Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: International Issues

  • Leveraging the Anti-Nuclear Majority: How to Create a Serious Nuclear Disarmament Coalition (NDC)

    When Dryden penned the phrase “War is the trade of kings,”1he was simply coining a tragic truism of his day. Kingship was hereditary in 1691, and the king’s subjects did his bidding, in particular the waging of war. By 1961, with the growth of democracies and human rights, things were supposed to be different. Yet the “kings” of the modern era—the victors of WWII— were, and still are “trading in war,” still producing and profiting from all manner of weaponry designed to wound, dismember, blind, burn and kill enemy populations. And the trump card in their deck for the last sixty years has been nuclear weapons.

    Given how drastically the nature of war has changed, it is time question the lofty assumptions conveyed in Dryden’s dictum. Who still believes that modern war is capable of being honorably conducted by virtuous leaders? Is it not rather time to talk of a new kind of “trade,” based on peace? Robust foreign trade in a climate of peace may be, in fact, the “trade of the just,” as opposed to the trade of kings. And that very commerce, if wisely managed to further the goals of world peace and nuclear disarmament, could have a decisive effect in convincing the current “kings” of this world and their citizens that nuclear arms are no longer a useful asset.

    Today there are nine nation-states capable of “trading” in nuclear war. God help us if they ever do! They polish and prime their arsenals in the vain belief that such weapons will make them more secure, more prestigious, more “kingly” if you will. They fail to realize that nobody wins if there is even a single nuclear exchange. They seem unwilling to “lock down” and eventually give up their thermonuclear bombs—even under the strictest of controls.

    The possession of a nuclear arsenal, alas, has been seen as conferring special status within the United Nations on the oldest of the nuclearized states (the P5 in the Security Council: China, France, the Russian Federation, the U.K. and the USA). Their undeserved status has had the unfortunate effect of encouraging imitator-states, so that now there are four more in that club of dubious distinction (India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea). Other countries may be planning to join. The aim of this paper is to suggest strategies and methods that could be effective in convincing the nuclear-weaponized states, and any others that aspire to be such, that they would lose more than they gain by developing and/or maintaining their arsenals.

    In 1943, the year I was born, the world was at war; but at that time at least there were no nuclear weapons. Incendiary bombs were bad enough; yet there was still a limit to how much death and destruction a single bomb could visit on mankind. Ever since 1945, however, when I was two years old, I and my generation, and eventually my children’s and grandchildren’s generation— we have all been subject to a threat of almost Biblical proportion and resonance. We have been living—and still live—just minutes away from either inflicting or suffering the worst blasphemy, the worst insult to God’s creation, the most horrendous and indiscriminate waste of human life, and the most lethal and persistent poisoning of the environment that the world has ever known.

    The dream that I am sharing with you today is that we who are over 60 should be able to leave this world as free of nuclear weapons as it was when we entered it, so that those who are born in 2013, 2023, or 2033, will be able to look back over their lives and say:

    “Yes, I was born into a world with many problems, but nuclear war was not one of them. Thanks to a coalition of non-violent, visionary states back in the early 21 st century, with the ability to see thermonuclear weapons for what they really were, and the courage to stand up for sanity and our common humanity, the nuclear-armed states were persuaded to give up their reliance on those terrible weapons. Planet earth, our lifeboat in the vastness of empty, cold, and lifeless space, still faces many problems, but anti-population warfare with environmentally catastrophic weapons. thank God, is not one of them.”

    Some recent history—high notes and low notes

    The United Nations charter was already signed in San Francisco, on June 26, 1945, weeks before we entered the nuclear age by exploding the first atomic bomb, July 16, 1945. A few months after the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, the very first resolution of the UN General Assembly, meeting in London on January 24, 1946, called for “the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.” It was passed unanimously… and nothing happened. Au contraire, within fifty years, the number of nuclear weapons in the superpowers’ arsenals had grown to more than 60,000. There still remain more than 30,000 today – equivalent in destructive force to some 200,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs.

    General Assembly resolutions

    The UN General Assembly has continued, year after year, to pass a wide variety of passionate resolutions on the subject of nuclear weapons: how to limit their development, testing, and use; and how to achieve disarmament. A search that I conducted in September 2005 of the information system at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the UN, seeking General Assembly resolutions involving the keyword-phrase “nuclear weapons,” found 158 such documents online. They date mostly from 1983 forward. Given these results within just a twenty-year period, I would estimate that the member states of the UN have passed resolutions in the General Assembly to limit, reduce, or eliminate nuclear weapons on more than 200 occasions already, usually with a wide majority bordering on unanimity. (Later we shall review the pattern of voting.) But still no real progress toward a serious Nuclear Weapons Convention has been made at the UN. Alas, the Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty at the UN in May 2005 was deeply disappointing, in that it “did little to tighten control over the spread of nuclear arms.”2

    UN Security Council resolutions

    Along with the 200-plus UN General Assembly resolutions, eloquent if weak, there have been at least seven Security Council resolutions on the subject of nuclear weapons (see Appendix A). They have generally dealt with specific issues of concern to the nuclear superpowers, like the behavior of India or Iraq. But none has hit home. None has resulted in the abandonment of thermonuclear weapons by any state that already had them. And none has prevented other states who were determined to acquire them from getting them. So much for the best efforts of UN diplomats. They can certainly sing the high notes, but they haven’t shattered any glass yet. The record shows that even the most sincere diplomatic efforts made at the UN, given its power structures and forums favoring the nuclear-armed states, have met with no significant nuclear disarmament successes.

    Non-governmental voices

    At the other end of the political gamut, we are hearing today more and more a chorus of “low notes,” that is, voices from grass-roots organizations like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation,, Abolition 2000, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and Mayors for Peace. They are part of a worldwide network of over thirty professional, civic, and non-governmental organizations – all with links to and from the wagingpeace.org Web site. They are doing great work to keep alive the conversation about the sacredness of human life and the utter waste and moral bankruptcy that building, storing, deploying, arming, and targeting nuclear weapons represents. But still, these groups are at best only raising awareness of a continuing problem and threat. By using words alone, even by speaking (as St. Paul says) with “the tongues of men and angels,” those of us who sing the “low notes” will probably never be able to persuade the nuclear-weaponized states, no matter how eloquently we speak, to collectively relinquish their supposedly sovereign right to stockpile and use weapons of mass destruction. So what will put those countries on a path to nuclear disarmament? How can we use appropriate leverage to make this dream a reality?

    A new kind of chorus

    The answer, I believe, lies neither in the “high notes” of UN diplomacy (always hampered by Security Council vetoes and the resistance of nuclear-armed states to any change in the status quo), nor in the “low notes” of grass roots mobilization alone. Rather, what we need to do is mobilize the already extant majority of nation-states, those 180-odd that are non-nuclear, in particular the 110 to 150 who consistently vote in favor of nuclear limitation and disarmament at the General Assembly. We need to encourage them to create their own worldwide coalition, celebrating and favoring their fraternal humanity and their restraint in “the trade of kings” in every conceivable peaceful way, and in like measure shunning and disfavoring for cause the nuclear-weapons-bearing states, their governments, and their business delegations, until they reform.

    If the anti-nuclear majority could be brought together to form an effective coalition—perhaps called the Nuclear Disarmament Coalition (NDC)—its member states could provide the crucial leverage needed to achieve real progress toward disarmament. They could create the necessary conditions worldwide (not just rhetorically, in the halls of the UN) that would make it manifestly less advantageous, less convenient, less acceptable, more troublesome, and patently more costly for the nuclear states to cling to their warheads than to get rid of them. Somehow the nuclear-weapons-free governments need to get organized, and to start seeing themselves in a new light: as the “most favored nations” of planet earth… as “the new common market” of planet earth.

    • They need to be encouraged to use every non-violent means at their disposal to confront any states that are out of line.
    • They need to be encouraged to dream up the most colorful, most provocative, most imaginative of non-violent means to discourage the nuclear-weapons-club states from renewing their membership in that club.
    • Keeping a nuclear weapons arsenal must come to be understood as:
      • no longer fashionable (imagine how the entertainment industry could help here!),
      • no longer economically advantageous (imagine having to pay more for everything if your country is not part of the NDC),
      • no longer the way to get ahead in the world (imagine your delegations and cultural and industrial exports being shunned),
      • no longer even socially acceptable (imagine not being invited to World conferences, fairs, and festivals!)

    Real progress in nuclear disarmament, I am suggesting, will only come quickly if the nuclear-weaponized states are persuaded, in the face of resounding worldwide public opinion, that it is in their own best interest to disarm and rejoin the rest of the world. The NDC states will need to make a convincing case of how serious they are about obtaining a safer world, and clearly outline the geopolitical and commercial realignments and consequences that will result if nothing is done.

    When I say “the rest of the world,” I’m talking about the true world majority in terms of:

    • sovereign states (182 vs. 9), and even
    • population (3.3 billion vs. 3.1 billion)(see Appendix B);
    • potential developing markets, and even access to
    • raw materials and essential commodities

    These are the very factors that will be most important for the stimulation of growing economies and for improving the standard of living of the world’s citizens in the years to come.

    On the subject of population: One should neither be unduly impressed nor discouraged over the coincidence of high-population countries and large nuclear weapons arsenals. It really has nothing to do with population. Nuclear weapons are usually a by-product of an overdeveloped military-industrial complex, coupled with a leadership living in fear, or needing to instill fear in order to be reckoned with. This is as true for tiny Israel and N. Korea as it is for giant Pakistan and India. It is possible, however, that the large populations of many nuclear countries currently assumed to be quietly favoring nuclear weapons will turn out to be the very vocal masses demanding disarmament from within. The more the merrier! This will be especially true if their imaginations can be fired by the dramatic steps the rest of the world might soon be taking to shun and disfavor nuclear-weapons-armed states.

    Economic Leverage

    One persuasive way to get the attention of rich nuclear countries may, in fact, be via their pocket books. When it comes to raw materials, the stuff that keeps the first world happy, the anti-nuclear majority of countries just might have a few cards to play.

    Petroleum and Natural Gas

    Only about a quarter of the world’s states, 46 of some 200-odd oil-producing states and protectorates, produce petroleum in quantities over 100,000 barrels a day. The top 46 producers (which include the 11 OPEC countries) account for nearly 75 million of the 76 million barrels produced daily. Saudi Arabia leads the world with 9 million bbl./day. Four of the nuclear-armed states—Pakistan (61,000 bbl), France (35,000 bbl), Israel (just 80 bbl) and North Korea (0)—are not in the league of major producers. Only the remaining five of nine nuclear-armed states are in that league: Russia, the U.S., China, the U.K., and India; but none is among OPEC’s eleven members. The five in question only produce collectively 22 million barrels/day—far from enough to meet their own needs. (See Appendix C)

    The point of this discussion is to make clear that leverage for serious progress towards nuclear disarmament in fact is in the hands of about 40 major, nuclear-weapons-free, oil-producing states at this time, and will continue to be for the next twenty years. A polite, principled, and firm confrontation of the few (the 9 nuclear-armed, oil-consuming states) by the many—the 40 major oil producing states, with the promise of graduated price hikes for any states that refuse to adhere to an NDC-approved nuclear disarmament timetable, would certainly get the attention of the nuclear-armed states and their citizens. It would become a tremendous internal political issue. (See also Appendix C for similar figures regarding natural gas supply and demand worldwide.)

