toxic waste by-products that we do not yet know how to store safely and that will be here for tens of thousands of years, the indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons damaging all life in their path whether military target or civilian population, and the many victims of the nuclear age, not just those who perished from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts and the hibakusha who survived the blasts and suffer from radiation exposure but also those who suffer from underfunded health care and public education systems and an overfunded military.

    Philip Rogaway is a professor in the department of computer science at UC Davis. This excerpt is from an article that appeared in the UC Davis student newspaper January 16, 2003:

    “…For years I have been troubled by the fact that the university I am a member of plays this unique role in the U.S. weaponry. I have always believed that the UC should terminate this role. Running weapons laboratories is at odds with the mission of an open institution of higher education, as the bulk of what the labs do is neither in the open nor education-related. Our stewardship of the labs is also inappropriate from the point of view that we are a community that spans a wide range of political orientations, ethical views and nations of citizenship. It violates UC Davis’ Principles of Community.

    A 1996 study by the University Committee on Research Policy concluded that our management of the weapons labs does not fulfill the conditions of appropriate public service. It advocated phasing out this role. The report was severely attacked by UC officials. Their objections generally ignored the central ethical question of whether it was appropriate for a university to manage U.S. weapons laboratories.

    The 1996 report was one of several that have been done over the years, consistently taking a dim view of our role in the labs. In 1990, 64 percent of faculty voted to phase out UC management of the weapons labs. In 1996, 39 percent of faculty voted to do so. Regardless, this is not a question in which UC faculty have any say, and the DOE contracts have always been renewed, regardless of faculty sentiment.

    Now Los Alamos and its UC management are again in the news. Amid FBI, DOE and Congressional investigations of widespread theft and fraud, UC President Richard Atkinson recently announced the resignation of Los Alamos’ Director John Browne and Deputy Director Joseph Salgado. Employees are accused of purchasing numerous personal items on government funds, and management is accused of dismissing those who had been investigating the incidents. The scandal is the third to hit Los Alamos in recent years… It has been reported that DOE Secretary Spencer Abraham is considering putting out for bid the UC’s contract to run Los Alamos, or even canceling it early. This would be a nice outcome, even if it should come to pass for the wrong reason…The question isn’t if we manage the labs poorly or well. We shouldn’t be managing weapons labs at all. It is unfit business for a university.”

    #2 Freedom of Academic Exploration

    When I think of universities, I think of places where ideas flourish, where you can explore concepts that may not seem to have immediate application and you’re free to be ahead of your time. Some people use this rationale to justify university-managed nuclear weapons research. Universities have an air of transparency, openness, and accountability which clash with the realities of classified, top-secret federally-funded weapons research.

    #3 Cash Cow

    There is the belief that the nuclear weapons labs bring in a lot of money. The figure is close to $3 billion, but these dollars stay at the labs. The university receives an administrative fee which pales in comparison to the total contract amount. The last I heard the figure for the administrative fee was close to $17 million. This point has a lot to do with concerns over rising student fees. The University of California is a public university system. The state and federal education budgets have a greater impact on student fees than whether or not UC manages nuclear weapons labs.

    #4 UC is better than a defense contractor

    Matthew Murray is the UC student Regent. His position allows for a student voice at the highest level of decision-making in the UC system. Last Friday, Matthew wrote an email on the nuclear topic to a group of students I work with:

    “…I should be fair and say right off that I detest nuclear weapons, I am despondent about our nation’s current attitude in engaging the international world, and I wish we could rid ourselves and the world of nuclear arms. That said, it doesn’t seem likely that that will happen any time soon, and I am currently inclined to think that I’d rather have UC managing the nation’s labs than another less qualified university, or even worse a private company, where notions of academic skepticism, peer reviewed research, and openness to the public are nowhere near as strong as in the university setting.

    That said, I do not think UC should compete for the labs no matter the circumstances. Our involvement with them has always been considered something we do as a public service and participating in a competition for their management would frame our relationship with the federal government in a different light, one that does not sit well with me.”

    I disagree with Murray on one simple point though – UC is not better than a defense contractor. As an institution that provides weapons developers with the smokescreen of academic integrity and the cheap labor of thousands of students, UC is a defense contractor. I understand where Murray is coming from in his statement about the abolition of nuclear weapons seeming far off; still, I find hope in his belief that UC should not bid to continue managing the development of nuclear weapons and that a nuclear weapons-free world is our ultimate goal.

    #5 Historical Momentum

    I have heard UC spokesman cite the reasoning of historical momentum to explain the UC-DoE contract. They are saying that because UC was there in the beginning, UC will always be there. This is by far the pro-lab supporters’ weakest argument, basically saying that people and institutions can’t change. Here is one example of an individual who changed his mind. His name is Joachim Piprek. He is a professor in UCSB’s Computer Engineering Department. This excerpt is from a letter dated March 20, 2003.

