Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • The Merry-Go-Round

    The end could begin with a missile launched by accident.
    And then the response would be deliberate, as would be
    the counter-response, and on and on until we were all

    gone.

    Or, it could be deliberate from the outset, an act
    of madness by a suicidal leader, setting the end in motion.

    First, the blasts and mushroom clouds.  Then the fires
    and burning cities and the winds driving the fires, turning
    humans into projectiles, and all of it mixed with deadly
    radiation.  Finally, for the last act, the soot from destroyed
    cities rising into the upper stratosphere, blocking the sunlight
    and the temperatures falling into a frozen Ice Age, followed
    by mass starvation.

    If any humans were left to name it, they might call it
    “Global Hiroshima,” but none would be left.
    It would be ugly for a while, eerily still and silent
    for some stretch of time, but no one would be there
    to observe.  Still, the Earth would go on rotating
    around the sun and the universe would go on expanding.

    Only we humans would be off the not-so-merry-go-round.

     

     

  • Secrecy and Democracy Are Incompatible

    It is obvious, almost by definition, that excessive governmental secrecy and true democracy are incompatible. If the people of a country have no idea what their government is doing, they cannot possibly have the influence on decisions that the word “democracy” implies.

    Dark government

    Governmental secrecy is not something new. Secret diplomacy contributed to the outbreak of World War I, and the secret Sykes-Picot agreement later contributed to the bitterness of conflicts in the Middle East. However, in recent years, governmental secrecy has grown enormously.

    The revelations of Edward Snowden and others have shown that the number of people involved in secret operations of the United States government is now as large as the entire population of Norway: roughly 5 million. The influence of this dark side of government has become so great that no president is able to resist it.

    In a recent article, John Chuckman remarked that “The CIA is now so firmly entrenched and so immensely well financed (much of it off the books, including everything from secret budget items to the peddling of drugs and weapons) that it is all but impossible for a president to oppose it the way Kennedy did. Obama, who has proved himself to be a fairly weak character from the start, certainly has given the CIA anything it wants. The dirty business of ISIS in Syria and Iraq is one project. The coup in Ukraine is another. The pushing of NATO’s face right against Russia’s borders is another. Several attempted coups in Venezuela are still more. And the creation of a drone air force for extra-judicial killings in half a dozen countries is yet another. They don’t resemble projects we would expect from a smiley-faced intelligent man who sometimes wore sandals and refused to wear a flag pin on his lapel during hhis first election campaign.”

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41222.htm

    Of course the United States government is by no means alone in practicing excessive secrecy: Scott Horton recently wrote an article entitled “How to Rein in a Secretive Shadow Government Is Our National Security Crisis”. He dedicated the article to the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov because, as he said,  “Sakharov recognized that the Soviet Union rested on a colossal false premise: it was not so much socialism (though Sakharov was certainly a critic of socialism) as it was the obsession with secrecy, which obstructed the search for truth, avoided the exposure of mistakes, and led to the rise of powerful bureaucratic elites who were at once incompetent and prone to violence.”

    http://truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/29636-scott-horton-how-to-rein-in-a-secretive-shadow-government-is-our-national-security-crisis

    Censorship of the news

    Many modern governments have become very expert in manipulating public opinion through mass media. They only allow the public to hear a version of the “news” that has been handed down by  powerholders. Of course, people can turn to the alternative media that are available on the Internet. But on the whole, the vision of the world presented on television screens and in major newspapers is the “truth” that is accepted by the majority of the public, and it is this picture of events that influences political decisions. Censorship of the news by the power elite is a form of secrecy, since it withholds information that is needed for a democracy to function properly.

    Coups, torture and illegal killing

    During the period from 1945 to the present, the US interfered, militarily or covertly, in the internal affairs of a large number of nations: China, 1945-49; Italy, 1947-48; Greece, 1947-49; Philippines, 1946-53; South Korea, 1945-53; Albania, 1949-53; Germany, 1950s; Iran, 1953; Guatemala, 1953-1990s; Middle East, 1956-58; Indonesia, 1957-58; British Guiana/Guyana, 1953-64; Vietnam, 1950-73; Cambodia, 1955-73; The Congo/Zaire, 1960-65; Brazil, 1961-64; Dominican Republic, 1963-66; Cuba, 1959-present; Indonesia, 1965; Chile, 1964-73; Greece, 1964-74; East Timor, 1975-present; Nicaragua, 1978-89; Grenada, 1979-84; Libya, 1981-89; Panama, 1989; Iraq, 1990-present; Afghanistan 1979-92; El Salvador, 1980-92; Haiti, 1987-94; Yugoslavia, 1999; and Afghanistan, 2001-present, Syria, 2013-present; Egypt, 2013-present, and Ukraine, 2013-present. Most of these interventions were explained to the American people as being necessary to combat communism (or more recently, terrorism), but an underlying motive was undoubtedly the desire to put in place governments and laws that would be favorable to the economic interests of the US and its allies.

    For the sake of balance, we should remember that during the Cold War period, the Soviet Union and China also intervened in the internal affairs of many countries, for example in Korea in 1950-53, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and so on; another very long list. These Cold War interventions were also unjustifiable, like those mentioned above. Nothing can justify military or covert interference by superpowers in the internal affairs of smaller countries, since people have a right to live under governments of their own choosing even if those governments are not optimal.

    Many people in Latin America and elsewhere have been tortured: The long history of CIA torture was recently investigated, but only small portions of the 6000-page report are available to the public. The rest remains secret.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_report_on_CIA_torture

    ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_report_on_CIA_torture

    Extrajudicial killing of civilians by means of drones is also shrouded by secrecy, and it too is a gross violation of democratic principles.

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/lawless-drone-killings/5355535

    Secret trade deals

    The Trans-Pacific Partnership is one of the trade deals that is being negotiated in secret. Not even the US congress is allowed to know the details of the document. However, enough information has been leaked to make it clear that if the agreement is passed, foreign corporations would be allowed to “sue” the US government for loss of profits because of (for example) environmental regulations. The “trial” would be outside the legal system, before a tribunal of lawyers representing the corporations.

    http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=5411

    https://www.transcend.org/tms/2015/03/world-at-a-crossroads-stop-the-fast-track-to-a-future-of-global-corporate-rule/

    A similar secret trade deal with Europe, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), is also being “fast-tracked”. One can hardly imagine greater violations of democratic principles.

    Secret land purchases in Africa

    According to a report released by the Oakland Institute, in 2009 alone, hedge funds bought or leased nearly 60 million hectares of land in Africa, an area the size of France.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13688683

    As populations increase, and as water becomes scarce, China, and other countries, such as Saudi Arabia are also buying enormous tracts of agricultural land, not only in Africa, but also in other countries.

    http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-foreign-farmland-20140329-story.html#page=1

    These land purchases are very often kept secret from the local populations by corrupt governments.

    Secrecy, democracy and nuclear weapons

    Nuclear weapons were developed in secret. The decision to use them on the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an already-defeated Japan was made in secret. Since 1945, secrecy has surrounded all aspects of nuclear weapons, and for this reason it is clear that they are essentially undemocratic.

    Nuclear disarmament has been one of the core aspirations of the international community since the first use of nuclear weapons in 1945. A nuclear war, even a limited one, would have global humanitarian and environmental consequences, and thus it is a responsibility of all governments, including those of non-nuclear countries, to protect their citizens and engage in processes leading to a world without nuclear weapons.

