Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • “Unlimited Damage”

    Originally Published in The Telegraph, Calcutta

    There are genuine fears that the anticipated US war on Iraq might lead to such an explosion of hostility to the US that somewhere down the line over the next few years or decades nuclear weapons might be used by terrorist groups or by the US itself. Such a prognosis no longer seems unreal. The world remains very much under the nuclear shadow. Barring the first few years after the end of the Cold War (when genuine steps towards actual nuclear disarmament and not just arms management were being made) in the post-Cold War period now unfolding, the dangers of nuclear war are even greater, albeit different, from what they were during that past. Then the justified fear was of a global holocaust. Now it is of a regional or ‘limited’ nuclear war or exchange.

    Supporters of nuclear weapons in India do not want to believe this. On the contrary, they want to use the example of that Cold War past, as the reassurance that we need not fear the use of nuclear weapons now. Deterrence assured peace then, so it will do so now! Actually, the world came close to nuclear use on a number of occasions during the Cold War especially in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. Nuclear peace was not the result of deterrence but much more because of the existence of a nuclear taboo established by the very horror of what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki 57 years ago. Despite US governments contemplating the use of nuclear weapons during the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as on other occasions, the White House was fully aware that even the American public would not condone such use except in circumstances where the homeland territory itself was threatened.

    The longer this taboo lasted – and credit here must go to the much derided peace movements and to the general public sentiment that viewed these instruments of war as uniquely evil – the more difficult it became to break the taboo. Now, it is a very different situation. There are four possible contexts in which this taboo might finally be broken. Moreover, was this to happen the world would not come to an end. There would most likely not be a nuclear winter and much of the advanced and prosperous world would escape the consequences of these regional or ‘limited’ holocausts were they, as most likely, to take place in the ‘third world’.

    As much as the Indian bomb lobby, in particular, might wish to deny it, the first scenario of such possible use involves South Asia and the India-Pakistan face-off. The US and the USSR were not territorially contiguous. They did not have a foundational dispute (like Kashmir) existing from their very inception as independent states. They never suffered from the growing ascendance of communal or religious extremist forces promoting the kind of hatreds and demonizations of the ‘other’ that are so prevalent in South Asia today. They never had direct conventional wars, or the near-wartime situations that belong to the history of India-Pakistan relations and which create the most favorable contexts for escalating hostilities to the nuclear level. Their respective military-technology systems were never as ramshackle as those in South Asia, that make the chances of an accidental triggering of nuclear exchanges so much greater here.

    There are three possible positions one can take regarding the prospects of a nuclear war in South Asia arising from an India-Pakistan conventional military conflict escalating into a nuclear exchange. The first view, widespread outside India and Pakistan among both pro nuclearists and anti-nuclearists, is that such an exchange sometime in the future between the two countries is almost inevitable. A second view is that the danger of this is so small it is negligible. This is certainly the position of most of those in India who supported India going nuclear. Interestingly, among Pakistani supporters of the bomb there is a greater degree of pessimism with a greater proportion, who even as they support Pakistan’s acquisition of the bomb, are fearful that there could well be a nuclear exchange between the two countries. The difference in perspectives between these two bomb lobbies is not difficult to understand. Pakistan’s tests in 1998 were a reaction to India’s tests. The Pakistan bomb has always been India-specific motivated by fear of India. India’s tests, however, were not motivated by fear of Pakistan (no matter what the occasional rhetoric) but was motivated by more grandiose visions of enhanced global and regional status and the desire to be taken more seriously as a major power. Prospects of growing regional insecurity or nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan have always been more casually dismissed on the India side. There is, of course, a third position that is far and away the most sober one – the possibility of a nuclear exchange is not negligible nor inevitable but in-between; that is to say, it is a real-case scenario, not just a worst-case one, and that its likelihood varies depending on how serious conjunctural tensions are between the countries

    The second context in which a ‘limited’ or regional nuclear conflict might break out is easy enough to visualize. India and Pakistan have ‘got away’ with having nuclear weapons. This inspires others. In a few more years, Iran could well do the same and this would certainly be followed by open declaration of nuclear status by Israel dramatically raising nuclear dangers in the Middle East, with nuclear-capable countries like Egypt aiming to follow suit. Does anyone, even among those worshipping at the altar of nuclear deterrence, think the Middle East would become safer were this to happen?

