Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: International Issues

  • An Alternative to Iraq Delusions

    The American public needs to force its leaders to act before the Iraq war becomes even more a replica of the Vietnam tragedy.

    When United States Congressman John Murtha made his passionate speech on 17 November calling for the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq within six months, it seemed for an instant as though the public mood had swung so strongly against the Iraq policies of the Bush administration that to hope for a change of course wasn’t unrealistic.

    A month on, any such hopeful prospect of addressing the realities of Iraqi failure has now vanished beneath a presidential sky beclouded by tired reiterations of an utterly unconvincing “plan for victory”. Indeed the rededication to “complete victory” recalls the May 2003 delusion of “mission accomplished” proclaimed on a banner draped in the background while Bush delivered his notoriously premature speech of celebration on the deck of the USS Lincoln.

    Murtha’s ideas were the reflections of a foreign-policy hawk that had the integrity and prudence to cut American losses in Iraq, and thereby diminish the prospects of a deeper tragedy. The timetable of his basic proposal could be faulted, but not the principle. I think a year makes more sense, to give time to the main Iraqi political forces to take account of the US departure and strike a deal based on compromise and reconciliation. As long as American forces remain, the imbalances between the main groupings in Iraq — especially the privileged positions of the Kurds and Shi’a — virtually guarantee a prolonging, and even an escalation, of the violent civil strife.

    A time of radical uncertainty

    Present indicators of violence suggest a rising curve of death and devastation, not, as the White House and Pentagon constantly claim, an increase in domestic security. The more reliable polls also suggest that average Iraqis are desperate above all for security in their daily lives, and feel overwhelmingly that their situation would improve if American forces were to leave the country.

    Such an outlook makes sense. Without the protection of an occupying army the Kurds and Shi’a would likely succumb to the insurgency, but if the foreign military presence were to be gradually removed, the incentives for those now benefiting from the occupation to strike a political/economic bargain would rise dramatically. As it would for the Sunni as well, if their alternatives were a fair share of authority and a secular governing process versus a civil war that might result in either a stalemate or an Iranian intervention, and possibly in a combination of the two.

    American policy prospects are also enhanced by an unconditional military departure. It would be widely regarded in Europe and the Middle East as a constructive, if belated, move that gave both peace and diplomacy a chance, and clearly renounced imperial goals relating to oil and bases, which are widely believed overseas to be the main rationale for “staying the course”.

    If Iraqi political tendencies can deliver a sustainable compromise, it would save lives, money, and reputations. If the Iraqi domestic situation should further degenerate as US forces withdraw — which cannot be ruled out — it is likely to produce a return to secular, authoritarian rule under Sunni leadership (most likely without the Tikrit entourage of Saddam Hussein), which would likely keep Iraq unified and stable, though certainly not democratic. This outcome can be anticipated if negotiation and compromise fail, as there is little reason to believe that either the Kurds or Shi’a can prevail against an insurgency that draws on the superior experience and weaponry of the Ba’ath-led military forces of the Saddam era.

    There is no way to avoid the radical uncertainty of the situation. It was after all Donald Rumsfeld (characteristically assimilating Iraq into a wider frame of reference and thus failing to register the particularity of its conflict) who acknowledged in October 2003 that the US government “(lacks) metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror”. Not surprisingly, such a revealing acknowledgement was made in a secret internal Pentagon memo, and conflicted rather sharply with Rumsfeld’s public posturing portraying a rosy picture in Iraq after the invasion marred only by the nuisance of mopping up what he once called “the dead-enders”. What remains true and crucial to admit on all sides is that offering recommendations and speculating about Iraq’s future is afflicted by this condition of radical uncertainty: we simply do not know what will happen in the future in Iraq, and can only make reasonable conjectures based on the circumstances understood as objectively as possible.

    It is here where the Bush administration is again failing the American and Iraqi people – and in a sense, itself. Leaving aside the pre-invasion manipulation of evidence in the mobilisation of support for the war, what seems now inexcusable is to falsify the current situation on the ground. To pretend that the occupation is succeeding, that the majority of the public in Iraq is satisfied with the rate of progress in achieving stability and reconstruction, and that democracy is taking hold in the country is to become enmeshed in a net of delusion that rigidifies policy, and precludes adjustments, except those made below the radar of media awareness.

    For instance, a gradual transfer of security roles to Iraqi military and police forces without an appreciation of the virtual certainty that these forces will lack the will and capabilities to deal effectively with a resistance movement that a major US military presence and engagement could not defeat. Even worse would be efforts to reduce American combat fatalities by relying more and more on airpower, which in urban settings is a blunt and illegal instrument that is sure to kill mainly civilians and would further turn Iraqi public opinion against the US presence.

    We know that Bush/Cheney seem incapable of admitting errors and changing course. Bush seems to be proceeding apolitically, buoyed by his apparent underlying belief that his victory plan for Iraq is divinely ordained. We also know that the Pentagon has been planting disinformation in the Iraqi press by paying Iraqi journalists and newspapers to print US propaganda (we in the United States can only wonder whether we are not being fed similar falsehoods manipulations at home, presumably by more sophisticated techniques.)

    The echo of Vietnam

    In such a public atmosphere of distrust — what was called “a credibility gap” during the last stages of the Vietnam war — wildly contradictory views get a hearing. For instance, Nixon’s Secretary of Defence, Melvin R Laird believed that the United States lost the Vietnam war only because it did not appreciate the success of its tactics of Vietnamization and counterinsurgency, and risks repeating the same mistake in Iraq. Such a reconstruction of historical memory amounts to resurrection of the credibility gap, a retelling of the story of Vietnam, where victory was always a horizon away, and required only perseverance and added troop strength (see “Iraq: Learning the Lessons of Vietnam”, Foreign Affairs, November-December 2005).

    Dangling the prospect of victory before the American public after the Tet offensive of January-February 1968 prolonged the Vietnam war for as many as seven blood-soaked years after most US policymakers privately understood that the war was lost. We should act now in order to avoid repeating in Iraq the Vietnam-era mistake of waiting year after year for a leadership willing to acknowledge defeat.

    There is no assured path toward peace and stability for Iraq. But there is accumulating evidence that the occupation is not succeeding in producing a viable Iraqi state, and is now resting its prospects for a democratic Iraq on a highly regressive constitution that among other things sets things back for women far below what it was during Saddam’s brutal rule. It is also clear that the daily incidents of violence are adding to casualty totals in an environment where a favorable political outcome under American occupying auspices is even less plausible than it was a year or so ago. Whatever else, under these overall circumstances it is obscene to continue the killing and dying.

    Richard Falk, chair of the board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is the author of Religion and Humane Global Governance (Palgrave), The Great Terror War (Olive Branch), and most recently, The Declining World Order (Routledge). Since 2002 he has been Distinguished Visiting Professor of Global Studies at UC Santa Barbara.

  • Mohamed ElBaradei – Nobel Lecture

    Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Honourable Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency and I are humbled, proud, delighted and above all strengthened in our resolve by this most worthy of honours.

    My sister-in-law works for a group that supports orphanages in Cairo. She and her colleagues take care of children left behind by circumstances beyond their control. They feed these children, clothe them and teach them to read.

    At the International Atomic Energy Agency, my colleagues and I work to keep nuclear materials out of the reach of extremist groups. We inspect nuclear facilities all over the world, to be sure that peaceful nuclear activities are not being used as a cloak for weapons programmes.

    My sister-in-law and I are working towards the same goal, through different paths: the security of the human family.

    But why has this security so far eluded us?

    I believe it is because our security strategies have not yet caught up with the risks we are facing. The globalization that has swept away the barriers to the movement of goods, ideas and people has also swept with it barriers that confined and localized security threats.

    A recent United Nations High-Level Panel identified five categories of threats that we face:

    1. Poverty, Infectious Disease, and Environmental Degradation;
    2. Armed Conflict – both within and among states;
    3. Organized Crime;
    4. Terrorism; and
    5. Weapons of Mass Destruction.

    These are all ‘threats without borders’ – where traditional notions of national security have become obsolete. We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops. Quite to the contrary. By their very nature, these security threats require primarily multinational cooperation.

    But what is more important is that these are not separate or distinct threats. When we scratch the surface, we find them closely connected and interrelated.

    We are 1,000 people here today in this august hall. Imagine for a moment that we represent the world’s population. These 200 people on my left would be the wealthy of the world, who consume 80 per cent of the available resources. And these 400 people on my right would be living on an income of less than $2 per day.

    This underprivileged group of people on my right is no less intelligent or less worthy than their fellow human beings on the other side of the aisle. They were simply born into this fate.

    In the real world, this imbalance in living conditions inevitably leads to inequality of opportunity, and in many cases loss of hope. And what is worse, all too often the plight of the poor is compounded by and results in human rights abuses, a lack of good governance, and a deep sense of injustice. This combination naturally creates a most fertile breeding ground for civil wars, organized crime, and extremism in its different forms.

    In regions where conflicts have been left to fester for decades, countries continue to look for ways to offset their insecurities or project their ‘power’. In some cases, they may be tempted to seek their own weapons of mass destruction, like others who have preceded them.

    * * * * * * *

    Ladies and Gentlemen.