    “History has reached a turning point. The Bush administration has started an unprovoked and illegal war – against international law, against the outspoken will of the world community, and against the will of about half the American people, who openly opposed a war without UN mandate.

    Germany has started two terrible world wars which killed over 60 million people. Despite the fact that I was born ten years after the last one ended, I was never proud of being a German. My family lives in Dresden, a city that was almost completely destroyed in one night of allied bombing in 1945. More than 40,000 civilians were burned alive that night. I grew up with pictures of war and I was hoping that humankind will learn from history and that this will never happen again to anybody. War always kills innocent people, on both sides. Today, the memory of war is still alive in Europe and the vast majority of Europeans oppose this new war, no matter what their government says. As a German who came to the US ten years ago to live his dreams, I feel a strong moral obligation to stand up for peace, here and now.

    As many researchers in the US, I am involved in military research projects which pay for part of my current salary. These projects are financed by the Pentagon to ensure the superiority of US military technology. We now see very clearly that this technology will not be used to maintain peace but to wage unjustified and aggressive wars. I can no longer participate in such research in good conscience.

    I therefore declare that I will immediately stop my contributions to research reported to the Pentagon…I know that this decision will hurt my career, however, this is a small price to pay compared to the many lives of Iraqi citizens (50% children under 15) and US soldiers (100,000 body bags have been shipped by the Pentagon) as well as the lives of US citizens who will be killed in future terror attacks. All these lives and billions of our tax dollars are intentionally sacrificed by the Bush administration in order to gain access to Iraqi oil.

    Is this the American Dream?”

    CONCLUSION – THE URGENCY OF NOW

    As Nobel Laureate Joseph Rotblatt expressed last night, there have been significant changes and setbacks in nuclear weapons policy just within the last year. These setbacks involve efforts to resume nuclear testing and develop new low-yield tactical nuclear weapons, the stated intent to use nuclear weapons in an offensive capacity against named countries, and traditional nonproliferation language co-opted and used as justification to attack.

    In about 3 months, a new UC president, Richard Dynes, will begin his term. During Dynes term, UC will decide whether or not to compete to continue managing the Los Alamos National Laboratory. If UC chooses not to compete, they can send a clear message to the world that nuclear weapons development does not belong in a university setting. Living in California, I feel compelled to work on this UC-DoE issue. There may be a similar opportunity for you where you live. Let’s work together on this and honor the decades-long stand for peace by Pugwash!

  • Yes, We Need To Talk More About It!

    Bill of Rights: Amendment I
    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

    President Bush has dismissed already any other discussion regarding the “mistake” by the CIA for its misinformation on Saddam’s uranium mishap cited in his State of the Union.

    Several of his top aides herded to Sunday television shows stating: “End of story,”, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (ABC’s “This Week 7/13/03) and “The notion that the president of the United States took the country to war because he was concerned with one sentence about whether Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Africa is clearly ludicrous,” national Security adviser Condolezza Rice (CBS’s “Face the Nation” 7/13/03.)

    But simply a presidential order or the insistence of some officials of the Bush administration cannot erase this issue. The consequences of misleading a nation to go to war could be very serious. Therefore, if nothing is there to hide then nothing is there to fear of an investigation and open dialogue with the American people.

    Foolish errors are the cause of failures in the procedures that preceded the Iraq war. We must demand that action be taken to correct matters. It is a very simplistic excuse to blame the sole actions of the CIA. The mea culpa of CIA’s director George Tenet sounds too convenient, too easy. Suspicion grows with the quick “dismissal” of the whole affair. And it is not only the false accusations of Iraq’s seeking uranium in Africa for nuclear weapons, it is the failure to find the major excuse for this war: the weapons of mass destruction.

    The fundaments of the United States are based on a pure democracy and the respect of its people. We must be well informed because that way we will be able to act with assurance and courage according to that knowledge.

    Let’s not fear to raise questions and to demand explanations, let’s not forget the way the American revolutionaries acted in 1776, let’s not forget the Bill of Rights. We must not be afraid of being branded as disloyal. If the U.S. as a nation bows its head and accepts without questioning these scandalous acts then the U.S. will become a nation of sheep, pitiful and weak not deserving the heritage of so many generations that have sacrificed their lives on behalf of their fellow man.

    Let’s create a climate in which will flourish again the total trust of government and institutions. The flaws in the Bush administration are not the best cradles for that trust.
    * Ruben Arvizu is Director for Latin America of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The Bloody Lottery in Iraq

    The families of American soldiers in Iraq have a high chance to win a lottery; this one is not money or a nice gift but blood and loss of lives.