    Now a new process has been established by the United Nations General Assembly, an Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) to Take Forward Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations. The OEWG convened at the UN offices in Geneva on May 14, 2013. Among the topics discussed was a Model Nuclear Weapons Convention.

    The Model Nuclear Weapons Convention prohibits development, testing, production, stockpiling, transfer, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. States possessing nuclear weapons will be required to destroy their arsenals according to a series of phases. The Convention also prohibits the production of weapons usable fissile material and requires delivery vehicles to be destroyed or converted to make them non-nuclear capable.

    Verification will include declarations and reports from States, routine inspections, challenge inspections, on-site sensors, satellite photography, radionuclide sampling and other remote sensors, information sharing with other organizations, and citizen reporting. Persons reporting suspected violations of the convention will be provided protection through the Convention including the right of asylum.

    Thus we can see that the protection of whistleblowers is an integral feature of the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention now being discussed. As Sir Joseph Rotblat (1908-2005, Nobel Laureate 1995) frequently emphasized in his speeches, societal verification must be an integral part of the process of “going to zero” ( i.e, the total elimination of nuclear weapons). This is because nuclear weapons are small enough to be easily hidden. How will we know whether a nation has destroyed all of its nuclear arsenal? We have to depend on information from insiders, whose loyalty to the whole of humanity prompts them to become whistleblowers. And for this to be possible, they need to be protected.

    In general, if the world is ever to be free from the threat of complete destruction by modern weapons, we will need a new global ethic, an ethic as advanced as our technology. Of course we can continue to be loyal to our families, our localities and our countries. But this must be supplemented by a higher loyalty: a loyalty to humanity as a whole.

    Freedom from fear

    In order to justify secrecy, enormous dark branches of government and mass illegal spying, governments say:  “ We are protecting you from terrorism”. But terrorism is not a real threat, since our chances of dying from a terrorist attack are vanishingly small compared to (for example) automobile accidents. If we are ever to reclaim our democracy, we must free ourselves from fear.

  • New Video: Helen Caldicott “Preserving the Future”

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has published a video of Dr. Helen Caldicott’s recent lecture “Preserving the Future.” Dr. Caldicott delivered this lecture for NAPF’s 14th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future on March 5, 2015 in Santa Barbara, California.

    You can watch the video on YouTube at this link, or click on the embedded video below.

    Thanks to the sponsors of the event:

    The Santa Barbara Foundation
    Terry and Mary Kelly
    Richelle and Orman Gaspar
    Dr. Jimmy and Diane Hara
    Steve Daniels and Kitty Glanz
    Glenn Griffith and Carrie Cooper
    Lessie Nixon Schontzler and Gordon Schontzler
    Rick Carter Photography

  • Poetry of Sorrow and Hope

    This article was originally published by the Huffington Post.

    Wake Up! by David KriegerDavid Krieger’s new book of poems — Wake Up! — shows us that poetry engaged with world affairs can be very powerful.

    In a brief introduction to the book, Krieger — the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the author of several previous volumes of poetry — remarks that those who write poetry after Auschwitz, as well as after Hiroshima, Nagasaki, wars, and threats of universal death, must not only “confront the ugliness of human brutality,” but “express the heart’s longing for peace and reveal its grief at our loss of decency.”

    He adds: “They must uncover the truth of who we are… and who we could become.” In this slender volume, Krieger succeeds brilliantly at this task.

    In short, accessible and moving poems, Krieger ranges over a variety of issues. Prominent among them are the forgotten crimes of war (described in “Little Changes”):

    Our brave young soldiers
    shot babies at My Lai —
    few remember. . . .

    From My Lai
    to Abu Ghraib —
    the terrible silence.

    In “Among the Ashes” and elsewhere, Krieger also focuses on the atrocity of nuclear war:

    Among the ashes
    of Hiroshima
    were crisply charred bodies.

    In one of the charred bodies
    a daughter recognized
    the gold tooth of her mother.

    As the girl reached out
    to touch the burnt body
    her mother crumbled to ashes.

    Her mother, so vivid
    in the girl’s memory, sifted
    through her hands, floated away.

    As might be expected, the officials of the major war-making powers do not inspire Krieger’s admiration. In a poem about George W. Bush (“Staying the Course”), Krieger writes:

    The race has been run
    and he lost.

    Yet, he swaggers
    around the track as though
    it were a victory lap.

    It is hard not to think:
    How pathetic is power.

    By contrast, there are numerous poems in Wake Up! that celebrate the humane values of Albert Einstein, Jesse Jackson and other individuals. In a beautiful tribute to Nelson Mandela (“Madiba”), Krieger asks: “How does one earn the world’s respect?” And he answers: “He showed us with his life.” There are even elegant poems (such as “We Walked Together”) calling attention to the beauty of life and love:

    In fog we walked along an empty beach,
    above the water’s edge, and looking back
    along the shore, we saw our footprints
    in the sand, like a patterned prayer.

    We are here upon this rare Earth but once, we mused.
    Conscious of our brief light within the fog
    and the brevity of being, we breathed deep our bounty
    and the ocean air, each taking our full share.

    In eternity’s long stretch of time,
    behind us and ahead, we retraced our steps and
    marveled that we should meet at all, let alone
    here and now, in a place so fine and fair.

    Sometimes, there is a surprise lurking in wait, as befits a poem (“Reflecting on You”) produced by a writer who stubbornly refuses to ignore reality:

    Your soul, fully alive, has no sadness
    from morning to night.

    It is light and playful,
    the soul of an innocent child.

    Your soul is a hatchling, chirping
    with joy, needing to be fed.

    You are one of the fortunate ones,
    never imagining what it means
    to be lonely or frightened,

    to be awakened in the night
    and taken by the Gestapo.

    Infusing Wake Up! is an element of brooding tragedy — of beauty corrupted, of potential unrealized. This element is captured in Krieger’s poem, “Archeology of War”:

    The years of war numb us, grind us
    down as they pile up one upon the other
    forming a burial mound not only
    for the fallen soldiers and innocents
    who were killed, but for the parts of us,
    once decent and bright with hope,
    now deflated by the steady fall of death
    and sting of empty promises.

    And yet there remains a measure of hope, a belief that people can rise to the occasion. At least implicitly, that’s what comes through in “Wake Up!” — a poem about the danger of nuclear war that gives the book its title:

    The alarm is sounding.
    Can you hear it? . . .

    Wake up!
    Now, before the feathered arrow
    is placed into the bow.

    Now before the string
    of the bow is pulled taut,
    the arrow poised for flight.

    Now, before the arrow is let loose,
    before it flies across oceans
    and continents.

    Now, before we are engulfed in flames,
    while there is still time, while we still can,
    Wake up!

    Of course, Krieger is hardly unique among Americans in writing poems deploring war and violence. These poets range from John Greenleaf Whitter, James Russell Lowell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Stephen Crane, and Vachel Lindsay centuries ago to e.e. cummings, Robinson Jeffers, Kenneth Patchen, Robert Lowell, Barbara Deming, Paul Goodman, Denise Levertov and Marge Piercy in more recent times.

    Perhaps it takes poetry to move us beyond the chilling, day-to-day news — bombarding us about ongoing wars and preparations for nuclear annihilation — into a realm where we can truly confront the sadness of a world that, despite its enormous knowledge and resources, persists in organizing and engaging in mass slaughter. Perhaps poetry can also give us a fuller appreciation of the beauty of life, as well as the will to create a better future.