    Fifteen years ago, when the Cold War ended, many of us hoped for a new world order to emerge. A world order rooted in human solidarity – a world order that would be equitable, inclusive and effective.

    But today we are nowhere near that goal. We may have torn down the walls between East and West, but we have yet to build the bridges between North and South – the rich and the poor.

    Consider our development aid record. Last year, the nations of the world spent over $1 trillion on armaments. But we contributed less than 10 per cent of that amount – a mere $80 billion – as official development assistance to the developing parts of the world, where 850 million people suffer from hunger.

    My friend James Morris heads the World Food Programme, whose task it is to feed the hungry. He recently told me, “If I could have just 1 per cent of the money spent on global armaments, no one in this world would go to bed hungry.”

    It should not be a surprise then that poverty continues to breed conflict. Of the 13 million deaths due to armed conflict in the last ten years, 9 million occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, where the poorest of the poor live.

    Consider also our approach to the sanctity and value of human life. In the aftermath of the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, we all grieved deeply, and expressed outrage at this heinous crime – and rightly so. But many people today are unaware that, as the result of civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 3.8 million people have lost their lives since 1998.

    Are we to conclude that our priorities are skewed, and our approaches uneven?

    * * * * * * *

    Ladies and Gentlemen. With this ‘big picture’ in mind, we can better understand the changing landscape in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

    There are three main features to this changing landscape: the emergence of an extensive black market in nuclear material and equipment; the proliferation of nuclear weapons and sensitive nuclear technology; and the stagnation in nuclear disarmament.

    Today, with globalization bringing us ever closer together, if we choose to ignore the insecurities of some, they will soon become the insecurities of all.

    Equally, with the spread of advanced science and technology, as long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.

    I have no doubt that, if we hope to escape self-destruction, then nuclear weapons should have no place in our collective conscience, and no role in our security.

    To that end, we must ensure – absolutely – that no more countries acquire these deadly weapons.

    We must see to it that nuclear-weapon states take concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament.

    And we must put in place a security system that does not rely on nuclear deterrence.

    * * * * * * *

    Are these goals realistic and within reach? I do believe they are. But then three steps are urgently required.

    First, keep nuclear and radiological material out of the hands of extremist groups. In 2001, the IAEA together with the international community launched a worldwide campaign to enhance the security of such material. Protecting nuclear facilities. Securing powerful radioactive sources. Training law enforcement officials. Monitoring border crossings. In four years, we have completed perhaps 50 per cent of the work. But this is not fast enough, because we are in a race against time.

    Second, tighten control over the operations for producing the nuclear material that could be used in weapons. Under the current system, any country has the right to master these operations for civilian uses. But in doing so, it also masters the most difficult steps in making a nuclear bomb.

    To overcome this, I am hoping that we can make these operations multinational – so that no one country can have exclusive control over any such operation. My plan is to begin by setting up a reserve fuel bank, under IAEA control, so that every country will be assured that it will get the fuel needed for its bona fide peaceful nuclear activities. This assurance of supply will remove the incentive – and the justification – for each country to develop its own fuel cycle. We should then be able to agree on a moratorium on new national facilities, and to begin work on multinational arrangements for enrichment, fuel production, waste disposal and reprocessing.

    We must also strengthen the verification system. IAEA inspections are the heart and soul of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. To be effective, it is essential that we are provided with the necessary authority, information, advanced technology, and resources. And our inspections must be backed by the UN Security Council, to be called on in cases of non-compliance.

    Third, accelerate disarmament efforts. We still have eight or nine countries who possess nuclear weapons. We still have

    27,000 warheads in existence. I believe this is 27,000 too many.

    A good start would be if the nuclear-weapon states reduced the strategic role given to these weapons. More than 15 years after the end of the Cold War, it is incomprehensible to many that the major nuclear-weapon states operate with their arsenals on hair-trigger alert – such that, in the case of a possible launch of a nuclear attack, their leaders could have only 30 minutes to decide whether to retaliate, risking the devastation of entire nations in a matter of minutes.

    These are three concrete steps that, I believe, can readily be taken. Protect the material and strengthen verification. Control the fuel cycle. Accelerate disarmament efforts.

    But that is not enough. The hard part is: how do we create an environment in which nuclear weapons – like slavery or genocide – are regarded as a taboo and a historical anomaly?

    * * * * * * *

    Ladies and Gentlemen.

    Whether one believes in evolution, intelligent design, or Divine Creation, one thing is certain. Since the beginning of history, human beings have been at war with each other, under the pretext of religion, ideology, ethnicity and other reasons. And no civilization has ever willingly given up its most powerful weapons. We seem to agree today that we can share modern technology, but we still refuse to acknowledge that our values – at their very core – are shared values.

    I am an Egyptian Muslim, educated in Cairo and New York, and now living in Vienna. My wife and I have spent half our lives in the North, half in the South. And we have experienced first hand the unique nature of the human family and the common values we all share.

    Shakespeare speaks of every single member of that family in The Merchant of Venice, when he asks: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

    And lest we forget:

    There is no religion that was founded on intolerance – and no religion that does not value the sanctity of human life.

    Judaism asks that we value the beauty and joy of human existence.

    Christianity says we should treat our neighbours as we would be treated.

    Islam declares that killing one person unjustly is the same as killing all of humanity.

    Hinduism recognizes the entire universe as one family.

    Buddhism calls on us to cherish the oneness of all creation.

    Some would say that it is too idealistic to believe in a society based on tolerance and the sanctity of human life, where borders, nationalities and ideologies are of marginal importance. To those I say, this is not idealism, but rather realism, because history has taught us that war rarely resolves our differences. Force does not heal old wounds; it opens new ones.

    * * * * * * *

    Ladies and Gentlemen.

    I have talked about our efforts to combat the misuse of nuclear energy. Let me now tell you how this very same energy is used for the benefit of humankind.

    At the IAEA, we work daily on every continent to put nuclear and radiation techniques in the service of humankind. In Vietnam, farmers plant rice with greater nutritional value that was developed with IAEA assistance. Throughout Latin America, nuclear technology is being used to map underground aquifers, so that water supplies can be managed sustainably. In Ghana, a new radiotherapy machine is offering cancer treatment to thousands of patients. In the South Pacific, Japanese scientists are using nuclear techniques to study climate change. In India, eight new nuclear plants are under construction, to provide clean electricity for a growing nation – a case in point of the rising expectation for a surge in the use of nuclear energy worldwide.

    These projects, and a thousand others, exemplify the IAEA ideal: Atoms for Peace.

    But the expanding use of nuclear energy and technology also makes it crucial that nuclear safety and security are maintained at the highest level.

    Since the Chernobyl accident, we have worked all over the globe to raise nuclear safety performance. And since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, we have worked with even greater intensity on nuclear security. On both fronts, we have built an international network of legal norms and performance standards. But our most tangible impact has been on the ground. Hundreds of missions, in every part of the world, with international experts making sure nuclear activities are safe and secure.

    I am very proud of the 2,300 hard working men and women that make up the IAEA staff – the colleagues with whom I share this honour. Some of them are here with me today. We come from over 90 countries. We bring many different perspectives to our work. Our diversity is our strength.

    We are limited in our authority. We have a very modest budget. And we have no armies.

    But armed with the strength of our convictions, we will continue to speak truth to power. And we will continue to carry out our mandate with independence and objectivity.

    The Nobel Peace Prize is a powerful message for us – to endure in our efforts to work for security and development. A durable peace is not a single achievement, but an environment, a process and a commitment.

    * * * * * * *

    Ladies and Gentlemen.

    The picture I have painted today may have seemed somewhat grim. Let me conclude by telling you why I have hope.

    I have hope because the positive aspects of globalization are enabling nations and peoples to become politically, economically and socially interdependent, making war an increasingly unacceptable option.

    Among the 25 members of the European Union, the degree of economic and socio-political dependencies has made the prospect of the use of force to resolve differences almost absurd. The same is emerging with regard to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, with some 55 member countries from Europe, Central Asia and North America. Could these models be expanded to a world model, through the same creative multilateral engagement and active international cooperation, where the strong are just and the weak secure?

    I have hope because civil society is becoming better informed and more engaged. They are pressing their governments for change – to create democratic societies based on diversity, tolerance and equality. They are proposing creative solutions. They are raising awareness, donating funds, working to transform civic spirit from the local to the global. Working to bring the human family closer together.

    We now have the opportunity, more than at any time before, to give an affirmative answer to one of the oldest questions of all time: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

    What is required is a new mindset and a change of heart, to be able to see the person across the ocean as our neighbour.

    Finally, I have hope because of what I see in my children, and some of their generation.

    I took my first trip abroad at the age of 19. My children were even more fortunate than I. They had their first exposure to foreign culture as infants, and they were raised in a multicultural environment. And I can say absolutely that my son and daughter are oblivious to colour and race and nationality. They see no difference between their friends Noriko, Mafupo, Justin, Saulo and Hussam; to them, they are only fellow human beings and good friends.

    Globalization, through travel, media and communication, can also help us – as it has with my children and many of their peers – to see each other simply as human beings.

    * * * * * * *

    Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen.

    Imagine what would happen if the nations of the world spent as much on development as on building the machines of war. Imagine a world where every human being would live in freedom and dignity. Imagine a world in which we would shed the same tears when a child dies in Darfur or Vancouver. Imagine a world where we would settle our differences through diplomacy and dialogue and not through bombs or bullets. Imagine if the only nuclear weapons remaining were the relics in our museums. Imagine the legacy we could leave to our children.