    In the third scenario, terrorists attack the US with a ‘suitcase’ nuclear bomb or a dirty bomb (explosive dispersion of radioactive materials but no nuclear chain reaction) or attack a nuclear reactor plant. Such is the mind-set of the US elite and much of its population after September 11, that the first would be virtually certain to lead to a serious nuclear retaliation somewhere by Washington, while even the second or third kind of terrorist attack might push it to break the taboo against use of tactical nuclear weapons.

    In the fourth scenario, the US deliberately initiates the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The US today is much more aggressively unilateralist in its behavior and nuclearly ambitious than ever before. Its nuclear policies and practical preparations (e.g. the Ballistic Missile Defense systems) aim at establishing a unilateral dominance over all other countries; at developing a range of tactical weapons, even mini- and micro-nukes; at extending their possible use (against selected countries deemed to have biological and chemical weapons); at completely blurring the distinction between such weapons and conventional ones. The latest Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) makes both part of the same military operational strategy to support general US foreign policy perspectives and ambitions.

    There are a great many powerful people in and around the US government who want to break the taboo against use of nuclear weapons since these would be ‘confined’ to places far away from the homeland and against forces that have no capability to retaliate against it. As for the threat of a possible nuclear terrorist attack against the US, the prior use of tactical nuclear weapons against some perceived enemy is, itself, seen as providing the most powerful deterrent example to prevent such an attack happening in the future.

    Short of again creating a disarmament momentum, it will be folly to think that over the next 57 years, nuclear weapons will not be used.

  • Nonviolence Timely Topic At College

    On the same day Vice President Dick Cheney urged a military strike against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, students in a Moorpark College classroom were discussing philosopher William James’ “The Moral Equivalent of War.”

    The students, enrolled in a new four-week Philosophy of Nonviolence course, joined in guest lecturer John Birmingham’s discussion, which compared James’ essay to what it means to be a patriot.

    “War is romantic because it conjures up ideals of honor and value,” Birmingham said. “Even in academics, those who are less inclined to be militaristic will list being involved in World War II on their resumes.”

    The course is the only one of its kind in the Ventura County Community College District. Both Ventura and Oxnard colleges have a number of philosophy classes, including ethics, logic, introduction to philosophy and some focusing on Western and Eastern religions.

    Students meet Tuesdays and Thursdays for a couple of hours to discuss the works and thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi, existentialist Albert Camus, naturalist Henry David Thoreau, Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh and philosopher William James.

    Moorpark College professors are brought in as guest speakers to lead discussions on topics relating to those works, while philosophy professor Janice Daurio oversees the program.

    The class was the brainchild of 20-year-old Gazal Humkar, a Muslim from Simi Valley who has been very active in the college’s Muslim Students Association and Philosophy Club.

    She got the idea after leafing through an old college catalog, which contained a similar course.

    “It needed to be taught and I persuaded Dr. (Janice) Daurio to teach the class,” Humkar said. “My hope is that I will look at different aspects and try to lead a life in which I promote human understanding and tolerance and that everyone in the class does the same.”

    An instructor at the college since 1994, Daurio said the timing of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks combined with an increasingly violent society give proof that the nonviolence class is a must at Moorpark.

    “We live in a violent society. People are not only violent in obvious ways but in subtle ways, too. There’s a lack of civility and manners … of common courtesy, disrespectful to people,” Daurio said.

    Only by community building, such as volunteerism and club participation, can society begin to turn itself around, she said.

    The course includes A Celebration of Life event from 10 a.m. to noon Sept. 11 in the college’s Performing Arts Center. The two-hour event will feature speakers; a geography presentation; a dramatic presentation of “Profiles in Grief,” taken from the New York Times series; and a lecture by Leah Wells, founder of Peace Education in Nuclear Age.

    On Sept. 10, Maha Hamoui, founder of the Islamic Education Foundation, will give a talk from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center.

    For more information, call 378-1400.

