Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: David Krieger

  • Bush-Appointed Judge Dismisses Nuclear Zero Lawsuit; Marshall Islands to Appeal

    On April 24, 2014, the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), a Pacific Island country of 70,000 inhabitants, took bold action on nuclear disarmament. It brought lawsuits at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world’s highest court, against the nine nuclear-armed countries, accusing them of violating their obligations under international law to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race and for total nuclear disarmament. Because of the importance of the US as a nuclear power and the fact that it does not accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ, the Marshall Islands at the same time brought a similar lawsuit against the US in US federal district court in Northern California.

    In the US case, rather than engaging in the case in good faith, the US government responded by filing a motion to dismiss the case on jurisdictional grounds. On February 3, 2015, George W. Bush appointee Judge Jeffrey White granted the US motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the RMI, although a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), lacked standing to bring the case and that the lawsuit is barred by the political question doctrine.

    Regarding the RMI’s standing to bring the case, Judge White found that the harm of the future spread and use of nuclear weapons is too speculative “to establish injury in fact.” By implication, the Court is taking the position that the RMI must wait until there is further nuclear proliferation or a nuclear war to establish a concrete injury suitable to provide standing. Further, the Court found that the RMI claims of injury “cannot be redressed by compelling the specific performance of only one nation to the Treaty,” that is, the US. But this is not what the RMI was asking of the Court. It was asking that the Court declare the US in breach of its obligations under the NPT and customary international law and to order the US to commence negotiations in good faith within one year.

    The Court went on to say that even if the RMI could establish standing to sue it would be barred by the political question doctrine, which says that political questions should be handled by the political branches of government rather than by the courts. In this case, the Court deferred to the Executive branch of government, the branch that the RMI accused of failing to fulfill its legal obligations. The Court’s decision on this is akin to turning the matter over to the foxes to guard the nuclear henhouse. This will cause many national leaders to reconsider the value of entering into treaties with the US.

    In an important concluding footnote to the Court’s decision, Judge White wrote, “…the Court finds enforcement shall depend upon the interest and honor of the parties to the Treaty.” The judge was drawing upon an 1884 case known as Hard Money Cases, and included this quote from that case, “If these [interests] fail, its infraction becomes the subject of international negotiations and reclamations….It is obvious that with all this the judicial courts have nothing to do and can give no redress.” What the judge omitted in the ellipses following the word “reclamations” was “so far as the injured party chooses to seek redress, which may in the end be enforced by actual war.”

    In other words, in dismissing the Marshall Islands case, the judge relied upon a 19th century case that left matters to the Executive branch of government with the fallback position not of a peaceful judicial remedy, but enforcement by war. Of course, so long as nuclear weapons exist, that war could be a nuclear war, with the possibility of destroying cities, countries, civilization and human life on the planet.

    Knowing how high the stakes are for humanity, the Marshall Islands will not give up. Their people suffered the catastrophic and irreparable damage of these weapons when the US conducted 67 nuclear tests on their islands between 1946 and 1958, with the equivalent power of exploding 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for 12 years. The RMI has vowed to fight so that no one else on Earth will ever have to suffer these atrocities. It intends to take the next step and appeal the Court’s order to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. It also remains engaged in the three lawsuits for which there is compulsory jurisdiction at the ICJ, those against India, Pakistan and the UK.

    Despite the Court’s ruling on the motion to dismiss, there is nothing preventing the US from fulfilling its obligations to enter into negotiations in good faith for complete nuclear disarmament. Surely, a US initiative for convening such negotiations would be welcomed by most of the world’s countries and people. It would reduce the chances of nuclear proliferation, nuclear accident and nuclear war. It would also be consistent with President Obama’s Prague promise regarding “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a consultant to the Marshall Islands in the Nuclear Zero lawsuits.

    This article was published on Truthout at http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/28997-bush-appointed-judge-dismisses-nuclear-zero-lawsuit-marshall-islands-to-appeal

  • Where’s America’s Commitment to Seek a World Without Nuclear Weapons?

    Nuclear weapons do not make Americans safer.  Rather, they threaten us all with their uncontrollable and unforgiving power.  They are weapons of mass annihilation, indiscriminate in nature, threatening combatants and civilians alike. They kill and maim.  They cause unnecessary suffering.  They are immoral and their use would violate the humanitarian laws of warfare.  No country should be allowed to possess weaponry that is capable of destroying civilization and ending most life on the planet, including the human species.