    Imagine that such a world is within our grasp.

  • Art, Truth & Politics Nobel Lecture

    In 1958 I wrote the following:
    ‘There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.’
    I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?
    Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.
    I have often been asked how my plays come about. I cannot say. Nor can I ever sum up my plays, except to say that this is what happened. That is what they said. That is what they did.
    Most of the plays are engendered by a line, a word or an image. The given word is often shortly followed by the image. I shall give two examples of two lines which came right out of the blue into my head, followed by an image, followed by me.
    The plays are The Homecoming and Old Times. The first line of The Homecoming is ‘What have you done with the scissors?’ The first line of Old Times is ‘Dark.’
    In each case I had no further information.
    In the first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors and was demanding their whereabouts of someone else he suspected had probably stolen them. But I somehow knew that the person addressed didn’t give a damn about the scissors or about the questioner either, for that matter.
    ‘Dark’ I took to be a description of someone’s hair, the hair of a woman, and was the answer to a question. In each case I found myself compelled to pursue the matter. This happened visually, a very slow fade, through shadow into light. I always start a play by calling the characters A, B and C.
    In the play that became The Homecoming I saw a man enter a stark room and ask his question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. I somehow suspected that A was a father and that B was his son, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (later to become Max), ‘Dad, do you mind if I change the subject? I want to ask you something. The dinner we had before, what was the name of it? What do you call it? Why don’t you buy a dog? You’re a dog cook. Honest. You think you’re cooking for a lot of dogs.’ So since B calls A ‘Dad’ it seemed to me reasonable to assume that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem to be held in high regard. Did this mean that there was no mother? I didn’t know. But, as I told myself at the time, our beginnings never know our ends.
    ‘Dark.’ A large window. Evening sky. A man, A (later to become Deeley), and a woman, B (later to become Kate), sitting with drinks. ‘Fat or thin?’ the man asks. Who are they talking about? But I then see, standing at the window, a woman, C (later to become Anna), in another condition of light, her back to them, her hair dark.
    It’s a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. The author’s position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by the characters. The characters resist him, they are not easy to live with, they are impossible to define. You certainly can’t dictate to them. To a certain extent you play a never-ending game with them, cat and mouse, blind man’s buff, hide and seek. But finally you find that you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort.
    So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time. But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot.
    Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or prejudice. He must be prepared to approach them from a variety of angles, from a full and uninhibited range of perspectives, take them by surprise, perhaps, occasionally, but nevertheless give them the freedom to go which way they will. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, adheres to none of these precepts, in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its proper function.
    In my play The Birthday Party I think I allow a whole range of options to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally focussing on an act of subjugation. Mountain Language pretends to no such range of operation. It remains brutal, short and ugly. But the soldiers in the play do get some fun out of it. One sometimes forgets that torturers become easily bored. They need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up. This has been confirmed of course by the events at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. Mountain Language lasts only 20 minutes, but it could go on for hour after hour, on and on and on, the same pattern repeated over and over again, on and on, hour after hour.
    Ashes to Ashes, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking place under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up through the waves, dropping down out of sight, reaching for others, but finding nobody there, either above or under the water, finding only shadows, reflections, floating; the woman a lost figure in a drowning landscape, a woman unable to escape the doom that seemed to belong only to others.
    But as they died, she must die too.
    Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.
    As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.
    The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it. But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here.
    Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.
    But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States’ actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.
    Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America’s favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as ‘low intensity conflict’. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.
    The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America’s view of its role in the world, both then and now. I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s. The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: ‘Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.’
    Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. ‘Father,’ he said, ‘let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.’ There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.
    Innocent people, indeed, always suffer.
    Finally somebody said: ‘But in this case “innocent people” were the victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among many. If Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign state?’
    Seitz was imperturbable. ‘I don’t agree that the facts as presented support your assertions,’ he said.
    As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my plays. I did not reply.
    I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: ‘The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.’ The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution.
    The Sandinistas weren’t perfect. They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilised. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.
    The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighbouring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador.
    I spoke earlier about ‘a tapestry of lies’ which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a ‘totalitarian dungeon’. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive military dictatorships.
    Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright.
    The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. ‘Democracy’ had prevailed.
    But this ‘policy’ was by no means restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened. The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven. Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it.
    It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It’s a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, ‘the American people’, as in the sentence, ‘I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.’
    It’s a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don’t need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it’s very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.
    The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn’t give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.
    What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days – conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what’s called the ‘international community’. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be ‘the leader of the free world’. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally – a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man’s land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You’re either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.
    The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading – as a last resort – all other justifications having failed to justify themselves – as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.
    We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’.
    How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they’re interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.
    Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don’t exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. ‘We don’t do body counts,’ said the American general Tommy Franks.
    Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. ‘A grateful child,’ said the caption. A few days later there was a story and photograph, on an inside page, of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. ‘When do I get my arms back?’ he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair wasn’t holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your shirt and tie when you’re making a sincere speech on television. The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm’s way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves.
    Here is an extract from a poem by Pablo Neruda, ‘I’m Explaining a Few Things’:

     

    And one morning all that was burning, one morning the bonfires leapt out of the earth devouring human beings and from then on fire, gunpowder from then on, and from then on blood. Bandits with planes and Moors, bandits with finger-rings and duchesses, bandits with black friars spattering blessings came through the sky to kill children and the blood of children ran through the streets without fuss, like children’s blood.
    Jackals that the jackals would despise stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out, vipers that the vipers would abominate.
    Face to face with you I have seen the blood of Spain tower like a tide to drown you in one wave of pride and knives.
    Treacherous generals: see my dead house, look at broken Spain: from every house burning metal flows instead of flowers from every socket of Spain Spain emerges and from every dead child a rifle with eyes and from every crime bullets are born which will one day find the bull’s eye of your hearts. And you will ask: why doesn’t his poetry speak of dreams and leaves and the great volcanoes of his native land.
    Come and see the blood in the streets. Come and see the blood in the streets. Come and see the blood in the streets!*

     

    Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda’s poem I am in no way comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. I quote Neruda because nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.
    I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as ‘full spectrum dominance’. That is not my term, it is theirs. ‘Full spectrum dominance’ means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.
    The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don’t quite know how they got there but they are there all right.
    The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity – the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons – is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.
    Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government’s actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force – yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish.
    I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man’s man.
    ‘God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.’
    A writer’s life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don’t have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection – unless you lie – in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.
    I have referred to death quite a few times this evening. I shall now quote a poem of my own called ‘Death’.

     

    Where was the dead body found? Who found the dead body? Was the dead body dead when found? How was the dead body found?
    Who was the dead body?
    Who was the father or daughter or brother Or uncle or sister or mother or son Of the dead and abandoned body?
    Was the body dead when abandoned? Was the body abandoned? By whom had it been abandoned?
    Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?
    What made you declare the dead body dead? Did you declare the dead body dead? How well did you know the dead body? How did you know the dead body was dead?
    Did you wash the dead body Did you close both its eyes Did you bury the body Did you leave it abandoned Did you kiss the dead body

     

    When we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.
    I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
    If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.

     

    * Extract from “I’m Explaining a Few Things” translated by Nathaniel Tarn, from Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems, published by Jonathan Cape, London 1970. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited.

     

  • 16 Democrats Voice Concern about Draft Nuclear Document

    The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States

    Dear Mr. President:

    We are writing you to express our strong concern about the draft U.S. nuclear weapons doctrine being prepared by the Pentagon. This draft calls for maintaining an aggressive nuclear posture with weapons on high alert to make pre-emptive strikes, if necessary on adversaries armed with weapons of mass destruction.

    We recognize that in large part the draft “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations” is based on principles contained in the 1995 Nuclear Posture Review, the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and other directives published by the Bush administration since 2001. For instance, your 2002 National Security Presidential Directive 17 reportedly states, “The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force – including potentially nuclear weapons to the use of [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies.”

    On the other hand, the language in the draft doctrine removes the ambiguity of the previous doctrine, and now suggests that your administration will use nuclear weapons to respond to non-nuclear WMD threats and suggests that this use could include pre-emptive nuclear strikes thereby increasing reliance on nuclear weapons.

    On page III-2 of the March 15, 2005 draft, it states that combatant commanders may request Presidential approval for pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons under such conditions as:

    • To counter an adversary intending to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S., multinational, or allies forces or civilian populations;
    • To counter an imminent attack from an adversary’s biological weapons that only effects from nuclear weapons can safely destroy;
    • To attack on adversary installations including weapons of mass destruction, deep, hardened bunkers containing chemical or biological weapons, or the command and control infrastructure required for the adversary to execute a WMD attack against the United States or its friends and allies;
    • To counter potentially overwhelming adversary conventional forces;
    • To demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary WMD use.

    We believe this effort to broaden the range of scenarios in which nuclear weapons might be contemplated is unwise and provocative.

    The costs of using a nuclear weapon in the cases contemplated would almost always outweigh the benefits. Many potential targets are near major population centers. Striking a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons cache would require perfect intelligence and is impossible to do without significant collateral damage.