  • The Troubling New Face of America

    Originally Published in the Washington Post

    Fundamental changes are taking place in the historical policies of the United States with regard to human rights, our role in the community of nations and the Middle East peace process — largely without definitive debates (except, at times, within the administration). Some new approaches have understandably evolved from quick and well-advised reactions by President Bush to the tragedy of Sept. 11, but others seem to be developing from a core group of conservatives who are trying to realize long-pent-up ambitions under the cover of the proclaimed war against terrorism.

    Formerly admired almost universally as the preeminent champion of human rights, our country has become the foremost target of respected international organizations concerned about these basic principles of democratic life. We have ignored or condoned abuses in nations that support our anti-terrorism effort, while detaining American citizens as “enemy combatants,” incarcerating them secretly and indefinitely without their being charged with any crime or having the right to legal counsel. This policy has been condemned by the federal courts, but the Justice Department seems adamant, and the issue is still in doubt. Several hundred captured Taliban soldiers remain imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay under the same circumstances, with the defense secretary declaring that they would not be released even if they were someday tried and found to be innocent. These actions are similar to those of abusive regimes that historically have been condemned by American presidents.

    While the president has reserved judgment, the American people are inundated almost daily with claims from the vice president and other top officials that we face a devastating threat from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and with pledges to remove Saddam Hussein from office, with or without support from any allies. As has been emphasized vigorously by foreign allies and by responsible leaders of former administrations and incumbent officeholders, there is no current danger to the United States from Baghdad. In the face of intense monitoring and overwhelming American military superiority, any belligerent move by Hussein against a neighbor, even the smallest nuclear test (necessary before weapons construction), a tangible threat to use a weapon of mass destruction, or sharing this technology with terrorist organizations would be suicidal. But it is quite possible that such weapons would be used against Israel or our forces in response to an American attack.

    We cannot ignore the development of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, but a unilateral war with Iraq is not the answer. There is an urgent need for U.N. action to force unrestricted inspections in Iraq. But perhaps deliberately so, this has become less likely as we alienate our necessary allies. Apparently disagreeing with the president and secretary of state, in fact, the vice president has now discounted this goal as a desirable option.

    We have thrown down counterproductive gauntlets to the rest of the world, disavowing U.S. commitments to laboriously negotiated international accords. Peremptory rejections of nuclear arms agreements, the biological weapons convention, environmental protection, anti-torture proposals, and punishment of war criminals have sometimes been combined with economic threats against those who might disagree with us. These unilateral acts and assertions increasingly isolate the United States from the very nations needed to join in combating terrorism.

    Tragically, our government is abandoning any sponsorship of substantive negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. Our apparent policy is to support almost every Israeli action in the occupied territories and to condemn and isolate the Palestinians as blanket targets of our war on terrorism, while Israeli settlements expand and Palestinian enclaves shrink.

    There still seems to be a struggle within the administration over defining a comprehensible Middle East policy. The president’s clear commitments to honor key U.N. resolutions and to support the establishment of a Palestinian state have been substantially negated by statements of the defense secretary that in his lifetime “there will be some sort of an entity that will be established” and his reference to the “so-called occupation.” This indicates a radical departure from policies of every administration since 1967, always based on the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories and a genuine peace between Israelis and their neighbors.Belligerent and divisive voices now seem to be dominant in Washington, but they do not yet reflect final decisions of the president, Congress or the courts. It is crucial that the historical and well-founded American commitments prevail: to peace, justice, human rights, the environment and international cooperation.
    * Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta.
    © 2002 The Washington Post Company

  • Looking Back at September 11th

    Looking Back at September 11th

    As we approach the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, it is worth reflecting on how little has been accomplished and how much has been lost in the past year. We have demonstrated that our military machine is powerful and can smash poor countries farther back into the stone age, but we are not capable of finding Osama bin Laden, nor of putting an end to terrorism. We have demonstrated that civil liberties can be curtailed in the effort to combat terrorism, but our airports seem no safer today than they were on the day of the terrorist attacks.

