Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: F.H. Knelman

  • An Open Letter to Vladimir Putin – Why?

    The Russian agreement to the U.S.-initiated agreement to cut their strategic nuclear forces by two-thirds is astounding, given that this is playing directly into U.S. plans for global supremacy. For one thing, the U.S. is not going to actually destroy but only shelve the above cuts, at any time able to retrieve them from storage. The Russian nuclear military regime, on the other hand, is in shambles. Retrieval for them will be more difficult. At the same time, the Russians are actually requesting U.S. assistance to rationalize their nuclear regime, providing the U.S. with important intelligence data, such as the stored missile site.

    But even worse, the basic motive of the U.S. in initiating these strategic missile cuts is to improve the effectiveness of their anti- ballistic missile defences, radically reducing the number of targets comprising a Russian attack on the U.S. Given the U.S. basic counterforce strategy, we are moving into a time when mutual assured destruction between the two major nuclear powers is becoming an American monopoly, altering the mutual to the unilateral. Do the Russians really believe that the land-based missile defences being constructed in Alaska and the new Northern Command are directed to an attack by Iraq?

    The only possible rationale for the Russian position is that they are confident they can develop a variety of penetrating aids for their strategic missiles which will distract, confuse and overcome U.S. missile defences. We would then be entering a new dynamic of the nuclear arms race between anti-missiles and anti anti-missiles. Given the disarray of the Russian nuclear regime and their general economic problems, the latter may be a vain hope.

    Thus we are left to conclude that the Russian position is inexplicable. They had the opportunity to tie strategic missile reductions in exchange for the U.S. to uphold the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Could it just have been the mighty U.S. dollar that denied them this option? For example, we know they desperately require assistance to clean up their vast nuclear reserves consisting of huge amounts of radioactive waste, large numbers of tactical weapons and stockpiles of weapons grade nuclear materials comprising an open invitation for accidents or acts of malice of one kind or another. Also we are witnessing an increasing U.S. presence in the former Soviet republics that surround Russia, at some future time representing a direct threat. And finally, we cannot understand Russia’s lack of response at being identified as one of the seven enemy states to be targeted with nuclear weapons in the U.S. 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, let alone the existing U.S. Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP), a nuclear hit list against Russian targets of value. And surely they are aware of the U.S. first disarming strike policy.

    Putin can still recoup a major diplomatic victory by supporting the forthcoming Space Preservation Treaty. Both Russia and China have expressed their opposition to the U.S. abrogation of the Anti- Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty of 1972. Together Canada, Russia and China could have a very positive impact on the success of the Treaty. The Space Preservation Treaty, initiated by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), is being circulated to every nation state leader. It can be immediately signed and sent to the U.N. Secretary General’s office as Treaty Depositary, and ratified quickly.

    The Space Preservation Treaty is an international companion to legislation introduced by Kucinich in the U.S. House of Representatives, H.R. 3616, the Space Preservation Act of 2002, in January, 2002. Both the Treaty and the bill ban all space-based weapons and the use of weapons designed to destroy any object in space that is in orbit. It also immediately terminates research, development, testing, manufacturing, and deployment of all space- based weapons, but does not prohibit space exploration, R&D, testing, production, manufacturing and deployment of any civil, commercial or defense activities in space that are not related to space-based weapons, thus reserving space for the benefit of all living things on our small planet. This Treaty will also be verifiable. It requires that an outer space peacekeeping agency be established to monitor and enforce the ban.

    The momentum of getting this Treaty supported and passed into law has begun, and this ban on space-based weapons can become reality in 2002. This world treaty will fill the legal void left by the abrogation of the ABM Treaty. It will replace the ABM Treaty. With the support of Canada, Russia and China a large majority of members of the United Nations would likely sign on to the Treaty, as most nation-state leaders have already expressed support for preserving space for weapons-free peaceful, cooperative purposes. The European Union (with the exception of Britain) are likely signatories. isolating the United States and exposing its unilateralism and contempt for the rest of the world is, in itself, a lofty goal. A possible change in the balance of power in the U.S. Congress at the end of 2002 and a strong contender for a president in 2004 devoted to strength through peace rather than the reverse, who could establish this Treaty as Universal Law and save the world from an inevitable nuclear catastrophe.

    In conclusion, the Space Preservation Treaty is one of the most important initiatives of our time! It is truly worthy of our support. Let us all begin by moving Canada to be an early signatory.

    For detailed information on the Space Preservation Treaty, contact the Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS) at www.peaceinspace.com, c/o Dr. Carol Rosin : e-mail: rosin@west.net or call 805-641-1999 (in the U.S.) or Alfred Webre JD MEd at info@peaceinspace.com or call 604-733-8134 (in Canada).
    *F.H. Knelman received his doctorate in Engineering at the Imperial College of Science, University of London, U.K. He has enjoyed a long teaching career, having taught Liberal Studies of Science, York University, 1962-1967 and Director and Full Professor of Science & Human Affairs, Concordia University, 1967-1987. Dr. Knelman also taught Peace Studies at the Grindstone Island Peace School, Santa Barbara College, Langara College and Simon Fraser University. As well, he taught Environmental Studies at UC Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz and the University of Victoria. He is the author of over 500 articles, papers and studies on the subjects of common security, environment, energy and the social relations of science and technology, as well as many technical papers and numerous keynote addresses.

    Among his books are 1984 and All That, Wadsworth Publishing; Nuclear Energy: The Unforgiving Technology, Hurtig Publishers (1975); Anti-Nation: Transition to Sustainability, Mosaic Press (1979); Reagan, God and the Bomb, Prometheus Books (1985); America, God and the Bomb: The Legacy of Ronald Reagan, New Star Books (1987) and Every Life is a Story: The Social Relations of Science, Peace and Ecology, Black Rose Books (1999).

    He is the recipient of many awards, among which are the World Wildlife Fund Prize, 1967, the World Federalists Peace Essay Prize (1970), the White Owl Conservation Prize (1972 – as Canada’s outstanding environmentalist), the Ben Gurion University Medal of Merit, 1983, the United Nations Association Special Achievement Award (Montreal) and a special award for meritorious service to the cause of common security by the Canadian Peace Research and Education Association in 1987. Dr. Knelman was awarded the Queen’s 1992 Commemorative Medal and, in 1994 the World Federalists of Canada “World Peace Prize.” In 1996 he was awarded the Environmental Lifetime Achievement Award by The Skies Above Foundation. He is also a lifetime member of the 500 Club of Rome.

    Professor Knelman has a long history of involvement in environmental issues, spanning some forty years. He is associated with the founding of the earliest environmental Non-Government Organizations (ENGOs) in Canada, as well as being the founder of Scientists for Social Responsibility, Canada’s first scientific group concerned with environmental issues (1964). He is currently Vice- President and Founding Director of the Whistler Foundation for a Sustainable Environment. Dr. Knelman was attached to the Science Council of Canada on a major energy conservation study (Background Study #33). He is on the Advisory Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, CA and past Editor of The Health Guardian, a Journal of Alternative Medicine.

    Dr. Knelman has conducted extensive research in energy/environment policy. He has been the keynote speaker at some twenty-five national and international conferences on these themes. In 1981 he was the special adviser on energy/environment to the State of California and an early consultant to the Federal Department of Environment, Ottawa, in the 1970’s. He was one of forty scientists in the world invited to a parallel conference at the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972. He co-authored a Nobel Prize Winner Declaration submitted to the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio.

    Dr. Knelman is a founding member of the Canadian Peace and Education Association and writes a regular monthly column, “Our Nuclear Age” for the Vancouver-based journal “Outlook” and is a frequent contributor to several other journals.

  • The Many Faces of Terrorism

    We cannot minimize the horror of the recent acts of terrorism in the U.S. The individual loss of a loved one multiplied 5,000 times over adds up to an arithmetic of terrible sorrow. You cannot fight what you consider injustice by acts that are themselves extreme violations of justice. Indiscriminate violence is the terrible curse of the mind of the terrorist. All acts of terrorism must be totally rejected as illegitimate means of struggle, because they fail the principle of discrimination. Indiscriminate violence in times of war or peace violates this principle. Resistance to injustice that discriminates has always been historically justified. The Geneva Protocols relating to war demand that the essential discrimination between combatants and non-combatants be rigorously maintained. The most serious and significant violation of this protocol was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with a total of 200,000 prompt deaths of civilians and the decades-long delayed torture of radiation effects. This was committed by a so-called civilized people.

    Thus we must not let the larger perspective be carried away on the flood of sympathy. While it is totally unacceptable to use unjust means to fight injustice, this does not make the injustice disappear. By all the criteria of current social indicators the U.S. is an unjust society compared to the rest of the highly industrialized Western world.This is manifest in structural terrorism against the poor, other minorities and persistent racism. “Hate acts” against Moslem Americans have already multiplied, including the bombing of mosques.

    All major religions contain elements of forgiveness and vengeance. At the same time, all major religions have a fundamentalist or exclusionary group who embrace fanaticism. The current horrendous acts of terrorism were obviously carried out by this kind of extremist position. The evidence to date is that the culprits were Islamic fundamentalists. However, if you have read my book on Ronald Reagan, you will see that there are high-ranking U.S. Christian fundamentalists – Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and their ilk – who believe a great war between good and evil will take place – Armageddon – and that only “true” Christians will ultimately survive. They have prepared to fight that war in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Falwell and Robertson have now revealed their twisted minds by suggesting that the terrorist attacks on the U.S. were a form of divine punishment for its tolerance to secularism, feminism, homosexuality, etc. Every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan has operationalized programs to fight and win a nuclear war with Russia through a preemptive disarming strike against all Russian missile sites on land, on and under the oceans and in the sky. The talk about rogue states as the reason for a National Missile System (NMD) is an outright deception. Russia is the only country that threatens the U.S.¹s global hegemony. The above strike would lead to fifteen million civilian Russian deaths or two and a half holocausts. This is an act of extreme terrorism which I have documented beyond any possible dispute. The International Court of Justice has concluded that such a threat is a violation of International Humanitarian Law. Perhaps the NMD system will shoot down hijacked planes on U.S. territory, a costly exchange of human life.

    Returning to the events in New York City, if you had read a novel in which some nineteen persons hijacked four civilian jumbo jets, one terrorist on each of the hijacked planes having been trained in an accredited school for flying these jets and that all nineteen were prepared to die in their acts of terror, you would have had to conclude that this plot was farfetched. The amount of detailed planning and the level of organization to accomplish such a task is mind-boggling. They had to do this with primitive plastic weapons, break into the cockpit and keep the flight crews and passengers under control.

    Returning to my earlier theme that we must retain a larger perspective on terrorism, the blockade of Iraq has led to an estimated death of some one million of its citizens, mostly children. This is also an act of terrorism. Even in the war against the scourge of fascism, the allies used unacceptable means insofar as they violated the principle of discrimination by the mass bombing of Axis cities which, in any case, later proved to be counter-productive. The U.S. has consistently supported right-wing leaders in Central and South America who carried out reigns of terror. Using the current U.S. argument that countries that harbour terrorists are, themselves, guilty proves the guilt of the U.S.

    We must also adjust our perspective to the realities of a unipolar world and the singular force of Pax Americana. The current political solidarity is politically correct, but cannot cover up the profound and persistent political differences that divide the U.S., a division that will outlast such solidarity. Congress, by giving George W. Bush carte blanche to retaliate, has assured the perpetuation of violent response. It has been reported that only one member of Congress voted against this blanket resolution.

    In conclusion, the U.S. is now reaping and will continue to reap what it has sowed. The scars of the Middle East wedded to Islamic terrorism and Israeli intransigence will never put an end to their acts of terrorism until some final peaceful solution is achieved, creating a Palestinian State (with no armed forces) and making Jerusalem an international city. These are minimum requirements. George W. Bush will not solve the problem but exacerbate it. In many ways he is the problem. We can now all see that the NMD policy cannot protect the American public. Some time in the near future terrorists will explode a small suitcase nuclear bomb in a major U.S. city. And a ground war in Afghanistan could not only unite Islamic fundamentalists but prove to be a second Viet Nam, as the Soviets learned.

    The U.S. could yet be the victim of blowback for having supported the Taliban in that war. Blowback is the phenomenon of supporting regimes who later become your worst enemy. Blowback could also haunt the C.I.A. for its legion of dirty tricks, including murder, throughout the world. Even now there is a case pending against Henry Kissinger for the murders in Chile of the head of the military and the democratically-elected president. This launched the Pinochet reign of terror. The U.S.’s major Arab ally is Saudi Arabia, hardly a model of democracy. Then, of course, there was the Iran Contra affair, illustrating that the CIA is not above making deals with terrorists, including those from Islam. In fact the CIA is a terrorist organization, not unlike its counterparts in almost all countries. In this way the terrible events in New York were truly the reaping of what was sowed. The tragedy, of course, is the slaughter of the innocents.

    There is still the opportunity for positive defensive measures. All civilian air carriers could implement some simple reforms following El Al’s procedures, i.e. carrying an armed sky marshal aboard and having cockpits on large passenger planes sealed off from crew and passengers. This would prevent hijackings. Together with a permanent solution to the Palestinian issue, this will help. But ultimately U.S. policy will have to undergo radical change from the new imperialism of its present posture to a true democratic society dedicated to peace and justice. This will involve a fundamental change in an American culture of structural violence and a self-image of being Number One. And under the present administration, this is less likely than ever.

    All of this does not preclude the legitimate task of identifying dedicated terrorists and preventing further acts of terrorism. But if this is attempted through excessively violent means, it will prove counter-productive and only perpetuate the dynamics of violence.

  • Who Are the Terrorists

    The horrendous events of September 11, 2001 in the U.S. have set into motion unprecedented changes in the world. Terrorism is a scourge of our times and must be eliminated. But elimination of the terrorists themselves will be insufficient if we do not eliminate the causes of their violent actions. We believe these causes lie in the gross inequities that exist in our world, accelerated by the process of globalized capital and the U.S. policy of corporate welfare supported by its adherents in the industrialized world. Still another cause is the failure to create a Palestinian state in the troubled land of Israel and a mode of living side by side in peace. And a further cause is the antiquated kingdoms of the Middle East, coupled to U.S. dependency on their oil reserves in an atmosphere where oil and politics do not mix. Finally, there is the dedicated programs and policies of the U.S. for the ideological cleansing of the world, supported by their operationalized nuclear threat.

    To all of the above, the U.S. response was predictable: “Dead or Alive” – this is the kind of juvenile rhetoric one might expect from a Texas vigilante. “You are either with us or against us” – nothing is that simple except to a simpleton. This is, yet again, a juvenile statement by the robotic president of the United States, who confuses ends and means. One can agree with the ends of stopping the terrorists, whose acts are totally unacceptable. But we disagree with the means the global bully has chosen. Once again he has attempted coalition building outside the rightful role of the United Nations while side-stepping international law. There is a relevant article of the Charter of the United Nations which applies, i.e. Article 51.

    Article 51 Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. Reading Article 51 carefully one can only conclude that the U.S. action is in contravention of the U.N. Charter as well as international law, for example the 1971 Montreal Sabotage Convention, of which it is a signatory, together with one hundred and seventy-three other states and which requires mediation through the International Court of Justice. But as the ultimate world bully, the U.S. dictates the terms of conflict resolution in a unilateral uncompromising way that suits its consistent interventionist position. In fact it deliberately bypasses the international security regime, including the United Nations, preferring NATO, a military organization it controls. The right to self-defence in Article 51 is similar to that of individual rights. It does not permit the individual to bypass the law, once they have defended themselves.

    It has been reliably reported, including in U.S. Congressional committee reports, that the U.S. has consistently supported terrorist groups all over the world. Throughout Central and South America it has helped to overthrow democratically-elected regimes in support of military juntas and dictators. It gave aid to terrorist groups in the Honduras army who murdered hundreds, including American nuns. It used the CIA to assassinate the democratically-elected Allende in Chile and his Chief of Staff, General Schneider. In fact the General’s son has lodged a case against Henry Kissinger who, together with Richard Nixon, ordered these murders. It poisoned the people of North Viet Nam with Agent Orange. Through its sanctions, some million Iraqis, many of them children, have died in the U.S.’s terror of hunger. In fact it has directly supported Asama bin Ladin in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, as well as by the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in Kosovo and Macedonia. It has supported the extreme right in Greece, the Philippines, Chile, Iran, Panama, Indonesia, Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Grenada, Cambodia, etc. In all of these actions not thousands but millions of civilians were killed. In its earlier history it carried out a genocidal war against its Native peoples, destroying their culture and seizing their lands. Then, on August 6th and 9th, 1945, it incinerated 200,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, followed by decades of radiation damage. And this was no more than a military experiment since Japan was prepared to surrender under acceptable conditions. Together with NATO, it committed war crimes in Serbia and Kosovo. It has refused to support a UN International Criminal Court, preferring to control the War Crimes Tribunal, its own creation. And the U.S. condoned the killing of a large proportion of the people of East Timor by the Indonesian military. Adding to this were the murders in Chile by Pinochet, involving thousands. The total of all these victims adds up to millions and the U.S. is largely culpable for their deaths.

    But there is still another kind of terrorism of which the U.S. is guilty. This is internal or structural terrorism derived from poverty, disease, murder, hunger and deprivation of all kinds. The U.S. has the highest rate of permanent poor among all the highly industrialized Western countries. Examining the arithmetic of structural terrorism, some 40 million Americans have no health coverage whatsoever, one in five children are born in and live in poverty. It has the highest infant mortality rate among nineteen industrialized countries. The U.S. is twenty-ninth in the world in population per physician (Cuba is eleventh in this category). The U.S. has the lowest life expectancy among the nineteen most industrialized nations. Twenty-one per cent of all Black Americans go to sleep hungry in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. All of this adds up to lives of hopelessness, hunger and disease for many millions of Americans. The U.S. also has the highest murder rate among the highly industrialized countries, and the only one that has the legal right to bear arms and the only one with capital punishment. The inverse ratio between the latter two is hardly ever acknowledged. The hypocrisy of the U.S. about these matters knows no bounds, with a co-opted media indulging in a shameful cover-up.

    But the greatest terrorist threat in the history of humankind is embodied in the U.S.’s nuclear warfighting policies, plans and programs. We have established beyond any possible dispute that not only does the U.S. (and NATO) have a “first use” policy, but in fact the U.S. has operationalized plans to fight a nuclear war against Russia, considered to still be the major obstacle to the completion of the U.S.¹s global hegemony. In the Reagan administration, when this policy first evolved, a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was first operationalized despite the realization that it would lead to the death of twenty million Americans and one hundred million Russians. More recently, following the demise of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has operationalized plans to launch a devastating pre-emptive strike against Russia. The counterforce strike is directed against all Russian nuclear launchers – on land, on and under the sea and in the air. It is guided by an elaborate list of strategic targets embodied in a single integrated operational plan (SIOP). This includes Russia¹s command, control, communications and intelligence centres (C½I). Such a counterforce strike would kill fifteen million Russian civilians, an act of terrorism that dwarfs what happened to the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (see W.M. Arkin, “SIOP – forever immoral”; The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept.-Oct., 2000, p.72). When we add the above fifteen million deaths to our calculations of murders, killings and assassinations, plus the internal structural terrorism described in the previous paragraphs, we can only conclude that the U.S. is the greatest terrorist nation in the world.

    But, not satisfied that some Russian missiles might escape destruction, the U.S. is committed to a national missile defense (NMD) system, despite the violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty and the 1967 Outer Space treaty. Their intention is to rule the world from space, universalizing free enterprise and investment and completing the ideological cleansing of the world, converting it to universal capitalism. The U.S. would be the CEO of this global enterprise. Yet such an NMD system would be totally ineffective against the kind of attacks that took place on Sept. 11, 2001 or against chemical and biological warfare. George W. Bush and Company have asserted that their NMD system is designed against so-called “rogue states”. This is a transparent scam that has been discredited by authoritative figures.

    The coalition that Bush pressed into in his declared war against terrorism is not as solid as he had hoped. For one thing, Saudi Arabia balked at permitting the U.S. to launch its attack against the Taliban from its territory. “In this case, you are with us”, did not mean you are against us. This is how oil talks. His staunchest supporter is Tony Blair, who must have had a sex change and is really Margaret Thatcher. For Tony Blair to praise the courage and bravery of the early attacks on the Taliban is misguided, when most of the launches came from cruise missiles 1,000 miles away. The question of whether the U.S. is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the Taliban deserves a resounding affirmative. It is an essential part of their strategic posture. Russia and China have their own reasons for supporting the U.S., which will quickly collapse if Iraq is attacked, a plan now in place.

    Richard Perle, the superhawk and former adviser to Ronald Reagan, now to George Bush, was asked if the U.S. might use nuclear weapons in its “war on terrorism” (CNN, 7 Oct., 2001). His answer was both interesting and predictable. He said the U.S. should use whatever weapons are appropriate to win this war. This is a predictable response but has subtle undertones which are a clear affirmative.

    One positive fallout of the terrorist attacks on America is that the U.S. budget is in a state of chaos. Bush’s huge tax reductions, mainly for corporate welfare, are now revealed as a risk not worth taking. Also, given the budget crisis, it is unlikely that NMD will proceed as planned, i.e. by the U.S. dropping out of the ABM treaty before the end of the year. However, for the victims of September 11th there can be no benefits, only the terrible disbenefit of their grieving families.

    The predictable is occurring yet again. As reported in the London Observer of October 21, 2001, U.N. officials in Afghanistan have reported that a disaster is looming with 7.5 million Afghans threatened by starvation directly attributable to the bombing. The bombing seriously threatens delivery of the humanitarian supplies into Afghanistan. The British charity, Christian Aid, has reported that six hundred people have already died in the Dar-e-Suf region from starvation and related diseases. All of this is exacerbated by the three-year drought that has hit Afghanistan. None of this is reported in the U.S. media, which, as always, is managing consent with American terrorism. Finally, how can the U.S. lead a campaign based on common security when it is the leading obstacle to the radical reduction of nuclear weapons, let alone their elimination.