    The draft doctrine says that the belligerent that initiates nuclear warfare may find itself the target of world condemnation but notes that no customary or conventional international law prohibits nations from using nuclear weapons in armed conflict. In other words, the draft Pentagon doctrine seems to conclude the United States is legally free to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively if it chooses, even against non-nuclear weapon states.

    This drastic shift in U.S. nuclear policy threatens the very foundation of nuclear arms control as shaped by the 1970 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which has helped prevent nuclear proliferation for over 35 years. In the context of efforts to strengthen and extend the treaty, the United States issued a negative nuclear security assurance in 1978, reiterated in 1995, that the United States would not use nuclear force against NPT member countries without nuclear weapons unless attacked by a non nuclear-weapon state that is allied with a nuclear-weapon state.

    The draft doctrine contradicts clear statements and assurances of your administration. On February 22, 2002 State Department spokesman Richard Boucher stated a similar version of the negative nuclear security pledge: “The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear- weapon state-parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an invasion or any other attack on the United States, its territories, its armed forces or other troops, its allies, or on a state toward which it has a security commitment carried out, or sustained by such a non-nuclear-weapon state in association with a nuclear weapon state.”

    Abandoning this clear negative security assurance under the NPT would further undermine the treaty and our many other efforts to prevent others developing or using nuclear weapons. Partly as a result of U.S. inflexibility on key disarmament issues, your administration has already squandered opportunities to build greater global support for measures to update and strengthen the nonproliferation system.

    In addition, this new doctrine, if approved, could exacerbate the danger of nuclear proliferation by giving states of concern, such as North Korea and Iran, an excuse to maintain their nuclear weapons options and would send a green light to the world’s nuclear states that it is permissible to use these weapons offensively.

    The draft nuclear doctrine also appears to undermine the credibility of other U.S. negative security assurances, such as those contained in the recent six-party statement of principles outlining the terms for the verifiable and complete dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities.

    Mr. President, it is one thing to threaten a devastating response to a biological or chemical weapons attack or the threat of a biological, chemical, or nuclear attack. It is quite another to say explicitly that the United States is prepared to counter non-nuclear weapons threats or attempt to pre-empt a suspected WMD attack by striking with nuclear weapons.

    As former Secretary of State Powell said in response to the possibility that India and Pakistan might use nuclear weapons during their confrontation in the summer of 2002: “Nuclear weapons in this day and age may serve some deterrent effect, and so be it, but to think of using them as just another weapon in what might start out as a conventional conflict in this day and age seems to me to be something that no side should be contemplating.”

    We urge you to personally review the draft doctrine and consider its serious negative consequences for U.S. national and international security interests. U.S. nuclear use policy and doctrine should be consistent with your often stated goal of significantly reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons worldwide.

    Thank you for considering our suggestions and we look forward to your reply.

    Sincerely,

    Sens. Dianne Feinstein (CA), Daniel Akaka (HI), Edward Kennedy (MA), Jack Reed (RI), Byron Dorgan (ND), John Kerry (MA), Frank Lautenberg (NJ) and Reps. Ellen Tauscher (CA), Neil Abercrombie (HI), Rob Andrews (NJ), Marty Meehan (MA), Ed Markey (MA), Susan Davis (CA), Loretta Sanchez (CA), Adam Smith (WA), and Mark Udall (CO).

  • What Would J.F.K. Have Done?

    What did we not hear from President Bush when he spoke last week at the United States Naval Academy about his strategy for victory in Iraq?

    We did not hear that the war in Iraq, already one of the costliest wars in American history, is a running sore. We did not hear that it has taken more than 2,000 precious American lives and countless – because we do not count them – Iraqi civilian lives. We did not hear that the struggle has dragged on longer than our involvement in either World War I or the Spanish-American War, or that by next spring it will be even longer than the Korean War.

    And we did not hear how or when the president plans to bring our forces back home – no facts, no numbers on America troop withdrawals, no dates, no reference to our dwindling coalition, no reversal of his disdain for the United Nations, whose help he still expects.

    Neither our military, our economy nor our nation can take that kind of endless and remorseless drain for an only vaguely defined military and political mission. If we leave early, the president said, catastrophe might follow. But what of the catastrophe that we are prolonging and worsening by our continued presence, including our continued, unforgivable mistreatment of detainees?

    Each month that America continues its occupation facilitates Al Qaeda’s recruitment of young Islamic men and women as suicide bombers, the one weapon against which our open society has no sure defense. The president says we should support our troops by staying the course; but who is truly willing to support our troops by bringing them safely home?

    The responsibility for devising an exit plan rests primarily not with the war’s opponents, but with the president who hastily launched a pre-emptive invasion without enough troops to secure Iraq’s borders and arsenals, without enough armor to protect our forces, without enough allied support and without adequate plans for either a secure occupation or a timely exit.

    As we listened to Mr. Bush’s speech, our thoughts raced back four decades to another president, John F. Kennedy. In 1963, the last year of his life, we watched from front-row seats as Kennedy tried to figure out how best to extricate American military advisers and instructors from Vietnam.

    Although neither of us had direct responsibility on Vietnam decision-making, we each saw enough of the president to sense his growing frustration. In typical Kennedy fashion, he would lean back, in his Oval Office rocker, tick off all his options and then critique them:

    Renege on the previous Eisenhower commitment, which Kennedy had initially reinforced, to help the beleaguered government of South Vietnam with American military instructors and advisers?

    No, he knew that the American people would not permit him to do that.

    Americanize the Vietnam civil war, as the military recommended and as his successor Lyndon Johnson sought ultimately to do, by sending in American combat units?

    No, having learned from his experiences with Cuba and elsewhere that conflicts essentially political in nature did not lend themselves to a military solution, Kennedy knew that the United States could not prevail in a struggle against a Vietnamese people determined to oust, at last, all foreign troops from their country.

    Moreover, he knew firsthand from his World War II service in the South Pacific the horrors of war and had declared at American University in June 1963: “This generation of Americans has had enough – more than enough – of war.”

    Declare “victory and get out,” as George Aiken, the Republican senator from Vermont, would famously suggest years later?

    No, in 1963 in Vietnam, despite assurances from field commanders, there was no more semblance of “victory” than there was in 2004 in Iraq when the president gave his “mission accomplished” speech on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

    Explore, as was always his preference, a negotiated solution?

    No, he was unable to identify in the ranks of the disorganized Vietcong a leader capable of negotiating enforceable and mutually agreeable terms of withdrawal.

    Insist that the South Vietnamese government improve its chances of survival by genuinely adopting the array of political, economic, land and administrative reforms necessary to win popular support?

    No, Kennedy increasingly realized that the corrupt family and landlords propping up the dictatorship in South Vietnam would never accept or enforce such reforms.

    Eventually he began to understand that withdrawal was the viable option. From the spring of 1963 on, he began to articulate the elements of a three-part exit strategy, one that his assassination would prevent him from pursuing. The three components of Kennedy’s exit strategy – well-suited for Iraq after the passage of a new constitution and the coming election – can be summarized as follows:

    Make clear that we’re going to get out. At a press conference on Nov. 14, 1963, the president did just that, stating, “That is our object, to bring Americans home.”

    Request an invitation to leave. Arrange for the host government to request the phased withdrawal of all American military personnel – surely not a difficult step in Iraq, especially after the clan statement last month calling for foreign forces to leave. In a May 1963 press conference, Kennedy declared that if the South Vietnamese government suggested it, “we would have some troops on their way home” the next day.

    Bring the troops home gradually. Initiate a phased American withdrawal over an unannounced period, beginning immediately, while intensifying the training of local security personnel, bearing in mind that with our increased troop mobility and airlift capacity, American forces are available without being stationed in hazardous areas. In September 1963, Kennedy said of the South Vietnamese: “In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it.” A month later, he said, “It would be our hope to lessen the number of Americans” in Vietnam by the end of the year.

    President Kennedy had no guarantee that any of these three components would succeed. In the “fog of war,” there are no guarantees; but an exit plan without guarantees is better than none at all.

    If we leave Iraq at its own government’s request, our withdrawal will be neither abandonment nor retreat. Law-abiding Iraqis may face more clan violence, Balkanization and foreign incursions if we leave; but they may face more clan violence, Balkanization and foreign incursions if we stay. The president has said we will not leave Iraq to the terrorists. Let us leave Iraq to the Iraqis, who have survived centuries of civil war, tyranny and attempted foreign domination.

    Once American troops are out of Iraq, people around the world will rejoice that we have recovered our senses. What’s more, the killing of Americans and the global loss of American credibility will diminish. As Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican and Vietnam veteran, said, “The longer we stay, the more problems we’re going to have.” Defeatist? The real defeatists are those who say we are stuck there for the next decade of death and destruction.

    In a memorandum to President Kennedy, roughly three months after his inauguration, one of us wrote with respect to Vietnam, “There is no clearer example of a country that cannot be saved unless it saves itself.” Today, Iraq is an even clearer example.

    Theodore C. Sorensen and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. were, respectively, special counsel and special assistant to President John F. Kennedy.

    Originally published by the New York Times.