    We have an administration committed to perpetual war, an administration busy seeking new targets for attack. We have a new doctrine of “pre-emption,” one that the Bush administration is pushing to engage in “regime change” in Iraq, with little regard for the consequences. In the past year, the Bush administration has become even more disdainful of international law than it was previously. The administration seeks cooperation only on its own terms, and primarily for our wars on terrorism, on drugs and on the Bush-designated “axis of evil.” When it comes to arms control and disarmament, sustainable development and environmental protection, and support for human rights, the Bush administration is AWOL.

    Some wonder how September 11 may be remembered in American history. I think it is likely to be remembered, at least shorter term, as the day that Americans were forced to face their own vulnerability, the same vulnerability that most of the world experiences daily. It may also be remembered as the day that opened the door to Orwell’s 1984 becoming the American reality the day that the Bush administration assumed the role of Big Brother. September 11 may be remembered as the day that initiated a headlong thrust towards trading our civil liberties for vague promises of security, and the day we received in return only the prospects of a permanent state of war.

    Longer term, how posterity will remember September 11 will depend entirely on our ongoing response to it. If we continue attempting only to seek out terrorists to pound with our military force, the events of September 11 will mark a turning to ultimate disaster, to the undermining of global security and the security of the American people. September 11 brought out an immense display of American nationalism and flag-waving, and the anniversary of the attacks will undoubtedly bring out more of the same. This hyper-nationalism and its militaristic manifestations are dangerous reflections of our national insecurity.

    Following September 11, the world was at first tremendously sympathetic to America for our loss, but that sympathy has by now mostly been replaced by apprehension and anger. The administration’s reliance on military force, its undermining of international law in treaty after treaty, and its failure to provide leadership toward a more peaceful and equitable world have demonstrated arrogance and disrespect for the world’s people. If the United States does not change its policies and use its enormous power to build a more equitable world, there are likely to be more tragedies like September 11 in our future.

    If, on the other hand, the events of September 11 were to result in Americans realizing the need for our leadership to achieve a new cooperative global order, rooted in international law, to solve the vast array of critical problems in our world such as poverty, environmental devastation, human rights abuses and the threat of weapons of mass destruction then these terrorist attacks will be remembered as a terrible but critical wake-up.

    Judging from our approach to date, there are few signs that America has awakened to the need for this kind of positive leadership. We have not yet begun to explore diplomatic and cooperative paths to change, nor the deeper question of why the attacks occurred. Rather, we have become more isolationist and unilateralist, more focused on ourselves to the exclusion of the rest of the world.

    The “regime change” that is needed most in the world is not by war in Iraq, but by peaceful means in the United States. This regime change, by means of the ballot, would bring far more security to the American people and the people of the world than toppling Saddam.

    The American people are challenged as never before to bring an end to terrorism by supporting policies fulfilling the promises of democracy and dignity for all in our troubled world. This will require not only regime changes, but also sea changes in our thinking and actions. It must begin with ordinary citizens having the courage to speak out clearly, forcefully and repeatedly about the dangerous militaristic and authoritarian direction that our country is taking under the Bush administration.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Statement Opposing War Against Iraq

    We are firmly opposed to waging war against Iraq.

    The rush to war against Iraq violates the spirit and letter of the US Constitution, as well as disregards the prohibitions on the use of force that are set forth in the UN Charter and accepted as binding rules of international law. The proposed war would also have dangerous and unpredictable consequences for the region and the world, and would likely bring turmoil to the world oil and financial markets, and might well lead to the replacement of currently pro-Western leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia with militantly anti-American governments.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation opposes on principle and for reasons of prudence, the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, by any country, including, of course, Iraq. Our position is one of support for the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a temporary expedient, while a good faith effort is being made to achieve the overall abolition of nuclear weapons through a disarmament treaty with reliable safeguards against cheating. Unfortunately, at present, no effort to achieve nuclear disarmament is being made.

    At the same time, the acquisition of nuclear weaponry, prohibited to Iraq by Security Council resolution, is not itself an occasion for justifiable war. After all, the United States, along with at least seven other countries, possesses, and continues to develop such weaponry. There is no good reason for supposing that Iraq cannot be deterred from ever using such weapons, or from transferring them to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. The government of Iraq, notwithstanding its record of brutality and regional aggression, has shown a consistent willingness to back down in the face of overwhelming force, as it did in the Gulf War and during the subsequent decade.

