Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: David Krieger

The Most Important Lessons Life Taught Me

As a young man, faced with the Vietnam War, I learned to follow my conscience, rather than the path of least resistance. I learned that the US government, or any government, can lie a country into war, but that it cannot prosecute that war without willing soldiers and a willing populace. I learned that a government can order a young person to kill on its behalf, but it can’t force a young person to do so. I learned that a single committed person, young or old, can stand against the US government and prevail. I learned that war is a terrible and often senseless tragedy, and that there are no good wars. I learned that wars are a foolish way to settle conflicts, and that nuclear weapons have made the potential destruction of war far more devastating. I learned that peace is not the space between wars, but rather a dynamic social process in which change occurs nonviolently. I learned that peace is not only an end but a means. I learned that peace requires perseverance, as does any great goal worth struggling for. I learned that we are all connected, with each other, with the past and with the future. I learned that each of us has a responsibility to act for the common good and for generations yet to come, and that none of us has a right to give up on achieving a more peaceful and decent world.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

April 1, 2013
The Iraq War: Ten Years, Five Poems of Remembrance

It has been ten years since the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq spearheaded by the George W. Bush administration. It is an occasion for remembrance, reflection and deep regret. It was a war built on lies that harmed everything it touched. Most of all, it has harmed the children of Iraq and their families, and it continues to harm them even though the United States and its allies have officially left Iraq.

The war has also done deep and possibly irreparable damage to the credibility and decency of the United States, the country that led in choosing war over peace. It is an ongoing disgrace to America that we do not hold those who initiated aggressive warfare to account for their individual crimes, as the Allies did at Nuremberg following World War II. Short of public international criminal trials, the best we can do now is commit ourselves to never again allowing an aggressive war to be committed in our names, build a world at peace, and be a force for peace in our personal and communal lives.

The five poems that follow were written over an eight-year period, nearly the length of the nine-year war. The first poem, “The Children of Iraq Have Names,” was written in the lead-up to the war and was read at many hopeful peace marches in late 2002 and early 2003, when many people throughout the world took to the streets seeking to prevent the war from occurring. The second poem, “Worse Than the War,” was written in June 2004, a little over a year into the war. In it, I give my thoughts on what could be worse than the war.

The third poem, “To an Iraqi Child,” was written nearly a year later, in April 2005. It is about a 12-year-old boy, Ali Ismail Abbas, who lost his mother, father, brother and 11 other relatives when a US missile struck his home. The boy lost both of his arms in the attack. He had wanted to be a doctor.

The fourth poem, “Greeting Bush in Baghdad,” was written in December 2008, near the end of the war and is based upon an incident that occurred when George W. Bush visited Iraq and spoke to the press there. The fifth and final poem, “Zaid’s Misfortune,” was written in July 2010, and is a poem about another Iraqi child.

The children of Iraq paid the price for a war that should not have happened. So did the people of Iraq. So did the young Americans that the government sent to fight and die there. So did those Americans who fought in Iraq and came home injured and traumatized. So did America itself and its allies pay the price of military failure, the loss of credibility and the trillions of dollars wasted on the war. So did we all pay the price of being implicated in an unnecessary and immeasurably futile war. When will we ever learn?

The Children of Iraq Have Names

The children of Iraq have names.
They are not the nameless ones.

The children of Iraq have faces.
They are not the faceless ones.

The children of Iraq do not wear Saddam’s face.
They each have their own face.

The children of Iraq have names.
They are not all called Saddam Hussein.

The children of Iraq have hearts.
They are not the heartless ones.

The children of Iraq have dreams.
They are not the dreamless ones.

The children of Iraq have hearts that pound.
They are not meant to be statistics of war.

The children of Iraq have smiles.
They are not the sullen ones.

The children of Iraq have twinkling eyes.
They are quick and lively with their laughter.

The children of Iraq have hopes.
They are not the hopeless ones.

The children of Iraq have fears.
They are not the fearless ones.

The children of Iraq have names.
Their names are not collateral damage.

What do you call the children of Iraq?
Call them Omar, Mohamed, Fahad.

Call them Marwa and Tiba.
Call them by their names.

Worse Than the War

Worse than the war, the endless, senseless war,
Worse than the lies leading to the war,

Worse than the countless deaths and injuries,
Worse than hiding the coffins and not attending funerals,

Worse than the flouting of international law,
Worse than the torture at Abu Ghraib prison,

Worse than the corruption of young soldiers,
Worse than undermining our collective sense of decency,

Worse than the arrogance, smugness and swagger,
Worse than our loss of credibility in the world,
Worse than the loss of our liberties,

Worse than learning nothing from the past,
Worse than destroying the future,
Worse than the incredible stupidity of it all,

Worse than all of these,
As if they were not enough for one war or country or lifetime,
Is the silence, the resounding silence of good Americans.

To an Iraqi Child

for Ali Ismail Abbas

So you wanted to be a doctor?

It was not likely that your dreams
would have come true anyway.

We didn’t intend for our bombs to find you.