    Coffee – 55 of the 56 countries that produce coffee worldwide are in the nuclear-weapons-free camp. The only exception is India,3 whose coffee production amounts to less than 4% of world production, and is largely consumed domestically. Imagine how the American, French, and British public would react if they woke up one morning to learn that the NDC states, which may include virtually every coffee producing country in the world, were instituting a new, dramatically higher price structure for coffee beans going to non-NDC states. Could Americans swallow that? How would they vote, if they had the ability to vote, on the one issue potentially keeping them from affordable and plentiful coffee every day?

    Critical and Strategic Minerals — Although the nuclear-armed states recycle varying proportions of chromium, cobalt, manganese and platinum group metals, they are almost completely dependent on imports for new supplies. World production of these metals is dominated by a few countries, including South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, none of which is part of the nuclear-armed camp. Here is an interesting table about rare metals used in jet fighter engines. It was produced by Doug Davidson, a scientist with the Biosphere 2000 project. I think the implications are clear enough.4

    Amount of Strategic Minerals Used in One Jet-Fighter Engine and Percentage Supplied by Imports
    Mineral Amount Used (in tons) Percent Imported
    Titanium 2.7 35
    Nickel 2.6 73
    Chromium 0.8 91
    Cobalt 0.5 93
    Aluminum 0.4 94
    Columbium 0.1 100
    Tantalum 3 pounds 90

    Commodities — According to figures published in the current CIA Factbook online,5 US commodity imports account for the following percentages of our consumption: agricultural products 4.9%, industrial supplies 32.9% (crude oil 8.2%), capital goods 30.4% (computers, telecommunications equipment, motor vehicle parts, office machines, electric power machinery), and consumer goods account for 31.8% (automobiles, clothing, medicines, furniture, toys).

    It would not be unreasonable to suggest that Nuclear Disarmament Coalition countries could decide to favor other NDC member states dramatically with their exports and pricing structures, and to do just the opposite in dealing with the nuclear-armed states that continue to hold out. The message to the few remaining states in the nuclear-armed club would be clear enough: Keeping nuclear weapons, besides being wholly unacceptable to the majority of your own country’s informed citizens, to the majority of the world’s citizens, and to the political leaders of the NDC, is bad for business, bad for trade, and will be detrimental to your supply of basic commodities.

    How might the Nuclear Disarmament Coalition get started?

    If it’s going to happen, I believe that it’s going to happen directly and multilaterally among interested states. We may continue for several more years to hear the “high notes” of UN resolutions, and the “low notes” of grassroots movements, but we probably won’t hear or see at the outset the “middle voices”—the quiet diplomacy that gets this movement started. As I have suggested in the attached one-page summary (Appendix E): “Imagine a non-nuclear host country inviting the foreign ministers of nearly all 180 other non-nuclear states to a meeting to create and celebrate a new alliance of countries fully committed to nuclear sanity and non-military dispute resolution.” Realistically the host country could be Ireland, Canada, Australia, Spain, Japan, or a Nordic country. It could even be France, the U.K., or India if one of them would kindly surprise the world soon by unilaterally ridding itself of its WMDs—a stunning possibility not to be ruled out!

    I see the job of those who may be moved to action by this scenario, if indeed we are able to make common cause on this strategy, to be one of quietly and credibly pitching this plan to a series of most-likely host countries, one at a time, until we find one who will take the ball and run with it. We could even raise money for the initial founding conference of the NDC. I’ll bet that quite a few private foundations and businesses would contribute significant sums to help launch this humanity-saving initiative.6 After all, a peaceful world will be much better for business than one that remains on the brink of nuclear desolation, with the Doomsday Clock teetering at a mere seven minutes to midnight.

    What about unanticipated consequences?

    Would a serious, proactive NDC provoke unacceptable or dangerous consequences?This is an interesting question, because aside from economic blockades at various times, there has never been the use of principled, consciously non-violent confrontation tactics on the world stage before, especially in support of something which is manifestly in the interest of all humankind. Here are some random thoughts on this subject:

    1. There could be nuclear isolationism. Isolationist elements in the nuclear-armed states could end up cheering that finally the rest of the world is separating itself from them. But when they began to encounter a divided and indignant world in which they themselves were in the decided minority, facing rationed coffee, heating oil and gasoline, I wonder if they wouldn’t reconsider their relative position, and ask themselves what they are really afraid of.

    2. There could be trade wars. The nuclear-armed states could arguably launch trade sanctions of their own against particular NDC states, including the freezing of assets, military threats, and outright seizure of terrain and resources in those states. I would never minimize the economic damage that the world’s largest economies could wreak. But I do not think that world public opinion and domestic public opinion will stand for selfish gunboat diplomacy in the 21 st century. The bitterness and the human cost of American adventurism in Vietnam and Iraq will not soon be forgotten.

    3. There could be accusations of blackmail. The nuclear-armed states could condemn NDC actions and threats as a form of blackmail, and “refuse to give in to blackmail” on principle, the merits of nuclear disarmament aside. It would be incumbent on the NDC states, therefore, to use the clearest possible language and the most persuasive communication models in waging its public relations campaign. It would need to make the world’s governments, media, and populations understand clearly its motives (the sacredness of life, human survival), and its methods: use of the very best models of non-violent resistance, as given to the world by none other than two current nuclear powers: India (Gandhi) and the USA (M. L. King).

    4. The UN could be undermined. In fact, an effective Nuclear Disarmament Coalition could certainly be well represented in the present UN General Assembly. It could use that forum to great advantage. But NDC-introduced resolutions would be non-binding, and would probably never fly in the Security Council. Whether a strong NDC would undermine the UN, sidestep the UN, or cause its transformation for the better is an open question.

    • It would not be the first time that the countries of the world acted multilaterally outside the UN, if it came to that. Many landmark international treaties and settlements have been made, in fact, bilaterally or multilaterally without UN auspices, and only later ratified by most other states with little or no direct UN involvement. The creation of Israel (1945), the crafting of the Antarctic Treaty (1956), the creation of Bangladesh (1971), and the Oslo Accords (1993) are cases in point.
    • The empowering of up to 180 non-nuclear nations to make the most of their common agenda for humanity by embarking on an ambitious program of foreign trade, cultural exchanges, joint scientific ventures, and international development could well lead them to create their own successor UN-like forum. It might be called the United Non-Nuclear Nations (UN2) or United Non-nuclear States (UNS). And UN2/UNS Headquarters could spring up in a nuclear-weapon-free host country. I would especially love to see the successor host country be France or the UK, after either one unilaterally disarmed, breaking with the “gang of nine.” Only then could it, in fact, take the lead in creating and hosting the NDC.

    The major nuclear-weapon-armed state that is first to rid itself of its arsenal would send a shock-wave of possibility-thinking and a challenge to geopolitical inherited widsom echoing ‘round the world. Its government would richly deserve the moral-leadership status among the nations that it would acquire. And if it capitalized on its leadership to create and host a genuinely proactive Nuclear Disarmament Coalition, it would reap enormous rewards in terms of international trade and good will. As the probable host to a new and reformed United Nations, it could well usurp the place of the United States as leader of the peace-loving world—a position to which the United States can no longer lay claim, considering its leadership in the conduct of overseas wars since the 1960s.

    Which countries would probably make up the NDC?

    On average there are about 110 to 150 countries whose UN representatives actually vote consistently in favor of most any resolution to limit, ban, or dismantle nuclear weapons. Appendix D conveys a sense of the voting records of those countries, showing how often they agree on this important matter. It also suggests which nuclear-armed states usually oppose the GA’s non-binding resolutions… if they bother to vote at all.

    Sample votes in G. A.:

    Resolution 55/33 R (2000), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Australia and Japan, was adopted 155-1 (India opposed), with 12 abstentions.

    Resolution 55/33 C (2000), Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda, sponsored by 63 States, was adopted 154-3 (opposed by India, Israel, Pakistan), with 8 abstentions.

    Resolution 56/413 (2001), United Nations conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers in the context of nuclear disarmament, was adopted 115-7 (4 nuclear powers opposed, including USA, Israel, France, and the UK), with 37 abstentions.

    Resolution 59/76 (2004), A path to general and complete disarmament, was adopted 165-3 (UK and Russian Federation in favor! India & USA, against), with 16 abstentions (including China and Israel)

    Again, which countries would probably make up the NDC? No doubt all of the countries which regularly vote in favor of nuclear-weapons control and disarmament. These would be the core NDC member states.

    Have other international coalitions been working to eliminate nuclear weapons?

    There have been a few limited attempts in recent memory to organize both states and NGOs with a view to persuading the major nuclear-armed countries to work seriously toward disarmament. Perhaps the most significant of these on the geopolitical landscape has been The New Agenda Coalition, launched in Dublin in June 1998, with a Joint Declaration by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden (alas, Slovenia later withdrew in order to position itself for NATO membership). Its efforts have been endorsed by the European Parliament; a copy of that statement is available on the www.wagingpeace.org web site.

    In the NGO arena there have been two significant recent developments, each with impressive memberships, agendas, and Web presences:

    1. The Middle Powers Initiative. Through the Middle Powers Initiative, eight international non-governmental organizations (Global Security Institute, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, International Peace Bureau, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, State of the World Forum, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) have been able to work primarily with “middle power” governments to encourage and educate the nuclear weapons states to take immediate practical steps that reduce nuclear dangers, and commence negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    Middle power countries are politically and economically significant, internationally respected countries that have renounced the nuclear arms race, a standing that gives them significant political credibility. The campaign is guided by an International Steering Committee, chaired by Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., former Canadian Disarmament Ambassador.7

    2. The Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament (PNND) is dedicated to providing parliamentarians worldwide with up-to-date information on nuclear weapons policies and to helping parliamentarians become engaged in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament initiatives. PNND is a non-partisan forum for parliamentarians, nationally and internationally, to share resources and information, develop cooperative strategies and engage in nuclear disarmament issues, initiatives and arenas. It is a program of the Global Security Institute and is guided by the steering committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.8

    Have they made any significant progress in furthering nuclear disarmament? Certainly the awareness of the gravity of the situation among the general public has been raised by these efforts. Yet for all their wisdom, creativity, and passion, these coalitions (to my way of thinking) have still lacked the leverage necessary to move their crucial agenda forward. It is likely that they would align themselves with and support in a heartbeat any country that took the lead in organizing a Nuclear Disarmament Coalition.

    In Conclusion

    Strong medicine is desperately needed. A gesture to capture the world’s imagination is desperately needed, coupled with a new experiment in geopolitics: non-violent resistance among nation-states, on the international stage. That is what this paper is urging. Whether it begin with unilateral disarmament by one of the P5 states, or with an unprecedented organizing conference by the nuclear-weapons-free states, or with a carefully staged walkout by 190 states at the UN—something that is both dramatic and principled must be done to move our planet beyond its fatal complacency in the face of these awful weapons.

