Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • A Message to Soka University on its Second Anniversary

    Good afternoon and congratulations on Soka University’s second anniversary of Dedication Day!

    My mentor David Krieger, the founder and President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation asked me to join the celebration here today and relay his best wishes for continued growth as an institution, family, and positive force in society.

    I am the Youth Outreach Coordinator with the Foundation. By your presence here today, I imagine that many of you share our vision for a world at peace, free from the threat of war and free of weapons of mass destruction. It is evident now more than ever that we must make this vision a reality.

    Soka models what is right in higher education. In emphasizing world citizenship, Soka stands in direct contrast to the so-called top institutions of this country which partner with defense contractors to develop missile guidance systems. These institutions seek Pentagon dollars to develop bombs, investing in mass destruction over mass education. The increasing militarization of America’s universities has a negative impact on the availability of faculty positions, selection of majors open to students, surrounding physical environments, and the core integrity of the learning experience. This increasing militarization has international repercussions.

    When you talk with the people involved in weapons research. They believe they are performing a community service. They’ll tell you that historical momentum justifies their work. They’ll say, “Many of these contracts date back to the 1940’s. How could time be wrong?” They believe their work is prestigious. Select students within these universities recognize what is at stake and do not accept such flawed logic. These students have organized in opposition to the militarization trend. They need our help.

    I ask that the Soka community stand side-by-side with these students at UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, University of Arizona, University of Texas, and elsewhere. Stand with them and hold true to the values of world citizenship, nonviolence, and equality. Project the good energy we feel here today to the backward corners of the world where humanity hangs by a thread and freedom fighters are suppressed.

    At the Peace Foundation, our motto is waging peace. There are 3 steps to waging peace: educate yourself, take action, and educate others. Waging peace is maintaining an awareness of US foreign policy, joining an organization working for peace, and communicating with our elected officials toward holding them accountable for their actions. Those are 3 simple things we can all do today: educate yourself, take action, and educate others.

    Congratulations and thank you Soka for all you do!

  • Ten Lessons of the Iraq War

    Ten Lessons of the Iraq War

    There are always lessons to be learned after a war. Often governments and pundits focus only on lessons having to do with military strategies and tactics, such as troop deployments, engagement in battles, bombing targets and the effectiveness of different weapons systems. There are, of course, far bigger lessons to be learned, and here are some of the principal ones from the Iraq War.

    1. In the eyes of the Bush administration, the relevance of international organizations such as the United Nations depends primarily upon their willingness to rubberstamp US policy, legal or illegal, moral or immoral.

    2. The Bush Doctrine of Preemptive War may be employed against threats that have no basis in fact.

    3. The American people appear to take little notice of the “bait and switch” tactic of initiating a war to prevent use of weapons of mass destruction and then celebrating regime change when no such weapons are found.

    4. A country that spends $400 billion a year on its military, providing them with the latest in high-tech weaponry, can achieve clear military victory over a country that spends 1/400th of that amount and possesses virtually no high-tech weaponry.

    5. Embedding journalists with troops leads to reporters providing only perspectives sanctioned by the military in their reports to the public. It is analogous to the imprinting of ducklings.

    6. The American people can be easily manipulated, with the help of both embedded and non-embedded media, to support an illegal war.

    7. An imperial presidency does not require Congress to exercise its Constitutional authority to declare war; it requires only a compliant Congress to provide increasingly large sums of money for foreign wars.

    8. It is far easier to destroy a dictatorial regime by military might than it is to rebuild a country as a functioning democracy.

    9. If other countries wish to avoid the fate of Saddam Hussein and Iraq, they better develop strong arsenals of weapons of mass destruction for protection against potential US aggression.

    10. In all wars it is the innocent who suffer most. Thus, Saddam Hussein remains unaccounted for and George Bush stages a jet flight to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, while Ali Ismaeel Abbas lies in a hospital bed without his parents and brother, who were killed in a US attack, and without his arms.

    The most important lessons of the Iraq War may be as yet unrevealed, but there is a sense that American unilateralism is likely to continue to alienate important allies, while the triumphalism of the Bush administration is likely to taunt terrorists, making them more numerous and tenacious in their commitment to violent retaliation.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).
    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)

    I must however caution you on any suggestion that Iraq didn’t have WMD. I’m 100% confident they will eventually be found….even if they have to be planted by US special opps. Personally, from all I’ve read and followed prior to 9-11 and Iraq war I have no doubt that Saddam was developing biological weapons throughout the 90’s. When you suggest Iraq didn’t or doesn’t have them you risk losing credibility. You got too many other important and accurate points to make. I’d hate to think others will discredit you or your ideas because of one factual error.

    Chuck, Washingotn DC

    Author’s Reply: I appreciate your comments and concern. The administration did seem fairly certain before the war that they could identify where the weapons were, which has proven to be bogus. If the US were to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq I don’t think that should be discrediting. Best regards. David
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    I think there will be an 11th lesson: that in an era of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of non-governmental militias like al Qaeda and many others, there is no deterence nor is there any defense against them without addressing them respectfully to negotiate a cease-fire, like the UK did with the IRA. To learn this lesson, I fear the U.S. public will require losses orders of magnitude larger than 9-11 . . . likely what Japan or Germany had to endure during WWII . . . unless there is another way for the public to learn that we just increased, in the attack on Iraq, the likelihood of nuclear/radiological attacks against U.S. cities. Any ideas? (I’m looking but don’t know any.)

    Kelly, USA
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    I found your Ten Lessons of the War quite apt. However, I think item #4 is a bit ambiguous. The experience of the Vietnam war suggests that while it is true, as you write, that “a country that spends $400 billion a year on its military, providing them with the latest in high-tech weaponry, CAN achieve clear military victory over a country that spends 1/400th of that amount and possesses virtually no high-tech weaponry,” victory is not necessarily a foregone conclusion!