They are smart bombs, but they didn’t know
that you wanted to be a doctor.

They didn’t know anything about you
and they know nothing of love.

They cannot be trusted with dreams.

They only know how to find their targets
and explode in fulfillment.

They are gray metal casings with violent hearts,
doing only what they were created to do.

It isn’t their fault that they found you.

Perhaps you were not meant to be a doctor.

Greeting Bush in Baghdad

“This is a farewell kiss, you dog.”
— Muntader al-Zaidi

You are a guest in my country, unwanted
surely, but still a guest.

You stand before us waiting for praise,
but how can we praise you?

You come after your planes have rained
death on our cities.

Your soldiers broke down our doors,
humiliated our men, disgraced our women.

We are not a frontier town and you are not
our marshal.

You are a torturer. We know you force water
down the throats of our prisoners.

We have seen the pictures of our naked prisoners
threatened by your snarling dogs.

You are a maker of widows and orphans,
a most unwelcome guest.

I have only this for you, my left shoe that I hurl
at your lost and smirking face,

and my right shoe that I throw at your face
of no remorse.

Zaid’s Misfortune

Zaid had the misfortune
of being born in Iraq, a country
rich with oil.

Iraq had the misfortune
of being invaded by a country
greedy for oil.

The country greedy for oil
had the misfortune of being led
by a man too eager for war.

Zaid’s misfortune multiplied
when his parents were shot down
in front of their medical clinic.

Being eleven and haunted
by the deaths of one’s parents
is a great misfortune.

In Zaid’s misfortune
a distant silence engulfs
the sounds of war.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

March 18, 2013
Reflections on Omnicide, Nuclear Deterrence and a Maginot Line in the Mind

This article was originally published by Truthout.

I offer a few reflections in an effort to separate fact from fiction with regard to nuclear weapons, their capacity for devastation and our ability to assure global security by preventing their use.

First, today’s nuclear arsenals are capable of omnicide, the death of all. In that sense, nuclear weapons are not really weapons but instruments of annihilation. They place all complex life at risk of extinction.

Omnicide is possible because of the unique capacity of nuclear weapons to cause a “nuclear winter” and to trigger “nuclear famine.” In addition to the ordinary ways that nuclear weapons destroy – blast, fire and radiation – they have the capacity to block sunlight from reaching the earth, shorten growing seasons, and lead to the destruction of crops, resulting in global nuclear famine.

Second, nuclear weapons are justified by their possessors by their belief in the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence.

We must always keep in mind that nuclear deterrence is not a fact; it is a hypothesis about human behavior. It is a hypothesis that posits rational leaders; and it is, in fact, highly irrational to believe that humans will behave rationally at all times under all conditions. How many national leaders are you aware of who always act rationally, regardless of the circumstances?

It is also true that humans are fallible and prone to error, even when they construct elaborate safeguards. Examples of human fallibility are found in the nuclear power plant accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, and in numerous accidents with nuclear weapons in transport, such as the refueling accident over Palomares, Spain.

As Ban Ki-moon said earlier this year in a speech at the Monterey Institute of International Studies: “Nuclear deterrence is not a solution to international peace and stability. It is an obstacle.”

Third, I urge you to remember the Maginot Line. It was a high-tech wall that French leaders believed would prevent another invasion of their country, as had occurred in World War I. The Maginot Line was highly regarded right up to the time that it failed, catastrophically for France, when the German attackers simply marched around it.

I view nuclear deterrence theory as a Maginot Line in the mind. It is likely to be relied upon right up until the moment it fails, and when it fails it will be catastrophic, far more so than in the French case. Like the original Maginot Line, it will seem clear after the fact that it was destined to fail.

What is missing from the discourse on nuclear armaments among national leaders is political will for nuclear weapons abolition, a sense of urgency and the courage to lead. Mr. Obama spoke in his 2013 State of the Union Address about the US “leading the global effort to secure nuclear materials that could fall into the wrong hands.” The problem with the president’s perspective is that all hands are the wrong hands.

Who will make this clear to Mr. Obama and to the leaders of the other nuclear weapons states? This is a role for the citizens of the nuclear weapon states and for the leaders of middle-power countries. It is necessary if we are to preserve our world and pass it on intact to new generations.

Mr. Obama also said that “our ability to influence others depends on our willingness to lead.” Who will step up and lead on this mostcritical of all issues for humanity’s future?

Strategies for nuclear weapons, based on nuclear deterrence, have been MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). MAD has given way to SAD (Self-Assured Destruction), as today’s arsenals of thermonuclear weapons have the capacity to trigger Ice Age conditions (leading to nuclear famine) that would assure the destruction of the attacking nation, even without retaliation.

We must have the courage to move past MAD and SAD to PASS (Planetary Assured Security and Survival). This will require moving rapidly but surely to the total abolition of nuclear weapons, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

I urge national leaders and security specialists, as well as the public, to base their strategic thinking, leadership and action regarding nuclear weapons on three basic understandings that separate fact from fiction, truth from hypothesis. First, nuclear weapons are capable of omnicide. Second, nuclear deterrence is only a hypothesis about human behavior, not a fact that can be relied upon for the indefinite future. Third, the Maginot Line was fancy and high-tech and was thought to be foolproof by most security experts, but it failed to provide a defense when it mattered, and its failure was devastating for France.

