Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: David Krieger

Leadership and Social Change: Making a Difference in the World

Leadership is a concept that can be confusing because it has both institutional and individual dimensions. Institutional leadership is generally based upon role and rank. Think of organizations like government, corporations and the military. The higher you rise in the organizational structure, the more authority that vests in the leadership role. There is a hierarchical structure, and power vests in the upper ranks. At its worst, organizational leadership is authoritarian and dictatorial. At its best, it has open channels of communication for a broad range of ideas to influence decisions and policies.

A good question to consider in thinking about institutional leadership is: To whom is the leader responsible? If the answer is no one, you may have a serious problem. Think of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin. Think of Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator. Even in a government with checks and balances, like our own, institutional restraints can be repressed and diminished by leaders bent on concentrating power, bending rules and seeking to stand above the law.

Now, let’s shift from the institutional stage, and look at the qualities of leadership in an individual. The three most important qualities in achieving success for an individual leader are vision, commitment and persistence. A leader must have a vision – a goal or set of goals to be obtained. A leader must be committed to achieving this vision. And a leader must be prepared, if necessary, for a long-term struggle. Think of the Dalai Lama, who repeatedly advises, “Never give up!” That is the spirit of every strong leader.

Vision often will exceed one’s life span, and the commitment to a cause may put one’s life in jeopardy. Think of Martin Luther King, Jr., of Gandhi, or of Cesar Chavez. But think as well of Hitler and Mussolini, who also had visions that exceeded their own life spans, and were committed and persistent.

These qualities, then, by themselves, may be necessary for strong leadership, but not sufficient for decent leadership. To these qualities must be added integrity and honesty, as well as compassion and courage in seeking a greater good for humanity. As Horace Mann, a noted educator, said, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

Great leaders who seek victories for humanity are usually not individuals who only fill institutional roles. They are individuals who have a great vision that will benefit humanity, are committed to achieving it with integrity and honesty, and persist in their efforts with compassion and courage despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. How many US presidents can you think of who have been great leaders? How many even come close in the quality of their leadership to Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.?

In our society, leadership is too often dedicated to accumulating wealth and power. Wealth and power are not “a victory for humanity.” They are means to an end. The end may be something decent, such as combating poverty and hunger, but it may also be something selfish, such as personal aggrandizement, or something criminal, such as aggressive war. We must judge leaders not only by what they say, but by what they do, and we must hold them accountable for their actions.

There is much that needs changing in our world. A large percentage of the world’s population lives in dire poverty, without safe drinking water or adequate nutrition. A billion people live on less than one dollar a day. Another billion live on less than two dollars a day. Some 25,000 children under the age of five die daily of starvation and preventable diseases. At the same time, the world spends over a trillion dollars annually on military forces, with the United States alone spending well over half the global total.

We are not living sustainably on the planet. Climate change may result in submerging large portions of the earth under water, causing enormous dislocations, destruction and death. The survival of the human species is endangered due to global warming. It is also endangered, even more urgently, by nuclear weapons – weapons capable of omnicide, the death of all.

And what do we do as a species? The answer is very little. We are mostly ignorant and apathetic. Is this not a situation crying out for leadership? We cannot just continue with business as usual. We are on a collision course with disaster. For many inhabitants of Earth, disaster has already arrived. The world cannot continue to tolerate the myopic visions and cowardly and testosterone-driven actions of some of our most prominent leaders. We need change. We need new vision and hope. We need leadership that points our country and the world in a new direction.

We need to rethink what it means to be number one. We are all perishable, and we live on a perishable planet. The minimum responsibility of each generation is to pass the planet on, if not better than it was inherited, at least intact to the next generation. The power of our technologies, when combined with our capacity for complacency and our penchant for militarism, casts doubt on our ability as a species to continue to fulfill this responsibility.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a civil society organization that educates and advocates for a world free of nuclear weapons and for strengthening international law. It also seeks to empower a new generation of peace leaders.

The Foundation educates people about the continuing danger of nuclear weapons, and the tragedies that await us if we do not come together to abolish these devices of indiscriminate mass murder. It seeks to awaken people to a real and present danger, a danger that did not go away with the end of the Cold War nearly two decades ago. To end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity will require US leadership, so we must work to awaken Americans to act to abolish these weapons.

The Foundation currently has an Appeal to the Next President for US Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World. We are gathering one million signatures. The Appeal asks the next president to take seven steps that will make the world safer on the way to achieving the total global elimination of nuclear weapons. This is not a call for unilateral disarmament. It is a call for the phased, irreversible, verifiable and transparent global elimination of nuclear weapons. To succeed will require a far stronger commitment to international law. It will also require that people throughout this country snap out of their apathy and lethargy and get involved. It is an awesome challenge and it is a necessary one. It is also achievable.