    It is necessary to take seriously the possibility that al Qaeda operatives could gain access to weaponry of mass destruction, and would have little hesitation about using it against American targets. Unlike Iraq, al Qaeda cannot be deterred by threats of retaliatory force. Its absence of a territorial base, visionary worldview, and suicidal foot soldiers disclose a political disposition that would seek by any means to inflict maximum harm. The US government should guard against such risks, especially with respect to the rather loose control of nuclear materials in Russia. Going to war against Iraq is likely to accentuate, rather than reduce, these dire risks. It would produce the one set of conditions in which Saddam Hussein, faced with the certain death and the destruction of his country, would have the greatest incentive to strike back with any means at his disposal, including the arming of al Qaeda.

    The recent hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not provide an occasion for public debate, as the witnesses called accepted the premise of a regime change in Baghdad, disagreeing only with respect to the costs and feasibility of a war strategy. No principled criticism of the strategy itself was voiced, and thus the hearings are better understood as building a consensus in favor of war than of exploring doubts about the war option. As well, it is regrettable that the hearings paid no attention to the widely criticized punitive sanctions that have had such harsh consequences on Iraqi civilians for more than a decade.

    Granting the concerns of the US government that Saddam Hussein possesses or may obtain weapons of mass destruction, there are available alternatives to war that are consistent with international law and are strongly preferred by America’s most trusted allies. These include the resumption of weapons inspections under United Nations auspices combined with multilateral diplomacy and a continued reliance on non-nuclear deterrence. This kind of approach has proved effective over the years in addressing comparable concerns about North Korea’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.

    We are encouraged by the reported opposition to the proposed war by important US military leaders and most US allies. We urge the American people to exercise their responsibilities as citizens to join in raising their voices in opposition to waging war against Iraq.

  • Policies Rooted In Arrogance Are Certain To Fail

    Policies Rooted In Arrogance Are Certain To Fail

    These are difficult times for peace. Since the Bush administration assumed power in the United States, there has been a steady beating on the drums of war accompanied by a systematic undermining of the foundations of international law. The September 11th terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon bolstered the Bush administration’s plans to secure US global military dominance through increased military budgets, deployment of missile defenses, development of more usable nuclear weapons and the weaponization of space. Congress has largely acquiesced in supporting these plans.

    The United States has always held to a double standard with regard to nuclear weapons. This double standard was given legal form in the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in which five countries were designated as nuclear weapons states (United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France and China), and the rest were designated as non-nuclear weapons states. The latter agreed in the treaty not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for a promise by the nuclear weapons states to pursue good faith negotiations to achieve nuclear disarmament.

    Throughout the life of the NPT, the non-nuclear weapons states have called for more tangible signs of progress toward achieving the nuclear disarmament promise of the nuclear weapons states. They were successful in 2000 in getting the nuclear weapons states to commit unequivocally to undertake the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. However, the nuclear weapons states, and particularly the United States, have broken this promise as well as a string of other promises with regard to their NPT obligations.

    Now the United States has gone even further. It has developed policies for the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. In its secret 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which was leaked to the media in March 2002, the United States outlined its intention to develop contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against seven countries (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Russia and China). Five of these are non-nuclear weapons states, which at a minimum contradicts the spirit of the NPT as well as previous US security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states.

    President Bush, flush with popularity from his war against Afghanistan, continues to threaten war against Iraq. The principal reason he gives for attacking Iraq is to replace its leader, Saddam Hussein, and to preemptively strike Iraq for its refusal to allow UN inspectors to assess whether or not it is developing weapons of mass destruction.

    Prior to the Bush administration, the US had a policy of nuclear deterrence, far from a policy that provided the United States with security from nuclear attack. The Bush administration has criticized deterrence policy but yet maintained it, while at the same time promoting policies of preemption.

    Preemption is the new catch-word of Bush’s nuclear policy. It is a means of assuring that a nuclear double standard continues to exist. It is a policy of nuclear apartheid in which select states are bestowed (or bestow upon themselves) nuclear privilege while others are attacked for seeking to enter the elite club of nuclear powers.