Nuclear deterrence is a Maginot Line in the mind, and its failure would be devastating, not only to nuclear armed countries, but to people everywhere, as well as to the future of complex life on the planet.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

March 14, 2013
2013 Kelly Lecture Introduction

This is a transcript of remarks delivered by David Krieger in advance of the 2013 Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future.

Welcome to the 12th Annual Frank K. Kelly Lecture on Humanity’s Future. This lecture series has brought many great thinkers and visionaries to Santa Barbara and tonight is no exception.

The lecture series is a program of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The mission of the Foundation is to educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons, and to empower peace leaders. We have 60,000 members around the country and the world. If you are not already a member of the Foundation, we invite you to join us in becoming a force for peace that cannot be stopped. You can learn more about the Foundation at our information table outside or join us online at www.wagingpeace.org.

This lecture series is named for Frank Kelly, a man whose life spanned most of the 20th century. Frank was an outstanding science fiction writer as a teenager, a citizen-soldier during World War II, a newspaper reporter, a speechwriter for President Truman, Assistant to the Senate Majority Leader, vice president of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, and a founder and senior vice president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Frank had a deep faith that humanity’s future would be bright. He believed that everyone deserves a seat at humanity’s table and that everyone’s voice matters. This lecture series honors Frank’s commitment to creating a more decent, peaceful and participatory future for humanity.

Our lecturer tonight is Dennis Kucinich, a visionary leader in Congress for the past 16 years. He has been a principled, passionate and persevering leader for peace and disarmament in an institution often characterized by its lack of thoughtful deliberations and its mob-like enthusiasm for military solutions to conflict. He has stood and struggled for peace as a beacon of hope during dark days of war, days that continue still. He is the author of legislation to create a United States Department of Peace, with Assistant Secretaries of Peace represented in every other major department of the US government.

I know that Dennis believes in the “power of now,” that it is what we do now that makes all the difference for our common future. He writes, “War is never inevitable. Peace is inevitable if we desire to call it forward…. But if we call peace forward from the unseen we must name it, we must give it structure, we must prepare for it a place to exist – a space to breathe, to be nurtured, to flower – so that it can be appreciated as an expression of that divine spark of creation.”

Dennis Kucinich may be for the moment out of the Congress of the United States – and that body seems to me to be far the less without him – but he is not out of public life. Tonight he speaks on “Restoring Hope for America’s Future through Developing a Culture of Peace.”

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

February 8, 2013
Outlawing Nuclear Weapons: Time for a New International Treaty?
Is it time for a new international treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons? The short answer to this question is, Yes, it is time. Actually, it is past time. The critical question, however, is not whether we need a new international treaty. We do. The critical question is: How do we achieve the political will among the nuclear weapon states to begin negotiations for a new international treaty to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons?

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Is Failing

The NPT has reciprocal obligations. The nuclear weapon states seek to hold the line against proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries. In return, the non-nuclear weapon states rely upon Article VI of the NPT to level the playing field. Article VI contains three obligations:

“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

None of these obligations have been fulfilled. Negotiations in good faith have not been pursued on any of the three obligations.

It has been 42 years since the treaty entered into force, and the nuclear arms race continues. All of the NPT nuclear weapon states are modernizing their arsenals. They have not negotiated in good faith to end the nuclear arms race at an early date.

Nor have the NPT nuclear weapon states negotiated in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. They have not acted with a sense of urgency to achieve the goal of nuclear disarmament in all its aspects. They have not made a commitment to zero nuclear weapons.

Finally, the NPT nuclear weapon states have not negotiated in good faith on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control. Since the NPT entered into force in 1970, there have been no negotiations on general and complete disarmament.

The NPT nuclear weapon states seem perfectly comfortable with their failure to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the NPT. Given this lack of political will to achieve any of the three Article VI obligations, the prospects for a new international treaty are dim if states continue with business as usual. That is why the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation called for bold action by the non-nuclear weapon states in its Briefing Paper for the 2012 Preparatory Committee Meeting for the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. The Briefing Paper concluded:

“It is necessary to ensure that nuclear weapons will not be used again as instruments of war, risking the destruction of civilization, nuclear famine and the extinction of most or all humans and other forms of complex life. Exposing the dangers of launch-on-warning nuclear policies and the dysfunctional and counterproductive nature of nuclear deterrence theory is essential for awaking policy makers and the public to the imperative goal of achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. It is a goal that demands boldness by all who seek a sustainable future for humanity and the planet. The non-nuclear weapon states that are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty have both the right and the responsibility to assert leadership in assuring that the nuclear weapon states fulfill their obligations for good faith negotiations for complete nuclear disarmament.”