    Walter, USA

    Author’s Reply: You are right. I wonder, though, whether the high-tech weaponry of today along with strategies of “decapitation” might not have changed the conditions of the Vietnam War. I’m not sure. I was surprised, though, by how quickly the Iraqis capitulated.

  • Remarks by U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd “A Troubling Speech”

    In my 50 years as a member of Congress, I have had the privilege to witness the defining rhetorical moments of a number of American presidents. I have listened spellbound to the soaring oratory of John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. I have listened grimly to the painful soul-searching of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

    Presidential speeches are an important marker of any President’s legacy. These are the tangible moments that history seizes upon and records for posterity. For this reason, I was deeply troubled by both the content and the context of President Bush’s remarks to the American people last week marking the end of the combat phase of the war in Iraq. As I watched the President’s fighter jet swoop down onto the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, I could not help but contrast the reported simple dignity of President Lincoln at Gettysburg with the flamboyant showmanship of President Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

    President Bush’s address to the American people announcing combat victory in Iraq deserved to be marked with solemnity, not extravagance; with gratitude to God, not self-congratulatory gestures. American blood has been shed on foreign soil in defense of the President’s policies. This is not some made-for-TV backdrop for a campaign commercial. This is real life, and real lives have been lost. To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the President to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech. I do not begrudge his salute to America’s warriors aboard the carrier Lincoln, for they have performed bravely and skillfully, as have their countrymen still in Iraq, but I do question the motives of a desk bound President who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech.

    As I watched the President’s speech, before the great banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished,” I could not help but be reminded of the tobacco barns of my youth, which served as country road advertising backdrops for the slogans of chewing tobacco purveyors. I am loath to think of an aircraft carrier being used as an advertising backdrop for a presidential political slogan, and yet that is what I saw.

    What I heard the President say also disturbed me. It may make for grand theater to describe Saddam Hussein as an ally of al Qaeda or to characterize the fall of Baghdad as a victory in the war on terror, but stirring rhetoric does not necessarily reflect sobering reality. Not one of the 19 September 11th hijackers was an Iraqi. In fact, there is not a shred of evidence to link the September 11 attack on the United States to Iraq. There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was an evil despot who brought great suffering to the Iraqi people, and there is no doubt in my mind that he encouraged and rewarded acts of terrorism against Israel. But his crimes are not those of Osama bin Laden, and bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not bring justice to the victims of 9-11. The United States has made great progress in its efforts to disrupt and destroy the al Qaeda terror network. We can take solace and satisfaction in that fact. We should not risk tarnishing those very real accomplishments by trumpeting victory in Iraq as a victory over Osama bin Laden.

    We are reminded in the gospel of Saint Luke, “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” Surely the same can be said of any American president. We expect, nay demand, that our leaders be scrupulous in the truth and faithful to the facts. We do not seek theatrics or hyperbole. We do not require the stage management of our victories. The men and women of the United States military are to be saluted for their valor and sacrifice in Iraq. Their heroics and quiet resolve speak for themselves. The prowess and professionalism of America’s military forces do not need to be embellished by the gaudy excesses of a political campaign.

    War is not theater, and victory is not a campaign slogan. I join with the President and all Americans in expressing heartfelt thanks and gratitude to our men and women in uniform for their service to our country, and for the sacrifices that they have made on our behalf. But on this point I differ with the President: I believe that our military forces deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and not used as stage props to embellish a presidential speech.

  • Vieques, The Paradise that We Can Recover

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.

    Lost among the news of wars and destruction that monopolize the reports on TV and the headlines of newspapers, the official announcement of the closing of the US Navy base on the island of Vieques does not have to go unnoticed. This is an enormous triumph for Puerto Rico that for decades had an unequal fight to recover its rights for this beautiful island and to remove the inherent dangers of military bases.

    In November of 1999 I had the opportunity to visit the island, as an observer of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. We received the invitation from several NGO’s, among them the Committee for Rescue and Development of Vieques and Pax Christi. Nearly without exception Puerto Rico was united in their demands for closing the U.S. Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in the town of Ceiba.

    Governor Sila Calderón joined the jubilant celebrations of the islanders this past May first and said: “This is a moment of great happiness and profound emotion, together, we achieved the end of the bombing.”

    But this initial joy cannot hide a very serious problem that Vieques has inherited, the enormous contamination that the Navy left after more than 60 years of naval and aerial military exercises. It will require a lot of time, effort and money so that the beautiful beaches can be used by the thousands of visitors eager to enjoy the beauties which, in a previous article I called “a lost paradise or a paradise to be lost.”

    The remains that pile up in the shallow waters of the shores represent a serious danger; bombs not exploded, twisted irons and innumerable chemical polluting agents. Also, lost in the middle of the dense vegetation lie thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands of unexploded shells and live ammunition. Among them are the remains of Depleted Uranium projectiles used in exercises in March of 1999 that the US Navy has admitted using. In that same year the Puerto Rican government at the request of the Vieques Municipal Assembly and the Committee for Rescue and Development of Vieques prepared an epidemiological study to investigate why Vieques suffers a 27% higher cancer rate than the rest of Puerto Rico.

    This is the pitiful heritage that we humans leave on our blue planet that houses us all: Remains of instruments for death tested on a site full of life. The names continue piling with each new conflict: Iraq, Bosnia, Chechnya, Vietnam, Afghanistan. Every year thousands of children and adults are killed or dismembered in accidental encounters with live ammunition and mines that lie in holes or ravines, in shallow waters of rivers and lakes, waiting to catch new victims.

    The government of Puerto Rico will have to be very attentive to verify that the EPA and the Department of Interior add Vieques to the Superfund list of contaminated sites intended for cleanup and to eliminate the dangers that the Navy leaves after its long stay.

    Let us celebrate this symbolic triumph of a small island that reminds us that our common home, the Earth, must be loved and protected instead of hated and destroyed.
    *Ruben Arvizu is Director for Latin America of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Vieques, el Paraiso que Podemos Recuperar

    Click here for the English version.