    You can purchase a copy of Wake Up! at this link.

    Lawrence Wittner (www.lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is a satirical novel about university corporatization and rebellion, What’s Going On at UAardvark?

  • Iran’s Nuclear Program: Diplomacy, War and (In)security in the Nuclear Age

    This article was originally published on Global Justice in the 21st Century.

    richard_falkPerhaps, Netanyahu deserves some words of appreciation, at least from the Israeli hard right, for the temporary erasure of the Palestinian ordeal from national, regional, and global policy agendas. Many are distracted by the Republican recriminations directed at Obama’s diplomatic initiative to close a deal that exchanges a loosening of sanctions imposed on Iran for an agreement by Tehran to accept intrusive inspections of their nuclear program and strict limits on the amount of enriched uranium of weapons grade that can be produced or retained.

    We can only wonder about the stability and future prospects of the United States if 47 Republican senators can irresponsibly further jeopardize the peace of the Middle East and the world by writing an outrageous Open Letter to the leadership of Iran. In this reckless political maneuver the government of Iran is provocatively reminded that whatever agreement may be reached by the two governments will in all likelihood be disowned if a Republican is elected president in 2016, or short of that, by nullifying actions taken by a Republican-controlled Congress. Mr. Netanyahu must be smiling whenever he looks at a mirror, astonished by his own ability to get the better of reason and self-interest in America, by his pyrotechnic display of ill-informed belligerence in his March 2nd address to Congress. Surely, political theater of sorts, but unlike a performance artist, Netanyahu is a political player whose past antics have brought death and destruction and now mindlessly and bombastically risk far worse in the future.

    What interests and disturbs me even more than the fallout from Netanyahu’s partisan speech, are several unexamined presuppositions that falsely and misleadingly frame the wider debate on Iran policy. Even the most respected news sites in the West, including such influential outlets as the NY Times or The Economist, frame the discourse by taking three propositions for granted in ways that severely bias our understanding:

    –that punitive sanctions on Iran remain an appropriate way to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, and enjoyed the backing of the United Nations;

    –that Iran must not only renounce the intention to acquire nuclear weapons, but their renunciation must be frequently monitored and verified, while nothing at all is done about Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weapons;

    –that there is nothing intrinsically wrong about Irael’s threats to attack Iran if it believes that this would strengthen its security either in relation to a possible nuclear attack or in relation to Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas.

    SANCTIONS

    Sanctions are a form of coercion expressly imposed in this case to exert pressure on Iran to negotiate an agreement that would provide reassurance that it was not seeking to acquire nuclear weaponry. Supposedly, Iran’s behavior made such a reinforcement of the nonproliferation treaty regime a reasonable precaution. Such measures had never been adopted or even proposed in relation to either Germany and Japan, the two main defeated countries in World War II, who have long possessed the technical and material means to acquire nuclear weapons in a matter of months. Iran has repeatedly given assurances that its nuclear program is peacefully aimed at producing energy and for medical applications, not weapons, and has accepted a willingness to have its nuclear program more regulated than is the case for any other country in the world.

    It should be appreciated that Iran has not been guilty of waging an aggressive war for over 275 year. Not only has it refrained in recent years from launching attacks across its borders, although it has itself been severely victimized by major interventions and aggressions. Most spectacularly, the CIA-facilitated coup in 1953 that restored the Shah to power and overthrew a democratically elected government imposed a dictatorial regime on the country for over 25 years. And in 1980 Iraq invaded Iran with strong encouragement of the United States. Additionally, Iran has been subject over the years to a variety of Western covert operations designed to destabilize its government and disrupt its nuclear program.

    Despite their UN backing, the case for sanctions seems to be an unfortunate instance of double standards, accentuated by the averted gaze of the international community over the years with respect to Israel’s process of acquisition, possession, and development of nuclear weaponry. This is especially irresponsible, given Israel’s behavior that has repeatedly exhibited a defiant attitude toward international law and world public opinion. I would conclude that Iran the imposition of harsh sanctions on Iran is discriminatory, more likely to intensify that resolve conflict. The proper use of international sanctions is to avert war or implement international law, and not as here to serve as a geopolitical instrument of hard power that seeks to sustain a hierarchical nuclear status quo in the region and beyond.

    NUCLEAR WEAPONS OPTION

    Iran is expected not only to forego the option to acquire nuclear weapons, but to agree to a framework of intrusive inspection if it wants to be treated as a ‘normal’ state after it proves itself worthy. As indicated, this approach seems discriminatory and hypocritical in the extreme. It would be more to the point to acknowledge the relative reasonableness of Iran’s quest for a deterrent capability given the extent to which its security and sovereignty have threatened and encroached upon by the United States and Israel.

    It is relevant to note that the Obama presidency, although opting for a diplomatic resolution of the dispute about its nuclear program, nevertheless repeatedly refuses to remove the military option from the negotiating table. Israel does little to hide its efforts to build support for a coercive approach that threatens a preemptive military strike. Such an unlawful imprudent approach is justified by Israel’s belief that Iran poses an emerging existential threat to its survival if it should acquire weapons of mass destruction. Israel bases this assessment on past statements by Iranian leaders that Israel should not or will not exist, but such inflammatory rhetoric has never been tied to any statement of intention to wage war against Israel. To assert an existential threat as a pretext for war is irresponsible and dangerous.

    From Iran’s perspective acquiring a nuclear weapons capability would seem a reasonable response to its security situation. If deterrence is deemed a security necessity for the United States and Israel, given their military dominance in conventional weaponry, it should be even more so for Iran that is truly faced with a genuine, credible, and dangerous existential threat. Few countries would become safer and more secure if in possession of nuclear weapons but Iran is one state that likely would be. Again what is at stake most fundamentally is the challenge to the nuclear oligopoly that has been maintained since the early stages of the Cold War when the Soviet Union broke the American nuclear monopoly. More immediately threatened if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons at some future point is Israel’s regional nuclear weapons monopoly that serves both as a deterrent to others and helps clear political space for Israel’s expansionist moves in the region. I would not argue that Iran should acquire nuclear weapons, but rather that it has the strongest case among sovereign states to do so, and it is a surreal twist of realities to act as if Iran is the outlier or rogue state rather than the nuclear weapons states that refuse to honor their obligation set forth in Article VI of the NPT to seek nuclear disarmament in good faith at a time. The most urgent threat to the future in this period arises from the increasing risk that nuclear weapons will be used at some point to resolve an international conflict, and thus it should be a global policy imperative to demand efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament rather than use geopolitical leverage to sustain the existing hierarchy of states with respect to nuclear weaponry.

    MILITARY THREATS

    Israel’s military threats directed at Iran clearly violate the international law prohibition contained in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter that prohibit “threats or uses” of force except for self-defense against a prior armed attack or with an authorization by the Security Council. Despite this threat to international peace in an already turbulent Middle East, there is a widespread international acceptance of Israel’s behavior, and in fact, the most persuasive argument in favor of the sanctions regime is that it allays the concerns of the Israeli government and thus reduces the prospect of a unilateral military strike on Iran.

    Conclusion

    Overall, this opportunistic treatment of Iran’s nuclear program is less indicative of a commitment to nonproliferation than it is a shortsighted expression of geopolitical priorities. If peace and stability were the true motivations of the international community, then we would at least expect to hear strident calls for a nuclear free Middle East tied to a regional security framework. Until such a call is made, there is a cynical game being played with the complicity of the mainstream media. To expose this game we need to realize how greatly the three presuppositions discussed above misshape perceptions and discourse.