  • Why Nations Go Nuclear

    Understanding the reasons why a country chooses to go nuclear are complex, variable and speculative, but I would offer as a hypothesis four principal, though often overlapping factors: fear, security, enhancing the country’s bully potential or countering another country’s bully potential, and prestige. North Korea seems to be pioneering a fifth reason: to use the weapons as a bargaining chip to gain security guarantees and financial concessions. Each country that chooses to go nuclear will certainly reflect some or all of these reasons in their decision, although they may be in different combinations or proportions for different states. The reasons that the current nuclear weapons states went nuclear provide insights into these dynamics.

    Existing Nuclear Weapons States

    The first country to develop nuclear weapons was the United States, initiating the world’s first nuclear weapons program in anticipation of US involvement in World War II. President Franklin Roosevelt had been warned by Albert Einstein that a possibility existed for the Germans to develop nuclear weapons. Roosevelt and his advisors were motivated by fear that the German scientists would succeed in their quest for nuclear weapons, and that US nuclear weapons would be necessary to assure the security of the United States and the Allied powers by deterring the Germans from using theirs with impunity.

    Germany never succeeded in developing nuclear weapons and was defeated two months prior to the testing of the first US nuclear weapon. The United States quickly found another use for its nuclear arms, using the bombs against two cities in a nearly defeated Japan. Evidence suggests that this militarily questionable act was also intended to keep the Soviets from playing a larger role in the defeat and occupation of Japan and generally to send a warning message to the Soviet Union. Thus, while fear and security may have been the initial impetus for the US developing nuclear weapons, their use was subsequently overtly justified as saving US and Allied lives and bringing the war in the Pacific to a faster conclusion. At the same time, the US was flexing its muscles before the world, and demonstrating the bully potential of these weapons.

    The next country to develop nuclear weapons was the Soviet Union. Although the US and Soviet Union were allies in World War II, there were early signs that this relationship would not hold in the post-WWII period. The US use of nuclear weapons at the end of the war, when combined with the fact that the US kept the project secret from the Soviet Union, must have created the fear for Soviet leadership that the US would use its new weapons to dominate them. While many US political leaders thought that it might take decades for the Soviet Union to go nuclear, it actually took them only four years. Driven by fear of US domination, they sought security in the deterrence potential of the weapons, while at the same time adding to their prestige and bestowing upon themselves the bully potential of the weapons.

    Despite sharing in the Allied victory in World War II, both Britain and France emerged from the war with less power and prestige than they had going into the war. Britain, as a wartime ally of the US, had played a role in the development of the bomb in the US Manhattan Project, and thus its scientists were privy to the secrets of creating nuclear weapons. First Britain and then France went ahead with developing their own nuclear arms. Both countries could have chosen to remain under the US nuclear umbrella, but both chose instead to develop their own nuclear arsenals. Their reasoning was said to be based on the fear that a US leader would not be willing to sacrifice New York in an exchange with the Soviet Union in order to retaliate against a Soviet attack against London or Paris. Thus, both Britain and France, chose to go nuclear out of fear and a lack of trust in placing their security in the hands of the US. At the same time, they bolstered their waning prestige in the world, and increased their bully power against their remaining colonies and other weaker states.

    China, the final permanent member of the UN Security Council, chose also to go nuclear, fearing that without nuclear weapons its security was threatened by both the US and Soviet Union and that it would remain subject to their bully potential. China announced from the onset of its nuclear status that it did not intend to develop more than a minimum deterrent force and that it would not use nuclear weapons first. It sought only a small but sufficient nuclear retaliatory force to prevent the US or Soviet Union from using nuclear weapons against it. Fear and security appeared to be the driving force in China’s decision to go nuclear, although it enhanced its international prestige in the process and also gave itself some increase in bully power on a regional level.

    These five states – the US, Soviet Union (now Russia), UK, France and China – were the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the five states that were named as nuclear weapons states in the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). While other states joined this treaty as non-nuclear weapons states and agreed not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons states promised, among other things, to engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice later ruled that these states were obligated by the NPT “to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.”

    Today the NPT has become nearly universal. Only four states are outside the treaty structure: Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. The first three never joined the treaty, and the latter withdrew from the treaty in 2003. Israel’s official position is the ambiguous statement that it will never be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, but it is widely understood that Israel possesses some 100 to 200 nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery. Israel has had a troubled existence and has engaged in many wars with its neighbors, all of which it has won with its high-tech military forces. Israel’s decision to go nuclear may be best understood as a desire to enhance its security by implicitly threatening ultimate recourse against hostile neighboring countries, and by reducing or eliminating the bully power that the US or Russia might seek to use to alter Israeli policies. However, by going nuclear, Israel has raised the fear level of its neighbors and their desire to enhance their security, potentially by going nuclear themselves.

    India held the position for many years that it was willing to remain a non-nuclear weapons state, but not in a world where some states continue to possess and refuse to give up their nuclear arms. Indian leaders have used the term “nuclear apartheid” to describe the two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” India is thought to have initially secretly tested a nuclear device in 1974. It openly tested nuclear weapons in 1998. While fear and security may have played some role in India’s decision to go nuclear, particularly vis-à-vis China, there was a sense that India was motivated to a large degree by prestige. The country seemed to go wild with celebration in 1998 when India conducted its open nuclear weapons tests, as though this were validation of its emergence into “great power” status.

    India also had some potential to use its nuclear arms to bully Pakistan in their dispute over Kashmir, but this possibility was erased immediately when Pakistan followed India in publicly testing its own nuclear arms. For Pakistan, reasons for going nuclear certainly included fear of India, the desire to enhance its security, and prestige. The people of Pakistan, like those of India, exploded in celebration upon its successful nuclear weapons tests in 1998. A.Q. Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s bomb, is a national hero in Pakistan, despite being the mastermind of a major international black market nuclear proliferation scheme.

    The final country that claims to have gone nuclear is North Korea. This country again fits the pattern of developing nuclear weapons out of fear of attack, principally by the US, and thus to enhance its security. In the case of North Korea, there is the added element of creating these weapons as a bargaining chip to gain security assurances from the US and also development aid. The long-standing six-party negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear arms point to North Korea’s desire to trade its nuclear arms capability for nuclear energy plants and US security assurances. Thus, for North Korea, prestige and bully potential seem less significant than security promises and development aid.

    Why Nations Do Not Go Nuclear

    There are currently 191 member states of the United Nations. Of these, only nine have chosen to go nuclear. Thus, the overwhelming majority of states in the international system have chosen not to go nuclear. Why nations go nuclear needs to be weighed against why nations do not go nuclear. Among the reasons why nations choose not to go nuclear are the following:

    1. Technological capability. Many nations, particularly poorer nations, lack the technological capability to develop nuclear arms. While this leaves out many states, there are at least 44 states with nuclear reactors on their territory, suggesting potential technological capability and access to nuclear materials for bomb production.
    2. Security Alliances. Alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) provide a nuclear umbrella for member states, and thus act as a disincentive for an alliance member to go nuclear.
    3. Non-Proliferation Treaty. The NPT is the centerpiece of nuclear arms control and disarmament efforts. In joining the treaty, non-nuclear weapons states agree not to develop or acquire nuclear arms. There is, however, a reciprocal pledge by the nuclear weapons states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, and the failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill this obligation may be eroding viability of the treaty.
    4. Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone (NWFZ) Agreements. Such regional agreements now cover the entire southern hemisphere of the planet. Such agreements now exist for Antarctica, Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Africa and Southeast Asia.
    5. Perception of Negative Consequences. National leaders may perceive that they would suffer negative consequences by going nuclear, such as a loss of economic support, including development aid, disruption of alliances, and becoming targets of other states’ nuclear arsenals.
    6. National Self-Image. Some states may not have as goals being nuclear weapons states, preferring to provide leadership toward a nuclear weapons-free world.

    Incentives and Disincentives to Going Nuclear

    Among the principal incentives for a state to go nuclear are threats by a current nuclear weapons state or a regional security environment that is uncertain. When the US president named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “axis of evil,” he provided incentive for them to develop nuclear arms. These incentives were enhanced by the leaked 2001 US Nuclear Posture Review that called for developing contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against seven states (Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria), five of which were non-nuclear weapons states (although North Korea subsequently chose to go nuclear).

    Four of these states ( Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria) are in the Middle East, one of the most dangerous security environments in the world and an area in which one nuclear weapons state currently exists ( Israel). Since the US Nuclear Posture Review came out, Iraq was attacked and invaded by the US and its “Coalition of the Willing,” and Libya has chosen on its own to give up its nuclear weapons program. Iran and Syria, however, are still viewed as possible regional candidates to develop nuclear weapons, as is Egypt. Like India and Pakistan, these states may choose to go nuclear rather than continue to live with the unbalance and uncertainty of implied and overt threats to their security by the US and Israel.

    The greatest disincentives to these states going nuclear would be to establish a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone in the Middle East or, more broadly, a Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone, combined with credible pledges by the US and other nuclear weapons states to provide security assurances to non-nuclear weapons states. It seems clear that so long as Israel remains the sole state in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, there will be strong incentives for other states to seek nuclear weapons as an equalizer, much as the Soviet Union sought to do against the US or Pakistan sought to do against India.