    Enmedio de las noticias de guerras y destrucción que acaparan los noticieros de la tv y los encabezados de los diarios, el anuncio oficial del retiro de la Marina norteamericana de la isla de Vieques no debe pasar desapercibido.

    Este es un enorme triunfo para el pueblo de Puerto Rico que durante décadas ha librado una lucha desigual por recuperar sus derechos en esa hermosa isla y alejar los peligros inherentes a las bases militares.

    En noviembre de 1999 tuve la oportunidad de visitar la isla, como observador de la Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, atendiendo la invitación de varias Organizaciones no Gubernamentales, entre ellas el Comité Pro Rescate y Desarrollo de Vieques y Pax Christi. Casi sin excepción Puerto Rico estuvo unido en sus demandas por el cierre de la Base Naval Roosevelt de la Marina norteamericana localizada en el pueblo de Ceiba.

    La gobernadora Sila Calderón encabezó el pasado primero de mayo las jubilosas celebraciones de los isleños y dijo: “Este es un momento de enorme felicidad y profunda emoción, Juntos logramos el fin de los bombardeos.”

    Pero esta inicial alegría no oculta un gravísimo problema que Vieques ha heredado; la enorme contaminación que deja la Marina tras más de 60 años de prácticas militares navales y aereos.

    Pasará un buen tiempo, muchos esfuerzos y dinero para que las hermosas playas puedan ser utilizadas por los miles de visitantes que quieren ya disfrutar las bellezas de lo que, en mi reportaje anterior llamé un paraíso perdido o un paraíso por perderse.

    Los desechos que se apilan en el fondo marino no muy lejos de la costa representan un grave peligro; bombas sin explotar, hierros retorcidos e innumerables contaminantes químicos. Igualmente, perdidos entre la densa vegetación yacen de miles o tal vez cientos de miles de casquillos y municiones aún sin explotar. Entre esos restos se encuentran proyectiles de uranio empobrecido utilizados en prácticas en marzo de 1999 y cuyo uso fue admitido por fuentes oficiales de la Marina americana. En ese mismo año la asamblea de la municipalidad de Vieques y el Comité Pro Rescate y Desarrollo había solicitado al gobierno de Puerto Rico un estudio epidemológico ante el hecho de que la población de Vieques sufre casi un 30% más de cáncer que el resto de los pobladores de Puerto Rico.

    Es la huella casi indeleble que los humanos dejamos en el planeta azul que nos alberga a todos. Restos de instrumentos para la muerte que fueron probados en un sitio pletórico de vida. Los nombres se acumulan con cada nuevo conflicto, llámese Irak, Bosnia, Chechenia, Vietnám o Afganistán. Todos los años miles de niños y adultos pierden la vida o miembros de sus cuerpos al encontrarse accidentalmente con municiones vivas que yacen en agujeros o surcos, en aguas poco profundas de rios y lagos, esperando cobrar una nueva víctima.

    El gobierno de Puerto Rico tendrá que estar muy atento para comprobar que la Agencia de Protección al Medio Ambiente y el Departamento del Interior cumplan con su promesa de limpiar en todo lo posible a Vieques de los contaminanrtes y peligros que deja la Marina después de su larga estadía.

    Celebremos este simbólico triunfo de una pequeña isla que nos recuerda que nuestra casa común, que es la Tierra, debe ser amada y protegida en lugar de odiarla y destruirla.

    *Rubén Arvizu es Director para América Latina de la Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • After the Iraq War: Thinking Ahead

    The battlefield outcome of the Iraq War has produced another military victory for United States forces, reinforcing the outcomes of the Gulf War (1991), the Kosovo War (1999), and the Afghanistan War (2001). But the military outcome in this Iraq War was never in doubt, and any triumphalism seems wildly premature for several reasons. Even in Iraq it is not at all clear at this point whether the sequel to warfare will be a smooth transition to a peaceful and democratic Iraq, a descent into civil war, or an episodic underground resistance consisting of violence against American forces regarded as “occupiers,” not “liberators.” It is too early to tell whether there will be wider adverse regional effects, which could include a spread of war to Syria and possibly Iran, and growing instability in such critical countries as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.

    It is likely that the Palestinians will be even further victimized by the impact of the Iraq War, shifting world attention away from the oppressive tactics that are daily employed by the Israelis, and likely giving Tel Aviv a mandate to continue to refuse a peace process that is fair to both sides. More remotely, yet still well within the horizon of plausibility, is some destabilizing change in the fragile Indo-Pakistan encounter that could easily spiral out of control, producing yet another war between these two antagonists, which would be the first hot war fought between two nuclear weapons states. Already, the evidence of deepening anti-Americanism around the world is reinforcing anxieties about a renewed surge of extremist violence directed at Americans and US interests.

    These risks, while substantial, are conjectural, and may be averted to some extent. What is a virtual certainty at this point is the damage done to international law, the United Nations, and to world order more generally. This damage is particularly serious as it relates to the most significant of all international undertakings, the struggle to regulate recourse to war by a combination of international norms, procedures, and institutional responsibility. What the Bush administration did was to defy this undertaking, setting a precedent for others, and beating a unilateralist path for itself that is intended to free the US Government from these constraints in the future. Such neoconservative hawks as Richard Perle, John Bolton, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, who dominate policymaking in the Bush administration, have never made a secret of their contempt for international law and the United Nations.