The Premises of Bold Action

Bold action by the non-nuclear weapon states would be based upon the following premises:
1. There needs to be a sense of urgency to eliminate the risks posed by nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism.
What Would Constitute Bold Action?

The non-nuclear weapon states need to demonstrate to the nuclear weapon states that they are serious about the need for a new international treaty, which would be the means to fulfill the NPT Article VI obligations. UN General Assembly Resolutions are not getting the job done. They are not being taken seriously by the nuclear weapon states; nor are exhortations by the UN Secretary-General and other world leaders. Bold action by non-nuclear weapon states, in descending order of severity, could include these options:
1. Declaring the NPT null and void as a result of the failure of the nuclear weapon states to act in good faith in fulfilling their Article VI obligations.
Conclusion

At the outset, I posed this question: How do we achieve the political will among the nuclear weapon states to begin negotiations for a new international treaty to outlaw and eliminate all nuclear weapons? The answer is that the non-nuclear weapon states must unite and pressure the nuclear weapon states by bold action.

Fifty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, we are approaching a critical time in the Nuclear Age. Our technological genius threatens our human future. Too much time has passed and too little has been accomplished toward achieving a world free of nuclear weapons.

Bold action is needed to move the nuclear weapon states to fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the NPT. I favor the first two actions listed above: a boycott and legal action. I fear that, unless such actions are taken soon by non-nuclear weapon states to pressure the nuclear weapon states to act in good faith, the likelihood is that business as usual will continue, and states will end up choosing the more extreme remedies of the third and fourth actions listed above: withdrawal from the NPT or deeming it null and void. Should this be the case, we will lose the only existing treaty that obligates its members to nuclear disarmament and also the likelihood of achieving a new international treaty to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons.
November 26, 2012
Message to First Annual Student Movement for Nuclear Disarmament Conference

This message was delivered to the First Annual Student Movement for Nuclear Disarmament Conference at Soka University of America on November 17, 2012.

I want to congratulate you for organizing this conference and for bringing together students to form a movement for nuclear disarmament. It is a much needed effort. As someone who has worked for nuclear weapons abolition for most of my adult life, I believe firmly that the involvement of students is necessary for achieving the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world.

You did not create nuclear weapons, but you have inherited them, and they will remain a threat to your future for so long as they exist. Thus, your awareness, your engagement and your voices are critical to your own future as well as to the future of your children and grandchildren.

Nuclear weapons are illegal, immoral and costly. They do not make their possessors safer or more secure; they only assure that their possessors are targets of some other country’s nuclear weapons.

If the most powerful counties in the world behave as though nuclear weapons are useful to them, as they do, they assure that other countries will seek nuclear weapons for themselves. Thus, the possession of nuclear weapons encourages the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries.

The more nuclear weapons proliferate, the greater the chances are that they will end up in the hands of terrorist organizations. In truth, though, any country that relies upon nuclear deterrence for its security is threatening the use of nuclear weapons against innocent people, and thus behaving as a terrorist nation itself.

We must recognize nuclear weapons for what they are. Some, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, see them as an “obscenity.” Others, like Josei Toda, view them as an “absolute evil.” I see them as a human-designed threat to the future of civilization and perhaps to all complex life on earth. By our technological cleverness, we humans have created the means of our own demise. We cannot allow this to continue.

Our great challenge is to abolish nuclear weapons before they abolish us. It is not an easy goal to achieve, but it is not an impossible one. It is a necessary goal, and it gives me hope that your conference is taking place and that each of you is involved and joining in the effort to create a world free of nuclear threat.

The only number of nuclear weapons that will assure a human future is zero. No significant goal, such as the abolition of nuclear weapons, can be accomplished without awareness, boldness, creativity and hard work. I hope that you will never lose sight of the need to achieve a world with zero nuclear weapons and that you will always choose hope as an impetus for building a better world. Be persistent, persevere and never give up.

November 17, 2012
We All Have a Role to Play

Vaya aquí para la versión española.

Nuclear weapons are game-changing devices. They are more than weapons. They are annihilators, capable of causing catastrophic damage to cities and countries. They have the destructive power to bring civilization to its knees. They could cause the extinction of most or all complex life on the planet.

One of the great moral leaders of our time, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, wrote: “Nuclear weapons are an obscenity. They are the very antithesis of humanity, of goodness in this world. What security do they help establish? What kind of world community are we actually seeking to build when nations possess and threaten to use arms that can wipe all of humankind off the globe in an instant?”

Nuclear weapons threaten the very future of humankind. They are immoral and illegal. They cause indiscriminate harm and unnecessary suffering. Their damage cannot be contained in either time or space. Their existence demands a response from us. We must unite, as never before, to protect against this overriding technological threat of our own making or face the consequences.

But, you may ask, what can you do?

First, you can take the threat seriously and recognize that your own involvement can make a difference. This is not an issue that can be left to political leaders alone. They have dealt with it for over two-thirds of a century, and the danger persists.