  • Why We Need Peace Heroes

    Why We Need Peace Heroes

    Developed for the Dayton International Peace Museum, Dayton, Ohio, for their 2015 Peace Heroes Walk as The Little Book of Peace Heroes.

    The Most Difficult Art Form

    Paul K. ChappellImagine if your city had a high school with a 100 percent illiterate student population. Would this high school, where not even one student knows how to read, gain local media attention? Actually, it would probably gain national media attention. Today our society recognizes illiteracy as a problem, because we understand that reading is the foundation of education. Furthermore, just trying to navigate through the modern world without the ability to read signs, menus, e-mails, and the Internet puts us at a major disadvantage in the struggle to succeed at life.

    But imagine traveling back in time three thousand years. This was around the era when the Trojan War between the Greeks and Trojans took place. In Homer’s depiction of the Trojan War, known as the Iliad, none of the characters know how to read. The Greek and Trojan societies are almost completely illiterate.[i] Not even kings such as Agamemnon and Priam know how to read.

    A better term to describe these ancient illiterate societies is “preliterate,” because they did not yet understand why literacy was an essential step in their society’s evolution. Imagine trying to convince the ancient Greeks and Trojans in the Iliad that they should learn how to read. This would be a seemingly impossible task, because they had no reference point to understand why reading is important.

    Today we know reading is important, because there is a reason why American slave owners made it illegal to teach slaves to read. And there is a reason why dictators ban books and the Nazis burned books. To oppress any large group of people in a society, a system must first oppress their minds, and reading offers us a way out of ignorance. Literacy also made it possible for humanity to organize ideas in new ways, allowing us to create intellectual disciplines such as science, history, philosophy, psychology, biology, and much more.[ii] Science is one of many subjects that cannot exist without literacy.

    What if our society is being held back by another form of illiteracy, which most of us today are not aware of, similar to the ancient Greeks and Trojans who were not aware of the importance of reading? In what way is our modern society illiterate? To understand this, we must first recognize the most difficult art form.

    There are many challenging art forms. To play the violin well, a person must get training. Sports are also art forms that require people to hone their craft, but to play any sport at a high level, we must be trained. If a person wants to write, paint, sculpt, practice martial arts, or make films to the best of their ability, training is also critical. But what is the most difficult form of art? What art form is far more challenging than playing any instrument or sport? The art of living.

    Living is certainly an art form. The Roman philosopher Seneca explained: “There exists no more difficult art than living . . . throughout the whole of life, one must continue to learn to live and, what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die.”[iii]

    Essential Life Skills

    Just as we must learn any art form, we must also learn how to live. But unlike other art forms, the art of living transforms us into both the sculptor and the sculpture. We are the artist and our life is the masterpiece. [iv] As a child I was never taught the art of living. For example, I was never taught how to overcome fear. Wouldn’t this be an incredibly useful thing to know? In fact, overcoming fear is one of the most important life skills we can have. Nor was I ever taught how to calm myself and other people down. This is another essential life skill.

    As a child I was never taught the many essential life skills that are part of the art of living. I was never taught how to resolve conflict, make the most of adversity, listen deeply, focus my mind, inspire people to overcome seemingly impossible tasks, lead from a foundation of respect rather than intimidation, develop empathy, be a good friend, have a healthy relationship, challenge injustice, be happy, find purpose and meaning in life, develop my sense of self-awareness so that I can critique myself honestly, and help humanity create a more peaceful and just world.

    Some children learn these skills from their parents, but many parents do not know how to listen well or handle conflict without yelling, causing children to learn bad habits. When people watch cable news, reality shows, and other forms of media entertainment, how often do they see someone who listens well and resolves conflict calmly and respectfully? More people in our society are taught to resolve conflict through aggression than through the power of respect.

    Imagine if you watched a basketball game, but nobody on either team had ever been properly taught how to play basketball. It would be a mess. Imagine if you listened to an orchestra play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, but nobody in the orchestra had been taught how to play their instruments. It would also be a mess. Since living is far more complicated than playing basketball or Beethoven, when our society is filled with people who have not been taught the art of living, life becomes a lot messier than it needs to be. Living will always be somewhat messy because it is the most difficult art form, but when we are trained in the art of living we gain the tools to prevent unnecessary conflict, violence, misunderstanding, suffering, and trauma. And we become empowered to solve these and other problems when they arise.

    Preliterate in Peace

    The art of living requires us to understand what it means to be human, because the art of living works with the medium of our shared humanity, just as painting works with color and music works with sound. The art of living also requires us to learn the art of waging peace, because peace is the process and product of living well. Instead of saying our society is illiterate in peace, a more accurate phrase is “preliterate in peace.” Three thousand years ago, there were many brilliant Greeks and Trojans who did not understand the importance of becoming literate in reading. And today, there are many brilliant people in our society who do not yet understand the importance of becoming literate in living well, waging peace, and our shared humanity.

    Because environmental destruction, nuclear weapons, and war can drive humanity extinct, this new kind of literacy I am describing is necessary for human survival. Just as people today recognize that illiteracy in reading is a serious problem, we must create a future where people recognize that illiteracy in the art of living and the art of waging peace is also a serious problem. To take their society to the next level, a civilization such as the ancient Greeks had to prioritize literacy. To take our global society to the next level, we must prioritize literacy in living well, waging peace, and our shared humanity.

    The 2009 U.S. Army Sustainability Report lists several threats to national security, which include severe income disparity, poverty, and climate change. The U.S. Army Sustainability Report states: “The Army is facing several global challenges to sustainability that create a volatile security environment with an increased potential for conflict . . . Globalization’s increased interdependence and connectivity has led to greater disparities in wealth, which foster conditions that can lead to conflict . . . Population growth and poverty; the poor in fast-growing urban areas are especially vulnerable to antigovernment and radical ideologies . . . Climate change and natural disasters strain already limited resources, increasing the potential for humanitarian crises and population migrations.”32

    When the U.S. Army says that “greater disparities in wealth . . . poverty . . . and climate change” are dangerous, these were among the same concerns expressed by the Occupy movement. When the U.S. Army and Occupy movement agree on something, I think we should pay attention. However, none of these problems can be solved by a single country. In addition, none of these problems can be solved by waging war. During the twenty-first century, protecting our national security requires us to develop the skills necessary to work together as a global community. During the twenty-first century, protecting our national security also requires us to develop the skills necessary to create a new vision of global security.

    Many people who learn the art of living and the art of waging peace may not use these skills to participate in a paradigm-shifting global movement, just as many people today who have learned a written language may not read paradigm-shifting books. Many people today use reading simply for e-mails, the Internet, signs, menus, and articles. In a similar way, many people in the future may use the art of living and the art of waging peace simply to better their relationships, become happier, gain more purpose and meaning in their lives, and resolve conflicts with their friends, family, coworkers, and strangers. Every ounce of peace adds to the wellbeing of our broader human community. When we know more about the art of living, which includes understanding how our human vulnerabilities can be exploited by written and visual propaganda, we also become harder to manipulate.

    What Is a Peace Hero?

    Peace HeroesWhy must we learn the art of living? Why aren’t we born with all the knowledge necessary to live well? The reason is because our brains are so complex. An oak tree knows how to be an oak tree. It doesn’t need a mentor or role model to guide it. A caterpillar knows how to turn into a butterfly and thrive in the world. It doesn’t have to take a class or read a manual. But human beings, more than any other species on the planet, must learn to be what we are. We must learn to be human. This is why children in every culture need role models and mentors to guide them, such as parents, teachers, community members, or even religious icons such as Jesus and Buddha. This is why people in every culture need an ideal to strive toward, an ideal that represents our highest human potential.