    Turn Toward International Lawlessness

    This turn toward international lawlessness in US foreign policy is particularly destructive of world order because the United States, as the world’s most powerful state, sets the rules of the game followed by other states. It is hardly surprising, yet revealing, that the Indian Foreign Minister, Yashwant Sinha, has pointed out that India has “a much better case to go for preemptive action against Pakistan than the United States has in Iraq.” Washington would lack all credibility if it objected to recourse to preemptive war by India against Pakistan. In this sense, the diplomatic costs of unilateralism could turn out to be immense.
    But beyond this, there is at risk the whole American tradition of leading the struggle for the rule of law in world politics that goes back to the world order idealism of Woodrow Wilson in the aftermath of World War I. It was the United States, despite some ebb and flow of national sentiments, that has until recently maintained its role as the most consistent champion of a framework of legal constraints to the use of force in international affairs. It was the US Government that took the initiative, along with France, to produce the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 that outlawed recourse to war except in instances of self-defense and established the legal foundation for treating aggressive war as a crime against peace. It was on this basis that German and Japanese leaders were punished after World War II at the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials. And it was the United States that was the architect of the UN Charter that prohibited all uses of international force that could not be justified as instances of self-defense against a prior armed attack. True, it was also the US, and especially Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that insisted on the veto being given to the leading countries in 1945, ensuring that the UN could not pretend to control the vagaries of geopolitics. In this sense, we must not overstate the ambition of the UN, nor overlook the long record of leading countries pursuing their strategic interests outside the Organization. Both the US and the Soviet Union during the four decades of the Cold War consistently used force without bothering to uphold the constraints of the UN Charter or prevailing views of international law.

    Some commentators were hopeful that the end of the Cold War would reestablish the sort of consensus among leading states that existed during the anti-fascist struggle in World War II. These observers interpreted the support for the Gulf War as grounds for optimism, showing that the permanent members of the Security Council could agree, and that the international community could act collectively to reverse the effects of aggression, in that instance restoring the sovereignty of Kuwait. The Kosovo War, undertaken without UN authorization, set the stage for the Bush Doctrine of Preemption, although it did have the regional backing of NATO and did seem necessary to prevent a repetition of the ordeal of ethnic cleansing that had occurred just four years earlier in Bosnia. In a sense, this level of agreement within the UN was generally supportive of the initial American response to the September 11 attacks, acquiescing in the initiation of the Afghanistan War.

    Iraq War a Breaking Point

    Recourse to war against Iraq was a breaking point, with neither a supposed humanitarian emergency (Kosovo) nor an alleged defensive necessity (Afghanistan) being present. In retrospect, this loosening of UN restraints on the use of force in both of these contested instances undoubtedly paved the way for a frontal assault on the UN approach to warmaking during the Iraq debate. Even so, the US Government, despite using all of its diplomatic muscle, could not persuade a majority of the Security Council, much less France, China, and Russia, that recourse to war against Iraq was justified. At the same time, given that war has ensued, the emancipation of the Iraqi people from an oppressive regime seems like a positive step provided that a new form of dictatorship does not ensue and that Iraq recovers its political independence without enduring civil war or a prolonged, and obviously already resented, American military occupation. But granting this benefit is not meant to suggest that the Iraq War was justified, or that its effect is after all good for the UN, the region, and the world.

    Some respected commentators, most notably the Dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, Anne-Marie Slaughter, have tried to turn an illegal war into an argument for UN reform. Slaughter proposes a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing force if three conditions are met: (1) weapons of mass destruction are present or imminent; (2) the target country has a deplorable human rights record; (3) the target country has displayed an aggressive intent. In effect, this would retroactively convert the Bush Doctrine into UN Law, and would provide a spurious legal foundation for wars against such sundry countries as Syria, Iran, China, Israel, Pakistan, the United States, and many others!

    We disagree with Slaughter’s proposal. Our review of the effects of the Iraq War suggests to us an opposite priority. Instead of attempting to reformulate the definition of illegal war under the UN Charter, the international community needs to reiterate its confidence in UN authority in matters of peace and security and in the Charter framework of legal constraint. It is our responsibility as citizens of a democracy to insist that our own government adheres to international law in its foreign policy. Only the rejection of the Bush Doctrine of Preemption as dangerous and arrogant, as well as illegal and damaging to the UN and world order, can bring hope that the peoples of the world can avoid the terrifying and obscene prospect of a condition of perpetual war. This prospect now casts a dark and ominous cloud over our human future.

  • An Urgent Call for the Total Abolition of Nuclear Weapons

    The human family is entering the final stages of a crucial decision-making process. We have been considering for fifty years, and especially since 1989, the following question. Will we eliminate nuclear weapons or will every capable nation seek to have its own? In 1998, India and Pakistan decided that they needed nuclear weapons to ensure their independence. There are 35 countries in the world with significant nuclear energy programs but without nuclear weapons. If even a few of these become nuclear powers, the nuclear disarmament option would virtually vanish and the chances of nuclear weapon use would increase. The present leadership of the United States is pursuing the development of small, “useable” nuclear weapons, and has publicly reserved the right to use them in such specific situations as “in the event of surprising military developments.” The difference in the US approach to Iraq versus North Korea only strengthens the conviction of some nations that the only hope for independence lies in possession of nuclear weapons.

    We stand today on the brink of hyper-proliferation and perhaps of repeating the third actual use of nuclear weapons. As the mayor of Hiroshima, I can assure you that the path we are walking leads to unspeakable violence and misery for us all. And as the mayor of Hiroshima, I am well aware that we must do more than talk about this danger. For over fifty years, mayors of Hiroshima have been raising the alarm about nuclear weapons. For 30 years, this august body has been fine-tuning the wording and debating the implications of the NPT. Hiroshima celebrated in 2000 when the final document that emerged from the review conference included an “unequivocal undertaking” on the part of nuclear-weapon states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals. And yet, we are forced to conclude that the United States, the prime mover in all things nuclear, relentlessly and blatantly intends to maintain, develop and even use these heinous, illegal weapons.

    Given US intransigence, other nuclear-weapon states cling to their weapons, and several non-nuclear-weapon states appear to be re-evaluating the need for such weapons.

    Therefore, it is incumbent upon the rest of the world, the vast majority of the international community, to stand up now and tell all of our military leaders that we refuse to be threatened or protected by nuclear weapons. We refuse to live in a world of continually recycled fear and hatred. We refuse to see each other as enemies. We refuse to cooperate in our own annihilation.