    Several states have come into possession of nuclear weapons and chosen to give them up. South Africa clandestinely developed a small nuclear arsenal when it felt beleaguered due to its policy of Apartheid. When South Africa chose to give up its policy and practice of Apartheid, it also made the decision to give up its nuclear arsenal. Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus inherited nuclear weapons upon the break up of the Soviet Union, and all chose to turn these weapons over to Russia for dismantlement. This was accomplished with incentives and security assurances from the US and Russia. Argentina and Brazil were two countries that were moving toward developing nuclear weapons, but were dissuaded from doing so by regional security arrangements and gave up their programs. These examples all show that the development or acquisition of nuclear arsenals can be reversed.

    Unraveling the Nuclear Knot

    What is now needed are disincentives that would unravel the current knot of nuclear weapons states. The greatest disincentive to continue to possess nuclear weapons may be the possibility that other states will also continue to retain their weapons, leading to nuclear weapons or the materials to create them falling into the hands of terrorists. The possibility of a terrorist group in possession of nuclear weapons should give even the most powerful country in the world, the United States, incentive to seek the global elimination of nuclear weapons as rapidly as possible and to bring the materials to make such weapons under strict international control.

    Russia has suggested many times that it is prepared to further reduce its nuclear arsenal by agreement with the United States to under 1,500 nuclear weapons. Thus far, the US has not indicated an interest in reducing the number of its deployed strategic weapons to under 1,700 to 2,200 weapons. Further, the US has failed to accept its obligation to move forward on the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament agreed to at the 2000 NPT Review Conference. Under the Bush administration the leadership for progress in achieving nuclear disarmament has been severely lacking.

    It would seem that only the United States, due to its military and economic power, has the capability and convening power to bring together the nuclear weapons states and lead them in creating a Nuclear Weapons Convention that would set forth obligations for phased nuclear disarmament with adequate provisions for verification and international control. We can only hope that such leadership will be forthcoming before nuclear weapons proliferate to other countries and are again used.

    Although the United States may be needed for the actual implementation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, the world cannot wait for the US to take action on this issue, particularly knowing of the Bush administration’s hostility to fulfilling its obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the steps set forth in the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament in the Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference. While US initiative remains dormant, other states must fill this void with innovative collective measures to move ahead with a Nuclear Weapons Convention. This idea has been most seriously embraced by civil society groups, such as the Abolition 2000 Global Network and the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons by the year 2020.

    With the failure of the 2005 NPT Review Conference to make any progress and the failure of the 2005 High-Level Summit meeting at the United Nations to reach any agreement on nuclear disarmament issues, both due to US opposition, the world stands at a deadlock on nuclear disarmament issues. The United Nations Conference on Disarmament has not addressed nuclear disarmament issues for eight years, also largely due to US opposition.

    There are only two possibilities to change this situation. The first is the awakening of the American people to put pressure on their government to cease being an obstacle to nuclear disarmament efforts and start being a leader in these efforts. The second is for the international community to unite in putting pressure on the US from outside. At this point in time, neither of these possibilities appears promising, and thus we drift toward nuclear the “unparalleled catastrophes” that Einstein warned would occur unless we can change our thinking.

    David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons. This paper was prepared for The Istanbul Workshop on Nuclear Dangers in the Middle East, 17-21 November 2005.

  • This is Not the Country That I Once Knew

    Former President Jimmy Carter believes that a warring America is abandoning its fundamental values.

    In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

    These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

    Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

    At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organisations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements, including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.

    Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of ‘pre-emptive war’, an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavoury regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.

    Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by US leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world. These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation’s tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of ‘you are either with us or against us’ has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.

    Another disturbing realisation is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimise public awareness of casualties.

    Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.

    Of even greater concern is that the US has repudiated the Geneva accords and supported the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition programme. It is embarrassing to see the President and Vice President insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate ‘cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment’ on people in US custody.

    Instead of reducing America’s reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them and, therefore, abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms-control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of ‘first use’ of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.

    Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation’s global environmental policies.

    Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favours to the rich, while neglecting America’s working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialised nations).

    I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.

    As the world’s only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need.

    It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have promoted during the last 230 years.

    Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States. His latest book, Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis, is published this month by Simon & Schuster.

    This article first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

  • It’s Time to Bring the Troops Home

    The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We can not continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region.

    General Casey said in a September 2005 Hearing, “the perception of occupation in Iraq is a major driving force behind the insurgency.” General Abizaid said on the same date, “Reducing the size and visibility of the coalition forces in Iraq is a part of our counterinsurgency strategy.”

    For 2 ½ years I have been concerned about the U.S. policy and the plan in Iraq. I have addressed my concerns with the Administration and the Pentagon and have spoken out in public about my concerns. The main reason for going to war has been discredited. A few days before the start of the war I was in Kuwait – the military drew a red line around Baghdad and said when U.S. forces cross that line they will be attacked by the Iraqis with Weapons of Mass Destruction – but the US forces said they were prepared. They had well trained forces with the appropriate protective gear.

    We spend more money on Intelligence than all the countries in the world together, and more on Intelligence than most countries GDP. But the intelligence concerning Iraq was wrong. It is not a world intelligence failure. It is a U.S. intelligence failure and the way that intelligence was misused.

    I have been visiting our wounded troops at Bethesda and Walter Reed hospitals almost every week since the beginning of the War. And what demoralizes them is going to war with not enough troops and equipment to make the transition to peace; the devastation caused by IEDs; being deployed to Iraq when their homes have been ravaged by hurricanes; being on their second or third deployment and leaving their families behind without a network of support.

    The threat posed by terrorism is real, but we have other threats that cannot be ignored. We must be prepared to face all threats. The future of our military is at risk. Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards. Defense budgets are being cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health care. Choices will have to be made. We can not allow promises we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits, in terms of their health care, to be negotiated away. Procurement programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated away. We must be prepared. The war in Iraq has caused huge shortfalls at our bases in the U.S.

    Much of our ground equipment is worn out and in need of either serious overhaul or replacement. George Washington said, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” We must rebuild our Army. Our deficit is growing out of control. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office recently admitted to being “terrified” about the budget deficit in the coming decades. This is the first prolonged war we have fought with three years of tax cuts, without full mobilization of American industry and without a draft. The burden of this war has not been shared equally; the military and their families are shouldering this burden.

    Our military has been fighting a war in Iraq for over two and a half years. Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty. Our military captured Saddam Hussein, and captured or killed his closest associates. But the war continues to intensify. Deaths and injuries are growing, with over 2,079 confirmed American deaths. Over 15,500 have been seriously injured and it is estimated that over 50,000 will suffer from battle fatigue. There have been reports of at least 30,000 Iraqi civilian deaths.

    I just recently visited Anbar Province Iraq in order to assess the conditions on the ground. Last May 2005, as part of the Emergency Supplemental Spending Bill, the House included the Moran Amendment, which was accepted in Conference, and which required the Secretary of Defense to submit quarterly reports to Congress in order to more accurately measure stability and security in Iraq. We have now received two reports. I am disturbed by the findings in key indicator areas. Oil production and energy production are below pre-war levels. Our reconstruction efforts have been crippled by the security situation. Only $9 billion of the $18 billion appropriated for reconstruction has been spent. Unemployment remains at about 60 percent. Clean water is scarce. Only $500 million of the $2.2 billion appropriated for water projects has been spent. And most importantly, insurgent incidents have increased from about 150 per week to over 700 in the last year. Instead of attacks going down over time and with the addition of more troops, attacks have grown dramatically. Since the revelations at Abu Ghraib, American casualties have doubled. An annual State Department report in 2004 indicated a sharp increase in global terrorism.

    I said over a year ago, and now the military and the Administration agrees, Iraq can not be won “militarily.” I said two years ago, the key to progress in Iraq is to Iraqitize, Internationalize and Energize. I believe the same today. But I have concluded that the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is impeding this progress.

    Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have become a catalyst for violence. U.S. troops are the common enemy of the Sunnis, Saddamists and foreign jihadists. I believe with a U.S. troop redeployment, the Iraqi security forces will be incentivized to take control. A poll recently conducted shows that over 80% of Iraqis are strongly opposed to the presence of coalition troops, and about 45% of the Iraqi population believe attacks against American troops are justified. I believe we need to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis.

    I believe before the Iraqi elections, scheduled for mid December, the Iraqi people and the emerging government must be put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy. All of Iraq must know that Iraq is free. Free from United States occupation. I believe this will send a signal to the Sunnis to join the political process for the good of a “free” Iraq.

    My plan calls:

    • To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces.
    • To create a quick reaction force in the region.
    • To create an over- the- horizon presence of Marines.
    • To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq

    This war needs to be personalized. As I said before I have visited with the severely wounded of this war. They are suffering.

    Because we in Congress are charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle, it is our responsibility, our OBLIGATION to speak out for them. That’s why I am speaking out.

    Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. can not accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. IT IS TIME TO BRING THEM HOME.

    MURTHA’S RESOLUTION: H.J.RES.73

    Title: To redeploy U. S. Forces from Iraq Sponsor: Rep Murtha, John P. [PA-12] (introduced 11/17/2005) Cosponsors (13)

    Latest Major Action: 11/17/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on International Relations, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.