Second, join with others in working for a more peaceful and nuclear weapon-free world. The voices of citizens can make a difference, and the aggregation of those voices an even greater difference. Citizens must stand up and speak out as if the very future depends upon what they say and do, because it does.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation provides many ways to amplify the voices of citizens. We believe that a path to a world free of nuclear weapons lies through US leadership, and the path to US leadership lies through an active and involved citizenry. You can keep up to date with our monthly Sunflower e-newsletter and you can participate in pressing for change through our Action Alert Network.

Third, become a peace leader, one who holds hope and wages peace. Never lose hope, and actively work to build a more peaceful world. Live with compassion, commitment, courage and creativity. Do your part to build a world you can be proud to pass on to your children and grandchildren and all children of the future, a beautiful planet free of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

If you are a painter, paint. If you are a writer, write. If you are a singer, sing. If you are a citizen, participate. Find a way to give your talents to building a better world in which the threat of war and nuclear devastation does not hang over our common future – a world in which poverty and hunger are alleviated, children are educated, human rights are upheld, and the environment is protected. These are the great challenges of our time and each of us has an important role to play.

November 12, 2012
Standing Together for Our Common Future
David Krieger delivered these remarks at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 29th Annual Evening for Peace on October 21, 2012.

I want to begin with a poem. I wrote this poem for the International Day of Peace, but I think it works well for our Evening for Peace.

On this day, like any other,
soldiers are killing and dying,
arms merchants are selling their wares,
missiles are aimed at your heart,
and peace is a distant dream.

Not just for today, but for each day,
let’s sheathe our swords, save the sky
for clouds, the oceans for mystery
and the earth for joy.

Let’s stop honoring the war makers
and start giving medals for peace.

On this day, like any other,
there are infinite possibilities to change
our ways.

Peace is an apple tree heavy with fruit,
a new way of loving the world.

Our theme tonight is “Standing Together for Our Common Future.” We all share in the responsibility for our common future. Our challenge is to stand together to assure the best possible future for our children and grandchildren. This is a global challenge; and it should be a universal desire.

The Nuclear Age is just 67 years old. During this short time, we humans have created, by our technological prowess, some serious obstacles to assuring our common future. Climate change, pollution of the oceans and atmosphere, modern warfare and its preparations, and nuclear dangers are at the top of any list of critical global problems. None of these dangers can be solved by any one country alone. It no longer takes just a village. It takes a world. And within that world it takes, if not each of us, certainly far more of us.

Let me share with you how Archbishop Tutu, a Foundation Advisor and one of the great moral leaders of our time, describes nuclear weapons. He says, “Nuclear weapons are an obscenity. They are the very antithesis of humanity, of goodness in this world. What security do they help establish? What kind of world community are we actually seeking to build when nations possess and threaten to use arms that can wipe all of humankind off the globe in an instant?”

At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we work to abolish nuclear weapons – insanely destructive weapons that cannot be used, or even possessed, without violating the most basic legal and moral precepts. Nuclear weapons threaten civilization and our very survival as a species. And yet, 50 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the US and Russia still keep some 2,000 of these weapons on high-alert, ready to be fired in moments of an order to do so.

The weapons have not gone away, nor have the dangers they pose to humanity. There are still 19,000 of them in the world. Ninety-five percent of these weapons are in the arsenals of the US and Russia. The remaining five percent are in the arsenals of seven more nuclear weapon states.

Nuclear weapons do not protect us. Nuclear weapons are not a defense; they are only good for threatening retaliation or committing senseless acts of vengeance.

The use of nuclear weapons is beyond the control of any country. Let me illustrate this by telling you about Nuclear Famine. Scientists modeled a relatively small nuclear war in which India and Pakistan were to use 50 nuclear weapons each on the other side’s cities. The result of this war would be to put enough soot from burning cities into the upper stratosphere to reduce warming sunlight to the point that we would experience the lowest temperatures on Earth in 1,000 years. This would result in shortened growing seasons and crop failures, leading to starvation and Nuclear Famine killing hundreds of millions of people, perhaps a billion, throughout the world.

Let me emphasize that this would be the consequence of a small nuclear war using less than half of one percent of the world’s nuclear explosive power. And, it would be a regional nuclear war, over which the US could not exert any control. It would nonetheless be a war with global consequences for all of us.

All of this is serious and sobering. But, you may ask, what can we do about it?

At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are focusing on collective action and collective impact, in which the whole – each of us standing together – is greater than the sum of its parts.

We are also pursuing legal action related to breaches of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by the US and other nuclear weapon states parties to the treaty. The treaty calls for the pursuit of negotiations in good faith for effective measures related to a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date, to nuclear disarmament and for a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

Since the Treaty entered into force in 1970, it would be hard to argue 42 years later that there has been a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date. Nor has there been serious nuclear disarmament or a treaty on general and complete disarmament.

Our current education and advocacy work reaches and mobilizes our 57,000 members who join in taking action for our common future. We plan to expand this number exponentially across the world. We hope that you will all join us in this mission to assure the human future.