    Almost immediately after the atomic bombing, most survivors performed a miraculous feat of psychological transformation. They channelled their pain, grief, and rage away from any thought of revenge and toward creating a world in which no people anywhere need suffer their fate. Having witnessed the ultimate consequence of animosity, they deliberately envisioned a world beyond war in which the human family learns to cooperate to ensure the wellbeing of all. In fact, they believed for decades that the human family was evolving slowly but steadily in that direction.

    Now, however, they see that those who stand to lose wealth, prestige and control in a peaceful world are determined to maintain high levels of fear and hatred. They see gullible publics being persuaded that only a powerful military backed by nuclear weapons can protect them from their enemies. They see the world diving headlong toward a militarism far too reminiscent of the militaristic fascism that commandeered their nation prior to World War II.

    We cannot sit silently watching it happen. We must let our leaders know, first and foremost, that we demand immediate freedom from the nuclear threat. Nuclear weapons are heinous, cruel, inhumane weapons that threaten our entire species. Nothing could be more obvious than the illegality of these weapons, and they should obviously be banned. Therefore, on behalf of the human family, we demand a complete and total ban on all nuclear weapons everywhere. We demand that all nuclear weapons be taken off of hair- trigger alert immediately and all nuclear weapons deployed on foreign territory be withdrawn. We demand that no more time be wasted postponing or extending the timeline for nuclear disarmament. It is high time for all recognized nuclear-weapon states to join in a multilateral process of nuclear disarmament. We further demand that de-facto nuclear-weapon states terminate their programs and join the NPT as non-nuclear states.

    We demand that all nuclear weapons be dismantled and destroyed and the radioactive material disposed of as quickly and as safely as possible, with concomitant dismantling of all dedicated delivery systems, production facilities, test sites, and research laboratories. We demand that all nations throw their doors unconditionally open to UN inspectors mandated to ensure that all nuclear weapons and all programs to make such weapons are accounted for and dismantled. All states should declare all relevant activities and make their own satellites and other national technical means available to those inspectors. Citizen verification should be supported by domestic laws requiring publication of relevant information and granting of full legal protection to whistle-blowers.

    To summarize, we demand here and now that, when the States Parties review the NPT in 2005, you take that opportunity to pass by majority vote, regardless of any nations that may oppose it, a call for the immediate de-alerting of all nuclear weapons, for unequivocal action toward dismantling and destroying all nuclear weapons in accordance with a clearly stipulated timetable, and for negotiations on a universal Nuclear Weapons Convention establishing a verifiable and irreversible regime for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.

    “Impossible,” some will say. “The nuclear powers will never agree.” But just as plants can get along fine without human beings, people are ultimately the power behind their leaders. The time has come for the people to arise and let our militarist, competitivist leaders know where the real power lies. The time has come to go beyond words, reason and non-binding treaties. The time has come to impose economic sanctions on any nation that insists on maintaining nuclear weapons. The time has come to use demonstrations, marches, strikes, boycotts, and every non-violent means at our disposal to oppose the destruction of millions of our brothers and sisters, the destruction of our habitat and the extermination of our species. The time has come to fight, non-violently, for our lives.

    All of us in this room today, blessed with extremely high levels of prosperity and education, are duty-bound to educate the rest of the population in our countries about the nuclear danger. We must inform them and mobilize them for their own protection. It is our responsibility to launch a massive, grassroots campaign that will make it clear that the people of all nations will accept only leaders who undertake unequivocally to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    “The military industrial complex is too powerful,” some will say. I have no illusions about what happens when the people seek to correct their rulers. It took a hundred years and a terribly bloody war to free the slaves in the US, then another century to free them from the terror of lynchings and the humiliation of segregation. It took 30 years for Gandhi to free India from British rule. It took 15 years to stop the Vietnam War. Bottom-up change takes time and great sacrifice, but, unfortunately, people of moral and spiritual vision must again take up the struggle. The abolition of nuclear weapons is no less important and no less just than the abolition of slavery. We are not just fighting a technology or a weapon. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, we are fighting nuclear weapons in our own minds. We are fighting the very idea that anyone could, for any any reason that he feels legitimate, unleash a nuclear holocaust. We are fighting the idea that a small group of powerful men should have the capacity to launch Armageddon. We are fighting the idea that we should spend trillions of dollars on military overkill while billions of us live in dire, life-threatening poverty.

    Our immediate target is nuclear weapons, but our long-term aim is a new world order. In this new world, no man is foolish enough to kill or be killed to defend his master’s wealth or ego. We seek a world in which no man, woman or child goes to bed wondering whether he or she will live through the hunger, pestilence, or violence of the next day; a world in which we look around this room and see not murdering, thieving enemies against whom we have to defend ourselves but brothers and sisters on whom our own safety, security, survival and enjoyment depend.

    You will soon be hearing about a new campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, supported by the World Conference of Mayors for Peace, which represents 539 cities and over 250 million people around the world, will work with anyone willing and everyone to help design, develop, and implement this campaign. Please help join us. Please support the campaign in any way you can. Let us work together for the sake of our children and grandchildren. Let us ban nuclear weapons in 2005.

  • Honoring the Legacy of Cesar E. Chavez

    Unveiled in September 2002, a commemorative stamp honoring the legacy of Cesar E. Chavez was made available for purchase recently. The stamp features rows of lush green farm land in the background and the smiling side-profile of the legendary labor organizer and nonviolence practitioner in the foreground. Cesar’s motto of “si se puede” (it can be done) speaks to all of us who face obstacles, set backs, and/or doubts. His deeds set a shining example of overcoming odds, helping others, and affirming life. It is fitting to remember him now with April 23rd, 2003 being the 10th anniversary of his passing.

    Paul Chavez, Chairman of the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation, shared these thoughts at the unveiling ceremony, “My father’s teachings of compassion, justice and dignity still ring true almost a decade after his passing. The Cesar E. Chavez commemorative stamp is a powerful vehicle to introduce a new generation of Americans to his vital legacy, teaching them that through determination and hard work they can improve their own lives and communities.”