How does the Foundation empower youth? Actually, we don’t. We encourage young people to empower themselves. We have held a series of Think Outside the Bomb conferences for university students. These conferences teach leadership skills to make a difference, as well as provide information on the enormous nuclear dangers that threaten all of us living on the planet as well as future generations.

We also have a campaign called UC Nuclear Free. It is about awakening students to the fact that the University of California provides management and oversight to the two major nuclear weapons laboratories in the country. Every nuclear weapon in the US arsenal has been designed and developed under the auspices of the University of California. If these weapons are ever used, the death and destruction that ensues will be a foreseeable consequence of the University of California’s involvement. The fact that a great university would lend its name and prestige to the creation, development and improvement of the most deadly weapons ever invented shows how deeply embedded militarism and nuclearism are in our society. The Foundation also has internships and volunteer opportunities for young people. You can find out about these and much more at our www.wagingpeace.org website.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is now 25 years old. We have accomplished a lot in that period, and we still have much more to do. We are gaining in strength, and our work is becoming much more widely embraced. We will not give up and we will attain our goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. When we do, we will have taken a large step for humankind.

We must all live as though the future matters. Since we have technologies capable of foreclosing the future, we must act today to assure that there is a future. An Indian proverb states, “All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.” Shall we plant the seeds for a future of peace and decency in which we live sustainably on the planet and respect the human rights and dignity of all people and other forms of life? Or, shall we continue to plant the seeds of unsustainability, injustice and war? The latter may be the weeds that overtake the garden due to indifference and apathy.

It is up to each of us. I ask you to commit today to taking three steps. First, envision a better future for humanity. Second, commit yourself to being a leader to create that better future. Third, never give up.

David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and has served as its president since 1982. This article is based upon remarks made to the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society at Santa Barbara City College on May 5, 2008.

May 10, 2008
Judge Christopher Weeramantry Recieves NAPF Lifetime Achievement Award

On April 12, 2008, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Peace Leadership to Judge Christopher Weeramantry of Sri Lanka. Judge Weeramantry is a former Supreme Court Justice of Sri Lanka and former Vice President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He was also a professor of law at Monash University in Australia.

Judge Weeramantry currently heads the Weeramantry International Centre for Peace Education and Research. He views justice as the prerequisite to peace, and peace education as a prerequisite to justice. He is an active educator, lecturing throughout the world and writing prolifically. He is the author of more than 20 books and 200 articles related to peace, cross-cultural understanding and international law. He is an expert on the moral influences of religions on international law, and is currently completing a book on the influences of five major religions on peace and international law.

Judge Weeramantry has received many honors for his tireless work for peace and justice. In 2006, he was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education for his “indefatigable campaign for peace education, promotion of human rights, intercultural faith and understanding.” In 2007, he received the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the Alternative Nobel Prize, “for his lifetime of groundbreaking work to strengthen and expand the rule of international law.” In 2007, Judge Weeramantry also received Sri Lanka’s highest civil honor, “conferred for exceptionally outstanding and most distinguished service to the nation.”

As a judge on the International Court of Justice, Judge Weeramantry wrote a lengthy dissent to the Court’s Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons. The Court found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons would be generally illegal, but held open the possibility of legality in an extreme circumstance in which the very survival of a state was at stake. In his dissent, Judge Weeramantry concluded that there was no instance in which the threat or use of nuclear weapons could be considered legal under international law. Judge Weeramantry’s dissent in this case remains the most comprehensive and important legal opinion written on this critical issue.

In his acceptance speech upon receiving the Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Judge Weeramantry spoke on “Peace, International Law and the Rights of Future Generations.” He pointed out that the 20th century had begun with high hopes for peace on the heels of the 1899 Hague Peace Conference. The Conference, convened by Czar Nicholas of Russia, sought to avert the resort to war in the 20th century. But, the judge pointed out, as we all know, the 20th century was witness to two devastating world wars. Judge Weeramantry described the 20th century as the century of lost opportunity. He characterized the 21st century as the century of last opportunity.

The judge expressed the concern that unless the international community is able to resolve conflicts peacefully and abolish its most destructive weapons, we may foreclose the human future. Thus, each of us alive on the planet today has special responsibilities to assure that the decisions made today will not destroy the planet for ourselves or future generations.

The Lifetime Achievement Award of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is presented to “outstanding individuals who have made significant long-term contributions to building a more peaceful world.” Its purpose, like other Foundation awards, is to honor distinguished individuals and to shine a light on peace leadership as a model to inspire a larger societal commitment to peace and to help empower a new generation of peace leaders.

Previous recipients of the Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award are former Canadian Senator Douglas Roche (2005); psychiatrist and author Dr. Robert Jay Lifton (2005); scientist of conscience Sir Joseph Rotblat (1997); civil society leader for the law of the sea Elisabeth Mann Borgese (1995); and two-time Nobel Laureate Dr. Linus Pauling (1991). The Foundation is proud to add Judge Christopher Weeramantry to this list of distinguished previous honorees.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a councilor of the World Future Council.

April 17, 2008
The Non-Proliferation Treaty and Human Survival

In the vastness of the universe there is only one place we know of where life exists. That place, of course, is our planet, our Earth. Our planet has been hospitable to the evolution of life, resulting in the development of complex life forms, including homo sapiens, the “knowing” ones. We are “knowing” because we have the capacity to perceive and reflect upon our surroundings, our vision reaching to the far ends of the universe itself.

We humans are nature’s mirror. We were created by the conditions of the universe, but in a sense it is also true that, by our perceptions and reflections, we create the universe. A well-known philosophical riddle asks whether a tree falling in the forest would make a sound if there were no one there to hear it. In the same way, but on a larger scale, we might ask if the universe itself would exist if there were no creatures like ourselves capable of perceiving and reflecting upon it.

All of this is to say that human beings are special. In the long span of universe time, the appearance of humans is just a few short ticks on the cosmic clock. Yet, in that short span of time we have achieved remarkable intellectual, spiritual and artistic heights. We have also created tools capable of destroying much of life, including ourselves. By our cleverness in creating nuclear weapons, we have placed our own future on the planet in danger.

With the existence of the future of our species in jeopardy, we are faced with a choice. We can confront this existential threat with ignorance, apathy and denial, or we can join together to end this threat of our own making. Choosing the latter route would mean accepting responsibility for our common future and acting to assure it.

The diplomats from many nations of the world who negotiated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) had a solution to the nuclear weapons threat to humanity. They sought to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to other states, and they also sought to eliminate the nuclear weapons already in the arsenals of those states that possessed them. Their efforts resulted in Article VI of the Treaty, in which the nuclear weapons states were required to engage in “good faith” negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

The NPT was opened for signatures in 1968, and we are still waiting for those “good faith” negotiations for complete nuclear disarmament. In 1995, an NPT Review and Extension Conference was held on the 25th anniversary of the Treaty entering into force. Many civil society organizations argued at this conference that the NPT should not be extended indefinitely, since it would give the equivalent of a blank check to the nuclear weapons states who had so badly failed in fulfilling their Treaty obligations for its first quarter century.

But the United States, along with the UK and France, argued for an indefinite extension. They twisted arms and, in the end, prevailed. And the warnings that they would approach their obligations for “good faith” negotiations with the same disdain or indifference with which they had approached them in the past have proven true.

At the five-year NPT Review Conferences and the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meetings in between, the United States and its allies have fought against recognition of their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty. They distribute slick public relations brochures that gloss over the lack of progress in complying with Article VI. They resist accepting even the responsibility to engage in the good faith negotiations to which they have committed themselves. Their goal seems to be to deflect criticism, while actually doing virtually nothing to promote a world free of nuclear weapons.

At the NPT Review Conferences and PrepComs, civil society organizations come to plead on behalf of humanity. They are given a few hours on the program to make their impassioned pleas, but often find that the official delegates to the conference are unwilling even to come to hear what they have to say. Over the years, the expectations that the delegates to the NPT will achieve any substantial progress have continued to diminish.

I am no longer interested in the charades that are played by the delegates to the NPT representing the governments of the nuclear weapons states. I want to see some meaningful action on their part. We have a right to expect and demand such action.

At stake is the future of our species. It is time for countries to stop playing cynical games that seek to avoid existing NPT obligations to eliminate nuclear weapons. Mutually Assured Destruction is unacceptable, whether it be between the US and Russia or India and Pakistan. Mutually Assured Delusions are also unacceptable. It is time for the UK and France to stop relying upon nuclear weapons because these weapons make them feel like they are still important world powers. Israel needs to end its nuclear weapons program before other Middle East countries follow its example. Other countries, for example those in NATO, need to step out from under the US nuclear umbrella and stop being enablers of the nuclear addiction of a small number of states.

The only way out of our nuclear dilemma is for the countries of the world to demand that the Article VI obligation for “good faith” negotiations for nuclear disarmament be fulfilled. The US will have to provide leadership or it is unlikely that substantial progress will be possible. If the US doesn’t act, it is unlikely that Russia will do so, and without Russian participation, it is unlikely that significant progress will be possible with the UK, France and China.

The NPT, with its membership of nearly all the world’s countries, provides an appropriate forum for the countries of the world to negotiate a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention, for the phased, verifiable, irreversible and transparent elimination of nuclear weapons. Once negotiations are planned, the non-NPT states (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) should be invited to join. Alternatively, the United States, as the world’s most militarily powerful country, could under new leadership use its convening capacity to initiate negotiations among the nine nuclear weapons states, leading to a Nuclear Weapons Convention with universal participation.

Civil society has already prepared a draft Nuclear Weapons Convention. It has been introduced to the United Nations by the Republic of Costa Rica and Malaysia. The draft treaty is feasible. It is desirable. It could be accomplished relatively quickly. All that is required is the political will of the nuclear weapons states. Without this political will, the human future remains in peril. It is the 21st century equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns, but with far graver potential consequences for our common future.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a councilor of the World Future Council.

April 4, 2008
Martin Luther King’s Legacy of Peace

Forty years ago, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. King was 39 years old, and was already a towering figure on the American and global landscape. He was best known as a civil rights leader, but he was also an activist for the alleviation of poverty and a strong critic of the US war in Vietnam. King, following in the footsteps of Gandhi, stood firmly for nonviolence and peace, and against the advice of many of his supporters spoke out powerfully against the war.

In the forty years that have passed since King’s assassination, his commitment to peace and strong statements against the US war in Vietnam have often been omitted in recalling his legacy. But today, as the US fights another illegal and immoral war in a distant land, again killing young Americans and hundreds of thousands of civilians, his fierce opposition to the Vietnam War should be remembered for the lessons he left us.

Just three weeks after the assassination, his widow, Coretta Scott King, gave a speech in New York City that Dr. King had been scheduled to give. In that speech, she read from some notes that Dr. King had scribbled in preparation for the speech, “Ten Commandments on Vietnam.” With small changes, these could be called, “Ten Commandments on Iraq.” They go to the very roots of our culture of militarism.

These are Dr. King’s “Ten Commandments on Vietnam,” written shortly before his untimely death:

1. Thou shalt not believe in a military victory. 2. Thou shalt not believe in a political victory. 3. Thou shalt not believe that the Vietnamese people love us. 4. Thou shalt not believe that the Saigon government has the support of the people. 5. Thou shalt not believe that the majority of the South Vietnamese look upon the Viet Cong as terrorists. 6. Thou shalt not believe the figures of killed enemies or killed Americans. 7. Thou shalt not believe that the generals know best. 8. Thou shalt not believe that the enemies’ victory means communism. 9. Thou shalt not believe that the world supports the United States. 10. Thou shalt not kill.

Dr. King knew how to speak truth to power, and in his courage and commitment lay his own power. Had he lived, he would have been an imposing force for peace in America and the world. His commandments confront the comfortable lies our leaders tell about war, which are so widely accepted without questioning.

In Iraq, there will be no military victory, nor political victory. Victory is a dangerous illusion, and we have already lost the war. The Iraqi people do not love us. We have destroyed their lives and their country. The Iraqi government does not have the support of the Iraqi people and is only held up by our military power. We don’t know how the Iraqi people view the Iraqi fighters, but we do know that they want the US to leave their country.

In the Iraq War, the US does not even bother to count the numbers of Iraqis that have been killed, and it hides the body bags of Americans killed in the war from the American people. The generals do not know best. They know only how to wage war and even at that they are failing. The enemies’ victory no longer means communism, but neither does it mean victory for terrorism. The world does not support the United States in this war. It never has. The war was never sanctioned by the United Nations and, like the war in Vietnam, is an illegal and immoral war.

And finally, Dr. King, a Baptist minister, reminds us, of this age-old wisdom: “Thou shalt not kill.” He challenges us to rise above our leaders, our culture and our history. He challenges us to be something we have never been, a nation that is peaceful and just.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a councilor of the World Future Council.

April 4, 2008
US Leadership for Global Nuclear Disarmament
“The road from the world of today, with thousands of nuclear weapons in national arsenals to a world free of this threat, will not be an easy one to take, but it is clear that US leadership is essential to the journey and there is growing worldwide support for that civilized call to zero.” Thomas Graham Jr. and Max Kampelman

There will be no substantial progress on nuclear disarmament without the active participation and leadership of the United States. I recognize that many countries and individuals throughout the world are rightly skeptical of US leadership after nearly four decades of noncompliance with Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations, and particularly after the past seven years of US nuclear policy under the Bush administration.

But on the issue of nuclear disarmament, there is no choice. If the US does not lead on nuclear disarmament, no substantial progress will be possible, mainly because without US leadership, Russia will not move and this will block the UK, France and China from taking significant steps.

The US has thus far been the limiting factor in progress on nuclear disarmament. It has promoted nuclear double standards and it has provided leadership in the wrong direction, toward long-term reliance on nuclear arms. In 15 votes on nuclear disarmament issues in the 2007 United Nations General Assembly, the US cast a negative vote on every one of the resolutions.

The US has engaged in a preventive war against Iraq, based on the now undisputed lie that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. The US has threatened Iran because it pursues uranium enrichment. At the same time, the US has supported the transfer of nuclear technology to nuclear-armed India, shielded Israel’s possession of nuclear arms, and sought to replace every thermonuclear warhead in its own arsenal with more “reliable” weapons.

The issues I mention are just the tip of the iceberg, but they demonstrate how nuclear weapons deeply undermine democracy. A small group in power, even a single leader, such as Mr. Bush, can thwart both US and global opinion on nuclear disarmament and, in a worst case, plunge the world into a devastating nuclear war by accident, miscalculation or design.

Kissinger, Shultz, Perry, Nunn and other US foreign policy elites have awakened to the dangers that continued reliance on nuclear weapons pose to the United States. They understand that such reliance makes nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism more likely, threatening the cities of the US, its European Allies and others. They understand that deterrence no longer works (if it ever really did) and cannot be relied upon, particularly in the case of extremists in possession of nuclear weapons.

A new US president will be chosen in November. There will be change. The new president will need to hear from the American people and from people throughout the world. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are partnering with other groups throughout the world to present the new president with one million signatures on an Appeal calling for US leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world. The Appeal calls specifically for the new president to take the following steps:
- De-alert. Remove all nuclear weapons from high-alert status, separating warheads from delivery vehicles;
- No First Use. Make legally binding commitments to No First Use of nuclear weapons and establish nuclear policies consistent with this commitment;
- No New Nuclear Weapons. Initiate a moratorium on the research and development of new nuclear weapons, such as the Reliable Replacement Warhead;
- Ban Nuclear Testing Forever. Ratify and bring into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
- Control Nuclear Material. Create a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty with provisions to bring all weapons-grade nuclear material and the technologies to create such material under strict and effective international control;
- Nuclear Weapons Convention. Commence good faith negotiations, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons;
- Resources for Peace. Reallocate resources from the tens of billions currently spent on nuclear arms to alleviating poverty, preventing and curing disease, eliminating hunger and expanding educational opportunities throughout the world.
For all of these points, and others that could be added, political will is more critical than technological skill. The possibility of US leadership on nuclear abolition will be greatly enhanced if the US government is pressured from abroad. The US government needs to hear from its friends. It needs to be pressured by its friends. If NATO continues to buckle under and go along with US opposition to nuclear disarmament due to US pressure, and that of the UK and France, it only enables their nuclear addiction.

We have a saying in the US, “Friends do not let friends drive drunk.” US nuclear policy endangers not only other drivers. It endangers the world. It is time to take away the keys. This can only be done by friends who care enough to act for the good of the drunk and the good of others on the road.

An additional benefit to strong public pressure for nuclear weapons abolition by US allies is that it helps those of us in the US that are seeking to move our own government to take responsible action on this issue. The opening for US leadership created by the Kissinger-Shultz group can be bolstered by strong statements from US friends abroad. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Appeal to the Next President will also be furthered by such support. And, of course, it will matter greatly who is chosen as the next president. Friends from abroad can help us to choose wisely by emphasizing the decisive importance of US leadership for global nuclear disarmament.

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the Executive Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.
April 2, 2008
The Dalai Lama and Tibet Need Us Now

At this critical moment, the Dalai Lama and Tibet need us. I ask you to join in adding your voice to those supporting the Dalai Lama, the cause of Tibetan autonomy, and an end to the violence in Tibet.

Following the violence in Tibet and China this month, which claimed an unconfirmed number of lives, the Chinese government accused the Dalai Lama, a great peace leader and long-time member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Advisory Council, of being a “gangster” and a “terrorist.”

The origins of the violence are not yet clear, but one thing is – the XIVth Dalai Lama has urged nonviolence in Tibet not only this month, but for decades. In recent statements, he has repeated his call for “meaningful autonomy” in Tibet, not for independence.

A Buddhist monk and the spiritual and temporal leader of the Tibetan people, he is the epitome of a peacemaker.