    Every single nuclear weapons on earth today was created by flawed human beings—men with strong minds and strong patriotic emotions, but utterly lacking in what Norman Cousins called “moral imagination.” We reject their legacy. The time has finally come to do away with it. A serious Nuclear Disarmament Coalition using strong, non-violent confrontation tactics will provide the leverage needed to accomplish this goal within a decade.

    Let me end by quoting what Joseph Rotblat said on this subject:

    “Morality,” he wrote, “is at the core of the nuclear issue: are we going to base our world on a culture of peace or on a culture of war? Nuclear weapons are fundamentally immoral: their action is indiscriminate, affecting civilians as well as military, innocents and aggressors alike, killing people alive now and generations as yet unborn. And the consequence of their use could bring the human race to an end.” He ended his appeal with his oft-repeated plea, “Remember your humanity.”

    Humanity should be proud to have had a dissenting nuclear scientist like Rotblat. David Krieger’s recent tribute to his passing states, “When he learned in late 1944 that Germany would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, he believed there was no longer reason to continue work on creating a US bomb. For him, there was only one reason to create an atomic weapon, and that was to deter the German use of such a weapon during World War II. If the Germans would not have an atomic weapon, then there was no reason for the Allies to have one. Joseph was the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project on moral grounds.”9

    What the world now needs is a dissenting nuclear state to take a moral stand like Rotblat: to disarm unilaterally, and to start a chain reaction of a whole new sort: a Nuclear Disarmament Coalition that will finally provide the practical leverage needed to persuade the few remaining nuclear powers to put down their nuclear swords and shields, convert them to plowshares, stop threatening humanity, and study war no more!

    Appendix A

    UN Security Council Resolutions on Nuclear Weapons (in reverse chronoloical order)

    7. Title: Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) [on non-proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/1540(2004) Vote Date: 20040428. Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

    6. Title: Security Council resolution 1172 (1998) [on nuclear tests conducted by India on 11 and 13 May 1998 and by Pakistan on 28 and 30 May 1998] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/1172(1998) Vote Date: 19980606 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

    5. Title: Security Council resolution 984 (1995) [on security assurances against the use of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear-weapon States that are Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/984(1995) Vote Date: 19950411 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

    4. Title: Security Council resolution 825 (1993) [on the decision of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/825(1993) Vote Date: 19930511 Voting Summary: Yes: 013, No: 000, Abstentions: 002

    3. Title: Security Council resolution 707 (1991) [on Iraqi violation of Security Council resolution 687 (1991) with regard to inspection of its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons capabilities] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/707(1991) Vote Date: 19910815 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

    2. Title: Security Council resolution 487 (1981) [on the Israeli military attack on Iraqi nuclear facilities]. UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/487(1981) Vote Date: 19810619 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 0

    1. Title: Security Council resolution 255 (1968) [on measures to safeguard non-nuclear-weapon States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/255(1968) Vote Date: 19680619 Voting Summary: Yes: 010, No: 0, Abstentions: 005

    Source: Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the UN, UBISNET Bibliographic Information System. Search terms were “Security Council” and “Nuclear.” Date was Sept. 2005.

    Appendix B

    Populations in Nuclear-Armed Countries vs. Populations in Nuclear-Weapon-Free (potential NDC) Countries

    With China, India, and Pakistan currently in the nuclear-armed camp, one could well wonder whether the citizens of those states might actually outnumber citizens in the nuclear-free countries today. In fact they do not, but they come close. Here are the latest (9 August 2005) population figures from the online CIA Factbook. With a current world population of 6.4 billion, the nuclear cloud overshadows 3.1 billion; while 3.3 billion of earth’s inhabitants still live happily without the “protection” that such weapons afford.

    Nuclear-armed countries Population Nuclear-free countries

    China

    India

    United States

    Pakistan

    Russia

    France

    UK

    North Korea

    Israel

    1,306,313,812

    1,080,264,388

    295,734,134

    162,419,946

    143,420,309

    60,656,178

    60,441,457

    22,912,177

    6,276,883

    3,138,439,284

    180-odd

    nuclear-weapons-

    free

    countries account for a population of:

    3,308,026,699

    World population (Aug. 2005) = 6,446,465,983

    Appendix C

    The Growing Petroleum and Natural Gas Dependency of the United States

    The USA alone consumes nearly 20 million barrels of oil per day, so we depend on imports from OPEC. But we’ve got competition. While only 46 countries are producing more than 100,000 bbl/day, 70 countries are already consuming more than that each day… and China’s demand seems to be growing the fastest (see chart below). Those 70 countries’ economies require 74 million bbl/day every day, just to keep steady, with no increase in GDP. The eight most developed nuclear-armed powers (not counting N. Korea) together consume 33.4 million bbl/day of petroleum. As previously noted, they only produce 22 million bbl/day among themselves, and are not very good about sharing it.

    The projected dependence on external oil markets in the Asia-Pacific world alone should give us all pause as we contemplate a consumption vs. production table like this one, published in the Energy Information Adminis­tration’s International Energy Outlook 2005:

    Natural Gas

    Five of the states currently in the nuclear-weapons club are even less well endowed with natural gas than they are with petroleum. China, Pakistan, India, N. Korea, and Israel export zero natural gas, but collectively consume 75 billion cu. m. annually. Russia leads the world in the production and sale of this resource, exporting 171 billion cu m annually, followed by Canada, exporting nearly 92 billion. The United States by comparison, with its huge production and domestic consumption of gas (640 billion cu m. annually), only manages to export 11 billion cu m. One can already envision the U.S. developing a natural-gas dependency on foreign imports in the next few years,. Once again the suppliers could well be countries having a decided preference to trade with other nuclear-weapons-free states.

    Appendix D

    Select UN General Assembly Votes since 1998 on Nuclear Disarmament: How do the Votes Tally?

    [For]-[Against]-[Abstentions] Non-voters are not recorded.

    • Resolution 53/77 X (1998), Nuclear disarmament, sponsored by Myanmar on behalf of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement), was adopted, 110-41-18
    • Resolution 53/77 U (1998), Nuclear disarmament with a view to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Japan, was adopted, 160-0-11
    • Resolution 53/77 Q (1998), Nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere and adjacent areas, introduced by Brazil, was adopted 154-3 (France, USA, UK)-10
    • Resolution 53/77 W (1998), Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, introduced by Malaysia, was adopted 123-25-25
    • The New Agenda Coalition (NAC) , launched in June 1998, consists of seven States, Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa, and Sweden. At the 54th Session of the UN General Assembly, on 1 December 1999, a resolution (54/54 G) put forward by the NAC, “Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: the Need for a New Agenda,” was adopted by 111 votes to 13 with 39 abstentions.
    • Resolution 54/54 D (1999), Nuclear disarmament with a view to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, spons. by Belgium, Japan, etc., was adopted 153-0-12
    • Resolution 54/57 (1999), on The risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, was adopted 149-3 (opposed by Israel, USA, and Micronesia)-with 9 abstentions.
    • Resolution 54/63 (1999), for a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, sponsored by 63 States, was adopted 158-0-6
    • Resolution 55/31 (2000), for the Conclusion of effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, was adopted 111-0, with 54 abstentions.
    • Resolution 55/33 C (2000), Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda, sponsored by 63 States, was adopted 154-3 (India, Israel, Pakistan), with 8 abstentions. (Favorable votes were way up from 111 in 1999.)
    • Resolution 55/33 N (2000), Reducing nuclear danger, was adopted 110-45, with 14 abstentions.
    • Resolution 55/33 R (2000), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Australia and Japan, was adopted 155-1 (India), with 12 abstentions.
    • Resolution 55/36 (2000), aimed at averting the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, was adopted 157-3, with 8 abstentions. (Up from 149-3 in 1999!)
    • Resolution 55/41 (2000), for a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, sponsored by 74 nations, was adopted 161-0 with 6 abstentions.
    • Resolution 56/24 N (2001), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, was adopted 139-3 (India, the USA, Micronesia against), with 19 abstentions.
    • Resolution 56/24 O (2001), supporting preparatory work on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: 2005 Review Conference, was adopted 156-1 (India) with 3 abstentions.
    • Resolution 56/24 R (2001), calling for Nuclear Disarmament, sponsored by 48 nations, was adopted 149-3 with 6 abstentions.
    • Resolution 56/413 (2001), United Nations conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers in the context of nuclear disarmament, was adopted 115-7 (4 nuclear powers opposed, including USA, Israel, France, and the UK), with 37 abstentions.
    • Resolution 57/59 (2002), Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda, with its stronger language condemning nuclear weapons, was adopted 125-6 with 36 abstentions.
    • Resolution 57/78 (2002), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, was adopted 156-2 (India and the USA against), with 13 abstentions.
    • Resolution 58/35 (2003), to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, with its stronger language condemning nuclear weapons, was adopted 119-0 with 58 abstentions.
    • Resolution 58/50 (2003), for the reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons, was adopted 128-4 (France, Russia, UK, and USA against), with 43 abstentions.
    • Resolution 59/64 (2004), Assuring non-nuclear-weapons states against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Pakistan and 20 other countries, adopted 118-0 with 63 abstentions.
    • Resolution 59/65 (2004), Verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons , was adopted 179-2 (Palau and the USA against), with 2 abstentions (Israel and UK).
    • Resolution 59/85 (2004), Calling for a nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere and adjacent areas, sponsored by New Zealand, Costa Rica, and 34 other countries, adopted 171-4 (USA, UK, France, Palau) with 7 abstentions.
    • Resolution 59/76 (2004), a path to general and complete disarmament, was adopted 165-3 (UK and Russian Federation in favor! India & USA, against), with 16 abstentions (including China and Israel).

    Anti-nuclear votes at the UN General Assembly continue, with similar margins in favor (and patterns of opposition from the USA, Israel, India, China, etc.)

    Appendix E

    ONE-PAGE SUMMARY

    LEVERAGING THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MAJORITY: HOW TO CREATE A SERIOUS NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT COALITION (NDC)

    Imagine most of the 180-odd non-nuclear [10] states of the world, on their own, without the permission of the superpowers, being invited to create a serious coalition of progressive nations, proud to reject nuclear weapons, and committed to the worldwide elimination of all WMDs.

    Imagine a non-nuclear host country ( Ireland? Canada? Australia? Spain? Japan? a Nordic country?) [11] inviting the foreign ministers of nearly all 180 other non-nuclear states to a meeting to create and celebrate this new alliance of countries fully committed to nuclear sanity and non-military dispute resolution. This new, nonviolent diplomatic initiative might call itself something like the “Nuclear Disarmament Coalition” (NDC).

    Representing the majority of UN member states, the NDC could raise the stakes for nuclear disarmament at the UN dramatically. Acting both within the present UN and independently, from headquarters in a non-nuclear host country, the NDC states could take strong actions like the following to achieve their objectives:

    a. establish favorable trading agreements with other NDC states, and use their collective weight in international trade, markets, and raw materials to pressure nuclear states to abandon their WMDs;

    b. work collectively by all available economic, diplomatic, and cultural means (including grassroots mobilizing, and media blitzes) to isolate nuclear states, conceivably even using trade and air travel embargoes;

    c. in general force the issues of nuclear and other WMD disarmament and nonviolent dispute resolution in the interest of the world’s children and grandchildren—indeed, all humankind—by actively marginalizing the minority of states which still cling to these abominable relics of anti-population warfare.