    It is not enough to remember him though. We must continue his work. For example, the vision and mission of the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation is to maximize human potential to improve communities by preserving, promoting and applying the legacy and universal values of civil rights leader Cesar E. Chavez. Their youth outreach programs emphasize service-learning, which combines community service and academic coursework to address needs in your immediate community. Visit their website for resources to organize your own event honoring Cesar Chavez: http://www.cesarechavezfoundation.org/.

    Read an essay about Cesar Chavez written for our Peace Heroes Essay Contest: https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/articles/peaceheroes/cesar_chavez.htm. Do something!

  • Chavez Stamp a Labor of Love

    It has been a whirlwind week for Latino activist Jack Nava, one that will culminate today after a mile-long march in honor of the late labor leader Cesar Chavez.

    At a small park in downtown Oxnard, the Ventura resident plans to recount his part in an eight-year campaign to persuade the U.S. Postal Service to issue a commemorative stamp featuring the United Farm Workers union co-founder.

    He will tell of helping to collect more than 25,000 signatures for the cause, circulating a homemade petition at college campuses, civil rights marches and other community events.

    And he will talk about swelling with pride last week at the ceremony he attended in downtown Los Angeles at which the 37-cent stamp was released to the public.

    “A lot of hard work went into this,” said the 65-year-old retired barber, who stooped in the fields long before the UFW helped secure such conveniences as toilets and drinking water for farm workers.

    “I didn’t read about Cesar Chavez in a book; I lived it and I know what he went through,” Nava said. “I thought he was a great man and I wanted to do something to help everybody remember him.”

    Unveiled in September, the stamp depicts a smiling Chavez against a backdrop of vineyards, symbolic of the strikes and boycotts Chavez organized to gain better working conditions for farm workers.

    The postal service receives tens of thousands of requests each year for commemorative stamps, but only a fraction make the cut. More than 75 million Chavez stamps were printed following a nationwide campaign spearheaded by the Glendale-based Cesar E. Chavez Foundation.

    Foundation spokeswoman Annie Brown said it was supporters such as Nava who made the idea a reality.

    “It wasn’t one person in particular responsible for pushing this through, but I think Jack Nava’s efforts are representative of what we’ve seen across the country,” Brown said. “What we find particularly encouraging is that 10 years after Cesar’s passing, people are still moved by his legacy to want to carry on and do these things.”

    Nava said he was first moved to do his part at a parade in East Los Angeles shortly after Chavez’s death in 1993. He marched in the parade holding a homemade sign asking whether there was any interest in a Chavez stamp.

    The positive reaction spurred his signature-gathering campaign.

    “I was one of the first to sign,” said Denis O’Leary, an El Rio schoolteacher and spokesman for the Cesar Chavez Celebration Committee. “It has been his mission to get the stamp. I give Jack all of the credit in the world.”

    In albums and portfolios, Nava has documented the drive with letters, photos and resolutions supporting the effort. Among Nava’s most precious documents is a 1995 letter from the postal service — sent in response to a letter of his — informing him that a Chavez stamp was under consideration.

    Nava continued gathering signatures and support until word came last year that the postal service would be issuing the stamp.

    “Man, I really couldn’t believe it,” said Nava, who spoke Friday about the effort to community leaders in Oxnard.

    “After all that work, after all of those times of having doors slammed in my face, it finally paid off.”

  • Regrouping After the War: NAPF Peace Education Coordinator Leah Wells Addresses the Campus Antiwar Network

    Last night I spoke with Kathy Kelly, who just returned from Iraq the day before as a steady member of the Iraq Peace Team, about her experiences there over the past few months, and where she sees the movement headed here in the United States. She and I spoke about an article she wrote for the Electronic Iraq website, an heartwrecking story about a mutual good friend of ours in Iraq. Kathy decided to leave Iraq after her conversation with our friend and driver, Sattar, who is quite possibly the kindest person I have ever met. Reading her account of his ordealduring the U.S.-led invasion (http://electroniciraq.net/news/692.shtml) made me shudder to think what my friend had endured over the past month.

    Squeamish by nature, Sattar had spent weeks working in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in a hospital, volunteering for overworked, overstretched doctors, nurses and hospital staff. He did everything from moving patients to inserting IV needles.

    Another member of the Iraq Peace Team, Cathy Breen mentioned that it will probably be easier to transport Americans across the Iraqi border now. He said, “You’re right. This is your country now.”

    Currently in Iraq, the American military, the American government and American corporate interests all control nearly every facet of life forthe Iraqis. Americans have almost single-handedly destroyed the country, and now want to profit from rebuilding it. UNICEF takes grant money from USAID, and the contractors must go through the U.S. government for permission to rebuild, renovate or rehabilitate any sector of Iraqi society. In essence, we control everything.

    And what is the peace movement to do? Before and during the war, bright ideas were a dime a dozen for stopping the invasion. Everyone had a spin on what would work best. And now, we are left at an uncomfortable juncture. We did not stop the war, and we have to figure out what to do now.

    It seems that American interests from the military to the government to the corporations to even the peace movement have emerging ways of telling Iraqis how things should be in their country now.

    What if we paused a moment, took a deep breath, and gave the Iraqis some space to allow them themselves to discern what would be best for them. We should give ordinary Iraqis some time to take stock of their lives and make decisions of their own before deciding that we, too, even the well-intentioned peace movement, have control over the direction oftheir lives. We should also encourage the United Nations and its international bodies to play an appropriate role in the reconstruction of Iraq as well as in global disarmament and peacekeeping.

    Rather than focusing on the external, on what is going on in Iraq, we should be focusing internally on what is going on socially and politically in our own cities and states. As citizens of the United States, what do we have the most authority over? Our country and our lives.