    COSPONSORS (13) [AS OF 11/20/05]

    • Rep Becerra, Xavier [CA-31] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Capuano, Michael E. [MA-8] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Doyle, Michael F. [PA-14] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Holt, Rush D. [NJ-12] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Jackson-Lee, Sheila [TX-18] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Lee, Barbara [CA-9] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Lofgren, Zoe [CA-16] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep McGovern, James P. [MA-3] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep McNulty, Michael R. [NY-21] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Moran, James P. [VA-8] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Rangel, Charles B. [NY-15] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Solis, Hilda L. [CA-32] – 11/18/2005
    • Rep Weiner, Anthony D. [NY-9] – 11/18/2005

    Whereas Congress and the American People have not been shown clear, measurable progress toward establishment of stable and improving security in Iraq or of a stable and improving economy in Iraq, both of which are essential to “promote the emergence of a democratic government”;

    Whereas additional stabilization in Iraq by U, S. military forces cannot be achieved without the deployment of hundreds of thousands of additional U S. troops, which in turn cannot be achieved without a military draft;

    Whereas more than $277 billion has been appropriated by the United States Congress to prosecute U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan;

    Whereas, as of the drafting of this resolution, 2,079 U.S. troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom;

    Whereas U.S. forces have become the target of the insurgency,

    Whereas, according to recent polls, over 80% of the Iraqi people want U.S. forces out of Iraq;

    Whereas polls also indicate that 45% of the Iraqi people feel that the attacks on U.S. forces are justified;

    Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action;

    Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That:

    Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

    Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S Marines shall be deployed in the region.

    Section 3 The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.

    Representative John Murtha (D-PA) left Washington and Jefferson College in 1952 to join the Marines during the Korean War. There he earned the American Spirit Honor Medal. He rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island and was selected for OfficerCandidateSchool at Quantico, Virginia. He then was assigned to the Second Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. In 1959, then Captain Murtha took command of the 34th Special Infantry Company, Marine Corps Reserves, in Johnstown. He remained in the Reserves after his discharge from active duty until he volunteered for service in Vietnam in 1966-67, receiving the Bronze Star with Combat “V”, two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. He remained in the Reserves until his retirement as a colonel, receiving the Navy Distinguished Service Medal.

  • Ending the Iraq War

    The American debate on the Iraq War has entered a dramatic new phase. For the first time, a prominent Democrat, Congressman John Murtha, has called for a withdrawal of American forces from the country. Murtha’s words have had a major impact because he was a former supporter of the war, and has had a career distinguished by his consistently pro-military profile. His argument is based on the inability to complete the American military mission in Iraq, making inexcusable the continued killing and loss of life. He also refers to the adverse effects of the unpopular and flawed occupation of Iraq on the wider goals of opposing global terrorism and to the failure of American reconstruction efforts. Murtha’s critique is widely shared by a majority of Americans at this point, and helps explain the declining popularity of the Bush presidency.

    But there is no sign that these developments, even in the face of a rising crescendo of violent incidents and high casualties, will bring a rapid end to the Iraq War. President Bush keeps reiterating his resolve ‘to stay the course,’ to do whatever is necessary to prevail in Iraq. A Republican-controlled Congress, although increasingly restive about the war, is not yet likely to break with the president, and withhold appropriations or mandate an exit strategy that calls for a definite end to the war. Unlike Vietnam, which looks more and more like a precursor to Iraq, the strategic stakes are high. The efforts to pretend that the outcome of Vietnam was strategically important because of ‘falling dominos’ in the region was never convincing, and the only strong argument for American forces remaining was the alleged prospect of a bloodbath in the aftermath of an American departure, a nightmare scenario that never materialized. But in Iraq there are major strategic stakes: oil, non-proliferation, the impact on Turkey and Iran, the containment of radical Islam, anti-terrorism, the security of Israel, regional security politics.

    And so the puzzle posed is how to end the Iraq War without further and too seriously jeopardizing these strategic concerns. The solutions being proposed in the American political mainstream are not convincing: wait until the Iraq military can bring stability to the country, which seems like waiting for Godot; transfer the foreign security role to NATO in the manner of the Kosovo War, which reduces the American role by no more than a tiny percentage; reduce the American presence, but sustain the mission. These supposed solutions are disguised recipes for prolonging the futility of the war, and invitations for terminal disaster. It should be remembered that years after the American leadership realized that the Vietnam War was lost, the dying and killing continued, because the US Government insisted that it could find victory by political maneuver after acknowledging privately its inability to pacify the country by military occupation. As we know, when withdrawal finally came in 1975, it was humiliating, with a total exhibition of defeat, epitomized by helicopters lifting former Vietnamese collaborators with the occupation from the roof of the American Embassy. There is no way to transform the military defeat in the occupation phase of the Iraq War into a political victory. No way, and the sooner the illusion of magic rabbit is recognized for what it is the better the prospects for an effective end to the Iraq War before all room for diplomacy disappears.

    Earlier in Iraq, the US Government had confused military victory with a political victory. Bush’s famous speech on the American aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, of May 1, 2003, with the banner behind his podium reading ‘mission accomplished,’ was the extreme version of this miscalculation. Again as the Vietnam experience should have made clear, when confronting a nationalist adversary, battlefield victories are difficult, if not impossible to translate into favorable political outcomes. The bloody occupation of Iraq has confirmed this lesson, dramatizing the limits of military superiority in wars associated with foreign occupation, especially of a country previously colonized.

    Understanding what has failed in the past and is unlikely to succeed in the present, is not enough. Without a positive alternative the blame game leads no where. In my view such an alternative does exist, although it contains big risks and like every proposed line of future policy in Iraq is enmeshed in uncertainty. We cannot know the risks of alternative lines of policy with any precision, but we can do what seems right under the circumstances, and appears to have the best prospect of stopping the bodies from piling up. In a key respect, Rumsfeld was right when a couple of years ago he wrote in an internal Pentagon memo that we lack ‘a metric’ for determining whether we are winning or losing the war against terror inside Iraq or in the world as a whole. Such an acknowledgement should suggest humility on all sides, but especially on those who in the face of such doubts, go on with a war that has had such disastrous human and political results. In law, morality, and politics we should all endorse a strong presumption against war as an instrument of policy.

    I would propose several steps that together constitute a plan, or at least an approach, that moves toward hope for the future; in important respects what I am suggesting reinforces the Murtha resolution that is now before Congress:

    • a clear statement by the US Government that it intends to withdraw completely from Iraq and renounces all plans to build permanent military bases;
    • a timetable for withdrawal of US forces that calls for the complete phasing out of the American (and coalition) presence within one year;
    • a defensive military posture adopted immediately; American forces in Iraq will only attack if attacked from now on;
    • private and public encouragement of Iraqi forces to pursue a diplomacy of compromise and reconciliation as an alternative to prolonged civil war;
    • diversify the effort at economic and social reconstruction to the extent possible, including seeking a new role for the United Nations acting with full independence of the American occupation;
    • encourage regional initiatives that include Turkey, Iran, as well as Arab countries, that explore peacekeeping and political contributions to the post-occupation transition;
    • affirm an American and British commitment to the unity of Iraq;
    • exert greater pressure to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and move toward a solution of the conflict that recognizes the legal rights of the Palestinian people and the necessity of peace based on equality and mutual respect.

    In the end, this approach has no chance of becoming operative without a major mobilization of anti-war opinion in the United States, reinforced by the expression of similar sentiments throughout the world, and on the part of regional leaders in the Middle East. Without a great heightening of anti-war activism, the war will drag on until a hasty terminal process is adopted in a spirit of desperation. What I am advocating is a comprehensive rethinking of American regional goals and behavior, with a fair chance that the results are likely to be more positive than can be realistically anticipated. My reason for guarded optimism is the sense that when the American protective shield is unmistakenably removed, Kurds and Shi’ia will find themselves under great pressure to reconcile with Sunni elements in Iraq, or face a continuing insurgency, possibly a full-scale civil war, that they would almost certainly lose. On the Sunni side, as well, the incentive of avoiding such prolonged civil strife would create important pressure to reconcile as Sunnis too would be confronted by dissident nationalisms that can no longer be squashed in the post-Saddam era. As long as the US occupation persists, the elements in Iraq that are benefited have no reason to compromise in a manner that is acceptable to the Sunnis. Of course, the ethnic composition of Iraq is more complex than this, and the faultlines of conflict are not only identified by reference to Kurds, Shi’ites, and Sunnis, but these divisions have a definite geographic foundation, and have been deepened by the faulty politics of the American occupation.

    The situation in Iraq has deteriorated to a point that there is no assured exit strategy that is not beset by dangers, but at least these dangers raise hopes that a different path can be taken. By remaining on the Iraq War path, now so suddenly discredited, all we know is that the bodies will keep piling up!

    Richard Falk, chair of the board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, is the author of Religion and Humane Global Governance (Palgrave) and, most recently, The Great Terror War (Olive Branch). He is currently visiting professor of global studies at UC Santa Barbara.

  • How to Achieve Peace in the Middle East

    “A U.S. war against Iraq would open the gates of hell in the Middle East.”

    Amr Moussa

    In November 2005 I traveled to the Middle East in search of answers to questions like is Osama bin Laden still alive, how much time do we have before the next 9/11 attack, and what can be done to prevent it. I learned that Osama bin Laden is indeed alive and the next 9/11 attack continues to be planned (the American Hiroshima plan has evolved to include nuclear facilities outside the United States). In the process of seeking these answers I tested a proposal to prevent the next 9/11 attack and put the United States on the path of peace. I presented specific action steps to citizens from Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Qatar, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. My conversations included people I met in the streets as well as senior executives at Al Jazeera and in the energy business. I was also able to obtain the perspective of someone close to Osama bin Laden. The following is the summary of my observations and why we must seize the remaining time that we have to prevent future Hiroshimas.

    To understand the action steps for peace, it is helpful to first consider why global terrorism is currently expanding around the world. Al Qaeda and affiliated movements that are committing acts of violence are labeled “Jihad Fighters” and illustrated in Diagram A. People who are sympathetic and intellectually agree with the jihad fighters are labeled as “Supporters.” The exact size of worldwide jihad fighters and supporters are classified by the U.S. government and not officially published by Al Qaeda or affiliated resistance organizations. On a related note, approximately 90,000 mujahadeen or jihad fighters and 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed in the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan war. The population of potential jihad fighters has the potential to be far greater than the hundred thousand plus jihad fighters that fought alongside Osama bin Laden in the Soviet-Afghan war.

    Diagram A

     

    *Prior to 1989 Al Qaeda was not attacking the United States as the CIA was helping recruit jihad fighters in partnership with the intelligence services of Pakistan, Britain, and Saudi Arabia. A 1989 graphic showing the size of jihad fighters would be larger than the period before 9/11/2001 because the intelligences services from these four countries were very successful at recruiting jihad fighters from over 40 countries. When the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan ended on February 15, 1989, most jihad fighters returned to their home countries and became supporters but did not continue acts of violence in partnership with Al Qaeda.

    The increasing insurgency or “resistance” as labeled by most of the people I spoke with, lends support that the war in Iraq is being lost. Osama bin Laden and his supporters are increasing the number of jihad fighters in Iraq from around the world as well as the number of supporters. Since U.S. foreign policy is currently creating more jihad fighters and supporters, what can be done to reverse the trend? Diagram B projects the current trend in five years as well as presents an alternative five year snapshot.

    Diagram B – The Year 2010

     

    *This remaining force dedicated to violence is reduced in size dramatically. The remaining jihad fighters can be brought to justice by international police and tried in local courts.

    What are people in the Middle East saying about this challenge? Everyone that I spoke with agreed the gates of hell must be closed. This reference to the opening quote in this article is consistently communicated as the most important first step. This means people in the Middle East want the U.S. out of Iraq. Not a reduction in forces staged over several years, but an immediate end of the U.S. presence in Iraq. If the circles in the prior diagrams were balloons, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the ongoing occupation is the primary source of new hot air making these circles bigger.

    People in the Middle East will actually laugh at you if you suggest America is liberating the Iraqi people. The standard response is America is liberating Iraq’s oil, not its people. This is a no win situation for the United States. Superficial selling points, like the world is better off without Saddam, don’t go over very well with people who know that the U.S. supported Saddam while he was slaughtering Muslims. People in this part of the world have not forgotten that the U.S. sold weapons to Saddam that enabled him to stay in power and kill his people.

    For people who are 50 years old and younger, they have consistently witnessed how the U.S. suppresses democracy in the Middle East. The 1953 CIA overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran is far from being forgotten. Whether the country is Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, Kuwait or any other Middle East country, the U.S. has consistently suppressed democracy in favor of governments that facilitated access to oil fields. The people I spoke with have no delusions that things have changed and Iraq will become a democracy.

    A simple question can help you appreciate the perspective of people in the Middle East. If the Iraqi government wanted all U.S. forces to leave today or even in a few years, would they? The answer is U.S. forces will remain in Iraq for many years to come and no Iraqi government will stay in power for long if it attempts to kick the U.S. military out of the country. Only the U.S. public is being fooled by associating statements about future troop reductions with ending the presence of all troops. Egyptians know this first hand as Britain made statements and did periodically reduce its forces for decades before finally leaving Egypt.

    The debate on the immediate removal of U.S. forces in Iraq rarely introduces alternatives beyond total chaos or continued occupation. Alternatives that are far less costly and far more likely to work do exist. The problem for the Bush administration is these alternatives require giving up control of Iraq’s oil and water resources. For example, people in the Middle East would welcome a United Nations peacekeeping force that did not include the U.S. or Britain. This is especially true if the U.S. and Britain fund the effort and many of the peacekeepers came from Muslim nations. This one change alone would redefine the debate as one where the liberation is a liberation of people and not oil. This is absolutely achievable and would cost a fraction in dollars and most importantly lives relative to the current occupation. People from the Middle East are confident that removing the existing primarily “Christian Army” factor would help deflate Osama bin Laden’s claims that the invasion of Iraq is really a war on Islam.

    Once my conversations progressed beyond the removal of U.S. forces from Iraq, the next action step was removing all U.S. forces from the Middle East. The U.S. government understood how the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, which during the Gulf War exceeded 500,000 troops, was a leading reason why 15 of the 19 9/11 highjackers were from Saudi Arabia. To correct this problem that was fueling Osama bin Laden’s calls for jihad, in August 2003 the U.S. completed the removal all U.S. military forces from Saudi Arabia. This foreign policy change would have removed a major motivator for calls of jihad if the soldiers were not redeployed to other countries.

    No one wants a foreign army in their backyard. Somehow the Bush administration thinks the problem can be sidestepped by hiding the U.S. bases in the desert. The citizens of the Middle East are aware of this strategy to “hide” the U.S. soldiers. The “hide” strategy fails to hide the fact that foreign soldiers are in the country to reinforce governments that suppress democracy. A major factor creating jihad fighters is eliminated when U.S. soldiers leave the Middle East. This is commonsense when you think about how you would feel if a foreign army was stationed in the U.S. to help keep President Bush in power.

    The first two action steps, ending the occupation of Iraq and removing all U.S. military from the Middle East, will stop the growth of anti-U.S. jihad and support. What is needed to reduce and transform anti-U.S. jihad to a barely visible dot and ultimately eliminate jihad support? The answer continues with the U.S. reclaiming its credibility as a nation adhering to international law. Starting a war has resulted in the U.S. being perceived as a nation that does not adhere to international law. The tortures at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have destroyed U.S. credibility as a voice for human rights. The use of white phosphorus (WP) weapons to “shake and bake” communicates that Iraqi citizens are having their skin melted off their bodies instead of being liberated. The Pentagon November 2005 confirmation of WP weapons after countless denials makes people in the Middle East wonder when their fears of depleted uranium weapons will finally be confirmed. Each violation of international law helps to solidify the case that Osama bin Laden is fighting for justice and the U.S. is a force of evil.

    When the U.S. supports the United Nations, endorses the International Criminal Court, and adheres to the Geneva protections without exception, credibility slowly begins to be restored. Policies that are fueling the perception that the U.S. is lawless, must be ended. Programs like extraordinary renditions, where people are kidnapped from around the world and sent to secret prisons, cannot coexist with the perception that the U.S. adheres to international law. People in the Middle East have observed that if the U.S. is bringing democracy that includes programs to torture people, they do not want democracy in Iraq.

    To shrink the global terrorism dot to the point where it would be virtually non-existent, as it is in places like Switzerland, the U.S. will need to renounce its weapons of mass destruction and stop selling weapons to other countries. Current U.S. foreign policies help keep American weapons factories warm, but these policies will come back to haunt everyone. Even if the U.S. took the initial step of stopping the sale of weapons in the Middle East, the global terrorism movement would deteriorate dramatically. Jihad recruiters would face a stiff challenge if the U.S. stopped selling weapons to Israel. Israel, as the only current nuclear weapon nation in the Middle East, hardly needs addition U.S. weapons.

    The combination of no U.S. soldiers anywhere in the Middle East, adherence to international law, and termination of selling weapons will successfully end the anti-U.S. jihad. The Bush administration follows a foreign policy that you have to do some bad things to produce good endings. The action steps needed challenge this point. To achieve peace we must work for justice. U.S. foreign policies in the Middle East has been blind to what Americans value at home and this over time has fueled violent movements. Some say that it is too late, promoting true democracy in the Middle East will bring into power fundamentalists. When is it ever to late to do what is right? The failure to denounce sham democracies like Egypt, are only guaranteed to bring fundamentalist groups like the Egyptian Brotherhood into power.

    In summary, I learned during my visit to the Middle East that a more peaceful world is possible. We know how and only need the courage to implement the initial steps.

    1. End the U.S. occupation of Iraq and support U.N. “liberation” peacekeepers
    2. Remove all U.S. forces from the Middle East
    3. Adhere to international law.
    4. End hypocritical weapons of mass destruction policies and stop selling weapons.

    One final observation that is important to always remember. Muslims in the Middle East are people like you and I. They love their children and want peace. None of the people I spoke with approved of terrorism, especially violence against civilians. This means that unless the United States makes the mistake of making the war on terrorism a war on Islam, the world can be saved from a war that will span the globe and likely last more than 100 years. Unfortunately, starting the war in Iraq, occupying the Middle East with dozens of military bases, torturing Muslims, and supporting governments that suppress democracy are perceived by many as a war on Islam. As members of humanity we must hold our leaders accountable and implement the above four steps for peace.

    David Dionisi is a former US army intelligence officer and business executive. He is the author of American Hiroshima (www.americanhiroshima.info).