    Ironically, Bush’s nuclear policy makes it more likely that terrorists will obtain nuclear weapons or materials. The fraudulent arms control agreement that was signed in May 2002 by Bush and Putin, the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), allows thousands of nuclear warheads to be put in storage rather than destroying them. These stored nuclear warheads will be tempting targets for terrorists as will be the thousands of tons of nuclear materials available throughout the world that could be fashioned into nuclear or radiological weapons. The Bush administration is spending only approximately one-third of the three billion dollars per year called for by the US blue ribbon commission to prevent Russian nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

    Bush’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and his advances toward deployment of missile defenses are compelling China to substantially strengthen its nuclear forces aimed at the United States, as China forewarned it would do in these circumstances. Under Bush’s leadership, US allies in Europe and Asia will be brought in as “partners” in a global missile defense system that will be hugely expensive, unlikely to be effective and provide no protection against terrorists who would initiate their attacks, nuclear and otherwise, without launching missiles.

    Mr. Bush is squandering US leadership potential for global cooperation under international law, and instead pursuing policies that are based on military dominance, uncertain technology and nuclear apartheid. They are policies rooted in arrogance and certain to fail. They are, in fact, already failing by their allocation of resources to increasing the militarization of the planet rather than to meeting existing basic human needs that would help eradicate the fertile breeding grounds for continued terrorism and hatred of the United States.

  • Act to Save the Children of Iraq

    August 6, 2002 (Hiroshima Day) marked the 12th year of the economic sanctions against Iraq. These economic sanctions were described to me during my visit to Iraq by an Iraqi teenager as being a “silent nuclear bomb that drops into every home and is slowly destroying not only the children but the whole Iraqi nation.” Well over a half million Iraqi children have died of malnutrition and preventable diseases (resulting from the after-effects of the Gulf War and continuing economic sanctions) and each day more children die unnecessarily.

    Now, as the Bush Administration is making extremely clear, Iraq is in serious danger of an all-out US assault in the coming months. This week when the Iraqi government offered weapons inspections, the American administration responded by saying it is not about weapons inspections. Rather than going into yet another war causing further untold suffering to Iraqi civilians (also effecting the Middle East and the entire human family, as we are now so interconnected), every diplomatic option must be tried to divert war. The age of wars has gone, such barbaric activity is not acceptable at any time. But even for those who believe in war, it should not be acceptable when diplomatic options are readily available as has been, and continues to be, the case with Iraq.

    The American Government has a responsibility to uphold its democratic constitution, abide by international law, and respect the democratic wishes of many American people and the vast majority of governments and peoples of the world, who are calling for a non-violent solution to this crisis. War on our Iraqi brothers and sisters would be a war on the spirit and dignity of the entire human family.

    We are currently in the UN Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (2001-2010). This challenges us all to focus on the children and do all in our power to see they have clean water, food, medicine, and a safe environment and safe world. Children in Iraq do not have these things because of UN/USA/UK sanctions. The continuing death and suffering of Iraqi children is preventable. Let us therefore prevent it.

    Oppose US war against Iraq and work for diplomatic options, including the lifting of economic trade sanctions against the Iraqi people, who have been living and dying under these brutal sanctions and effects of war for too long.
    *Mairead Corrigan Maguire, a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council, is a Nobel Peace Laureate from Northern Ireland and a founder of Peace People.

  • A Thousand (Five Thousand) Cranes for Peace and a Better World

    On 6 June 1987 World Environment Day, we are shown at the UN a wonderful film: “A Thousand Cranes,” the moving story of the cooperation between American and Russian environmentalists to save a rare breed of Siberian cranes. The film was sponsored by Lufthansa which displays the graphic crane on all its planes, and which transported the eggs of the cranes between the two countries.

    The film tells that the oriental children believe that if they make one thousand paper cranes, their life will be blessed with happiness. The picture is shown of a Japanese girl wounded at Hiroshima who made a little more than 100 cranes before her death. Her friends finished the thousand cranes and erected a monument to her.

    The following morning when I woke up, a sad truth flashed through my mind: during the fortieth anniversary of the UN in 1985, American children sent me several boxes with a thousand paper cranes they had made, but I had understood their true message.