    Recently I spent some time at the Earthsong community near Na’alehu, Hawaii. I had gone there to finish writing and organizing a book on peace education that I began working on in mid-2001. The entire Earthsong community is sustainable. The women staying there urinate in the yard and use compost toilets for solid waste. All buildings are powered by solar energy, and the copious garden space provides lush abundance of fruits, vegetables and grains. It was quite a rude awakening for me; I initially whined for the nearest Hilton. I am not accustomed to this lifestyle and found it rather disorienting.

    Staying at Earthsong ended up being the most valuable lesson in peace education for me. I got my own radical, revolutionary course in peace education and ustainability in confronting the crucial inner peacework that makes the outer peacework possible. Since the war started, I havefelt ornery, angry, useless, agitated, sullen and just about every emotion in the range between frustration and rage. In a word, I have been unbalanced.

    Perhaps this is a familiar experience? Has anyone ditched family or friends in the past two months in order to do “the work” for preventing, opposing or ending the war? Has anyone been rundown, sick or suffered poor nutrition? Has anyone been in at least one major fight? Anyone missed sleep?

    What if we realized that our inner lives all the aforementioned questions actually mirrored all the mess, craziness and dysfunction ofthe external world, i.e. everything we’re working against. What if allthat we oppose and disavow actually exists right inside of us, and in order to effectively confront the greater evils of the world, we have to begin in our own space and consciousness?

    Rather than saying, “George W. Bush is hateful, ignorant and greedy,” we could turn the statement around and examine where each of us individually is hateful, ignorant and greedy.We need to acknowledge and honor our own lives and processes, being fully congruent in our thoughts and actions. Integrity means that we don’t put on the charade of being a happy, cheerful peacemaker out in the world and then return home grumbly and gnarly spreading peace in the world and hate in our homes.

    We should be mindful of the power of our thoughts, words and actions. We need to be aware of ourselves and of the need to keep balance and not let ignorance govern our behavior. And we should be especially concerned about our greediness, our over-consumptive lives and mindless wasteful practices. How can we begin to model what we would like to see happen in the world on a wider scale if we are not putting the “reduce, reuse, recycle” principle into practice. Living sustainably, calling for peace and justice in our own homes and neighborhoods is making the first step. Founder of the Catholic Worker communities, Dorothy Day once said that those who have more thanthey need are stealing from the poor.

    Yet, as I recall my experience in Hawaii, I heard many people who are living in beautiful conditions say that they could never return back tothe mainland after experiencing the liberation of living sustainably. While it’s important for them to live their truth, it makes me concerned for the areas where more people need to hear the message of peace through self-inquiry, mutual causality rather than blame and sustainable living practices.

    In general, there’s an overabundance of activists and “progressives” living in well-informed, cushioned, safe communities, especially in urban hubs. A whole country of consumption, of Wal-Marts and Rite-Aids, of CostCo’s and Big Lots, needs to be exposed to the reality that not onlyoil is a precious resource, but arable land, access to clean water and fresh air are as well. More people with experience in sustainable living need to fan out and bring these once-lost-now-regained practices to places where people are living most unsustainably. People in Colorado, in Southern California, in the Bible Belt, the Deep South and especially Texas need to hear about compost, about community garden space and about practices that make individuals and the planet healthier.

    A redefining moment for the peace movement

    As a group, the antiwar mobilization did not stop the invasion of Iraq,but we certainly made it much more costly on a political level, both nationally and internationally. Our challenge now is to transform the momentum from opposing this war to addressing concerns in our country, drawing attention to our ailing domestic economy, to the obliterated education budgets in so many states, and to the welfare of our citizens young, old, differently-abled and veterans.

    We need to be looking at the roots of what made this war possible.We need to examine why the military is such an attractive option for young people, a stable, well-funded and respectable institution that provides an alternative to the fact that upon graduation, many students have no viable skills or direction in an ever-shrinking job market. Because there is no living wage in our country, we need to be fully cooperating with the labor movement to ensure that jobs pay well enough and utilize students’ skills and talents that they are not subsumed into the ranks of the military simply to pay for school or have some boundaries which should have been set and supported by their home communities.We need to examine why education is bearing the brunt of budget cuts. A systematically undereducated country is a malleable, gullible country. An ignorant population is easily swayed by propaganda and fear, troublingly influenced not by books and words but by images and sounds. Having given up much of our critical thinking responsibility to powerful elected or appointed decision-makers or their corporate media mouthpieces, many American citizens cannot tell truth from fiction and are paralyzed in the chasm between.

    We need to examine why we do not have people in office who represent people like us, people who have our interests at heart. By and large, we do not have people in office who represent us because by and large, we are not running for office! One-third of the elections in our country go uncontested every year, a free and natural platform in our democratic process that we do not take advantage of. To some extent, people who want to create change that will bring about balance and peace to the world must learn to play the political game and learn how, in our own integrity, we can play to win. A few months ago, I was moved by a speech by Boondocks cartoonist Aaron McGruder who told the UC Santa Barbara audience that we need to run candidates for office who will win. We laud candidates like Kucinich, Wellstone and Ted Kennedy but are reluctant to run for public office and attempt to make an impact like they have.

    (Michael Moore ran for the School Board during his Senior year of high school, got elected and eventually played a role in the Principal’s early resignation.)

    The Weapons Industry: Getting to the roots of the problem

    The technology used to wage the war, from start to finish, were researched, developed and built here in the United States. Our number one moneymaking export is weapons. The United States supplies nearly three-fourths of the weapons used in conflicts going on worldwide. The industry which produces weapons of mass destruction has its home in the United States.

    The nuclear weapons industry is maintained and overseen by the University of California Regents who have had exclusive contracts with the United States Department of Energy for the past fifty years. The UC Nuclear Free campaign, a project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, seeks to shed light on the UC’s complicity in the research, development, manufacturing and testing of nuclear weapons since their inception. It is immoral and inappropriate that universities who are charged with intellectual growth are also the sole responsible parties for producing weapons of mass destruction.

    Yet these are not faceless entities. There are real people, real graduate students and real professors, real administrators with real families who are just doing their jobs, the same as the employees at Boeing, Raytheon, McDonnell-Douglas and TRW. They are corporations who employ people not in a void but rather in a context, in their contexts as a professor needing tenure, as a graduate student needing funding, as a secretary needing stability and health insurance which exist for their livelihood.

    We cannot begin to transform, or even shut down, the weapons manufacturing industries without directly impacting people who work there and who do not set the policies.

    It’s conventional to hammer on the top of the power triangle, exposing the CEO’s, the shady business practices and the sweetheart deals for their blatant war profiteering. CorpWatch is a crucial instrument in this endeavor.

    It’s radical to get to the base of the power triangle, the workers in their average lives, and start organizing and influencing the employees!

    Oil and Power

    One of the primary reasons among many that this invasion took place, to no one’s surprise, is oil. Evidenced by the contracts secured by Halliburton and Bechtel, the government and corporate insiders positioned themselves to make a killing, so to speak, on their oil-based opportunities.In revising our critique of the motivations of the Bush administration, we should also take a look at how we depend on their nouveau conquistador policies. How many of us drove here to this gathering? Flew here? Carpooled? Rode bicycles? Used biodiesel? Used public transportation? We should be especially observant of our own hypocrisyand our dependence on petroleum products, not only on fuel but on plastics as well.

    Natural resources like oil are at the heart of global conflicts. Water and coastline space are already limited resources as the ocean levels rise and access to clean water is more scarce. These issues certainly will float to the surface in the next few years.

    The war was not only about oil, though. Regional control and domination served as powerful motivators for this conflict as well, and the increasing connections between Iraq and the struggle for a free Palestine cannot be overlooked. Already interconnected, another layer of overlap between these places is the context of occupation: Palestine by Israel,and Iraq by the United States.

    What to do about Iraq?

    With respect to Iraq itself, we have our work cut out for us. First and most importantly, the sanctions regime which our State Department said would remain in place “as long as Saddam Hussein is in power or until the end of time” are still punishing the people of Iraq. What use do economic sanctions serve, and is there a bigger global lesson to be learned fromthe devastating effects that have killed more than a million and a halfpeople in Iraq since 1990? The issue of the sanctions, contrary to some opinions, is not obsolete. The recalcitrant sanctions are most relevant now, when the goalpost established by the State Department has been reached.

    In many of the news reports that I have read recently, especially through independent media, the common sentiment of the Iraqi people is tepid graciousness for their “liberation” and scalding desire for the rapid exit of U.S. presence in their country. The Iraqi people want the United States out of their country. They are furious that U.S. soldiers and tanks protected the Ministry of Oil and let looters and ransackers destroy food stocks, precious artifacts and civilian infrastructure. Just recently a group of Iraqi antiwar, anti-occupation protesters were killed by our military for demonstrating. Is this the free and democratic Iraq the Bush administration envisioned? Apparently not.

    As I said before, we should not give up on the United Nations as a powerful intermediary in creating and maintaining peace in the Middle East, and we should not give up on ourselves. After the first Gulf War, much of the peace movement felt frustration and chagrin for the lack ofsuccess in stopping the war, and effectively went to sleep on the issue until 1996 when many realized that the war had not ended. No-Fly-Zones and sanctions were a debilitating after-war presence.

    At the termination of the flagrant bomb-dropping and battlefield conflict in Iraq, we have some very strong leverage points as a movement. We can keep the momentum by working on what’s doable, like focusing internally on our own political pressure points and singling out people from our communities who helped to orchestrate the war and are complicit in maintaining the occupation of Iraq.

    For example, the University of California students present at the gathering today have a powerful ally in the Middle East. Her name is Barbara Bodine, and she is the UC Alumni Regent and has been active in the UC Santa Barbara community. As a regent, she has influence over the UC’s oversight of the nuclear weapons program as well as being one of the central administrators in Iraq under newly-appointed Iraqi interim leader Jay Garner. The UC students are her constituents, and we should be able to find some important things to say to her and to lobby for. Where are the places where we can apply pressure here? The options range from importing technology necessary to determine if depleted uranium is present in the body, to ensuring that student exchanges are able to take place.

    The young people of Iraq could possibly be our greatest concern in establishing a plan for the peace movement. In Iraq, 46% of the population is under age 16. What are their needs, and what is our accountability to them? Two wars and more than twelve years of sanctions later, policies enforced by our government have been met with unfailingcompliance by the American people who are ignorant of the experiences of average Iraqis. Our inaction and ignorance have helped to kill more than half a million kids in Iraq and imprison millions of others in the sequestered hell of a nation under sanctions. These kids have died because, quite frankly, they could not afford to live. The dinar devalued from 3.3 to 3,000 dinar to 1USD in the span of twelve years. Health care and education have become luxuries in a country where public welfare was once the envy of the Middle East.

    In February when I was in Iraq for an international student gathering, I presented students and teachers with the Campus Antiwar Network statements as well as the antiwar resolutions from many other American college campuses. One gap that my presence was able to bridge is the gaping disparity of cross-cultural communication between Iraqi and American students. In early March, students from UC Santa Barbara participated in a radio dialogue with students from Baghdad University for nearly two hours. They spoke frankly about the pending war, as well as shared jokes, poetry and personal insights about philosophies on life.

    As students, one of your most powerful platforms is making the connections between education and militarism, i.e. the need for funding schools and for teaching peace. Those of you who are called to be teachers should examine the vast amount of resources available to make educating for peace an integral classroom component. The military recruiters on campus should get no more access to students than is allowed under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and certainly should be balanced with other peopleoffering careers with a conscience and peaceful alternatives to military service.

    So what’s the big picture? We have our work cut out for us. I am grateful for your hard work and organizing to make this student antiwar conference happen, and it will be a long process. I hope you are in this for the long haul.

    While I was in Hawaii, I had the time to look through a book of quotes I’ve compiled over the past few years. One in particular by June Jordan stood out to me because of its appropriateness: We are the people we’ve been waiting for.

    Thank you.