Tonight we stand together with the people of the Marshall Islands, a country that was part of the Trust Territory of the United States after World War II. The Marshall Islanders are easygoing and friendly people. They put their trust in the United States, but we abused that trust by testing nuclear weapons on their territory. We began that atmospheric nuclear testing in 1946, when we were the only country in the world with nuclear weapons, and we continued testing there for 12 years until 1958.

We tested 67 times in the Marshall Islands, using powerful nuclear and thermonuclear weapons – the equivalent explosive power of having tested 1.7 Hiroshima bombs each day for 12 years. On March 1, 1954, we tested our largest nuclear bomb ever, code-named Bravo, which had the power of 15 million tons of TNT.

We irradiated many of the people of the Marshall Islands, causing them death, injury and untold sorrow. Many had to leave their home islands and live elsewhere. Many have suffered cancers and leukemia, and the illness and death has carried over into the children of new generations of Marshall Islanders.

These are the tragic effects of a world that maintains, tests and relies upon nuclear weapons. In this world, our human rights are threatened and abused by nuclear weapons, as the Marshallese have experienced first-hand.

As a traditional island nation, the Marshallese enjoyed a self-sufficient sustainable way of life before nuclear weapons testing. Now, they struggle to uphold basic human rights:
- to adequate health and life.
- to adequate food and nutrition.
- to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.
- to enjoyment of a safe, clean and healthy sustainable environment.
In September of this year, the Foundation’s representative in Geneva spoke to the UN Human Rights Council on behalf of the Marshall Islanders. He stated: “NAPF aligns itself with the UN Special Rapporteur’s suggestion that the international community, the United States, and the Government of the Marshall Islands must develop long-term strategic measures to address the effects of the nuclear testing program and specific challenges in each atoll. As such, it is imperative that the U.S. government and the international community implement human rights measures to provide adequate redress to the citizens of the Marshall Islands.”

In other words, it is the responsibility of the United States and other nuclear weapon states to clean up the radioactive trail of dangerous debris and redress the suffering and human rights abuses they have left behind in their pursuit of ever more powerful and efficient nuclear arms.

The man we honor tonight, Senator Tony de Brum, was a child when the US nuclear testing was taking place in his islands. Born in 1945, he personally witnessed most of the detonations that took place, and was nine years old when the most powerful of those explosions, the Bravo test, took place.

He went on to become one of the first Marshall Islanders to graduate from college and focused on helping his people to extricate themselves from the legacy of US nuclear testing in his island country. He has dedicated his life to helping his people and to working to assure they are fairly compensated for the wrongs done to them by nuclear testing. He has served his people in many ways – as a parliamentarian and former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister for Health and the Environment. He currently represents Kwajalein in the Parliament and is the Minister in Assistance to the President.

Like others who have suffered and witnessed the suffering caused by nuclear weapons, he has a larger vision: that what happened to his people should not happen again to any other people or country. I’ve known Tony de Brum for many years. He is an untiring leader of his people, deeply engaged in seeking justice. He is a man with a vision of creating a more decent and peaceful future for all humanity.

Senator Tony de Brum is a dedicated Peace Leader, and tonight we are pleased to stand with him and the people of the Marshall Islands as we honor him with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2012 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.
October 21, 2012
Opening Statement

(The Vandenberg 15 – which includes Daniel Ellsberg, Cindy Sheehan, Father Louis Vitale, John Amidon and me – protested the launching of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Air Force Base in the early morning hours of February 25, 2012. As we sought to deliver a message to the Base Commander calling for a cancellation of the test missile launch, we were arrested for trespass. All 15 defendants pleaded innocent to the charge. We had gone to Vandenberg Air Force Base to exercise our first amendment rights to protest an illegal act on the part of the government. The prosecution sought to limit the trial to the narrow issue of trespass, while we sought to put nuclear weapons and US nuclear weapons policy on trial. On the opening morning of the trial, the government moved to dismiss all charges and the Court granted the government’s motion. The case against the Vandenberg 15 was dismissed. It was a small but significant victory for the people. The real victory will come when nuclear weapons are abolished, which will happen when the people awaken to the threat posed by these insane weapons and demand of their leaders to lead the way to a world free of nuclear weapons. This is the statement I had planned to give as my Opening Statement.)

Your honor, the protest that occurred at Vandenberg Air Force Base on February 25, 2012 was legal. There was no crime of trespass.

Right and Duty of Citizens to Report a Crime or Suspected Crime

There is a right to speak out in the performance of our duties as citizens. For example, one has a right and a duty to speak out against voter fraud. Or, if one sees a policeman commit a crime or learns that a policeman is about to commit a crime, there is a right and a duty to inform his superior at the police department. If one were arrested for trespass at the county elections office or at the police station when trying to report a crime or suspected crime, one’s right to free speech – protected by the first amendment to our Constitution – would be violated.

Such a violation of first amendment rights would have a chilling effect on other citizens seeking to exercise their rights as citizens under the first amendment.

One of the great gifts given to us by our forefathers is the right to speak out in protest of governmental acts and to petition our government for redress of grievances. In fact, it is both a right and a non-delegable duty. For example, a citizen is not required to go to the city council before reporting a crime to the chief of police.