    David KriegerNuclear weapons and human fallibility are a most dangerous mix.  As long as nuclear weapons exist in the world, civilization and the human species are threatened.  Nuclear deterrence is not foolproof, and time is not our friend.  We must approach this task with the urgency it demands.  We must confront nuclear weapons and those countries that possess and rely upon them with what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the fierce urgency of now.”

    There are still more than 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world, most in the arsenals of the United States and Russia.  However, seven other countries also possess these annihilators.  These countries are: the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.  Even one of these weapons can destroy a city, a few can destroy a country, and an exchange of 100 of them between India and Pakistan on the other side’s cities could trigger a nuclear famine resulting in the deaths of some two billion people globally.  A larger nuclear exchange between the US and Russia could return the planet to an ice age, resulting in nearly universal death.

    What is needed today is for the countries of the world to engage in negotiations in good faith to end the nuclear arms race and to achieve total nuclear disarmament.  That is what is required of us and the other countries of the world under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law.  Unfortunately, rather than negotiating in good faith for these ends, the nuclear-armed countries are engaged in expensive programs to modernize their nuclear arsenals.

    The goal of negotiations should be a universal agreement for all the nuclear-armed countries to give up their nuclear arsenals in a phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent manner.  It will require the participation of all countries, but some country will need to lead in convening these negotiations.  That country should be the United States of America, given its background in developing, using and testing nuclear weapons.  But, if history is a guide, that won’t happen until the people of the United States demand it of their government.

    The country that has stepped up to take a leadership role in calling on the nuclear-armed nations to fulfill their obligations for nuclear disarmament is a small, courageous Pacific Island state, the Republic of the Marshall Islands.  It is suing the nine nuclear-armed nations to require them to do what they are obligated to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law; that is, to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.

    The Nuclear Zero initiative of the Marshall Islands falls in this 70th anniversary year of the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States.  Enough people have already suffered from nuclear weapons – those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those in the Marshall Islands, the Nevada Test Site, Semipalatinsk, Lop Nor and other nuclear weapon test sites around the world.  It is time for humanity to take charge of its own destiny.  In the Nuclear Age, ridding the world of nuclear weapons is an imperative.  Our common future depends upon our shared success.

    Of course, the perspective expressed above is my own.  It is tragic, though, that such a perspective did not make it into the President’s 2015 State of the Union Message to the Congress and People of the United States.  It was an opportunity to teach and lead that was missed by the President.  Why, we might ask, is he engaged in modernizing the US nuclear arsenal, a trillion dollar project, instead of negotiating for the elimination of nuclear weapons?  After all, in Prague in 2009, the president expressed boldly, “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”  What has happened to that commitment?

    Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).  He is the author of ZERO: The Case for Nuclear Weapons Abolition. 

    This article was originally published by The Hill.

     

  • The 2015 State of the Union Address: A Major Omission

    When President Obama first took office he was deeply concerned about nuclear disarmament. In 2009, in a speech in Prague he had this to say about nuclear weapons:

    Today, the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have not. In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up. More nations have acquired these weapons. Testing has continued. Black market trade in nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abound. The technology to build a bomb has spread. Terrorists are determined to buy, build or steal one. Our efforts to contain these dangers are centered on a global non-proliferation regime, but as more people and nations break the rules, we could reach the point where the center cannot hold.

    He also said at Prague:

    So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. (Applause.) I’m not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly — perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, “Yes, we can.” (Applause.)

    us-presidential-sealWe might well ask not only what happened to “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” but what happened to President Obama’s commitment?

    In President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address, the only mention of nuclear weapons was in relation to the agreement the Obama administration is seeking to negotiate with Iran. The President promised to veto any additional sanctions placed on Iran, which he said would undermine the negotiations between the US and Iran to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. President Obama also expressed considerable concern for the dangers of climate change, a clear danger to the environment and the future. But there was no mention in the State of the Union of “America’s commitment” to nuclear disarmament.

    President Obama’s early concerns for nuclear disarmament led to his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, but he seems to have given up his pursuit of a world without nuclear weapons. He does so to the detriment of all Americans and all people of the world. Nuclear weapons are equal opportunity destroyers – women, men and children. Under Obama’s leadership, America is setting a course to modernize its nuclear infrastructure, weapons and delivery systems. Not only is the expected price tag for the US nuclear modernization program expected to exceed $1 trillion over the next three decades, but such a program endangers all Americans rather than providing them with security.

    In a recent article in The Nation, Theodore Postol, a MIT professor emeritus of science, technology and national security policy, argued, “No rational actor would take steps to start a nuclear war. But the modernization effort significantly increases the chances of an accident during an unpredicted, and unpredictable, crisis – one that could escalate beyond anyone’s capacity to imagine.” Postol concluded, “In a world that is fundamentally unpredictable, the pursuit of an unchallenged capacity to fight and win a nuclear war is a dangerous folly.”

    Mr. President, we live in an unpredictable world, but it is predictable based on history that nuclear weapons and human fallibility are a dangerous and highly flammable mix. Nuclear weapons, including our own, threaten all Americans and all humanity. Don’t give up on the essential quest for a Nuclear Zero world, which you seemed so eager to achieve upon assuming office.

  • Fifteen Moral Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

    1. Thou shalt not kill.
    2. Thou shalt not threaten to slaughter the innocent.
    3. Thou shalt not cause unnecessary suffering.
    4. Thou shalt not poison the future.
    5. Thou shalt not hold hostage cities and their inhabitants.
    6. Thou shalt not threaten to destroy civilization.
    7. Thou shalt not abandon stewardship of fish and fowl, birds and beasts.
    8. Thou shalt not put all of Creation at risk of annihilation.
    9. Thou shalt not use weapons that cannot be contained in space or time.
    10. Thou shalt not waste resources on weapons – resources that could be far better used for meeting basic human needs of the poor and downtrodden.
    11. Thou shalt not fail to fulfill one’s obligations to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament.
    12. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s missiles.
    13. Thou shalt not worship false idols.
    14. Thou shalt not keep silent in the face of the nuclear threat to all we love and treasure.
    15. Thou shalt live by the Golden Rule, doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.Thou shalt not kill

     

  • A World Youth Summit to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

    Each year since 1983, Daisaku Ikeda, the founder and president of Soka Gakkai International, has issued a Peace Proposal. Many of these proposals have included the subject of abolishing nuclear weapons – weapons that Ikeda’s mentor, Josei Toda, rightly called an “absolute evil.” In his 2014 Peace Proposal, his 32nd, President Ikeda puts forward an extremely important idea, that of holding a World Youth Summit to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in 2015. It is this part of his 2014 proposal that I will address in this article.

    Convening a World Youth Summit to Abolish Nuclear Weapons implies that the leaders and diplomats of the world have not achieved success in dealing with nuclear weapons. This is clearly the case. As Ikeda points out, 2015 will mark the 70th year since the atomic bomb was created, tested, and then used twice in warfare, once on the city of Hiroshima and once on the city of Nagasaki. Despite the risk that nuclear weapons continue to pose to humanity, their threat still hangs over our collective heads.

    The survivors of those bombings saw firsthand the damage done to their cities by the blast, fire and radiation. They have since learned that the consequences of the atomic bombings cannot be confined in space or time. The average age of these atomic bomb survivors now surpasses 78 years, and yet their fervent dream of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons remains unrealized. They have done their best to assure that their past does not become someone else’s future, but the leaders of the nuclear weapon states have failed to negotiate for Nuclear Zero, let alone achieve it.

    The year 2015 will also mark the 45th year since the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty entered into force. That treaty was designed not only to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, but also to level the playing field among nations by assuring that the parties to the treaty pursue negotiations in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and for nuclear disarmament. The non-nuclear weapon states signed this treaty in good faith, believing that the nuclear weapon states would fulfill their part of the bargain by negotiating in good faith for a world free of nuclear weapons.

    Convening a World Youth Summit to Abolish Nuclear Weapons also implies that new thinking regarding security and nuclear weapons is needed. Where better can this new thinking come from than the youth of the world? The old thinking, embodied in nuclear deterrence strategy, is based upon the belief that the threat of mass annihilation will keep the peace. This hypothesis has never been proven and has come close to failing on many occasions. It has, however, kept alive the threats of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) and Self-Assured Destruction (SAD).

    To anyone who studies nuclear deterrence theory carefully, it must seem like a game of Russian roulette with a bullet loaded in one of six chambers of a gun pointed at the head of humanity. In fact, Martin Hellman, a Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, estimates that a child born today has a one-in-six chance of dying due to a nuclear war during his or her expected 80-year lifespan.

    The world of the future belongs to the youth of today, but if they are not active in claiming this world, they may be subject to the consequences of the clash between powerful technologies and a level of human wisdom inadequate to control these technologies. Rather than sitting idly awaiting these consequences, Ikeda calls upon the youth of the world to take matters into their hands and develop a plan to abolish nuclear weapons. He calls for a specific outcome of the World Youth Summit, the adoption of “a declaration affirming their commitment to bringing the era of nuclear weapons to an end.”

    To achieve this objective, young people will need to commence an exchange of ideas on developing a plan of action to abolish nuclear weapons. They will need to talk to each other across borders, learning together and planning together. They will need to focus their youthful enthusiasm on seeking a way out from under the nuclear threat that continues to hang precariously above all humanity. The youth will need to organize and develop strategies to lead their political leaders. They will need to see the world with fresh eyes, in order to teach their elders what is possible in that new world, when the threat of mass annihilation is removed because nuclear weapons are abolished and prohibited.

    The World Youth Summit to Abolish Nuclear Weapons could base its declaration on ridding the world of nuclear dangers to all humanity, but especially to the youth of the world themselves. They could also argue their case on the need to disinvest in these dinosaur-like weapons and invest instead in meeting human needs, such as food, potable water, shelter, health care and education, and in protecting the environment from climate change and other serious threats.

    Abolishing nuclear weapons is critical, but it is only a beginning. The youth of the world would find that, if they succeeded in ridding the world of nuclear dangers, they could do much more. They could turn their attention to building a world without war and one that is just for all, a world in which the arc of history would bend toward justice at a rate commensurate with the need to assure human dignity for all.

    Daisaku Ikeda points out, “The greatest significance of such a summit and declaration would lie in the spur they provide to future action.” I would only add to this that the future is now; it is time for the youth of the world to seize the initiative to build a peaceful, just and ecologically sound world, free of nuclear threat – one that they will be proud to pass on to future generations.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He and Daisaku Ikeda had a dialogue that was published in Japan and the U.S. as Choose Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age.

  • A Poem for the Crossroads

    I would like to write a poem and nail it
    to a stake at humanity’s crossroads.
    It would say: choose your path wisely.

    It would say: this path we are on is far
    too treacherous, a trap for the unwary
    and complacent.

    It would say: take down the gun pointed
    at humanity’s heart – enough of war,
    enough of nuclear weapons, enough
    of stumbling toward collective suicide.

    It would say: enough homage to death –
    choose life and be a citizen of the world.
    It would say: be kinder than necessary.

    It would certainly say: when it rains, the water
    sinks into the Earth and the grass grows
    toward the sun.

    It would say: when the winds blow, the leaves
    will flutter from the trees like butterflies.
    It would remind us to stop and look at
    the beauty around us.

    It would say: this is Eden, but it needs care.
    It would say: before you choose a path, think
    about the people of the future.

    It would say: make each moment of your time
    on Earth matter.

    It would say: choose the path of peace.

  • The Nuclear Zero Lawsuits

    The Nuclear Zero lawsuits, initiated by the Marshall Islands, are about the law, but they are about much more than the law.  They are also about saving humanity from its most destructive capabilities.  They are about saving humanity from itself and about preserving civilization for future generations.  They are incredibly important, and I will try to place them in a broader context.

    Nuclear Zero LawsuitsI will begin by sharing two quotations with you.  The first is by Jayantha Dhanapala, a Sri Lankan diplomat, former United Nations Under-Secretary General, and long-time and committed leader in the area of nuclear disarmament.  He states: “The spectre of the use of a nuclear weapon through political intent, cyber-attack or by accident, by a nation state or by a non-state actor, is more real than we, in our cocoons of complacency, choose to acknowledge.”

    The spectre of nuclear use, even nuclear war, is real and most of the world lives in “cocoons of complacency.”  It is clear that we must break free from those cocoons, which are as dangerous to the human future as are the nuclear weapons that now imperil us.  The Nuclear Zero lawsuits seek to accomplish that.

    The second quote is by His Holiness Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church, who has brought new light and compassion to his office.  He states: “As long as so great a quantity of arms are in circulation as at present, new pretexts can always be found for initiating hostilities. For this reason, I make my own the appeal of my predecessors for the non-proliferation of arms and for disarmament of all parties, beginning with nuclear and chemical weapons disarmament.”  The Pope talks about disarmament in general, but he puts nuclear disarmament, along with chemical weapons disarmament, at the top of his list.

    Pope Francis continues: “We cannot however fail to observe that international agreements and national laws — while necessary and greatly to be desired — are not of themselves sufficient to protect humanity from the risk of armed conflict. A conversion of hearts is needed which would permit everyone to recognize in the other a brother or sister to care for, and to work together with, in building a fulfilling life for all.”

    “A conversion of hearts.”  Can there be any doubt that such conversion is necessary?  Can there be any doubt that traditional diplomacy is not getting the job done?  And that preparations for war and resolving conflicts by means of warfare are moving us farther away from the needed conversion of hearts.

    Disarmament negotiations have been stuck for some 20 years.  The “step-by-step” approach of the nuclear-armed states is not working.  There are no negotiations in good faith for nuclear disarmament, as required by international law.  There are still over 16,000 nuclear weapons in the world.  The use of even a small number of these would destroy civilization or, worse, end complex life on the planet – the only planet we know of in the universe that harbors life.

    Nuclear weapons do not so much threaten our amazing planet itself, as they threaten the future of humanity and all the creatures, which are subject, for better or worse, to our stewardship.  Over geological time with the passing of hundreds of thousands of years, the Earth will recover from the worst we can do to it.  It is ourselves and civilization that we put at risk with our nuclear arsenals.  We must have a “conversion of hearts” if we are to save our world, ourselves, and the human future.

    The Marshall Islands has brought lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries.  They ask only that these nine nuclear-armed states do what is required of them under international law – under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and customary international law.  They ask that the nuclear-armed countries fulfill their obligations under international law to pursue negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.  They ask only for the fulfillment of unkept promises and unmet obligations.

    The Marshall Islanders are very sympathetic heroes and heroines.  For 12 years, from 1946 to 1958, the United States tested nuclear and thermonuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, causing untold suffering to the islanders.  The US tested 67 times, in the atmosphere and underwater.  The power of these tests was the equivalent force of testing 1.6 Hiroshima bombs daily for 12 years.  This led to countless health problems and premature deaths from cancer and leukemia.  It also led to many birth defects and stillbirths.   After the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no place on the planet has suffered more from nuclear weapons than has the Marshall Islands.

    The United States was the trustee of the Trust Territory of the Pacific, which included the Marshall Islands.  In this role, the US was responsible for protecting the life and health of the islanders.  Instead, the US tested nuclear weapons on their islands, conducted secret radiation experiments on the islanders, and hid information from the islanders so as to evade paying them fair compensation for their pain, suffering and premature deaths.  This was criminal behavior; it was certainly not the behavior of a responsible trustee.

    With the Nuclear Zero lawsuits, the Marshall Islanders are acting out of compassion.  They are not seeking compensation.  They are breaking the bonds of complacency.  They seek a conversion of the human heart in order to save their islands and the world from the ravages of nuclear weapons.  They wish that no other country or people will ever suffer as they have.  They have initiated these lawsuits as a public good.

    As Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Tony de Brum put it, “Our people have suffered the catastrophic and irreparable damage of these weapons, and we vow to fight so that no one else on earth will ever again experience these atrocities.  The continued existence of nuclear weapons and the terrible risk they pose to the world threaten us all.”  I should note that this is the same perspective as that of the hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It is the perspective of all those who have suffered the terrible consequences of nuclear weapons use.

    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, as I already noted, are about more than just the law.  They are also about breaking the 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 nuclear infrastructure).  Such modernization of nuclear arsenals could cost trillions of dollars and ensure that nuclear weapons are deployed through 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 base, the Nuclear Zero lawsuits brought by the Marshall Islands are about survival.  They are about making nuclear war, by design or accident, 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 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, our collective dream, not only for ourselves, but for the human future.