    If the nuclear minority at the UN blocked serious efforts to accomplish nuclear lockdown and a timetable for the elimination of nuclear weapons by a given date, NDC states could abandon the UN and create a successor diplomatic forum (perhaps called UN2, United Non-nuclear Nations). Full membership in the NDC and any successor forum would be offered only to nuclear weapons-free states, although nuclear-armed states could have observer status until they disarmed or began a NDC-monitored disarmament process. If successful, this initiative will lead the nuclear states to see the wisdom, indeed the urgency, of dismantling and destroying all nuclear weapons. It will ultimately induce them to join a new, more humane, more egalitarian world order, represented by the NDC (or UN2) charter—a diplomatic framework worthy of the 21 st century.

    Creative nonviolence is at the heart of this proposal. Direct diplomatic, trade, and cultural confrontation of the minority (eight, including Israel, India, and Pakistan—perhaps nine or ten if N. Korea and Iran go nuclear) by the majority (180) could be our best and last hope for leveraging world nuclear disarmament. Carefully orchestrated, strong, non-violent words and actions, such as boycotts and media blitzes, trade embargoes, and other forms of confrontation on the international arena could create conditions of intolerable isolation for any and all nuclear nations, including aspiring ones. But time is of the essence!

    Creating a new Nuclear Disarmament Coalition could send the necessary message to all actual and potential nuclear states: “Arm at your peril. You will lose more than you gain. The nations of the world will reject your goods, your services, and your leadership.” Were this all to occur, verifiable nuclear disarmament might be accomplished within five to ten years.

    Thomas Heck, Emeritus Professor Ohio State University Phone: (805) 692-1969

    1. King Arthur, act 2, sc. 2 (1691).

    2. See the UN Press release of 27 May 2005 at <http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/dc2969.doc.htm>

    3. Coffee production in the USA is negligible. According to the USDA, the US produced 170,000 bags of beans last year. Source: <http://www.fas.usda.gov/psd/complete_tables/HTP-table5-193.htm>

    4. Davidson’s paper is entitled “Critical and Strategic Minerals,” and is published online at <http://www.environmentaleducationohio.org/Biosphere/Case%20Studies/minerals.html>

    5. <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/>

    6. One can think not only of well-funded American charities, like the Gates Foundation, the Google Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but also major international businesses and funds like Rotary International, OPEC, the Gulbenkian Foundation, and many UN-associated NGOs.

    7. Source: <http://www.middlepowers.org/mpi/archives/000122.shtml>

    8. Source: <http://www.gsinstitute.org/pnnd/about.html>

    9. David Krieger, “Sir Joseph Rotblat: A Legacy of Peace (1908-2005),” at <https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/articles/2005/09/01_krieger_sir-joseph-rotblat.htm> (September 2005).

    10. Non-nuclear in this document refers only to nuclear weapons, not to nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

    11. The eventual host country could even be France, the U.K., or India if one of them would kindly surprise the world soon by unilaterally ridding itself of WMDs. (Imagine the consequences in terms of good will, media attention, and moral authority!)

  • A Declaration Of War

    The Bush administration has declared war on the world.

    The 450 changes that Washington is demanding to the action agenda that will culminate at the September 2005 United Nations summit don’t represent U.N. reform. They are a clear onslaught against any move that could strengthen the United Nations or international law.

    The upcoming summit was supposed to focus on strengthening and reforming the U.N. and address issues of aid and development, with a particular emphasis on implementing the U.N.’s five-year-old Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Most assumed this would be a forum for dialogue and debate, involving civil society activists from around the world challenging governments from the impoverished South and the wealthy North and the United Nations to create a viable global campaign against poverty and for internationalism.

    But now, there’s a different and even greater challenge. This is a declaration of U.S. unilateralism, uncompromising and ascendant. The United States has issued an open threat to the 190 other U.N. member states, the social movements and peoples of the entire world, and the United Nations itself. And it will take a quick and unofficially collaborative effort between all three of those elements to challenge the Bush administration juggernaut.

    The General Assembly’s package of proposed reforms, emerging after nine months of negotiations ahead of the summit, begins with new commitments to implement the Millennium Development Goals—established in 2000 as a set of international commitments aimed at reducing poverty by 2015. They were always insufficient, yet as weak as they are, they have yet to be implemented. The 2005 Millennium Plus Five summit intended to shore up the unmet commitments to those goals. In his reform proposals of March 2005, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called on governments north and south to see the implementation of the MDGs as a minimum requirement. Without at least that minimal level of poverty alleviation, he said, conflicts within and between states could spiral so far out of control that even a strengthened and reformed United Nations of the future would not be able to control the threats to international peace and security.

    When John Bolton, Bush’s hotly contested but newly appointed ambassador to the United Nations announced the U.S. proposed response, it was easy to assume this was just John Bolton running amok. After all, Bolton, a longtime U.N.-basher, has said: “There is no United Nations.” He has written in The Wall Street Journal that the United States has no legal obligation to abide by international treaties, even when they are signed and ratified. So it was no surprise when Bolton showed up three weeks before the summit, demanding a package of 450 changes in the document that had been painstakingly negotiated for almost a year.

    But, in fact, this isn’t about Bolton. This Bush administration’s position was vetted and approved in what the U.S. Mission to the U.N. bragged was a “thorough interagency process”—meaning the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and many more agencies all signed off. This is a clear statement of official U.S. policy—not the wish- ist of some marginalized extremist faction of neocon ideologues who will soon be reined in by the realists in charge. This time the extremist faction is in charge.

    The U.S. proposal package is designed to force the world to accept as its own the U.S. strategy of abandoning impoverished nations and peoples, rejecting international law, privileging ruthless market forces over any attempted regulation, sidelining the role of international institutions except for the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, and weakening, perhaps fatally, the United Nations itself.

    It begins by systematically deleting every one of the 35 specific references to the Millennium Development Goals. Every reference to concrete obligations for implementation of commitments is deleted. Setting a target figure of just 0.7 percent of GNP for wealthy countries to spend on aid? Deleted. Increasing aid for agriculture and trade opportunities in poor countries? Deleted. Helping the poorest countries, especially those in Africa, to deal with the impact of climate change? Deleted.

    The proposal puts at great risk treaties to which the United States is already a party, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.N. Summit draft referred to the NPT’s “three pillars: disarmament, non-proliferation and the peaceful use of nuclear energy.” That means that states without nukes would agree never to build or obtain them, but in return they would be guaranteed the right to produce nuclear energy for peaceful use. In return recognized nuclear weapons states—the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia—would commit, in Article VI of the NPT, to move toward “nuclear disarmament with the objective of eliminating all such weapons.” The proposed U.S. changes deleted all references to the three pillars and to Article VI.

    The U.S. deleted the statement that: “The use of force should be considered as an instrument of last resort.” That’s also not surprising given the Bush administration’s “invade first, choose your justifications later” mode of crisis resolution.

    Throughout the document, the United States demands changes that redefine and narrow what should be universal and binding rights and obligations. In the clearest reference to Iraq and Palestine, Washington narrowed the definition of the “right of self-determination of peoples” to eliminate those who “remain under colonial domination and foreign occupation.”

    Much of the U.S. effort aims to undermine the power of the U.N. in favor of absolute national sovereignty. On migration, for instance, the original language focused on enhancing international cooperation, linking migrant worker issues and development, and the human rights of migrants. The U.S. wants to scrap it all, replacing it with “the sovereign right of states to formulate and enforce national migration policies,” with international cooperation only to facilitate national laws. Human rights were deleted altogether.

    In the document’s section on strengthening the United Nations, the U.S. deleted all mention of enhancing the U.N.’s authority, focusing instead only on U.N. efficiency. Regarding the General Assembly the most democratic organ of the U.N. system—the United States deleted references to the Assembly’s centrality, its role in codifying international law, and, ultimately its authority, relegating it to a toothless talking shop. It even deleted reference to the Assembly’s role in Washington’s own pet project—management oversight of the U.N. secretariat—leaving the U.S.-dominated and undemocratic Security Council, along with the U.S. itself (in the person of a State Department official recently appointed head of management in Kofi Annan’s office) to play watchdog.

    The Bush administration has given the United Nations what it believes to be a stark choice: adopt the U.S. changes and acquiesce to becoming an adjunct of Washington and a tool of empire, or reject the changes and be consigned to insignificance.

    But the United Nations could choose a third option. It should not be forgotten that the U.N. itself has some practice in dealing with U.S. threats. President George W. Bush gave the U.N. these same two choices once before—in September 2002, when he threatened the global body with “irrelevance” if the U.N. did not embrace his call for war in Iraq. On that occasion, the United Nations made the third choice—the choice to grow a backbone, to reclaim its charter, and to join with people and governments around the world who were mobilized to say no to war. It was the beginning of eight months of triumph, in which governments and peoples and the U.N. stood together to defy the U.S. drive toward war and empire, and in doing so created what The New York Times called “the second super-power.”

    This time, as before, the United States has threatened and declared war on the United Nations and the world. As before, it’s time for that three-part superpower to rise again, to defend the U.N., and to say no to empire.

    Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, is the author of the forthcoming Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the U.N. Defy U.S. Power (Interlink Publishing, Northampton MA, October 2005)

  • Seeing Our Way Out of Iraq

    During the past two weeks more than 30 American servicemen died in Iraq, and this month is shaping up to be the deadliest month of the entire war. The casualties add to a dismal reckoning that now exceeds 2,000 Coalition dead and 15-20,000 wounded. The unofficial count, by knowledgeable people who say the Government is not telling it like it is, amounts to more than twice that number of American dead and wounded, and more than ten times those numbers of Iraqi dead and wounded, who are not included in any official tally. That is to say nothing of the thousands on both sides who already are or will become psychological basket cases from this experience.

    The statistics for Gulf War I, tabulated by the Veterans Administration in 2002, suggest that, while initial casualties were light, the casualties of that War ultimately exceeded 30%. Gulf War II is and has been a far more hairy experience. Fighting has been heavier and much more prolonged. Many tons more of depleted uranium weapons have been use, along with other toxic devices. Thus, a long term casualty rate for American forces of 40-50% appears realistic.

    Has the engagement been worth it? Should we stick around to see how it finally turns out? In the end, will we be able to say that the outcome was worth 60-70,000 damaged, distorted or destroyed American lives, to say nothing of the effects on their families and communities?

    Available facts today are against a positive answer to that question. Based on everything we have learned from real experience with the invasion and occupation–from the Downing Street Memo and following publications and admissions–neither the Bush team nor the British leadership either could or chose to see clearly into Iraq on the first day.

    Are they able to see the way out? The view at this moment suggests they cannot.

    Start with the global security situation. The most blatant indications of failure to see that situation is the thought, expressed by Tony Blair on the day of July 7 London bombings, and echoed by George W. Bush, that we are under attack because of our way of life. That is true only in the grimmest form of the observation: What we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, tolerating in Palestine, and perpetrating in Guantanamo and numerous other prison locations looks like our way of life, and that way of life is deeply resented and opposed by millions of people. We are fortunate only that so few of them choose to react violently. The attackers are not trying to wreck our home life. They want us to stop destroying theirs.

    Will the situation improve quickly? So long as there is a shooting war going in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so long as the human rights and dignity of thousands of men and women are abused by the United States as they now are, the prospects of peace are virtually nil. And the chance that some of the people who are now angry enough to try to kill some of us will cease and desist is zero. Having created a new generation of terrorists, we will experience more terrorism.

    We won’t necessarily know who some of those people are until it is too late, but the disturbing truth may be that there is now no turning back for some of them, no matter what we do. We will pay, and no war on terrorism can prevent that from happening, somewhere, somehow, sometime.

    Can we do something about it? There are many things that would help. For example, several members of Congress, including John McCain and other Republicans, are pushing legislation to restore American observance of international law and our own military regulations on the treatment of prisoners. Ominously, the regulations are said to be in the process of being rewritten in the Pentagon. Provisions to restore US observance of international law and our own well-established practices have been added to a major spending bill that Bush has threatened to veto if they remain in the bill. Supporters of the President on this say basically that he is above the law, anybody’s law. That announces to the world that the failures reported at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and elsewhere were not due to a few bad apples, but were brought on by the highest levels of American policy, and US leadership remains unreconstructed on this issue.

    Is presidential prerogative really at issue here? There is nothing in the Constitution or the United States Code that says the President is above the law. As the Chief Executive of the United States, one of the leading responsibilities of the President is to see that the law of the land is carried out. His oath of office says he faithfully will do that. In effect, the President’s position on observing established US laws and treaties on torture says he willfully abdicates his responsibility as President of the United States in order to be the nation’s chief advocate of cruel and unusual punishment for people who have not even been brought to trial. The President’s attitude on this and that of his supporters makes a moral and legal travesty of the American presidency. It simply cannot be a prerogative of the President to ignore established laws.

    How does that bear on getting us out of Iraq? One of the hardest things about making peace is persuading the protagonists that the time for battle is over. People do remember that they were mauled, their homes and towns destroyed, their family members confined, tortured, and denied human rights. The longer that goes on, the more vivid is the recall. And if some die, others tend to remember for them. The peace, if it comes, is always troubled by such recollections, and the people who recall are seldom ever able to go after the real perpetrators. Thus, they go for softer targets. Communities, families, individual victims pay for the failures of leadership. The resultant instability makes it appear to leaders who are otherwise disposed anyway that they have no choice but to “stay the course” to “maintain the peace.” They refuse to concede that they may be the reason peace does not prevail. That illusion sustains enduring occupation, which feeds enduring conflict.

    Bush reiterated that position this week. Faced by a growing, but only morally armed group of Cindy Sheehan supporters outside his gate at Crawford, Texas, and surrounded by his war cabinet, Bush called the growing mayhem in Iraq “a grim reminder of the brutal enemies we face in the war on terror.” And he pleaded with an increasingly skeptical America to support his “stay the course” strategy.

    But what is the Iraq reality? Both President Bush and Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair keep pushing their basic theme that there is no connection between chaos in Iraq and attacks or risks of terrorist attacks in the west. We went into Iraq allegedly to liberate a people who would be grateful for the freedom from Saddam Hussein. From the beginning, our people on the ground found that few Iraqis approved of the invasion. That disapproval gradually morphed into an insurgency in and around Baghdad that now covers the bulk of northwestern Iraq and breaks out sporadically in both the south (Shi’a territory) and the north (mainly Kurdish territory). A certain number of outsiders also disapproved and went to Iraq to fight with the insurgents, perhaps in some instances to make their own mayhem.

    The effort to liberate Iraq bogged down. More Iraqis joined the fray, by some reports, creating not one but several insurgencies. The US set out to train Iraqi forces to take over the task of defeating the insurgencies and maintaining public order. The US lead in this effort, however, never diminished because the Iraqis did not seem capable or, for that matter, willing to fight their own people, unless the situation turned to outright communal violence. Now the US has more than a mythical tar baby to deal with. Because the US remains in the lead, the Iraqis being trained, as well as officials who are running the interim government and drafting a new constitution, are widely if not uniformly tainted by the US connection. The insurgents attack them as well as the Coalition–mainly the American–forces. US efforts are then strengthened to train more Iraqis to take over, and in the meantime, American forces are stuck there, under siege.

    A US promised democracy has become Iraqi against Iraqi. The US is training Iraqi forces to defeat Iraqis who do not want the American or other Coalition forces there. What this does is deepen and reinforce divisions among Iraqis that, in the Iraqi ethnic triad, were already simmering, and in some locations appear to be coming to a boil. In effect, people the US injured, tortured, killed or insulted by occupation increase in number every day, and the objectors, including the living victims and the relatives of the dead, take out their anger and frustration on Americans and Iraqis who are visibly affiliated with Americans. The Bush team is now saying the US can see itself withdrawing—at least partially—from Iraq when and if the Iraqis are able to contain the insurgency that is fueled by the US presence. That is a classic oxymoron.

    The chances that such an outcome will occur while the US remains in Iraq are nil. It is hard to see your way out of a situation if you will not face the real nature of the situation. Bush and Blair have thoroughly confused the issues in their own minds, and they are increasingly at odds with the people of their countries. But the tragedy of it is that training Iraqis to kill or punish, i.e., imprison other Iraqis, or Afghans to kill or confine other Afghans is merely setting these societies against themselves.

    The situation needs to be turned as quickly as possible into one in which the US is not fighting the Iraqis, and neither are Iraqis. Expecting the Iraqis to bludgeon themselves into a democratic society is preposterous. The present conflict can only be resolved by turning the whole matter over to a UN peacekeeping force that does not contain any Americans, and that does not continue to set the Iraqi people against each other.

    The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer and former Chairman of the Department of International Studies of the National War College. He is a regular columnist on rense.com. He will welcome comments at wecanstopit@charter.net

  • Occupied Territories: Iraq, America

    It has quickly become clear that Iraq is not a liberated country, but an occupied country. We became familiar with that term during the second world war. We talked of German-occupied France, German-occupied Europe. And after the war we spoke of Soviet-occupied Hungary, Czechoslovakia, eastern Europe. It was the Nazis, the Soviets, who occupied countries. The United States liberated them from occupation.

    Now we are the occupiers. True, we liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein, but not from us. Just as in 1898 we liberated Cuba from Spain, but not from us. Spanish tyranny was overthrown, but the US established a military base in Cuba, as we are doing in Iraq. US corporations moved into Cuba, just as Bechtel and Halliburton and the oil corporations are moving into Iraq. The US framed and imposed, with support from local accomplices, the constitution that would govern Cuba, just as it has drawn up, with help from local political groups, a constitution for Iraq. Not a liberation. An occupation.

    And it is an ugly occupation. On August 7 2003 the New York Times reported that General Sanchez in Baghdad was worried about the Iraqi reaction to occupation. Pro-US Iraqi leaders were giving him a message, as he put it: “When you take a father in front of his family and put a bag over his head and put him on the ground, you have had a significant adverse effect on his dignity and respect in the eyes of his family.” (That’s very perceptive.)

    We know that fighting during the US offensive in November 2004 destroyed three-quarters of the town of Falluja (population 360,000), killing hundreds of its inhabitants. The objective of the operation was to cleanse the town of the terrorist bands acting as part of a “Ba’athist conspiracy”.

    But we should recall that on June 16 2003, barely six weeks after President Bush had claimed victory in Iraq, two reporters for the Knight Ridder newspaper group wrote this about the Falluja area: “In dozens of interviews during the past five days, most residents across the area said there was no Ba’athist or Sunni conspiracy against US soldiers, there were only people ready to fight because their relatives had been hurt or killed, or they themselves had been humiliated by home searches and road stops … One woman said, after her husband was taken from their home because of empty wooden crates which they had bought for firewood, that the US is guilty of terrorism.”

    Soldiers who are set down in a country where they were told they would be welcomed as liberators and find they are surrounded by a hostile population become fearful and trigger-happy. On March 4 nervous, frightened GIs manning a roadblock fired on the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, just released by kidnappers, and an intelligence service officer, Nicola Calipari, whom they killed.

    We have all read reports of US soldiers angry at being kept in Iraq. Such sentiments are becoming known to the US public, as are the feelings of many deserters who are refusing to return to Iraq after home leave. In May 2003 a Gallup poll reported that only 13% of the US public thought the war was going badly. According to a poll published by the New York Times and CBS News on June 17, 51% now think the US should not have invaded Iraq or become involved in the war. Some 59% disapprove of Bush’s handling of the situation.

    But more ominous, perhaps, than the occupation of Iraq is the occupation of the US. I wake up in the morning, read the newspaper, and feel that we are an occupied country, that some alien group has taken over. I wake up thinking: the US is in the grip of a president surrounded by thugs in suits who care nothing about human life abroad or here, who care nothing about freedom abroad or here, who care nothing about what happens to the earth, the water or the air, or what kind of world will be inherited by our children and grandchildren.

    More Americans are beginning to feel, like the soldiers in Iraq, that something is terribly wrong. More and more every day the lies are being exposed. And then there is the largest lie, that everything the US does is to be pardoned because we are engaged in a “war on terrorism”, ignoring the fact that war is itself terrorism, that barging into homes and taking away people and subjecting them to torture is terrorism, that invading and bombing other countries does not give us more security but less.

    The Bush administration, unable to capture the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks, invaded Afghanistan, killing thousands of people and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes. Yet it still does not know where the criminals are. Not knowing what weapons Saddam Hussein was hiding, it invaded and bombed Iraq in March 2003, disregarding the UN, killing thousands of civilians and soldiers and terrorising the population; and not knowing who was and was not a terrorist, the US government confined hundreds of people in Guantánamo under such conditions that 18 have tried to commit suicide.

    The Amnesty International Report 2005 notes: ” Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times … When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity”.

    The “war on terrorism” is not only a war on innocent people in other countries; it is a war on the people of the US: on our liberties, on our standard of living. The country’s wealth is being stolen from the people and handed over to the super-rich. The lives of the young are being stolen.

    The Iraq war will undoubtedly claim many more victims, not only abroad but also on US territory. The Bush administration maintains that, unlike the Vietnam war, this conflict is not causing many casualties. True enough, fewer than 2,000 service men and women have lost their lives in the fighting. But when the war finally ends, the number of its indirect victims, through disease or mental disorders, will increase steadily. After the Vietnam war, veterans reported congenital malformations in their children, caused by Agent Orange.

    Officially there were only a few hundred losses in the Gulf war of 1991, but the US Gulf War Veterans Association has reported 8,000 deaths in the past 10 years. Some 200,000 veterans, out of 600,000 who took part, have registered a range of complaints due to the weapons and munitions used in combat. We have yet to see the long-term effects of depleted uranium on those currently stationed in Iraq.

    Our faith is that human beings only support violence and terror when they have been lied to. And when they learn the truth, as happened in the course of the Vietnam war, they will turn against the government. We have the support of the rest of the world. The US cannot indefinitely ignore the 10 million people who protested around the world on February 15 2003.

    There is no act too small, no act too bold. The history of social change is the history of millions of actions, small and large, coming together at points in history and creating a power that governments cannot suppress.

    Howard Zinn is professor emeritus of political science at Boston University; his books include A People’s History of the United States.

    Originally published by The Guardian.

  • The Time of the Bomb

    When he was told on August 6, 1945, that America’s new atom bomb had destroyed its first target, the Japanese city of Hiroshima, U.S. President Harry Truman declared “This is the greatest thing in history.” Three days later, on August 9, another atom bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki.

    The coming of the bomb brought pain and death. A 1946 survey by the Hiroshima City Council found that from a civilian population of about 320,000 on the day of the explosion: over 118,000 were killed, over 30,000 seriously injured, with almost 49,000 slightly injured, and nearly 4,000 people were missing. In December 1945, the Nagasaki City Commission determined that because of the bombing there, almost 74,000 people had been killed and 75,000 injured. The injured continued to die for months and years later, one of the reasons being radiation sickness. Pregnant women who were affected produced children who were severely physically and mentally retarded. The Japanese created a new word — hibakusha, — a survivor of the atom bomb.

    In the sixty years since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have been spared the horror of a nuclear weapon attack on another city. But nuclear weapons have grown in their destructive power; each can now be tens of times, or even hundreds of times, more powerful that those used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The number of nuclear weapons has grown; there are now tens of thousands. Where there was one country with the bomb, there are now perhaps nine (US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea). There are many more political and military leaders who, like Truman in 1945, see the bomb as “the greatest thing in history”.

    From the very beginning, there has also been opposition to the bomb. The French writer and activist Albert Camus wrote on August 6, 1945: “technological civilization has just reached its final degree of savagery… Faced with the terrifying perspectives which are opening up to humanity, we can perceive even better that peace is the only battle worth waging.”

    The American sociologist and critic Lewis Mumford wrote: “We in America are living among madmen. Madmen govern our affairs in the name of order and security. The chief madmen claim the titles of general, admiral, senator, scientist, administrator, Secretary of State, even President.” There are many more of these madmen now. They all mumble the same nonsense about “threats,” and “national security,” and “nuclear deterrence,” and try to scare everyone around them.

    Protest and resistance against the madness of nuclear weapons has brought together some of the greatest figures of our times with millions of ordinary men and women around the world. Albert Einstein and the philosopher Bertrand Russell gave the reason most simply and clearly. They published a manifesto in 1955 in which they identified the stark challenge created by nuclear weapons: “Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”

    The only way forward for humanity, Einstein and Russell said, was that “We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give a military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?” Their 1955 manifesto led to the formation of the Pugwash movement of scientists. It was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its work against nuclear weapons in 1995. There are now Pugwash groups in 50 countries, including in India and Pakistan.

    Global protests eventually forced an end to nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere and under water. These explosions had been spewing radioactivity in the air, where it was blown around the world, poisoning land, water, food and people. But the “madmen” were blinded by the power of the ultimate weapon. They kept building more and bigger bombs and threatening to use them. They have been stopped from using them only by the determined efforts of peace movements and public pressure.

    The bomb and the madmen came to South Asia too. India tested a bomb in 1974 and Pakistan set about trying to make one. There was protest too. In 1985, a small group of people in Islamabad organised an event for Hiroshima Day, August 6, at the Rawalpindi Press Club. There was a slide show and talk about nuclear weapons and their terrible effects, with pictures of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Every picture brought gasps of horror and revulsion from the packed audience. The posters and placards and banners on the walls carried messages about the need to end war, to reduce military spending and increase spending on education and health, and to make peace between India and Pakistan. A small, short-lived peace group was born, the Movement for Nuclear Disarmament.

    That was twenty years ago. The Cold War is long over, the Soviet Union long gone, but there has been little relief. The United States still has five thousand weapons deployed, 2000 of which are ready to use within 15 minutes, and there are another five thousand in reserve. Russia has over 7000 weapons deployed and 9000 in reserve.

    The UK, France, and China are estimated each to have several hundred warheads, Israel may have almost as many, and India and Pakistan have a hundred or fewer. North Korea may have a handful. And, leaders are still mad; they send armies to attack and occupy other countries, and kill and maim tens of thousands. In America, they plan for newer and more useable nuclear weapons.

    In the meantime, India and Pakistan have also tested their nuclear weapons — which are about as powerful as the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have threatened to use their weapons in every crisis since then. They are making more weapons and missiles as fast as they can. A nuclear war between Pakistan and India, in which they each used only five of their nuclear weapons, would likely kill about three million people and severely injure another one and a half million. What more proof is needed that we are ruled by madmen?

    If South Asia is to survive its own nuclear age, we shall need to have strong peace movements in both Pakistan and India. A beginning has been made. The Pakistan Peace Coalition was founded in 1999; it is a national network of groups working for peace and justice. In 2000, Indian activists established the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. These movements will need all the help and support they can get to keep the generals and Prime Ministers in both countries in check. The leaders in both countries must be taught, over and over again, that the people will not allow a nuclear war to be fought. There should never be a word in any other language for hibakusha.

    Zia Mian, peace activist, is a physicist at Princeton University.

    A.H. Nayyar is a physicist, co-convener of Pugwash Pakistan, and president of the Pakistan Peace Coalition.

    Originally published by The News International

  • What’s Wrong With Cutting and Running?

    If I were a journalist, I would list all the arguments that you hear against pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, the horrible things that people say would happen, and then ask: Aren’t they happening already? Would a pullout really make things worse? Maybe it would make things better.

    Here are some of the arguments against pulling out:

    1. We would leave behind a civil war.
    2. We would lose credibility on the world stage.
    3. It would embolden the insurgency and cripple the move toward democracy.
    4. Iraq would become a haven for terrorists.
    5. Iranian influence in Iraq would increase.
    6. Unrest might spread in the region and/or draw in Iraq’s neighbors.
    7. Shi’ite-Sunni clashes would worsen.
    8. We haven’t fully trained the Iraqi military and police forces yet.
    9. Talk of deadlines would undercut the morale of our troops.

    But consider this:

    1. On civil war. Iraqis are already fighting Iraqis. Insurgents have killed far more Iraqis than Americans. That’s civil war. We created the civil war when we invaded; we can’t prevent a civil war by staying.

    For those who really worry about destabilizing the region, the sensible policy is not to stay the course in Iraq. It is rapid withdrawal, reestablishing strong relations with our allies in Europe, showing confidence in the UN Security Council, and trying to knit together a large coalition including the major states of Europe, Japan, South Korea, China, and India to back a strategy for stabilizing the area from the eastern Mediterranean to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Until the United States withdraws from Iraq and admits its strategic error, no such coalition can be formed.

    Thus, those who fear leaving a mess are actually helping make things worse while preventing a new strategic approach with some promise of success.

    2. On credibility. If we were Russia or some other insecure nation, we might have to worry about credibility. A hyperpower need not worry about credibility. That’s one of the great advantages of being a hyperpower: When we have made a big strategic mistake, we can reverse it. And it may even enhance our credibility. Staying there damages our credibility more than leaving.

    Ask the president if he really worries about U.S. credibility. Or, what will happen to our credibility if the course he is pursuing proves to be a major strategic disaster? Would it not be better for our long-term credibility to withdraw earlier than later in this event?

    3. On the insurgency and democracy. There is no question the insurgents and other anti-American parties will take over the government once we leave. But that will happen no matter how long we stay. Any government capable of holding power in Iraq will be anti-American because the Iraqi people are increasingly becoming anti-American.

    Also, the U.S. will not leave behind a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq no matter how long it stays. Holding elections is easy. It is impossible to make it a constitutional democracy in a hurry.

    President Bush’s statements about progress in Iraq are increasingly resembling LBJ’s statements during the Vietnam War. For instance, Johnson’s comments about the 1968 election are very similar to what Bush said in February 2005 after the election of a provisional parliament.

    Ask the president: Why should we expect a different outcome in Iraq than in Vietnam?

    Ask the president if he intends to leave a pro-American liberal regime in place. Because that’s just impossible. Postwar Germany and Japan are not models for Iraq. Each had mature (at least a full generation old) constitutional orders by the end of the 19th century. They both endured as constitutional orders until the 1930s. Thus, General Clay and General MacArthur were merely reversing a decade and a half of totalitarianism – returning to nearly a century of liberal political change in Japan and a much longer period in Germany.

    Imposing a liberal constitutional order in Iraq would be to accomplish something that has never been done before. Of all the world’s political cultures, an Arab-Muslim one may be the most resistant to such a change of any in the world. Even the Muslim society in Turkey (an anti-Arab society) stands out for being the only example of a constitutional order in an Islamic society, and even it backslides occasionally.

    4. On terrorists. Iraq is already a training ground for terrorists. In fact, the CIA has pointed out to the administration and Congress that Iraq is spawning so many terrorists that they are returning home to many other countries to further practice their skills there. The quicker a new dictator wins political power in Iraq and imposes order, the sooner the country will stop producing experienced terrorists.

    Why not ask: “Mr. President, since you and the vice president insisted that Saddam’s Iraq supported al-Qaeda – which we now know it did not – isn’t your policy in Iraq today strengthening al-Qaeda’s position in that country?”

    5. On Iranian influence. Iranian leaders see U.S. policy in Iraq as being so much in Tehran’s interests that they have been advising Iraqi Shi’ite leaders to do exactly what the Americans ask them to do. Elections will allow the Shi’ites to take power legally. Once in charge, they can settle scores with the Ba’athists and Sunnis. If U.S. policy in Iraq begins to undercut Iran’s interests, then Tehran can use its growing influence among Iraqi Shi’ites to stir up trouble, possibly committing Shi’ite militias to an insurgency against U.S. forces there. The U.S. invasion has vastly increased Iran’s influence in Iraq, not sealed it out.

    Questions for the administration: “Why do the Iranians support our presence in Iraq today? Why do they tell the Shi’ite leaders to avoid a sectarian clash between Sunnis and Shi’ites? Given all the money and weapons they provide Shi’ite groups, why are they not stirring up more trouble for the U.S.? Will Iranian policy change once a Shi’ite majority has the reins of government? Would it not be better to pull out now rather than to continue our present course of weakening the Sunnis and Ba’athists, opening the way for a Shi’ite dictatorship?”

    6. On Iraq’s neighbors. The civil war we leave behind may well draw in Syria, Turkey, and Iran. But already today each of those states is deeply involved in support for or opposition to factions in the ongoing Iraqi civil war. The very act of invading Iraq almost ensured that violence would involve the larger region. And so it has and will continue, with or without U.S. forces in Iraq.

    7. On Shi’ite-Sunni conflict. The U.S. presence is not preventing Shi’ite-Sunni conflict; it merely delays it. Iran is preventing it today, and it will probably encourage it once the Shi’ites dominate the new government, an outcome U.S. policy virtually ensures.

    8. On training the Iraq military and police. The insurgents are fighting very effectively without U.S. or European military advisers to train them. Why don’t the soldiers and police in the present Iraqi regime’s service do their duty as well? Because they are uncertain about committing their lives to this regime. They are being asked to take a political stand, just as the insurgents are. Political consolidation, not military-technical consolidation, is the issue.

    The issue is not military training; it is institutional loyalty. We trained the Vietnamese military effectively. Its generals took power and proved to be lousy politicians and poor fighters in the final showdown. In many battles over a decade or more, South Vietnamese military units fought very well, defeating VC and NVA units. But South Vietnam’s political leaders lost the war.

    Even if we were able to successfully train an Iraqi military and police force, the likely result, after all that, would be another military dictatorship. Experience around the world teaches us that military dictatorships arise when the military’s institutional modernization gets ahead of political consolidation.

    9. On not supporting our troops by debating an early pullout. Many U.S. officers in Iraq, especially at company and field grade levels, know that while they are winning every tactical battle, they are losing strategically. And according to the New York Times, they are beginning to voice complaints about Americans at home bearing none of the pains of the war. One can only guess about the enlisted ranks, but those on a second tour – probably the majority today – are probably anxious for an early pullout. It is also noteworthy that U.S. generals in Iraq are not bubbling over with optimistic reports the way they were during the first few years of the war in Vietnam. Their careful statements and caution probably reflect serious doubts that they do not, and should not, express publicly. The more important question is whether or not the repressive and vindictive behavior by the secretary of defense and his deputy against the senior military – especially the Army leadership, which is the critical component in the war – has made it impossible for field commanders to make the political leaders see the facts.

    Most surprising to me is that no American political leader today has tried to unmask the absurdity of the administration’s case that to question the strategic wisdom of the war is unpatriotic and a failure to support our troops. Most officers and probably most troops don’t see it that way. They are angry at the deficiencies in materiel support they get from the Department of Defense, and especially about the irresponsibly long deployments they must now endure because Mr. Rumsfeld and his staff have refused to enlarge the ground forces to provide shorter tours. In the meantime, they know that the defense budget shovels money out the door to maritime forces, SDI, etc., while refusing to increase dramatically the size of the Army.

    As I wrote several years ago, “the Pentagon’s post-Cold War force structure is so maritime heavy and land force weak that it is firmly in charge of the porpoises and whales while leaving the land to tyrants.” The Army, some of the Air Force, the National Guard, and the reserves are now the victims of this gross mismatch between military missions and force structure. Neither the Bush nor the Clinton administration has properly “supported the troops.” The media could ask the president why he fails to support our troops by not firing his secretary of defense.

    —

    So why is almost nobody advocating a pullout? I can only speculate. We face a strange situation today where few if any voices among Democrats in Congress will mention early withdrawal from Iraq, and even the one or two who do will not make a comprehensive case for withdrawal now. Why are the Democrats failing the public on this issue today? The biggest reason is because they weren’t willing to raise that issue during the campaign. Howard Dean alone took a clear and consistent stand on Iraq, and the rest of the Democratic Party trashed him for it. Most of those in Congress voted for the war and let that vote shackle them later on. Now they are scared to death that the White House will smear them with lack of patriotism if they suggest pulling out.

    Journalists can ask all the questions they like, but none will prompt a more serious debate as long as no political leaders create the context and force the issues into the open.

    I don’t believe anyone will be able to sustain a strong case in the short run without going back to the fundamental misjudgment of invading Iraq in the first place. Once the enormity of that error is grasped, the case for pulling out becomes easy to see.

    Look at John Kerry’s utterly absurd position during the presidential campaign. He said, “It’s the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time,” but then went on to explain how he expected to win it anyway. Even the voter with no interest in foreign affairs was able to recognize it as an absurdity. If it was the wrong war at the wrong place and time, then it was never in our interests to fight. If that is true, what has changed to make it in our interests? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

    The U.S. invasion of Iraq only serves the interests of:

    1. Osama bin Laden (it made Iraq safe for al-Qaeda, positioned U.S. military personnel in places where al-Qaeda operatives can kill them occasionally, helps radicalize youth throughout the Arab and Muslim world, alienates America’s most important and strongest allies – the Europeans – and squanders U.S. military resources that otherwise might be finishing off al-Qaeda in Pakistan.);

    2. The Iranians (who were invaded by Saddam and who suffered massive casualties in an eight-year war with Iraq.);

    3. And the extremists in both Palestinian and Israeli political circles (who don’t really want a peace settlement without the utter destruction of the other side, and probably believe that bogging the United States down in a war in Iraq that will surely become a war with the rest of Arab world gives them the time and cover to wipe out the other side.)

    The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The first step, of course, is to establish as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the U.S.’ interests and has not become so. It is such an obvious case to make that I find it difficult to believe many pundits and political leaders have not already made it repeatedly.

    Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army’s senior intelligence officer. From 1977 to 1981, he was Military Assistant to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

    Originally published by Nieman Watchdog

  • The Case of Sergeant Benderman

    When Sgt. Kevin Benderman went to Iraq on March of 2003, he saw the destruction of a nation, he saw a little girl with a burnt arm asking the soldiers for help they were ordered not to provide, he saw people drinking water from mud puddles, and he saw that Iraqis were regular people, just like himself, and that our military should not bring destruction to that country. What Sgt. Benderman saw in Iraq changed him in a way so profound, that after ten impeccable years in the Army, he decided to apply for conscientious objection. But Sgt. Benderman also spoke truth to the people about what is going on in Iraq, and he spoke about how the war is not destroying Iraq alone, but our own country as well. He spoke of how American soldiers are dehumanized by the war.

    But today’s general Court-Martial did not deal with Sgt. Benderman’s war experience, nor with the dehumanization of America’s children in Iraq; it mostly dealt with a forty-five minute meeting Sgt. Benderman had with his Sgt. Major just an hour before his unit was to deploy to the Middle East, where they were to provide logistic support to American infantry units, and they were to train Iraqi police officers and military personnel.

    The defense successfully showed how during that meeting Sgt. Benderman’s chain of command, not knowing how to deal with his Conscientious Objector packet, released him to work on documents and to have dinner with his wife, just an hour prior to his unit’s deployment, and how they made no effort to get him to the airfield, or to get him onboard a later flight. The defense showed how Sgt. Benderman, far from being absent without authority or having missed movement, continued to perform a sergeant’s duties while and after his unit deployed to Iraq.

    The defense also showed the ambiguity in Sgt. Benderman’s chain of command. For instance, one of the government’s arguments in seeking both a conviction and a harsh punishment was that Sgt. Benderman’s logistic duties were crucial for the unit in Iraq, yet the defense proved that his chain of command had planned to fire him from his job and to assign him to latrine duty. Another argument was the hazardous component of the unit’s mission in Iraq, yet the 1st Sgt. insisted that Sgt. Benderman would be perfectly safe and in a position were he would see no combat at all. The defense successfully showed the humiliation Sgt. Benderman went through because of his Conscientious Objector beliefs, from the harassment of his wife by the Sgt. Major (who admitted to commenting on her physical figure) to his 1st Sgt. calling him a coward.

    Why then, one wonders, was Sgt. Benderman convicted of Missing Movement by Design, and sentenced to 15 months of confinement, reduction to the lowest rank, and a dishonorable discharge? The defense strategy was sound and solid. The government’s prejudice and Sgt. Benderman’s chain of command’s unmeasured persecution and incompetence were all made evident. Why the conviction and the harsh sentence then?

    Perhaps because a legal strategy is no match for a political strategy. The Army had in its hands a blond, blue-eyed, six foot two, all American soldier, born and raised in the south, someone white America can look up to and identify with, someone who went to Iraq and came back with his humanity enhanced, most definitely a threat to a government on a mission to militarize its society and spread its empire. The government threw the book at Sgt. Benderman to ensure others like him don’t follow behind. Therefore, his case should not have been boiled down to a forty-five minute meeting, because in doing so, the defense disconnected itself from the humanity of the action and from its message of resistance, and that is something America cannot afford at this time.

    Sgt. Benderman is not an African American Muslim, he is not a Cuban Buddhist, his parents are not Latin Americans. Unlike other recent conscientious objectors, Binderman looks like he belongs at a George W. Bush rally. The humanity he displays in his refusal to fight a senseless war cannot be blamed on a foreign ethnicity, or on the color of his skin; it cannot be blamed on his religion either. And he cannot be accused of being a Yankee liberal. Sgt. Benderman’s courageous stance gives the conscientious objector response to the war in Iraq a universal touch that breaks down barriers and goes beyond borders, bringing down the issue of war resistance to the humanity in each and every one of us, regardless of who we are or where we come from.

    Sgt. Kevin Benderman chose to put his weapon down; he chose not to kill but to love his fellow human beings; he chose to put his career and physical freedom in jeopardy; he chose to speak truth in the face of power and adversity; he was harassed, humiliated, accused, tried, convicted, and sentenced to jail. He kissed his wife goodbye, and he kept his head up high as he walked to his fifteen months of confinement. I have never seen a freer man.

    Camilo E. Mejia is a former prisoner of conscience, Iraq war veteran, war resister, and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Camilo’s conscientious objector application is still pending. He served nine months in confinement for refusing to return to Iraq after a two-week leave.

  • EU3-Iranian Negotiations: A New Approach

    Unless a new approach is pursued, chances that current negotiations between France, Germany, Great Britain (EU3) and Iran will soon see a breakthrough are slim. In May, after Iran again threatened to resume enrichment activities, the EU3 pledged to present Iran a detailed offer by the end of July or early August 2005. While recent developments of the past month are likely to complicate the bilateral negotiations, the seemingly entrenched positions of both parties are the main factor obstructing a successful resolution regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

    The EU3 have engaged Iran in talks since December 2004, after Iran broke its earlier agreement of October 2003 to suspend enrichment activities. Negotiations have since proceeded at a slow pace, nonetheless withstanding pressure from the United States who has urged for Iran’s referral to the UN Security Council for its alleged nuclear weapons program. Iran claims its program serves peaceful purposes only. While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not found Iran in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement, neither has it verified the country’s compliance. The EU3 strategy to offer Iran economic incentives in turn for “objective assurances” of the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program has thus far remained unfruitful, even after the United States agreed to support Iran’s entry into the World Trade Organization in March 2005.

    Iran has a history of deceiving the international community about its nuclear activities, which greatly undermines the confidence building process of the ongoing negotiations. Most recently, on June 16, 2005, the IAEA announced Iran’s failure to disclose comprehensive information regarding its plutonium activities. Iran had earlier stated that its plutonium experiments ended in 1993. But the IAEA verified that reprocessing experiments took place in 1995 and 1998. Reprocessing separates plutonium which can be used to make nuclear weapons. The IAEA started its investigations into the Iranian nuclear program in 2002 and has since revealed a number of breaches that make Iranian nuclear intentions questionable.

    The election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new President will most likely complicate the EU3-Iranian negotiations. At his first press conference after the elections, Ahmadinejad stated that “We will continue negotiations with the Europeans with the aim of safeguarding our national interests and emphasizing the right of the Iranian nation to use peaceful nuclear energy.” While this seems to indicate a continuation of Iran’s current policy, Ahmadinejad also said he will take on a tougher negotiation position. A top Irani nuclear official recently asserted: “Taking into account the personality of the new president, I think the negotiations will be more difficult.” On July 13, 2005, Ahmadinejad, who will take office in early August, announced a new direction for Iranian foreign policy. Reorganizing the current nuclear negotiation team might be part of this new policy measure. The instant resumption of enrichment activities would certainly lead to an impasse with the EU3.

    Conflicting information about the resignation of the Secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Hassan Rowhani, might be connected to Iran’s change in government. Currently, Rowhani, a moderate supporting President Mohammad Khatami’s policy of reform, is the chief negotiator in the talks with the EU3. The Iranian news agency Irna announced on July 6, 2005 that Rowhani sent his letter of resignation to Khatami, but AP reported he denied this move. Rowhani’s resignation would trigger a change in leadership in the Iranian negotiation team that could adversely affect the outcome of the talks. Named as a possible successor to Rowhani, Ali Larijani, the representative of the Supreme Leader on the Supreme National Security Council, stated in March 2005: “ The continuation of talks up until now was meant for confidence building. However, I believe that the issue of confidence building in Iran’s nuclear dossier is a two-edged sword. If the Europeans consider it to be one-sided and as Iran’s debt to the West, then the negotiations will not be negotiations at all but a dictated text meant to humiliate the nation, and naturally the Iranians would be obliged to show that their national pride is not less than Europe’s or the United States.”

    First and foremost, Iran wants to maintain its capability to enrich uranium and separate plutonium for peaceful purposes, a right it claims according to Article IV of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). An Iranian proposal in April 2005 – which the EU3 rejected – stated the government’s intention to test 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz. In addition to pursuing its inalienable right under the NPT, Iran recognizes the national prestige that comes with mastering the fuel cycle and proclaims its desire to belong to the “exclusive club of technologically advanced states.” The Iranian government has also repeatedly made the link between the nuclear fuel cycle and national sovereignty to independently meet its energy needs in the long-term.

    The current position-based nature of the talks will continue to impede negotiations between the two parties. Iran’s current position is that it will not give up its capabilities to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, reiterated as recently as July 12, 2005. The EU3 on the other hand have repeatedly stated that this position is an unacceptable one in the long-run. On July 5, 2005, the French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy stated: “Our ultimate objective is to ensure that there is a suspension of the enrichment and reprocessing of hazardous nuclear material. I think it’s absolutely necessary to state that the Europeans will never accept the resumption of the Iranian military nuclear activities.” Iran has demonstrated some flexibility towards limiting its enrichment capabilities, but the EU3 is unlikely to amend its position, given the lack of transparency of Iranian nuclear activities and ongoing IAEA efforts to verify Iran’s status of safeguards compliance.

    To create favorable conditions for a successful outcome both parties must move beyond their entrenched positions, which are in complete opposition to each other. To solve the crisis in the long-term, the EU3 must open up the negotiations forum to discussions about both parties’ long-term interests. Talks about broader security issues, including Iran’s national security concerns, will help both parties move away from their current fixed positions and bring more options for a solution to the table. The Unites States should also become involved in the negotiation process in order to grant significant recognition to the regional security debate, especially given the US role in Iraq and the need for greater regional stability supported actively by the US through negative security assurances. At a security conference in February 2005, Gholami Khoshroo, the Deputy Minister for International and legal Affairs, stated: “We believe that it is imperative to use the opportunity created by the removal of a great menace to our region’s security to replace mistrust and arms race with confidence building and transparency, and to establish an indigenously-based and internationally guaranteed regional security arrangement under the UN auspices to spare our region from further bloodshed.”

    An explicit EU3 and US recognition of legitimate demands for regional stability and security would serve the long term interests of both the EU and the United States. Even if the negotiations cannot satisfy all interests brought to the table, the likelihood of progress with an interest-based approach is higher than if the parties continue to confront each other with fixed positions.

    *Anna Langenbach is the 2005 Wally T. Drew Intern in the Washington DC office of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Langenbach is a graduate student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies where she specializes in nonproliferation studies.

  • The Way Ahead for a Safer World

    Towards the end of July 1945, Japan was on the verge of surrendering to the Allies. Despite military advice to the contrary, United States President Harry. S. Truman authorised the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and on Nagasaki on August 9. The President was fully aware of the deadly consequences of deploying this weapon, from the results of the Nevada test conducted just a month earlier. Analysts believe this decision was primarily taken to convey a message to the rest of the world community and especially to the Soviet Union: the emergence of the US as the sole leader of the post-war world. Predictably, other nations followed suit to produce the atomic bomb: the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and lastly, China in 1964. Ten years later, India demonstrated its technical capability and conducted its first “Peaceful Nuclear Explosion” in 1974. Twenty-four years later, in May 1998, India and Pakistan conducted further tests and declared themselves nuclear weapon capable states.

    It was in protest against nuclear testing by France that the valiant ship “Rainbow Warrior” belonging to Greenpeace was lost. She was sunk by French agents on July 10, 1985, whilst moored at Auckland harbour, in New Zealand. She was due to sail the next day for Mururoa Atoll, the venue of the French tests. Needless to say, this triggered a worldwide outcry and David Lange, then Prime Minister of New Zealand, described it as “a sordid act of international state-backed terrorism.” Not only have Greenpeace and other anti-nuclear activists in civil society protested against nuclear testing, but India too has been at the forefront, calling for global nuclear disarmament. Despite almost 35 years of the Non Proliferation Treaty’s (NPT) existence, the Nuclear Weapons States (NWSs) have failed to carry out nuclear disarmament as per Article VI. All that the world community has been able to achieve during this period is to give the NPT a fresh lease of life into perpetuity. Meanwhile, efforts to bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) into force have also failed. The US rejected the CTBT in the Senate, and that virtually sealed its fate. The two five yearly NPT review meetings held at the United Nations in 2000 and recently in May this year, have both resulted in virtual disaster. Nothing tangible has been possible in persuading the NWSs to move towards nuclear disarmament.

    In a few weeks from now, we shall be remembering the hundreds of thousands lost in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If anything, the world is becoming more and more of a dangerous place to live in. Despite the end of the Cold War, both Russia and the US have nearly 3,000 nukes under hair trigger alert. We have enough nuclear warheads to destroy this beautiful planet many times over. Not content with this, every NWS has been engaged in upgrading its nuclear inventories with the latest technologies. Whilst all this may sound exciting, the problem of managing nukes with safety is yet to be attained. Many questions still remain unanswered. How are we to ensure correct interpretation of intent, especially if deception is in the mind of the adversary? If things are going very badly in the conventional warfare scene, can we be sure that the losing party will still not raise the level to a nuclear exchange? Can these weapons not be deployed either by accident or due to a misinterpretation of detection on any one of the many sensors? What then is the way ahead?

    India needs to take the initiative to address nuclear disarmament very seriously. Perhaps the best time is now. Let India build on the Rajiv Gandhi plan for total nuclear disarmament as presented by him to the U.N. in 1988. India should convene an International Conference by inviting all the Nuclear Weapons States and also those 43 states listed for bringing the CTBT into force. This would provide a great opportunity to all the countries to put on the table their concerns and contributions for making this world a safer place to live in. Now that India is a nuclear weapons capable nation, an initiative of this nature at this stage would be widely welcomed by the world community.

    Whilst the ultimate goal must remain to run down nuclear weapons to zero, even partial success like achieving a consensus on `de-alerting’ will be a great step forward. For as long as these horrible weapons exist, there is always the danger that they could be used either by accident or design. Let the loss of so many innocents and that of the “Rainbow Warrior” not go in vain. The struggle must continue to make this planet a safe place for all of us and successive generations to come.

    Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas is a former Chief of India’s Naval Staff.

    Originally published in the Hindu.

  • The World Speaks on Iraq

    The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) held its culminating session in Istanbul June 24-27, the last and most elaborate of sixteen condemnations of the Iraq War held worldwide in the past two years, in Barcelona, Tokyo, Brussels, Seoul, New York, London, Mumbai and other cities. The Istanbul session used the verdicts and some of the testimony from the earlier sessions; the cumulative nature of the sessions built interest among peace activists, resulting in this final session having by far the strongest international flavor. The cumulative process, described by organizers as “the tribunal movement,” is unique in history: Never before has a war aroused this level of protest on a global scale–first to prevent it (the huge February 15, 2003, demonstrations in eighty countries) and then to condemn its inception and conduct. The WTI expresses the opposition of global civil society to the Iraq War, a project perhaps best described as a form of “moral globalization.”

    The WTI generated intense interest in Turkey, Europe, the Arab world and on the Internet but was ignored by the American mainstream media. Here in Istanbul, the WTI was treated for days as the number-one news story. There are several explanations for this, starting with near-unanimous opposition to the Iraq War in Turkey. More relevant were the vivid connections between Turkey and the war: physical proximity, an array of adverse effects and, more dramatic, a contradictory government posture–the refusal of the Turkish parliament in 2003 to give in to US pressure to authorize an invasion of Iraq from Turkish territory, while the Prime Minister allowed the continuing use of the huge US air base at Incirlik for strategic operations during and after the war.

    The WTI was loosely inspired by the Bertrand Russell tribunal held in Copenhagen and Stockholm in 1967 to protest the Vietnam War, which documented with extensive testimony the allegations of criminality associated with the American role in Vietnam. The Russell tribunal featured the participation of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and other notable European left intellectuals. It relied on international law and morality to condemn the war but made no pretension of being a legal body, and its jury contained no international law experts.

    Of course, a tribunal of this sort is immediately criticized on one hand as a kangaroo court that ignores the other sides of the legal and political argument and, on the other, is treated as a meaningless use of a courtroom format since there is neither an adversary process nor enforcement powers. In my view, these criticisms reveal a misunderstanding of the undertaking. To be sure, the WTI is not an organ of the state and cannot count on its judgments being implemented by such state institutions as police or prisons. Rather, the WTI is self-consciously an organ of civil society, with its own potential enforcement by way of economic boycotts, civil disobedience and political campaigns. And on the substantive issues of legality, it is designed to confirm the truth of the widely held allegations about the Iraq War, not to discover the truth by way of political, legal and moral inquiry and debate. It proceeds from a presumption that the allegations of illegality and criminality are valid and that its job is to reinforce that conclusion as persuasively and vividly as possible.

    The motivations of citizens to organize such a tribunal do not arise from uncertainty about issues of legality and morality but from a conviction that the institutions of the state, including the UN, have failed to act to protect a vulnerable people against such Nuremberg crimes as aggression, violations of the laws of war and crimes against humanity. It is only because of such institutional failures in the face of ongoing suffering and abuse in Iraq that individuals and institutions made the immense organizational effort to put together this kind of transnational civic tribunal. We should also recall that the Nuremberg Tribunal’s enduring contribution was not finding out whether the Nazi regime had committed the crimes alleged but documenting its criminality.

    The decision of the WTI was rendered by a fifteen-member Jury of Conscience, chaired by Indian novelist Arundhati Roy and including two Americans, David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Eve Ensler of Vagina Monologues fame. A Panel of Advocates–coordinated by Turgut Tarhanli, dean of the Bilgi Law School in Istanbul, and myself–organized the fifty-four presentations. The advocates came from diverse backgrounds, and the presentations included some incisive analyses of international-law issues by such respected world experts as Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics; two former UN assistant secretaries general, