Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Articles by David Krieger

  • The Fate of Humanity

    The fate of humanity and that of all other inhabitants of the planet rests far too comfortably in the hands of a small number of national leaders (currently all male) who have the self-ordained authority to launch nuclear weapons. They hold in their hands the fate of every man, woman and child on the planet. On one sunlit morning or afternoon any one of these powerful individuals could launch his country’s nuclear weapons, triggering retaliatory responses. The skies would darken with the ash and soot rising from burning cities and create a nuclear winter. Even a small nuclear war could cause a nuclear famine, leading to the deaths by starvation of some two billion of the most vulnerable people on the planet.

    Those with the power and control over nuclear weapons could turn this planet, unique in all the universe in supporting life, into the charred remains of a Global Hiroshima. Should any leader hold so much power? Should we be content to allow such power to rest in any hands at all?

    Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein painted the starkness of our dilemma six decades ago in the Russell-Einstein Manifesto: “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.”

    Humanity has a choice to make. We can continue with business as usual, standing in the dark shadows of apathy, conformity, ignorance and denial, or we can take action to abolish nuclear weapons. Doing nothing all but assures that nuclear weapons will spread to other countries and eventually again be used by accident or design. Doing all we can to move the world to Nuclear Zero is our only chance to save the planet and assure a human future. We can start by changing apathy to empathy, conformity to critical thinking, ignorance to wisdom, and denial to recognition of the threat posed by nuclear weapons. The time is short and what is at risk is all we love and treasure.

  • 2015 Evening for Peace Introduction

    Good evening and thank you for being part of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 32nd Annual Evening for Peace. A special welcome to all the students with us tonight. We hope that this evening will be a great learning experience for you – both educational and inspirational.

    Our honoree this year, the 70th anniversary year of the atomic bombings, is a hibakusha – a survivor of those bombings. She, like other hibakusha, has the truest perspective on the horrors caused by the atomic bombs, the perspective of being under a nuclear detonation.

    Before I introduce our honoree to you, I’d like to make a few comments about nuclear weapons and the work of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation to abolish them.

    The atomic bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were relatively small nuclear weapons when compared with those of today.  Nonetheless, they were very effective killing devices, killing 210,000 to 220,000 persons in the two cities by blast, fire and radiation by the end of 1945.

    Nuclear weapons are not the friend of humanity or other forms of life. In fact, they are the enemy of all Creation. They are illegal, immoral, tremendously costly and undermine the security of their possessors.

    The only reasonable number of nuclear weapons on our planet is Zero, and it is our collective responsibility to go from where we are to Zero. This has been the goal of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation since our founding in 1982.

    We’ve progressed from 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world in the mid-1980s down to under 16,000 today. This is progress, but it is not sufficient. We still face the prospect of a Global Hiroshima – a nuclear war, by accident or design, which could end civilization and even the human species.

    There is far too much complacency around this issue. I worry about ACID, an acronym for key elements of complacency: Apathy, Conformity, Ignorance and Denial. We must change these acidic forms of complacency to engagement by changing Apathy to Empathy; Conformity to Critical Thinking; Ignorance to Wisdom; and Denial to Recognition of the nuclear threat.

    One important way we do this is through our work as a consultant to the Republic of the Marshall Islands in their lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries in the International Court of Justice and in US federal court. The Marshall Islands does not seek compensation in these lawsuits. They seek only that the nuclear-armed countries negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament as they are obligated to do under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law.

    The Foundation has helped establish legal teams to support these cases, and the attorneys working on the cases have given thousands of hours to this work on a pro bono basis. Two of these lawyers are here this evening and I’d like you to join me in recognizing them: Laurie Ashton and Lynn Sarko.

    I’d also like you to join me in recognizing Dan Smith, another pro bono attorney who has submitted amicus briefs on behalf of other civil society organizations in support of the Marshall Islands.

    When you support the Foundation, you are supporting the courage of the Marshall Islanders and their legal efforts to achieve a victory for all humanity.

    Another way we work to shift complacency to engagement is through our project, “Humanize Not Modernize.” This project opposes the US and other nuclear-armed countries upgrading, modernizing and generally making their nuclear arsenals more usable. The US alone plans to spend $1 trillion over the next three decades on modernizing its nuclear arsenal. It will only benefit the arms manufacturers at the expense of meeting human needs for the poor and hungry and those without health care.

    When you support the Foundation, you are supporting the shift from nuclear insanity to human security.

    Still another way we work to combat nuclear complacency is by educating a new generation of Peace Leaders. Paul Chappell, the director of our Peace Leadership Program, travels the world teaching people the values and skills needed to wage peace. We also have a great internship program at the Foundation, led by Rick Wayman, our Director of Programs. Our interns make valuable contributions to the Foundation’s work.

    When you support the Foundation, you are supporting the development and training of committed young peace leaders.

    Tonight we shine a light on courageous Peace Leadership. This is the 32nd time we have presented our Distinguished Peace Leadership Award. It has gone to some of the great Peace Leaders of our time, including the XIVth Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Carl Sagan, Yehudi Menuhin, Jody Williams, Jacques Cousteau, Helen Caldicott and Medea Benjamin.

    We are honored to be presenting our 2015 award to an exceptional woman, who is a hibakusha and child victim of war. She was just 13 years old when the US dropped an atomic bomb on her city of Hiroshima. She lost consciousness and awakened to find herself pinned beneath a collapsed building.

    She thought she would die, but she survived and has made it her life’s work to end the nuclear weapons era and to assure that her past does not become someone else’s future. She is a global leader in the fight to prevent a Global Hiroshima and assure that Nagasaki remains the last city to suffer a nuclear attack. Our honoree is a Peace Ambassador of the United Nations University of Peace in Costa Rica, a Peace Ambassador of the city of Hiroshima, and was a nominee for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

    I am very pleased to present the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2015 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award to a courageous Peace Leader and member of the human family, Setsuko Thurlow.

    David Krieger delivered these remarks at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 32nd Annual Evening for Peace on October 25, 2015.

  • War Crime Blues

    Have you heard the terrible news?
    U.S. forces bombed a hospital in Kunduz.
    It gives me a case of the wartime blues,
    makes me shake with the war crime blues.
    You can’t win a war, you can only lose.

    U.S. forces already knew
    the place was off limits under the law, before
    they attacked, killing twenty-two.

    The chain of command I sadly accuse
    of being at fault and causing the spread
    of the war crime blues.

    The attack was launched at two
    in the morning.  It came without warning,
    with no sign or clue.

    The first bombs fell on the hospital’s I-C-U.
    Patients were burned in their hospital beds,
    it is tragically true.

    Despite frantic calls, the bombing continued
    for well over an hour, showing the wartime power
    to be arrogant, cowardly and relentlessly rude.

    That no U.S. leader would stand and refuse
    to carry out such orders makes me shake
    with the war crime blues.

    Bombing a hospital, no one should do.
    Among the dead were three young children,
    their lives cut short, who were murdered, too.

    The U.S. attacked the only hospital in Kunduz.
    Now it’s the people, wounded and writhing in pain,
    who will shake with the war crime blues.

    Have you heard the terrible news?
    U.S. forces bombed a hospital in Kunduz.
    Does it give you a case of the wartime blues?
    Does it make you shake with the war crime blues?
    You can’t win a war, you can only lose.

  • Children of War

    In war, children die,
    float away on clouds of grief.
    By far, the greatest lie of all
    is the well-worn but absurd belief
    that war is noble, not a crime.

    In war, children writhe in pain,
    while their parents wail.
    Before we spread war’s red stain,
    should we not consider how we fail
    the young, again and yet again?

  • Pope Francis Calls for Complete Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

    When Pope Francis came to the United States he brought with him not only his spirituality, but his courage, compassion and commitment to creating a more decent world.  He urged the people of the US and their representatives to live by the Golden Rule and to respect nature that sustains us all.  Despite a full schedule, he found time to share a meal with the homeless, dialogue with prisoners, and bless those in need.  He commented that the children are the most important among us.  He taught us with his smiles, his warmth, his words and his deeds.

    pope_ungaThe Pope did so much during his six-day visit that many Americans may have missed his remarks at the United Nations on September 25th on the “urgent need to work for a world free of nuclear weapons, in full application of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit, with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons.”  The Pope asks us not only to desire such a world, but admonishes us “to work” for it.  In order to achieve this world, one must work to replace apathy with empathy, conformity with critical thinking, ignorance with wisdom, and denial with recognition of the threat these weapons pose to humankind and the human future.

    Pope Francis calls upon us to recognize that there is an “urgent need” for such work.  It is not work for a distant day, or work that can be put off to another time.  The matter is urgent, the need is great.  He also calls for the “full application of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in letter and spirit.”  The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970, requires the parties in Article VI of the treaty “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament….”

    The five nuclear-armed countries that are parties to the NPT (US, Russia, UK, France and China) are not at present following either the letter or spirit of the treaty.  Rather than ending the nuclear arms race, they are engaged in costly and dangerous “modernizing” of their nuclear arsenals, while ignoring their obligations to negotiate in good faith for nuclear disarmament.  The four nuclear-armed countries that are not parties to the treaty (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) are bound by customary international law to these provisions of the NPT, and are also ignoring their obligations under international law.

    Pope Francis is clear that the goal to be achieved is the “complete prohibition” of nuclear weapons.  Partial measures are not enough.  As the spiritual leader that he is, he must be keenly aware that all of Creation, including humankind, is placed at risk by the more than 15,000 nuclear weapons still on our planet.  The Pope effectively dismisses nuclear deterrence as a justification for nuclear weapons.  He states, “An ethics and a law based on the threat of mutual destruction – and possibly the destruction of all mankind – are self-contradictory and an affront to the entire framework of the United Nations, which would end up as ‘nations united by fear and distrust.’”

    As someone who has worked for the abolition of nuclear weapons for more than three decades, I am greatly encouraged by the Pope’s resounding call for “complete prohibition.”  He did not mince his words.  He was clear and direct and spoke of the urgency that is necessary to accomplish the task.  Many others throughout the world seeking a world free of nuclear weapons must also be elated by Pope Francis’ call for nuclear weapons abolition, including the 117 countries that have signed the “Humanitarian Pledge,” initiated by Austria, to fill the legal gap that currently exists regarding possession of these weapons.  The tiny Republic of the Marshall Islands must be particularly encouraged by the Pope’s call for abolition as it is in the process of suing the nine nuclear-armed countries in the International Court of Justice and in US federal court for their failure to fulfill their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law.

    Pope Francis is a wise and decent man.  His words of support for a “complete prohibition” of nuclear weapons should give heart to all who seek a world free of nuclear weapons, a goal that those of us now alive owe to our children and grandchildren and all generations that will follow us on the planet.

    Vaya aquí para la versión española.

  • Reason Is Not Enough

    Reason is not enough to halt the nuclear juggernaut that rumbles unsteadily toward catastrophe, toward omnicide.

    The broken heart of humanity must find a way to enter the debate.  The heart must find common cause with imagination.  We cannot wait until the missiles are in the air with the sand falling through the hourglass.  We must use our imaginations.  We must listen to the sad stories of those who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki and imagine the force of the winds, the firestorms rushing through our cities, the mushroom clouds rising, the invisible radiation spreading.  If we can’t imagine the death and destruction, we cannot combat it and we will never stop it.

    David KriegerWe are trapped by our myopia and lethargy, the forces that keep us impotent in the face of the nuclear threat.  I call these forces ACID: Apathy, Conformity, Ignorance and Denial.  ACID is corrosive to our common future.  ACID is the collection of obstacles to change that is preventing us from ending the nuclear weapons era and preserving the human future.

    Our challenge is to move from ACID to Action by changing apathy to empathy; conformity to critical thinking; ignorance to wisdom; and denial to recognition.

    Apathy is indifference, a recipe for maintaining the status quo.  Empathy is the result of imagining oneself in another’s shoes, in this case the shoes of those who were victims of the atomic bombings, either at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or victims of atmospheric nuclear testing.

    Conformity is going along with the herd mentality, like lemmings over a cliff.  Critical thinking is a means of breaking with the herd, of seeing the dangers in what is commonly considered acceptable.  Apply critical thinking to nuclear deterrence theory and you find a theory that cannot be proven and is subject to failure.  Nuclear deterrence cannot, for example, stand up to terrorists, those who have no territory or are suicidal.  Nor can deterrence theory apply to leaders who are not rational, and most leaders are not fully rational in times of extreme crisis.

    Ignorance is not knowing, or thinking one knows that which is just plain wrong.  It is a result of disinterest or a warped perspective.  It bends toward extreme arrogance or hubris, and includes an absurd and dangerous belief in human infallibility.  Wisdom is grasping our human fallibility and acting to prevent it from leading to disaster.

    Denial is putting on blindfolds and failing to see a problem or threat that would otherwise be obvious.  It is countered by recognition of the threat, in the case of nuclear weapons by recognition of the threat to all humanity.

    We must move from ACID to action, from education to engagement, starting with the recognition that nuclear weapons undermine security, provide no physical protection, threaten civilization and complex life, and are subject to human fallibility.  They are the ultimate evil for they threaten all we love and cherish.

    What can you do?  Start with A-B-C.  Awaken.  Believe.  Contribute.  Awaken to the threat (be aware, attentive and active).  Believe you can make a difference on this most critical of issues.  Contribute time, talent, money, ideas.  Everyone has something they can contribute, and it will take many of us joining together to achieve the goal.  Beyond A-B-C, stand up, speak out and join in.  Be a nonviolent warrior for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons.  Choose hope and keep hope alive, and persevere and never give up.

  • The International Day of Peace

    Planet Earth from outer spaceOn 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.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • David Hartsough: An Inspiring Life

    I recently read this impressive autobiography by nonviolent activist David Hartsough, which I recommend highly.  David was born in 1940 and has been a lifelong participant and leader in actions seeking a more decent world through nonviolent means.  His guiding stars have been peace, justice, nonviolence and human dignity.  He has been a foe of all U.S. wars during his lifetime, and a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War.  He has lived his nonviolence and made it an adventure in seeking truth, as Gandhi did.  I will not try to recount the many adventures that he writes about, but they include civil rights sit-ins, blockading weapons bound for Vietnam, accompanying at-risk individuals in the wars in Central America and creating, with a colleague, a Nonviolent Peaceforce.

    Waging PeaceDavid has lived his life with compassion, commitment and courage.  He is principled, but also pragmatic.  He finds, “It is much easier to make friends than to fight enemies.”  He asks us to use our imaginations: “Imagine how the world would change if we recruited millions of people for the Peace Corps, nonviolent peace teams, and other constructive efforts, rather than for our military forces.  Think of how much safer we all would be if the world knew Americans as healers and teachers, builders of clinics and schools, and supporters of land reform, rather than as deadly dominators.”  Imagine what a different world that would be.

    In addition to telling his life story, David has a chapter on “Transforming Our Society from One Addicted to Violence and War to One Based on Justice and Peace with the World.”  He also included sections on: Proposal for Ending All War; Resources for Further Study and Action; Ten Lessons Learned from My Life of Activism; and much more.

    David Hartsough’s life is inspiring, and the lessons he draws from his experiences are valuable in paving the way to a world without war.  I encourage you to read his book on his lifelong efforts at Waging Peace.

    Hartsough, David with Joyce Hollyday, Waging Peace, Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist (Oakland, CA.: PM Press, 2014). Click here to purchase on Amazon.com.

  • Message to the International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition

    Greetings to all participants in the International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition.

    You are engaged in the most critical task of our time, seeking a way out of the Nuclear Age, a very brief period in human history, but an incredibly dangerous one. Human civilization, so painstakingly created over thousands of years, could be destroyed in an afternoon of nuclear exchange, which could occur by accident, miscalculation or design. There would be no winners of that exchange, only losers, and the greatest losers would be the people of the future, including the youth of today. It is clear that nuclear weapons threaten all we love and treasure.

    International Youth Summit for Nuclear AbolitionNuclear weapons should never have been created, but they were. They should never have been used on cities, but they were. There should never have been widespread nuclear testing, but there was. Nor, should there ever have been an insane arms race, but there was. Today, we have far fewer nuclear weapons than at the height of the nuclear arms race in the mid-1980s, but those that remain still endanger us all.