    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 over 50 civil society organizations and individuals supporting the lawsuits.  We have also created a way for individuals to add their voices of support with a brief petition.  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: “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.

    This speech was delivered by NAPF President David Krieger at a public forum on the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits in Vienna, Austria, on December 5, 2014.

  • The Torturers

    The torturers will gather in Hades.

    There will be no pleasantries.

    They will be stripped of all honors.

    They will be awakened
    to the baseness of their crimes.

    They will be purged of all justifications.

    Their smiles will be banished.

    They will see their true faces.

    They will be surrounded by the screams
    of their victims.

    They will understand who they are.

  • Restocking the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal Would Send a Terrible Message

    This letter to the editor was published by the Los Angeles Times on December 4, 2014.

    LA TimesTo the Editor: The U.S. can lead in modernizing its nuclear arsenal, resuming nuclear testing and, in general, continuing to demonstrate the perceived military usefulness of nuclear weapons. Or, the U.S. can lead in pursuing negotiations in good faith to end the nuclear arms race and achieve complete nuclear disarmament. (“New nuclear weapons needed, many experts say, pointing to aged arsenal,” Nov. 29)

    The first path will cost $1 trillion over the next three decades, encourage nuclear proliferation and keep the nuclear arms race alive through the 21st century. The second path will demonstrate U.S. global leadership, allow precious resources to be used for meeting basic needs and fulfill U.S. legal obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    We have a choice about what kind of country we wish to be and what kind of world we will pass on to our children and grandchildren.

     

  • On Modernizing the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

    The Los Angeles Times ran front-page articles on November 9 and 10, 2014, on modernizing the US nuclear arsenal. The first article was titled, “Costs rise as nuclear arsenal ages.” The second article was titled, “Arsenal ages as world rearms.” Both were long articles and the authors made the case that there is no choice but for the United States to modernize its nuclear arsenal, delivery systems and infrastructure at great expense to taxpayers, estimated at $1 trillion over the next three decades.

    David KriegerThe authors, reporters for the newspaper, write, “The Defense Department’s fleet of submarines, bombers and land-based missiles is also facing obsolescence and will have to be replaced over the next two decades, raising the prospect of further multibillion-dollar cost escalations.” This statement might be acceptable as a quote from a Defense Department official or in an opinion piece, but it hardly reflects the objectivity of professional reporters. It sounds more like an unattributed statement from a Defense Department official or from a “defense” corporation press release.

    In fact, there is a viable option that was not touched upon in the articles. The United States could choose instead to fulfill its legal obligations under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to negotiate in good faith to end the nuclear arms race at an early date and to achieve complete nuclear disarmament. This would not be easy, but it would be far preferable to continuing the nuclear arms race through the 21st century. For the United States to convene such negotiations would demonstrate leadership in moving the world away from nuclear Armageddon and toward compliance with international law.

    In pursuing this option, “defense” corporations would likely suffer shortfalls in their profits, but the huge sums proposed to be spent on the modernization of the US nuclear arsenal could be shifted to providing for the basic needs of the poorest citizens and for restoring the country’s deteriorating infrastructure. The truth is that nuclear weapons are obsolete for providing 21st century security against terrorist organizations, failed states, environmental destruction or climate chaos.

    Do we really want to pass along the threat of nuclear warfare, by accident or design, which could destroy civilization, to our grandchildren and their grandchildren? Enough is enough. It is time, as Einstein argued more than a half century ago, to change our modes of thinking or face “unparalleled catastrophe.”

    No country has the right to threaten the future of civilization and complex life with weapons of massive destructive power. Modernization of the US nuclear arsenal is not the only choice we have. A far better and saner choice is to end the nuclear weapons era, and that can only be done by diplomacy and negotiations for a nuclear weapons-free world.

    Rather than creating a financial feeding frenzy for “defense” contractors and essentially throwing away a trillion dollars over the next three decades in the illegal pursuit of nuclear modernization, the United States could choose now to lead the world in seeking planetary nuclear zero. This would be a worthy pursuit for a great nation.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.