    Taking into consideration that there are about 148, 000 US servicemen and women in Iraq the odds that someone gets killed or wounded are much higher that the best expectations to win the state lottery. In other words, since May 1st when President Bush declared “that major combat had ended” more than 70 military families in the US have been “awarded” this news.

    The escalation of violence continues in the occupied Arab nation and there are no real signs that the situation will change for the better.

    With more information surfacing every day about the credibility of evidence from the Bush administration for the real causes for war, an investigation from the Congress is more likely to happen.

    Top officials of the Bush administration are now making statements that are exposing the deceit to have a pretext for the urgency of this war.

    The BBC comments: “In the United States, a recently retired State Department intelligence official said on Wednesday the Bush administration gave an inaccurate picture of Iraq’s military threat before the war and that intelligence reports showed Baghdad posed no imminent threat. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also said the United States did not go to war with Iraq because of dramatic new evidence of banned weapons, but because it saw existing information in a new light after the September 11 attacks. Weeks earlier, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz said the U.S. decision to stress the weapons’ threat as a reason for war was taken for “bureaucratic” reasons. “(“Bush under fire over Iraq claims”, 7/9/03)

    Congressman Dick Gephardt stated “President Bush’s factual lapse in his State of the Union address cannot be simply dismissed as an intelligence failure.”

    Is it really that bad the Intelligence services of the U.S. and the United Kingdom? It is possible to believe the unbelievable miscommunication and contradictions between powerful agencies such as the Secret Service, the CIA and the Pentagon? If that’s so then it is totally scary the thought of a nuclear war based on such “intelligence”.

    The American people and the world in general demand and deserve a thorough investigation to clear once and for all the political atmosphere that day by day becomes more rotten.

    Meanwhile, the wheel of misfortune continues turning in Iraq and new families will be informed of the loss of their loved ones.
    * Ruben Arvizu is Director for Latin America of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Unusual Course Suggests: Give Peace a Chance

    A Santa Paula school offers lessons on alternatives to violence, and teaches about historic activists such as Gandhi and King.

    Marisol Candalario learned plenty about the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam War and other military conflicts.

    But in her time as a public school student, the 18-year-old learned little about the nonviolent movements that also helped shape world history.

    She had never heard of Mohandas K. Gandhi. She didn’t know that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, or that a group of conscientious objectors subjected themselves, among other things, to medical experiments rather than fight.

    Addressing that educational imbalance is the purpose of a popular course at Renaissance High School in Santa Paula. In the class, “Solutions to Violence,” Candalario studied Gandhi and King and other peace leaders. But she also learned how to apply principles of nonviolence in her own life.

    “Before, I would confront people a lot,” Candalario said. “Now, I know that you don’t have to fight. You can just ignore them; who cares what they think?”

    Taught by Leah Wells, a peace activist and education coordinator for the Santa Barbara-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the class is funded through a federal grant from the 21st Century Community Learning Center.

    Renaissance, Santa Paula’s continuation high school, serves students who fell behind or had behavioral problems at the town’s mainstream campus.

    The semester-long elective class, which meets twice a week, has resulted in “a big difference in the students,” said former Principal Fernando Rivera, who recently moved to another assignment in Santa Paula.

    “They seem to have a different perspective on things, and we have had fewer fights on campus.”

    That is the driving idea behind peace education, which is taught in a smattering of public high schools and about 70 universities nationwide.

    The movement is “in its infancy,” said Colman McCarthy, founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Teaching Peace, and is not without controversy.

    McCarthy, who trained Wells, said peace educators often are the target of attacks from “right-wingers saying you are a commie pinko,” or from other faculty members who “think you’re in there propagandizing the kids.”

    “Some see it as ideology, as though the study of peace is promoted only by the left,” said McCarthy, a former Washington Post columnist who teaches the same course — as a volunteer — at high schools and juvenile detention centers in Washington, D.C.

    But he insists: “Peace education is not the left wing nor the right wing; it’s the whole bird.” It’s about finding solutions to all types of violence, McCarthy said, including domestic, environmental, military, economic, and violence toward animals.

    McCarthy wrote the curriculum and two textbooks used by Wells and others around the country.

    Wells, 26, is an activist who visited Iraq three times in the last two years in an effort to raise awareness about the damage United Nations sanctions were doing to the country. Her most recent trip was in February, weeks before U.S. and British forces invaded Iraq.

    Her students knew what she had done, and it was no secret that she opposed the war.

    But several students strongly supported the invasion, creating fodder for lively class debates. Wells said she never used the class as a personal soapbox, and students said they never thought she was preaching.

    “I can’t spout my beliefs,” Wells said. “If I did that, I’d be just as bad as anyone spouting their beliefs. I’m empowering them to be critical thinkers.”

    Still, many school boards shy away from such peace classes.

    “It is a controversial topic for school districts,” said Charles Weis, Ventura County superintendent of schools. “With pressure for more accountability in reading, math, science and history, few have time to divert their energy to something controversial.”

    Despite Ventura County’s generally conservative leanings, Weis said he has not heard complaints about Wells’ class. That is because she is “careful about not crossing the line” into proselytizing, he said.

    In Santa Paula, a working-class town that has suffered from gang violence, most students, teachers and parents welcome the attention to nonviolence.

    The curriculum — which includes readings, videos and essay writing — gets rave reviews, as does Wells’ easy, inclusive teaching style. Many students say the course will stand out as their favorite in their school careers.

    One day in class, Wells sat on a desk in front of about 15 students. Holding a stuffed ball made to look like a globe, she tossed it back and forth to reluctant students, urging them to share their views.

    It was near the end of the war in Iraq, and Wells led a discussion about letters that had been sent by teenagers at an all-girls school in Baghdad to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Some included drawings that included butterflies and doves as well as American characters saying, “We want oil.”

    “What did you think?” she asked, lobbing the globe toward 18-year-old Luis Manzo.

    “It was neat to hear their perspectives,” Manzo said. He wrote a letter to one of the girls, he said, “to let them know we don’t hate them — just the government does.”

    Added Katie La France, 18: “We want them to know we’re kids, just like them.”

    Students talked about the difference between “hot violence” and “cold violence,” and “good trouble” and “bad trouble” — all part of Wells’ curriculum.

    An example of hot violence would be a fistfight; poverty is a form of cold violence, students explained. An example of bad trouble would be stealing, they said, while you could get in “good trouble” by turning in a friend who was using drugs.

    Student Michael Llamas, 18, said the class changed his perspective on the world, and got him thinking about things that otherwise never would have crossed his mind.

    “People aren’t familiar with peace, but they are familiar with violence,” Llamas said.

  • “Bring ‘Em On?”

    Featured on Counterpunch.com

    A Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush’s Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops

    In 1970, when I arrived at my unit, Company A, 4th Battalion/503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, in what was then the Republic of Vietnam, I was charged up for a fight. I believed that if we didn’t stop the communists in Vietnam, we’d eventually be fighting this global conspiracy in the streets of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I’d been toughened by Basic Training, Infantry Training and Parachute Training, taught how to use my weapons and equipment, and I was confident in my ability to vanquish the skinny unter-menschen. So I was dismayed when one of my new colleagues–a veteran who’d been there ten months–told me, “We are losing this war.”

    Not only that, he said, if I wanted to survive for my one year there, I had to understand one very basic thing. All Vietnamese were the enemy, and for us, the grunts on the ground, this was a race war. Within one month, it was apparent that everything he told me was true, and that every reason that was being given to the American public for the war was not true.

    We had a battalion commander whom I never saw. He would fly over in a Loach helicopter and give cavalier instructions to do things like “take your unit 13 kilometers to the north.” In the Central Highlands, 13 kilometers is something we had to hack out with machetes, in 98-degree heat, carrying sometimes 90 pounds over our body weights, over steep, slippery terrain. The battalion commander never picked up a machete as far as we knew, and after these directives he’d fly back to an air-conditioned headquarters in LZ English near Bong-son. We often fantasized together about shooting his helicopter down as a way of relieving our deep resentment against this faceless, starched and spit-shined despot.

    Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the ‘non-existent’ Iraqi guerrillas to “bring ’em on,” the first image in my mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who’d been away from home for 8 months. He participated in the initial invasion, and was told he’d be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw. He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. He’s been eating MRE’s three times a day, when he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like preservatives. Mosquitoes and sand flies plague him in the evenings, and he probably pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping straight through. He and his comrades are beginning to get on each others’ nerves. The rumors of ‘going-home, not-going-home’ are keeping him on an emotional roller coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory, confusing, and often stupid. The whole population seems hostile to him and he is developing a deep animosity for Iraq and all its people–as well as for official narratives.

    This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree studio at the ‘non-existent’ Iraqi resistance.

    This de facto president is finally seeing his poll numbers fall. Even chauvinist paranoia has a half-life, it seems. His legitimacy is being eroded as even the mainstream press has discovered now that the pretext for the war was a lie. It may have been control over the oil, after all. Anti-war forces are regrouping as an anti-occupation movement. Now, exercising his one true talent–blundering–George W. Bush has begun the improbable process of alienating the very troops upon whom he depends to carry out the neo-con ambition of restructuring the world by arms.

    Somewhere in Balad, or Fallujah, or Baghdad, there is a soldier telling a new replacement, “We are losing this war.”
    * Stan Goff is the author of “Hideous Dream: A Soldier’s Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti” (Soft Skull Press, 2000) and of the upcoming book “Full Spectrum Disorder” (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He retired in 1996 from the US Army, from 3rd Special Forces. He lives in Raleigh.