While China has arrested a number of Tibetans, ordered foreign journalists out of Tibet and sent more military forces into Tibet, the Dalai Lama has offered to go to Beijing to engage in dialogue with Chinese President Hu Jintao in order to quell the violence.

In response, Chinese officials could only point fingers of blame for “master-minding the riots” at the recipient of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize

Of course, there is much at stake here. Tibetan people, like any people, deserve the right to pursue their culture and their individual freedoms without fear of punishment. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation supports dialogue between China and Tibet’s leadership in exile to help assure the human rights of the Tibetan people and the cultural autonomy promised to them.

But this is also a very personal matter to me. Since I first met the Dalai Lama in 1991, when he received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, he has been a strong and faithful ally of the Foundation in our quest for a world free of nuclear weapons.

Only a few months ago, he wrote the Foundation to offer his support and add his signature to our current campaign to gather one million signatures for our Appeal for US Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World.

The Dalai Lama’s work for our goal of nuclear weapons abolition is just one example of how he has reached out to causes of peace and justice around the world. Few people are so internationally respected. Many observers see him rightfully as a peace leader on a level with Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. No one combines his warmth, wisdom, kindness, patience, humor and resilience. The Chinese government should be ashamed that in its attempt to justify its actions, it has chosen to vilify one of the most peaceful, honorable and trustworthy human beings on our planet.

The United States government made its opinion clear only a few months ago. Last autumn, it gave the Dalai Lama the Congressional Gold Medal “recognizing his role as one of the world’s foremost moral and religious figures, who is using his leadership role to advocate peacefully for the cultural autonomy of the Tibetan people within China.”

Over the years, the Dalai Lama has demonstrated insight into humanity’s interdependence. He has written:

Our generation has arrived at the threshold of a new era in human history: the birth of a global community. Modern communications, trade and international relations as well as the security and environmental dilemmas we all face make us increasingly interdependent. No one can live in isolation. Thus, whether we like it or not, our vast and diverse human family must finally learn to live together. Individually and collectively we must assume a greater sense of Universal Responsibility.

So what is our responsibility now – not only as friends and admirers of the Dalai Lama, but as global citizens?

We must make our voices heard. We must not be silent. The interconnectedness of the world means our combined voices can make more difference now than ever before.

That’s why I urge you to sign a petition being organized by an international social justice group. Simply click on http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/ and you will see the petition to China’s leadership calling for restraint, nonviolence and dialogue rather than human rights infringement and more violence.

In 2002, I wrote an essay in which I drew attention to a poem by the Dalai Lama. His words are very relevant at this moment. I urge you to read the poem and then speak out for the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people.

No matter what is going on Never give up Develop the heart Too much energy in your country Is spent developing the mind Instead of the heart Be compassionate Not just to your friends But to everyone Be compassionate Work for peace In your heart and in the world Work for peace And I say again Never give up No matter what is going on around you Never give up — The XIVth Dalai Lama

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is a member of the Committee of 100 for Tibet, and a Councilor of the World Future Council.

March 24, 2008
Accountability for the Iraq War

We have been engaged in an illegal war in Iraq for five years – and there is no accountability.

It is beyond doubt that our leaders lied us into this war – and there is no accountability.

More than four thousand American and coalition soldiers are dead – and there is no accountability.

Tens of thousands of American and coalition soldiers are seriously wounded – and there is no accountability.

Our surviving soldiers are coming home traumatized from the war without proper medical and psychiatric care – and there is no accountability.

More than a million Iraqis, mostly civilians, have been killed in this war and countless others wounded – and there is no accountability.

More than four million Iraqis are displaced as internal or external refugees of this war – and there is no accountability.

By using so-called “depleted uranium” weapons, we are poisoning the earth, air and water of Iraq, causing serious health problems to Iraqis and coalition soldiers – and there is no accountability.

America has become a nation that tortures – and there is no accountability.

America has become a nation that spies on its citizens – and there is no accountability.

America has become a nation that hides the body bags of its soldiers killed in action – and there is no accountability.

We are spending $12 billion a month on this war – and there is no accountability.

Reputable economists calculate that this war will cost American citizens more than $3 trillion – and there is no accountability.

This war is burdening unborn generations of Americans and Iraqis – and there is no accountability.

This war has brought respect for America to its lowest ebb throughout the world – and there is no accountability.

The war in Iraq has stretched our military forces to the breaking point, making us far less able to cope with real threats to our security – and there is no accountability.

The war in Iraq has been a training ground for terrorists, making us far less safe – and there is no accountability.