    They were not only a happy birthday gift to the UN but also a personal message to me, asking me to my own thousand cranes for peace. Therefore, I seized a notebook and wrote on it: “one thousand cranes for peace”, to record in it, every day, my actions for peace and a better world. After a month I discovered to my dismay that I had taken only 60 actions for peace, i.e. a mere average if two a day, while I lived under the illusion that I worked for peace all the time!

    It is as if a peasant would sow into the fields only two seeds a day! It would take me a year and a half to reach one thousand cranes of peace. My only consolation was that some of my cranes had reached people who in turn released their own cranes of peace. Some of them even started their own notebook, “One Thousand Cranes of Peace”, writing to congressmen, to newspapers or to other people—, joining a local peace group or the UN Association, promoting peace in their family, in their community, in their profession, through their religion or through many other means.

    I sent one of my cranes to Lufthansa, suggesting that institutions and firms should also start their own One Thousand Cranes of Peace. Lufthansa could keep a record of it’s own, adding many more cranes to the one it released by sponsoring the remarkable film we saw. How wonderful it would be if all organizations, institutions, firms, religions, communities, cities, villages, associations, professions, families and last but not least 6.2 billion people of this planet one do at least one thousand cranes for peace during their life. It could change the course of history.

    At the end of July 1987 I reached a total of 97 cranes for peace, and thereafter did not continue to keep track of them. But this great idea was revived on 11 June 1994 when my future second wife, Barbara Gaughen. After the death of my first beloved wife Margarita, pointed out to an audience om Santa Barbara that there remained exactly 2000 days to the first of January 2000. Anyone who would write down one idea a day would reach 2000 on that date!

    Remembering the cranes of peace, I exclaimed: “I will do it!” I did and this time I did not give up. I reached 2500 ideas on January 2002 and continued until July 2002 when I reached a total of 5000! They are called Ideas and Dreams of a Better World. Many of them were implemented. They are available in eleven volumes of 5000 ideas each and an index. As of June 2002 4000 of them were on the Internet website: www.robertmuller.org The remaining 1000 will soon follow.

    Please dear readers, write down your cranes for peace and a better world. They will bring much happiness.

  • Peace Educator Finds Ways to Better World

    Published in the Ventura County Star

    I grew up in a farm family where hard work, industriousness and resourcefulness were highly valued. Our seasonally governed lives meant more than just calendar changes. From an early age, I internalized the planting and harvest patterns of corn and soybeans. The Farmer’s Almanac taught me to discern the stages of the crops, as well as humans’ inextricable connection to the land and to nature.

    My entire life, much of my learning took place outside the classroom; I viewed school as a steppingstone to extracurricular activities like Model U.N., tennis, Student Council, musicals and classical ballet. My parents taught me to view my God-given gifts as such, to use them for the benefit of others. They cultivated in me a respect and love for fun education that transcends standardized tests, encourages asking questions and seeks out wise mentors.

    In college, I studied what I loved, taking classes that interested me, like film studies, linguistics, quantum physics and the evolution of social justice movements in the United States. Afterward, however, I had no idea where to get a job because there is really no urgent call for neurolinguist majors in the Help Wanted ads. And there was no newspaper section called Careers with a Conscience. So, I started thinking about who I admire.

    My list of heroes include Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor; Indiana Jones, the fictitious archaeologist/professor/adventurer; Laura Ingalls Wilder; and my best friend Jill, an occupational therapist who has begun talking to shop and metalworking classes in high schools about how students’ skills can create useful household items for her differently-abled patients. Grace Llewellyn, one of the pioneers of the Unschooling Movement and author of “The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education,” also ranks high on my list.

    All these people have in common the goal of freeing education. Unconstrained by the boundaries of desks and classrooms, they bring learning into the open. They represent creativity, individuality, deconstructing barriers, having fun, serving others and making the most of natural talents.