    In our culture, this ideal is known as the “hero.” In ancient Greece, heroes were not moral, but exceptional. The Greek heroes included Achilles, Odysseus, and the greatest Greek hero of them all, Heracles (better known by his Latin name, Hercules). Achilles was the mightiest warrior alive, Odysseus was a brilliant tactician and talented speaker as well as a powerful warrior, and Heracles was the strongest man in the world.

    Unlike the ancient Greek heroes, the “peace hero” is not admired for being physically exceptional, but morally exceptional. Peace heroes such as Jesus, Buddha, Lao-tzu, many Jewish Prophets, Lucretia Mott, Mahatma Gandhi, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr., Wangari Matthai, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Malala Yousafzai, and many others are not exceptional killers like Achilles or exceptionally strong like Heracles, but exceptionally moral in the ways humanity must emulate if we are going to survive during our fragile future.

    One of the early peace heroes was Socrates. Socrates, similar to later peace heroes such as Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, St. Francis of Assisi, General Smedley Butler, and Leo Tolstoy, had been in the military. Socrates went from being courageous on the battlefield to courageously challenging injustice in his society, replacing the weapons of war with the weapon of truth. Historian James A. Colaiaco tells us: “Socrates carried out his mission without fear of death. But he contradicted the traditional notion of the hero . . . For him, vengeance is unjust, and honor is won only in the pursuit of moral virtue, even at the expense of violating the values of the community. The new hero that Socrates represented was not one who excelled on the battlefield or one who surrendered his life unthinkingly to the polis [city-state], but one who remained steadfast in his commitment to justice.”[v]

    A peace hero is not something we are, but an ideal we reflect in our daily lives. Honoring peace heroes lifts up this ideal higher so that more people can see this vision of what it means to be human, a vision that humanity needs to survive during our fragile future. One characteristic peace heroes all share in common is that they reject vengeance. Could you imagine Jesus, Buddha, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, or Malala Yousafzai embracing vengeance? If they did, they would not be the people we admire. Instead of embracing vengeance, peace heroes promote justice.

    Another characteristic peace heroes have in common is that they understand our interconnectedness, and how their work is built on the efforts of countless others. As a result, people who reflect the peace hero ideal are often embarrassed when anyone praises them as heroes. Frederick Douglass, who dedicated his life to ending slavery and furthering women’s rights, said: “We never feel more ashamed of our humble efforts in the cause of emancipation than when we contrast them with the silent, unobserved and unapplauded efforts of those women through whose constant and persevering endeavors this annual [anti-slavery] exhibition is given to the American public.”[vi]

    Commenting on the unsung heroes of peace and justice, Albert Schweitzer said, “The sum of these [actions from people who aren’t famous], however, is a thousand times stronger than the acts of those who receive wide public recognition. The latter, compared to the former, are like the foam on the waves of a deep ocean.”[vii]

    Protecting Our Fragile Future

    There are many concepts of what it means to be a hero, because people can be admired as heroes not because they possess exceptional moral virtue, but exceptional wealth, ruthlessness, or cunning. Which heroic ideal we admire will shape our future. If our society idolizes heroes who embrace vengeance and violence, our political system, way of viewing the world, and approach to solving problems will reflect this. If our society studies heroes who promote peace and justice, our vision will be expanded, allowing us to see new possibilities for solving problems and being human that we did not notice before, but were there all along, waiting to be discovered.

    Through literacy in the art of living, the art of waging peace, and our shared humanity, we will become empowered to reflect the ideal of the peace hero, solve our most serious human problems, and protect our fragile future. Through this new kind of literacy, human beings three thousand years from now may look back on us the way we look back on people living during the Trojan War. Because our modern problems threaten human survival, this new kind of literacy can help us ensure that three thousand years from now humanity will still exist.

     

    BIO:

    Paul K. Chappell serves as the Peace Leadership Director for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He graduated from West Point in 2002, was deployed to Iraq, and left active duty in November 2009 as a Captain. He is the author of the Road to Peace series, a seven-book series about waging peace, ending war, the art of living, and what it means to be human. The first four published books in this series are Will War Ever End?, The End of War, Peaceful Revolution, and The Art of Waging Peace. Lecturing across the country and internationally, he also teaches college courses and workshops on Peace Leadership. He grew up in Alabama, the son of a half-black and half-white father who fought in the Korean and Vietnam wars, and a Korean mother. Growing up in a violent household, Chappell has sought answers to the issues of war and peace, rage and trauma, and vision, purpose, and hope. His website is www.peacefulrevolution.com.

     

    [i] There is one possible reference to writing in the Iliad. In his introduction to the Robert Fagles translation of the Iliad, Bernard Knox says, “In Book 6 [of the Iliad], Glaucus tells the story of his grandfather Bellerophon. Proetus, king of Argos, sent him off with a message to the king of Lycia, Proteus’ father-in-law; it instructed the king to kill the bearer. ‘[He] gave him tokens, / murderous signs, scratched in a folded tablet . . .’” This reference is so vague that it is unclear whether these “murderous signs” were part of a written alphabet. Whether these scratched markings represented a written alphabet rather or just coded symbols, they seemed so mysterious that they are described by characters in the Iliad as signs and scratches.

    [ii] Classical Mythology, Lecture 1, The Teaching Company, DVD. In the first lecture, professor Elizabeth Vandiver discusses how literacy makes intellectual disciplines possible.

    [iii] Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (New York: Rinehart & Co., 1959), xiv.

    [iv] In his book Man for Himself, Erich Fromm discusses living as an art. I first heard this idea from Erich Fromm and Seneca.

    [v] James A. Colaiaco, Socrates Against Athens (New York: Routledge, 2001), 133.

    [vi] Philip S. Foner, ed., Frederick Douglass on Women’s Rights (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1992), 11.

    [vii] Albert Schweitzer, Out of My Life and Thought, trans. Antje Bultmann Lemke (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1998), 90.

  • Time to Stop Playing Nuclear Roulette

    This article was originally published on Defusing the Nuclear Threat.

    martin_hellman1In Russian roulette, you have one chance in six of dying – provided you pull the trigger only once. If you pull it once a day, or even once a year, it’s not a question of IF you’ll be killed, only WHEN. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Pres. Kennedy said he thought the odds of war were somewhere between 1-in-3 and even. If he was right, that crisis was equivalent to playing nuclear roulette – a global version of Russian roulette – with a 2- or 3-chambered revolver. While most events have a much smaller chance of escalating to nuclear war, even a small probability per event can add up to an unacceptable risk if repeated often enough. For that reason, I was shocked to find an article in today’s New York Times that reported Japanese fighters are scrambling more than once per day to intercept Chinese aircraft near some small, uninhabited, disputed islands.

    Each such incident puts the world at risk that an error in the judgment by a single fighter pilot will create an international incident with the potential to escalate to a nuclear crisis. There’s only a small risk of that happening, but with 379 such incidents in the nine-month period ending December 31 last year, those risks add up. And the risk appears to be growing since the article noted that this was a six-fold increase from the same period four years earlier.

    What’s needed is some hard-nosed critical thinking – re-examining the assumptions that underlie our current policy with respect to China and Japan. Examples of some factors we need to consider include:

    An article in TIME magazine from October 2014, Return of the Samurai, quotes Japanese officials as wanting their nation to “finally evolve into a normal country with a normal armed forces.” Critical thinking would examine not only the short-term gain to our nation of that evolution, but also its potential long-term losses. One short-term gain might be reduced US expenditures to protect Japan. A long-term loss might be Japan becoming more aggressive toward China and dragging us into a nuclear crisis, possibly even a war.

    Rising Japanese militarism can be seen in that article when it quotes a conservative Japanese Diet (parliament) member as denying both the Rape of Nanking and the Japanese military’s use of sex slaves (so-called “comfort women”) during the war.

    A New York Times article last December talked of the plight of a Japanese professor who is being hounded by rightists for his efforts to illuminate Japan’s wartime atrocities. The article notes, “Ultranationalists have even gone after his children, posting Internet messages urging people to drive his teenage daughter to suicide,” and continues, “This latest campaign, however, has gone beyond anything postwar Japan has seen before, with nationalist politicians, including [Prime Minister] Abe himself, unleashing a torrent of abuse that has cowed one of the last strongholds of progressive political influence in Japan [the progressive Asahi Shimbun newpaper].”

    Critical thinking also would re-examine the tradeoffs involved in our giving Japan nuclear guarantees over the disputed, uninhabited islands which are the frequent site of the games of aerial chicken involving Chinese and Japanese aircraft. It’s time to stop playing nuclear roulette!

  • Nuclear Weapons and Possible Human Extinction: The Heroic Marshall Islanders

    Extinction is a harsh and unforgiving word, a word that should make us shiver. Time moves inexorably in one direction only and, when extinction is complete, there are no further chances for revival. Extinction is a void, a black hole, from which return is forever foreclosed. If we can imagine the terrible void of extinction, then perhaps we can mobilize to forestall its occurrence, even its possibility.

    The brilliant American author Jonathan Schell, who wrote The Fate of the Earth and was an ardent nuclear abolitionist, had this insight into the Nuclear Age, “We prepare for our extinction in order to assure our survival.”[i] He refers to the irony and idiocy of reliance upon nuclear weapons to avert nuclear war.

    David KriegerNuclear deterrence is what the political, military and industrial leaders of the nuclear-armed and nuclear-dependent states call strategy. It involves the deployment of nuclear weapons on the land, in the air and under the oceans, and the constant striving to modernize and improve these weapons of mass annihilation.

    Nuclear deterrence strategy rests on the unfounded, unproven and unprovable conviction that the deployment of these weapons, including those on hair-trigger alert, will protect their possessors from nuclear attack. It rests on the further naïve beliefs that nothing will go awry and that humans will be able to indefinitely control the monstrous weapons they have created without incident or accident, without miscalculation or intentional malevolence. In truth, these beliefs are simply that, beliefs, without any solid basis in fact. They are tenuously based, on a foundation of faith as opposed to a provable reality. They are the conjuring of a nuclear priesthood in collaboration with pliable politicians and corporate nuclear profiteers. They are seemingly intent upon providing a final omnicidal demonstration of, in Hannah Arendt’s words, “the banality of evil.”[ii]

    Nuclear strategists and ordinary people rarely consider the mythology that sustains nuclear deterrence, which is built upon a foundation of rationality. But national leaders are often irrational, and there are no guarantees that nuclear weapons will not be used in the future. There have been many close calls in the past, not the least of which was the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Does it seem even remotely possible that all leaders of all nuclear-armed countries will act rationally at all times under all circumstances? It would be irrational to think so.

    In nuclear deterrence strategies there are vast unknowns and unknowable possibilities. Our behaviors and those of our nuclear-armed opponents are not always knowable. We must expect the unexpected, but we cannot know in advance in what forms it will present itself. This means that we cannot be prepared for every eventuality. We do know, however, that human fallibility and nuclear weapons are a volatile mix, and this is particularly so in times of crisis, such as we are experiencing now in US-Russian relations over Ukraine.

    Such volatility in a climate of crisis deepens the concern regarding the possibility of nuclear extinction. We can think of it as Nuclear Roulette, in which the nuclear-armed states are loading nuclear weapons into the metaphorical chambers of a gun and pointing that gun (or those several guns) at humanity’s head. No one knows how many nuclear weapons have been loaded into the gun. Are our chances of human extinction in the 21st century one in one hundred, one in ten, one in six, or one in two? The truth is that we do not know, but the odds of survival are not comforting.

    My colleague, physicist John Scales Avery, views the prospects of human survival as dim at best. He writes: “It is a life-or-death question. We can see this most clearly when we look far ahead. Suppose that each year there is a certain finite chance of a nuclear catastrophe, let us say 2 percent. Then in a century the chance of survival will be 13.5 percent, and in two centuries, 1.8 percent, in three centuries, 0.25 percent, in four centuries, there would only be a 0.034 percent chance of survival and so on. Over many centuries, the chance of survival would shrink almost to zero. Thus, by looking at the long-term future, we can see clearly that if nuclear weapons are not entirely eliminated, civilization will not survive.”[iii]

    Here is what we know: First, nuclear weapons are capable of causing human extinction, along with the extinction of many other species. Second, nine countries continue to rely upon these weapons for their so-called “national security.” Third, these nine countries are continuing to modernize their nuclear arsenals and failing to fulfill their legal and moral obligations to achieve a Nuclear Zero world – one in which human extinction by means of nuclear weapons is not a possibility because there are no nuclear weapons.

    Given these knowable facts, we might ask: What kind of “national security” is it to rely upon weapons capable of causing human extinction? Or, to put it another way: How can any nation be secure when nuclear weapons threaten all humanity? Certainly, it requires massive amounts of denial to remain apathetic to the extinction dangers posed by nuclear weapons. There appears to be a kind of mass insanity – a detachment from reality. Such detachment seems possible only in societies that have made themselves subservient to the nuclear “experts” and officials who have become the high priests of nuclear strategy. Whole societies have developed a gambler’s addiction to living at the edge of the precipice of nuclear annihilation.

    Remember Jonathan Schell’s insight: “We prepare for our extinction in order to assure our survival.” Of course, it is nonsensical to prepare for extinction to assure survival. Just as to achieve peace, we must prepare for peace, not war, we must be assuring our survival not by preparing for our extinction, but by ridding the world of the weapons that make this threat a possibility. We must, as Albert Einstein warned, change our “modes of thinking” or face “unparalleled catastrophe.”[iv]

    The Victims

    There have been many victims of the Nuclear Age, starting with those who died and those who survived the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This year marks the 70th anniversary of those bombings. The survivors of those bombings are growing older and more anxious to see their fervent wish, the abolition of nuclear weapons, realized.

    In addition to the victims in the atomic-bombed cities, there have been many other victims of nuclear weapons. These include the people at the nuclear test sites and those downwind from them. They have suffered cancers, leukemia and other illnesses. The effects of the radiation from the nuclear tests have also affected subsequent generations, causing stillbirths and many forms of birth defects.

    The Marshall Islanders were one group of nuclear victims. They lived on pristine Pacific islands, living simple lives close to the ocean waters that provided their bounty. But between 1946 and 1958 the US conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. The tests had the equivalent power of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs being exploded daily for 12 years. Some of the islands and atolls in the Marshall Islands became too radioactive to inhabit. The people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), who became guinea pigs for the US to study, continue to suffer. They have never received fair or adequate compensation for their injuries resulting from the US nuclear testing program.

    On March 1, 1954, the US conducted a nuclear test on the island of Bikini in the Marshall Islands. The bomb, detonated in a test known as Castle Bravo, had 1,000 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb. It contaminated the Bikini atoll and several other islands in the Marshall Islands, including Rongelap (100 miles away) and Utirik (300 miles away), as well as fishing vessels more than 100 miles from the detonation. Crew members aboard the Japanese vessel “Lucky Dragon” were severely irradiated and one crew member died as a result of radiation poisoning. This day is known internationally as “Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Day” or “Bikini Day.” Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum remembers the Bravo explosion as “a jolt on my soul that never left me.”[v]

    The Victims as Heroes

    On April 24, 2014, after more than a year-and-a-half of planning and preparations, the Marshall Islands filed lawsuits against nine nuclear-armed states in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague and against the United States separately in US Federal District Court in San Francisco. The Marshall Islanders seek no compensation in these lawsuits, but rather declaratory and injunctive relief declaring the nuclear-armed states to be in breach of their nuclear disarmament obligations and ordering them to fulfill these obligations by commencing within one year to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.[vi]

    The Marshall Islands lawsuits referred to obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and under customary international law. Regarding the latter, they relied upon a portion of the ICJ’s 1996 Advisory Opinion on the Illegality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons in which the Court stated: “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”[vii]

    The Marshall Islands is the mouse that roared, it is David standing against the nine nuclear goliaths, it is the friend not willing to let friends drive drunk on nuclear power. Most of all, the Marshall Islands is a heroic small nation that is standing up for all humanity against those countries that are perpetuating the risk of nuclear war and the nuclear extinction of humanity and other forms of complex life on the planet. The courage and foresight of the Marshall Islands is a harbinger of hope that should give hope to us all.

    The Current Status of the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits

    In the US case, the US government filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against it on jurisdictional grounds. On February 3, 2015, the federal judge, a George W. Bush appointee, granted the motion. The Marshall Islands have announced their intention to appeal the judge’s decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

    At the International Court of Justice, cases are in process against the three countries that accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the court – India, Pakistan and the UK. Both India and Pakistan are seeking to limit their cases to jurisdictional issues. It remains to be seen whether or not the UK will follow suit. Of the other nuclear-armed countries that do not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the court, none have accepted the Marshall Islands invitation to engage in the lawsuits, but only China has explicitly said that it will not.

    An important observation about the lawsuits is that there has been reticence by the nuclear-armed states to have the issue of their obligations for nuclear disarmament heard by the courts. It would appear that the nuclear-armed countries are not eager to have their people or the people of the world know about their legal obligations to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament or about their breaches of those obligations. Nor do they want the courts to order them to fulfill those obligations.

    The Lawsuits Are about More than the Law

    With regard to the legal aspects of these lawsuits, they are about whether treaties matter. They are about whether the most powerful nations are to be bound by the same rules as the rest of the international community. They are about whether a treaty can stand up with only half of the bargain fulfilled. They are about who gets to decide if treaty obligations are being met. Do all parties to a treaty stand on equal footing, or do the powerful have special rules specifically for them? They are also about the strength of customary international law to bind nations to civilized behavior.

    These lawsuits are about more than just the law. They are about breaking cocoons of complacency and a conversion of hearts. They are also about leadership, boldness, courage, justice, wisdom and, ultimately, about survival. Let me say a word about each of these.

    Leadership. If the most powerful countries won’t lead, then other countries must. The Marshall Islands, a small island country, has demonstrated this leadership, both on ending climate chaos and on eliminating the nuclear weapons threat to humanity.

    Boldness. Many of us in civil society have been calling for boldness in relation to the failure of the nuclear-armed countries to fulfill their obligations to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race and to achieve complete nuclear disarmament. The status quo has become littered with broken promises, and these have become hard to tolerate. Instead of negotiating in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race “at an early date,” the nuclear-armed countries have engaged in massive programs of modernization of their nuclear arsenals (nuclear weapons, delivery systems and infrastructure). Such modernization of the US nuclear arsenal alone is anticipated to cost a trillion dollars over the next three decades. Nuclear modernization by all nuclear-armed countries will ensure that nuclear weapons are deployed throughout the 21st century and beyond. The Marshall Islands is boldly challenging the status quo with the Nuclear Zero lawsuits.

    Courage. The Marshall Islands is standing up for humanity in bringing these lawsuits. I see them as David standing against the nine nuclear-armed Goliaths. But the Marshall Islands is a David acting nonviolently, using the courts and the law instead of a slingshot. The Marshall Islands shows us by its actions what courage looks like.

    Justice. The law should always be about justice. In the case of nuclear weapons, both the law and justice call for an equal playing field, one in which no country has possession of nuclear weapons. That is the bargain of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the requirement of customary international law, and the Marshall Islands is taking legal action that seeks justice in the international community.

    Wisdom. The lawsuits are about the wisdom to confront the hubris of the nuclear-armed countries. The arrogance of power is dangerous, and the arrogance of reliance upon nuclear weapons could be fatal for all humanity.

    Survival. At their core, the Nuclear Zero lawsuits brought by the Marshall Islands are about survival. They are about making nuclear war, by design or accident or miscalculation, impossible because there are no longer nuclear weapons to threaten humanity. Without nuclear weapons in the world, there can be no nuclear war, no nuclear famine, no nuclear terrorism, no overriding threat to the human species and the future of humanity.

    The dream of ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity should be the dream not only of the Marshall Islanders, but our dream as well It must become our collective dream – not only for ourselves, but for the human future. We must challenge the “experts” and officials who tell us, “Don’t worry, be happy” with the nuclear status quo.

    The people of the world should follow the lead of the Marshall Islanders. If they can lead, we can support them. If they can be bold, we can join them. If they can be courageous, we can be as well. If they can demand that international law be based on justice, we can stand with them. If they can act wisely and confront hubris, with all its false assumptions, we can join them in doing so. If they can take seriously the threat to human survival inherent in our most dangerous weapons, so can we. The Marshall Islands is showing us the way forward, breaking cocoons of complacency and demonstrating a conversion of the heart.

    I am proud to be associated with the Marshall Islands and its extraordinary Foreign Minister, Tony de Brum. As a consultant to the Marshall Islands, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has worked to build the legal teams that support the Nuclear Zero lawsuits. We have also built a consortium of 75 civil society organizations that support the lawsuits. We have also created a way for individuals to add their voices of support with a brief petition. Already over 5 million people have signed the petition supporting the Nuclear Zero lawsuits. You can find out more and add your voice at the campaign website, www.nuclearzero.org.

    I will conclude with a poem that I wrote recently, entitled “Testing Nuclear Weapons in the Marshall Islands.”

    TESTING NUCLEAR WEAPONS
    IN THE MARSHALL ISLANDS

    The islands were alive
    with the red-orange fire of sunset
    splashed on a billowy sky.

    The islanders lived simple lives
    close to the edge of the ocean planet
    reaching out to infinity.

    The days were bright and the nights
    calm in this happy archipelago
    until the colonizers came.

    These were sequentially the Spanish,
    Germans, Japanese and then, worst of all,
    the United States.

    The U.S. came as trustee
    bearing its new bombs, eager to test them
    in this beautiful barefoot Eden.

    The islanders were trusting,
    even when the bombs began exploding
    and the white ash fell like snow.

    The children played
    in the ash as it floated down on them,
    covering them in poison.

    The rest is a tale of loss
    and suffering by the islanders, of madness
    by the people of the bomb.

     

    [i] Krieger, David (Ed.), Speaking of Peace, Quotations to Inspire Action, Santa Barbara, CA: Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, 2014, p. 69.

    [ii] Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1023716-eichmann-in-jerusalem-a-report-on-the-banality-of-evil

    [iii] Avery, John Scales, “Remember Your Humanity,” website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/remember-your-humanity/

    [iv] Krieger, David (Ed.), op. cit., p. 52.

    [v] De Brum, Tony, website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation: https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/tony-debrum/

    [vi] Information on the Marshall Islands’ Nuclear Zero Lawsuits can be found at www.nuclearzero.org.

    [vii] “Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons,” United Nations General Assembly, A/51/218, 15 October 1996, p. 37.

  • 2015 Kelly Lecture Introduction

    Welcome to the 14th annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future, a project of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    I want to thank our sponsors for tonight’s event and make special mention of our principal sponsors: The Santa Barbara Foundation and the Terry and Mary Kelly Foundation. I also want to thank all of you for being here tonight and for caring about humanity’s future.

    kelly_2015The Kelly Lecture Series honors the vision and compassion of Frank K. Kelly, a founder and long-time senior vice president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Frank believed deeply that everyone deserves a seat at humanity’s table. He gave the first lecture in the series in 2002 on the subject, “Glorious Beings: What We Are and What We May Become.” Just the title of his talk gives you an idea of his unbounded optimism.

    For this Lecture series, the Foundation invites a distinguished speaker each year. Recent Kelly Lecturers have included Noam Chomsky, Dennis Kucinich and Daniel Ellsberg. Other lecturers in the series include Dame Anita Roddick, Frances Moore Lappe and Mairead Corrigan Maguire. You can find a complete list of the lecturers and their lectures on-line, as well as other information on the Foundation, at www.wagingpeace.org.

    The Kelly Lecture is one of many projects of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Other major projects include consulting with the Marshall Islands on their Nuclear Zero lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries. These David versus Goliath lawsuits seek no compensation, but rather ask the Courts to order the nuclear-armed countries to fulfill their obligations under international law to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.

    Another important Foundation project is our Peace Leadership Program, headed by Paul Chappell, who travels the world training people to become peace leaders and training peace leaders to be more effective in their efforts. Right now Paul is in Washington, DC, where there is a definite need for an infusion of peace Leadership.

    Another of our projects is exploring the moral reasons to abolish nuclear weapons, and to break the bonds of complacency that have led in the Nuclear Age to putting the future of humanity into the hands of so-called nuclear “experts” and policy makers, a most dangerous nuclear “priesthood.”

    The most important of these moral reasons is that we are putting all of Creation at risk of extinction. Could there be a greater crime or moral shortcoming? It is the multiplication of homicide by more than seven billion. It is moving beyond homicide and genocide to omnicide, the death of all.

    Let me share with you a quote from humanistic philosopher Erich Fromm: “For the first time in history, the physical survival of the human race depends on a radical change of the human heart.”

    Our lecturer tonight has worked for over four decades to create this radical change in the human heart. She is a passionate and committed advocate of a nuclear weapons-free world. She is a medical doctor, a pediatrician, from Australia who works to save the world’s children and, with them, the rest of us. She has diagnosed the severe societal disease of “nuclearism” and has advocated its cure through nuclear abolition.

    Dr. Caldicott is a recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, and has served as a member of our Advisory Council since 1994. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by two-time Nobel recipient Linus Pauling. The Smithsonian has named her one of the most influential women of the 20th century.

    She has just organized and held a vitally important symposium in New York on “The Dynamics of Possible Nuclear Extinction.” I was privileged to be one of the speakers at the symposium, which took place this past weekend at the New York Academy of Medicine.

    Tonight Dr. Caldicott will be speaking on “Preserving Humanity’s Future.” It is my pleasure to introduce our 2015 Kelly Lecturer, Dr. Helen Caldicott.

    (The video of Dr. Caldicott’s lecture will be at this link. DVD copies will also be available to use for public screenings. For further information, contact Rick Wayman at rwayman@napf.org.)

  • Recommended Reading on the Situation in Ukraine

    “Ready for Nuclear War with Ukraine?” by Robert Parry. February 23, 2015.
    According to investigative journalist Robert Parry, famous for his coverage of the Iran-Contra scandal, the Ukraine’s new powers in Kiev are “itching for a ‘full-scale war’ with Russia at all costs – even nuclear war.” Arguing that western, particularly American, media has been unfaithful in assessing the full dangers of the conflict, Parry raises the spectre of a new Cold War.

    “Ukraine: Time to Step Back from the Brink,” by Andrew Lichterman. February 2015.
    Andrew Lichterman, Senior Research analyst for the Western States Legal Foundation, has made a call “to halt and reverse all actions that contribute to [the Ukrainian conflict],” arguing that failing to do so risks renewing Cold War level tensions and nuclear conflict. Paying attention to Eastern Ukrainian and Russian point of views, Lichterman shows how the US has aggravated and even set the foundation for the current crisis. He calls for alternatives to the neoliberal international order and for all countries to “step back from the brink.”

    “Review of Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands,” by Jonathan Steele. February 19, 2015.
    Jonathan Steele of The Guardian highlights a series of “irresponsible distortions” on the part of the new Ukrainian leadership and reviews Richard Sakwa’s book, Frontline Ukraine, which takes a “cool, balanced, and well sourced” approach to the ongoing conflict. Pointing to three long-simmering crises that directly preceded the current one, he directs his frustration to the EU, western media bias, and to the demonization of Russia and its allies.

    Presentation to the National Press Club by Jack Matlock. February 11, 2015.
    Jack Matlock, former ambassador to the USSR, adds his voice to those condemning the U.S.’s current policies regarding Russia and the Ukraine – paying particular attention to what he calls the “personalization” of the conflict, which dichotomizes the crisis as one between Russia’s leadership and the West’s. He finishes his address by referring to the US’ collective foreign policy as “autistic” and asks for a re-evaluation of our approach.

    “Reagan’s Ambassador to Moscow Says U.S. Suffers from Autistic Foreign Policy,” by Martin Hellman, February 23, 2015.
    Martin Hellman, professor emeritus at Stanford University, discusses the speech given by President George H.W. Bush’s Ambassador to the USSR, Jack Matlock, on the U.S.’s current approach to the Ukrainian conflict. Calling American Foreign Policy “autistic,” Matlock is unsparing in his assessment and poignant in his criticism.

    “A Dangerous Trend Line,” by Martin Hellman. February 17, 2015.
    Professor emeritus and anti-nuclear activist Martin Hellman once more advocates utilizing a cautious risk framework to reduce tensions in the current conflict. He sadly notes however that he and others have been “miserably” unsuccessful amidst rising emotions and hardening intransigence.

    “Playing Chicken with Nuclear War,” by Robert Parry. March 3, 2015.
    “An unnerving nonchalance has settled over the American side which has become so casual about the risk of cataclysmic war that the West’s propaganda and passions now ignore Russian fears and sensitivities.”

    “How Obama’s Aggression in Ukraine Risks Nuclear War,” by Robert Roth. March 6, 2015.
    Writing at Counterpunch, Robert Roth explains why continued aggressive tactics by the U.S. and NATO in Ukraine risk resulting in nuclear war with Russia.