Your honor, I am not speaking about the defense of necessity, but about the rights, as well as responsibilities, of citizens under the first amendment to the United States Constitution.

Legitimate Business

The government alleges that it read a “Declaration Advisement Prior to Removal to Non-Barred Persons.” It is a Declaration that I never heard at Vandenberg Air Force Base, nor is it to be heard on all the hours of DVDs that were provided by the government. In this Declaration Advisement are the words, “Individuals without legitimate business on Vandenberg Air Force Base will not be permitted to enter or remain within the geographical confines of this installation.” But those of us who walked toward the kiosk at Vandenberg on the evening of February 25, 2012 did have legitimate business – we were exercising our first amendment rights to report a suspected crime to the Base Commander and to petition the Base Commander to cancel the planned test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

In my own case, I was trying to deliver to the Base Commander, or her subordinate, a booklet written by General George Lee Butler, a former commander-in-chief of the United States Strategic Command. General Butler, who was once in charge of all US strategic nuclear weapons, stated, “Nuclear weapons are the enemy of humanity. Indeed, they’re not weapons at all. They’re some species of biological time bombs whose effects transcend time and space, poisoning the earth and its inhabitants for generations to come.”

This is an important statement for several reasons. First, it was made by a former commander-in-chief of the US Strategic Command. Second, it implies what should be obvious to all – that nuclear weapons are biological time bombs, and thus illegal. Third, it makes clear that nuclear weapons affect not only present generations, but future generations as well – in other words, our children and grandchildren and their children and grandchildren and so on.

Regarding nuclear deterrence theory, General Butler stated, “Nuclear deterrence was and remains a slippery intellectual construct that translates very poorly into the real world of spontaneous crises, inexplicable motivations, incomplete intelligence and fragile human relationships.” He was saying, in effect, “don’t rely upon nuclear deterrence for protection – it is only a ‘slippery intellectual construct.’”

I hold the same belief that General Butler expressed. I thought that the Base Commander would be more likely to believe this relevant information from General Butler than from me. In fact, on the evening we were arrested at Vandenberg, I handed the booklet to the young airman who handcuffed me without seeking to ascertain the legitimacy of my business at Vandenberg. Despite my telling the airman that I brought the booklet for the Base Commander, he returned it to one of the other members of the public who was there that evening but was not arrested.

Your honor, before my arrest, no one asked me why I was there. No one at Vandenberg sought to ascertain whether my business there was legitimate or not. This was the case for all the individuals arrested that evening at Vandenberg. So, how could Vandenberg personnel have lawfully arrested us when they never sought to inquire about the legitimacy of our business there?

The Government’s Breaches of the Non-Proliferation Treaty

According to the US Constitution, treaties are the supreme law of the land. Article VI, Section 2 of the Constitution states: “This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.” (Emphasis added.)
The United States signed and ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The treaty entered into force in 1970. Therefore, it is part of the “supreme law of the land.” Under Article VI of this treaty, “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

Your honor, the United States is in breach of its obligations under Article VI of the NPT. It has not pursued negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the arms race at an early date. It has not pursued negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to nuclear disarmament. And it has not pursued negotiations in good faith on a Treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

The test launching of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Vandenberg only underlines our government’s failures to live up to our obligations under the NPT, its breaches of the treaty, and its lack of good faith. Each of the 450 Minuteman III missiles deployed by the US carries a powerful thermonuclear weapon – many times more powerful than the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These missiles are kept on high alert 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They are highly accurate, but also easy to target. In a time of crisis, there is incentive to “use them or lose them.” They are first-strike weapons that could be launched in response to a false warning of attack.

Your honor, all of this is important information for the Base Commander at Vandenberg to understand and for the American people to understand.

Criminal Activity

Is the launching of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg a criminal act? These missiles carry thermonuclear weapons when they are in their silos on high alert. The test launching of these missiles is a threat to other countries – a reminder that we can attack them with nuclear weapons. Just as murder is a crime, the threat to murder someone is also a crime. In the case of nuclear-armed missiles, the threat is to kill millions of people, perhaps hundreds of millions of people. A US nuclear attack against another country would almost certainly result in a counter-attack against the American people.

Self-Defense

The US government is engaging in conduct that bit by bit will lead to nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, nuclear war and to the destruction of the human race. As a member of the human race, I have a right to defend myself and my family. Do I and my fellow defendants have a right to believe that Minuteman III tests, such as the test launch from Vandenberg on February 25, 2012, put us, our families and our fellow Americans in danger? Or perhaps the question can be put this way: Would a reasonable person, knowing that nuclear weapons are capable of destroying civilization and most complex life, believe there was danger from the continued muscle-flexing behavior of testing nuclear-capable Minuteman III missiles? And further, would a reasonable person take steps to nonviolently alert proper authorities to the risks this conduct creates?

There Was No Trespass

The place of protest must have a reasonable physical proximity to where the protest can be heard. Vandenberg designated a protest area where protesters can only be seen by people in vehicles passing by rapidly.