    So it makes sense that I was drawn to peace education, a holistic approach to learning. Peace education means many things: conflict resolution, anger management, power with vs. power over, respect for nature, love of diversity and community service. But it is more than that; it’s teaching students about the connections between poverty, racism, technology, the environment, politics, economics, religion and education. I have learned from my students they most value authenticity. Tired of being fed prepackaged ideas through mass marketing and mindless trips to the malls and movie theaters, my students keep telling me they believe there’s more to life than Nike and Coca-Cola.

    I believe it too.

    Yet, these messages are not the standard priority of pop culture that tells us to get good grades, to get into a top school, to get the right degree so that you can get the high-paying job, the big house, the fast car and the latest look. What we neglect to tell students in their college counseling sessions is that none of these things guarantees happiness.

    We teach students to compartmentalize, that in school, English is separate from science is separate from history is separate from math. Peace education decompartmentalizes more than that, it fosters a sense of interconnectedness where each subject, each person, each decision is inextricably linked to another. It demonstrates that, in life, there is much more gray area than black and white.

    So why am I a peace educator? Because it fulfills my love of teaching, writing, learning and travel. Because it is authentic. Because I continually meet interesting people who challenge my beliefs and boundaries. Because it promotes consensus and process-oriented skills that make life more functional. Because I can work locally on issues such as peace education and PictSweet; nationally on issues such as juvenile and restorative justice; and internationally on issues such as Iraq and Aceh.

    It feels good to do good when no one’s watching. It feels good to be a part of a larger cause. It feels good to make even a small difference. It feels good to be in solidarity with people struggling for their right to learn, to work, to live. It feels good to teach peace.
    *Leah C. Wells of Santa Paula is Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Peace Declarations From Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    Peace Declarations From Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the two most important places in the world where memory is preserved about what nuclear weapons do to people and to cities. Each year on August 6th and 9th respectively, the anniversaries of the bombings, the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki deliver the Peace Declarations for their cities. These statements provide a pulse of the status of efforts to eliminate the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life.

    On the 57th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba lamented that the painful experience of those who survived the bombings “appears to be fading from the collective memory of humankind,” and that consequently “the probability that nuclear weapons will be used and the danger of nuclear war are increasing.”

    Mayor Akiba noted that the “path of reconciliation…has been abandoned.” He called for “conscientious exploration and understanding of the past.” To achieve this end, he called for establishing a “Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Study Course in colleges and universities around the world,” and indicated that plans for this are already in progress. He also urged President Bush to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki to “confirm with his own eyes what nuclear weapons hold in store for us all.” Thus far, no American president has visited either city.

    Mayor Akiba called upon the government of Japan “to reject nuclear weapons absolutely and to renounce war.” The Japanese government, he said, “has a responsibility to convey the memories, voices, and prayers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki throughout the world, especially to the United States, and for the sake of tomorrow’s children, to prevent war.”

    Mayor Iccho Itoh of Nagasaki condemned the United States for its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; its rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and its plans to move forward with missile defenses, to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons, and to use preemptive nuclear strikes. “We are appalled,” he said, “by this series of unilateral actions taken by the government of the United States, actions which are also being condemned by people of sound judgment throughout the world.”

    Mayor Itoh called for the government of Japan to confirm in law the three non-nuclear principles that have guided Japan (that it will not possess, manufacture or allow nuclear weapons into the country). He also called for the Japanese government to help create a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, to cease its reliance on the US “nuclear umbrella,” and “to enhance the welfare of aging atomic bomb survivors residing both within and outside Japan.”

    Mayor Itoh announced that the City of Nagasaki would be hosting in 2003 a second worldwide gathering of civil society organizations to add impetus to efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. The City of Nagasaki, he said, will also be reaching out to youth by promoting the Nagasaki Peace Education Program.

    “The abolition of nuclear arms through mutual understanding and dialogue,” said Mayor Itoh, “is an absolute precondition for the realization of a peaceful world. It is up to us, ordinary citizens, to rise up and lead the world to peace.”

    Ordinary citizens of the United States must soon come to understand the critical message of Hiroshima and Nagasaki being conveyed by the mayors of these cities on behalf of those who perished and those who survived the atomic bombings. Without such understanding, and with such enormous power left in the hands of men like George W. Bush and many of his advisors shaping nuclear policy, the world moves closer to the day when more cities will share the fate of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.