    There is only one power strong enough to abolish nuclear weapons, and that is the power of the people acting with engaged hearts. Nuclear weapons are powerful devices. They can kill, maim, and cause massive destruction. But they are no match for the human heart, which has the power of love, compassion, understanding, empathy and cooperation. The human heart is an instrument even more powerful than nuclear bombs, warheads, and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

    To the power of the human heart can be added the power of the human mind to have a vision and strategies and tactics to reach agreed upon goals. Your task is to awaken your generation to the challenges posed by nuclear weapons and to engage their hearts, as well as their minds, in ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life.

    I have great faith in you, and I wish you all success in your important gathering. You are leaders for the common good on this most important of all issues. I encourage you to do your utmost and to never give up.

    David Krieger
    President
    Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

    This message was sent to the participants in the International Youth Summit for Nuclear Abolition, which took place on August 30, 2015.

  • Sunflowers: The Symbol of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

    Sunflowers are a simple miracle. They grow from a seed. They rise from the earth. They are natural. They are bright and beautiful. They bring a smile to one’s face. They produce seeds that are nutritious, and from these seeds oil is produced. Native Americans once used parts of the sunflower plant to treat rattlesnake bites, and sunflower meal to make bread. Sunflowers were even used near Chernobyl to extract radionuclides cesium 137 and strontium 90 from contaminated ponds following the catastrophic nuclear reactor accident there.

    Now sunflowers carry new meaning. They have become the symbol of a world free of nuclear weapons. This came about after an extraordinary celebration of Ukraine achieving the status of a nuclear free state. On June 1, 1996, Ukraine transferred to Russia for dismantlement the last of the 1,900 nuclear warheads it had inherited from the former Soviet Union. Celebrating the occasion a few days later, the Defense Ministers of Ukraine, Russia, and the United States met at a former nuclear missile base in the Ukraine that once housed 80 SS-19 missiles aimed at the United States.

    The three Defense Ministers planted sunflowers and scattered sunflower seeds. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma said, “With the completion of our task, Ukraine has demonstrated its support of a nuclear weapons free world.” He called on other nations to follow in Ukraine’s path and “to do everything to wipe nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth as soon as possible.” U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry said, “Sunflowers instead of missiles in the soil would ensure peace for future generations.”

    This dramatic sunflower ceremony at Pervomaisk military base showed the world the possibility of a nation giving up nuclear weapons as a means of achieving security. It is an important example, featuring the sunflower as a symbol of hope. The comparison between sunflowers and nuclear missiles is stark—sunflowers representing life, growth, beauty and nature, and nuclear armed missiles representing death and destruction on a massive, unspeakable scale. Sunflowers represent light instead of darkness, transparency instead of secrecy, security instead of threat, and joy instead of fear.

    The Defense Ministers were not the first to use sunflowers. In the 1980s a group of brave and committed resisters known as “The Missouri Peace Planters” entered onto nuclear silos in Missouri and planted sunflowers as a symbol of nuclear disarmament. On August 15, 1988, fourteen peace activists simultaneously entered ten of Missouri’s 150 nuclear missile silos, and planted sunflowers. They issued a statement that said, “We reclaim this land for ourselves, the beasts of the land upon which we depend, and our children. We interpose our bodies, if just for a moment, between these weapons and their intended victims.”

    Which shall we choose for our Earth? Shall we choose life or shall we choose death? Shall we choose sunflowers, or shall we choose nuclear armed missiles? All but a small number of nations would choose life. But the handful of nations that choose to base their security on these weapons of omnicide threaten us all with massive uncontrollable slaughter.

    In the aftermath of the Cold War, many people believe that the nuclear threat has ended, but this is not the case. In fact, there are still more than 15,000 nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nine nuclear-armed countries. These countries have given their solemn promise in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970, to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament, but they have not acted in good faith. It is likely that until the people of the world demand the total elimination of nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons states will find ways to retain their special status as nuclear “haves.” Only one power on Earth is greater than the power of nuclear weapons, and that is the power of the People once engaged.

    This article was originally published on March 12, 1998. This version was revised on August 21, 2015.