It is easily observable that the public can access the property that Vandenberg deems to be its exclusive jurisdiction. Members of the public walk and drive on that property routinely, going to the Vandenberg Visitor Center and to the kiosk where cars are stopped.

We went to Vandenberg to peacefully exercise our first amendment rights, speak to the Base Commander or transmit information to her, and warn our fellow citizens of the dangers of such launches of missiles that are ordinarily armed with thermonuclear weapons.

In walking toward the kiosk, seeking to exercise our first amendment rights, we were doing no more than members of the public do every day at Vandenberg.

There was no barrier to our walking on this road toward the kiosk until Air Force personnel formed a human barrier in front of us. If there was a line on the road, it was not clear and it was not a barrier. We stopped when we were told to stop. Then, rather than being asked if we had legitimate business at Vandenberg, we were immediately apprehended and arrested.

Your honor, the Commander and personnel at Vandenberg sought to make us criminals where there was no crime. In fact, if there was a crime, it was a crime on the part of those who would threaten others with the massive annihilation of which nuclear-armed missiles are capable. The defendants had legitimate business at Vandenberg. We were exercising our rights, as well as our responsibilities, as citizens under the first amendment of the United States Constitution.

We were saying to our government that nuclear weapons and their delivery systems are tools of annihilation. We cannot continue treating them as business as usual. We must stop this recklessness and madness before we and those who follow us on this planet, suffer – by accident or design – the terrible consequences of nuclear war.

October 17, 2012
Reflections on the Cuban Missile Crisis at Fifty

Fifty years ago this month, the world teetered on the precipice of a nuclear war between the US and Soviet Union during the 13-day Cuban Missile Crisis. We were fortunate to have survived that crisis, thanks largely to the restraint shown by President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev.

Now, fifty years later, there is no immediate crisis such as that in 1962 over Soviet nuclear-armed missiles being placed in Cuba. There are, however, still some 19,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine nuclear-armed nations: the US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Approximately 95 percent of these weapons are in the arsenals of the US and Russia. Some 2,000 of them are kept in a state of high alert, ready to be immediately launched upon an order to do so at any moment of any day or night.

Although the Cold War ended more than 20 years ago, the possibilities for crisis are still with us. NATO has expanded to the Russian borders, despite US promises not to do so, and has begun placing missile defense installations near the Russian borders. Despite US and NATO assurances to Russia that these installations are to protect against an Iranian missile launch, Russian leaders view these installations as undermining their strategic deterrent force by making them vulnerable to a first-strike attack. They have said that they will target these US missile defense installations.

In another US-Russian confrontation over Georgia, such as occurred in 2008, or some other regional dispute, it is possible that tensions could rise to the point of nuclear crisis between US and Russian military forces. Of course, this would be crazy, but it is far from impossible. What would make the world safer? What might we expect from national leaders who should have learned from how close the world came to nuclear catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis?

First, for the US and NATO to make Russia a partner in any missile defense plans focused on Iranian missiles. Second, for the US to remove its approximately 180 remaining tactical nuclear weapons located in five European countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey). Third, for the US and Russia to take seriously their legal obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to pursue negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race at an early date, for nuclear disarmament in all its aspects and for a treaty on general and complete disarmament.

We know now that a regional nuclear war would have global consequences. Atmospheric scientists have modeled a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan in which each side used 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities. Such a war would put enough soot from burning cities into the upper stratosphere to reduce warming sunlight for a decade, lowering surface temperatures on earth to the lowest levels in 1,000 years. This would result in shortened growing seasons, crop failures and famine that would kill hundreds of millions of people, perhaps a billion, throughout the world.

The scientific modeling showed that there would be a Nuclear Famine, and it would be triggered by using less than half of one percent of the world’s nuclear explosive power. Such a famine could be initiated not only by India and Pakistan, two countries that have been to war over Kashmir on several occasions, but by any of the Nuclear Nine. The US and Russia could each trigger a far more devastating Nuclear Famine by a nuclear attack on the other side’s cities, an attack which would be suicidal even if the other side did not respond in kind.

When thinking about nuclear weapons and their dangers, we would do well to remember the words of General George Lee Butler, former commander-in-chief of the United States Strategic Command, responsible for all US strategic nuclear weapons: “Nuclear weapons give no quarter. Their effects transcend time and space, poisoning the Earth and deforming its inhabitants for generation upon generation. They leave us wholly without defense, expunge all hope for survival. They hold in their sway not just the fate of nations but of civilization.”

Nuclear weapons do not protect us. Rather, they make us vulnerable to annihilation. It is relatively easy to put them out of our minds, but to do so is to evade our responsibility as citizens of the world and of nuclear-armed countries. Nuclear weapons imperil our common future – they imperil our children and their children and all children of the future. They imperil all we hold dear. We must speak out for a world without nuclear weapons. It is a moral and legal imperative and we would be well advised to act now before we are confronted with the equivalent of another Cuban Missile Crisis.

October 1, 2012