Accountability means holding to account those who are responsible for a war that is illegal under international law – in this case, it means holding to account those who have been irresponsible and criminal in their behavior. It means holding to account George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and others. It means not just their disgrace, but trials to bring them to justice.

This is not a partisan issue – it is an issue of responsibility and accountability and, at a deeper level, an issue of restoring our decency, our dignity and our democracy.

Americans must hold those responsible for this war to account.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

March 18, 2008
Science, Peace, and Sustainability
Speech delivered to INES Conference in Mexico City on March 1, 2008

We are meeting to explore relevant issues of Science, Peace, and Sustainability. The relationship between science, peace, and sustainability affects the lives of all of the planet’s inhabitants as well as the lives of future generations yet unborn. The International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES) takes seriously issues of global responsibility, and we believe that engineers and scientists, because of their training, knowledge and privileged place in society, have a special role to play in improving the human condition and assuring a better future for humanity.

INES has worked since 1991 in three principal areas: Peace and Disarmament, Sustainability, and Ethics in Science. INES is an international network of some 70 organizations in 34 countries. It also has individual members throughout the world. INES has held major conferences in Berlin, Amsterdam and Stockholm; and smaller meetings in many places in the world, including Buenos Aires, Argentina and most recently Nagpur, India. We are very pleased to be having our first meeting in Mexico. It is our hope that from this meeting will emerge many important and innovative ideas that will help strengthen the ties between science, peace and sustainability.

Many years ago, in the early 1980s, I had the pleasure of working on a Reshaping the International Order (RIO) Foundation project on Disarmament, Development and the Environment with the great Mexican diplomat and Nobel Peace Laureate Alfonso Garcia Robles. He skillfully negotiated the world’s first Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone in an inhabited region, that of Latin America and the Caribbean. Last year that treaty celebrated the 40th year of its existence. It has been one of the significant success stories in the area of preventing nuclear proliferation.

Many other regions of the world have followed in the footsteps of Latin America and the Caribbean, and we have Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones now in the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa, Antarctica and Central Asia. Virtually the entire Southern hemisphere has become a series of Nuclear Weapon-Free Zones. Now countries in the North need to learn from the South, and cease their hypocritical and dangerous posturing and brandishing of nuclear arms.

Around the same time that the Treaty of Tlatelolco, establishing the Latin American and Caribbean Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, was being agreed to, another treaty was being negotiated to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. That treaty, known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), was signed in 1968 and entered into force in 1970. It contains a major trade-off. In exchange for the non-nuclear weapons states agreeing not to acquire nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons states agreed in Article VI to “good faith” negotiations for nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice advised in 1996 that this meant bringing to a conclusion “negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

What I wish to emphasize is the abysmal lack of “good faith” on the part of the nuclear weapons states and, in particular, the United States. In UN General Assembly voting on nuclear disarmament matters in 2007, the United States had the distinction of voting against every one of the 15 measures put before the UN. France voted against 10 measures, the UK against 9 and Israel against 8.

In 1982, I helped found an organization, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which believes that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age. This belief was earlier pronounced by Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto issued on July 9, 1955. The Manifesto concluded, “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

This is the power that scientists and engineers have placed in the hands of humanity: the power to create a new Paradise on Earth, and the power to foreclose the future by means of technologies capable of causing “universal death.” What shall we do? Which path shall we take? Which power shall we exercise? Science has contributed abundantly to war and continues to do so. Can science and scientists play a role in tipping the balance toward peace?

And what about sustainability? Shall we go on using up the world’s resources because rich countries consider them to be inexpensive? Nothing irreplaceable can be considered inexpensive. This is another way of foreclosing the future. As an alternative course, scientists can contribute to protecting the world’s resources and developing sustainable forms of energy that do not place heavy burdens on future generations. To succeed in sustainable development, we will also need sustainable disarmament. They are inextricably linked.

Resource depletion is a cause of war. So is greed. So is crushing poverty. If we want peace, we must protect our environment, conserve our resources, and have global standards of human dignity. We must also control and eliminate the weaponry we have created that could destroy human life on the planet, as well as most other forms of life.

If we want peace, we must reverse the Roman dictum and prepare for peace. That means that we must use sustainable technologies and conserve our resources. It also means that scientists must work for constructive rather than destructive ends. They must also set appropriate professional standards that delegitimize destructive uses of science and technology. And they must speak out against such destructive uses and those scientists and engineers who succumb to such projects. We need a Hippocratic Oath for Scientists and Engineers based upon the commitment to “do no harm.”

At our conference over the next few days, we will be exploring some critical issues:
1. science, education and social responsibility;
2. militarization and the spread of nuclear weapons;
3. climate change and other serious environmental issues; and
4. the paradigm of sustainability.
All of this will be infused with the perspectives of Latin America.

Time is not on our side, but perhaps in our deliberations we can make progress on deflecting the course of history that has divided humanity in the past, been conducive to wars, generated human rights abuses, tolerated environmental degradation, and set humanity on a collision course with catastrophe. Let us use our human capacities to choose hope and set a new course for the future, one rooted in peace, sustainability and the constructive uses of science and technology.

I will conclude with a poem that is part of my first poetry book, Today Is Not a Good Day for War. The poem is about the hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, those who are victims, but also the ambassadors, of the Nuclear Age. It is called Hibakusha Do Not Just Happen.

HIBAKUSHA DO NOT JUST HAPPEN

For every hibakusha there is a pilot

for every hibakusha there is a planner

for every hibakusha there is a bombardier

for every hibakusha there is a bomb designer

for every hibakusha there is a missile maker

for every hibakusha there is a missileer

for every hibakusha there is a targeter

for every hibakusha there is a commander

for every hibakusha there is a button pusher

for every hibakusha many must contribute

for every hibakusha many must obey

for every hibakusha many must be silent

Of course this is not just about hibakusha. It is about us as well. It is about our responsibility and also our silence. In today’s world, we all are at risk of becoming hibakusha. We must choose peace, sustainability and human decency, while outspokenly refusing to allow the gifts of our human talents and skills to be used to improve warfare and its capacity for slaughter.

We must break the silence and be leaders for peace and sustainability. We must each play our part in reversing the militarization of our planet and moving it toward a peaceful and sustainable future, the Paradise that Russell and Einstein believed was within our grasp.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
March 7, 2008
Understanding a Trillion

This is the way to understand a trillion. Begin by counting 1,2,3…one number each second, and count each second around the clock. In 12 days, you will reach one million. Keep counting. In 32 years, you will reach one billion. Admittedly, this is an impossible task, far beyond our capacities for concentration and focus, not to mention sleep deprivation.

The really hard part, though, is that to reach one trillion would require counting for 32,000 years. It would require organizing the next 1,280 generations to continue the 24 hour counting in 32 year shifts. This would require passing the baton to future generations for more than three times the span of civilization from its roots in Mesopotamia to the present.

Now consider that the world is spending over $1.2 trillion annually on military expenditures, and the United States is spending more than half of this amount on its military and its wars. Or consider this: the United States alone has spent some $7.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems since 1942. To count to $7.5 trillion would require counting for the next 240,000 years, through 9,600 generations. And our militarism has created in the US alone $9 trillion in debt which, along with our militarism and nuclearism, is our legacy to future generations.

David Krieger is the President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org).

February 29, 2008
“Our Goal is Perfection”

On August 30, 2007, six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles were mistakenly loaded onto the wings of a B-52 aircraft and flown from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. It was a major error in the handling of nuclear weapons, leading to various investigations and the replacement of the commander of Minot Air Force Base. The new commander, Colonel Joel Westa, commented, “Our goal in this line of work is not to make errors. Our goal is perfection. It’s one of those missions where the tolerance is very low for error. In fact, it is zero.”

Colonel Westa sounds like a well-meaning fellow, but perhaps someone should explain to him that humans are prone to errors, not only of judgment but of memory and inadvertence. For example, on the same day that Colonel Westa was professing that there is zero tolerance for error, February 12, 2008, the US Secretary of Defense, surely not purposefully, slipped on ice outside his home and broke his humerus, the bone connecting the shoulder to the elbow. Accidents occur.

Even Edward Teller, father of the H-Bomb, recognized, “Sooner or later a fool will prove greater than the proof even in a foolproof system.” With 26,000 nuclear weapons still in the world and 3,500 of these weapons still on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments, and with policies of launch on warning in effect in the US, Russia and other nuclear-armed states, there is unfortunately fertile ground for proving Teller right about the fool proving greater than the proof.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who had his finger on the nuclear button for many years and who called in the mid-1980s for the abolition of nuclear weapons, offered sage advice when he stated “that the infinite and uncontrollable fury of nuclear weapons should never be held in the hands of any mere mortal ever again, for any reason.”

Perfection is not possible, but it is possible to abolish nuclear weapons. Our choices are to play Russian Roulette with the human future, seeking an impossible standard of perfection for all possessors of nuclear weapons, or to recognize the wisdom in Gorbachev’s words and eliminate the overwhelming danger posed by these weapons by eliminating the weapons themselves.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

February 15, 2008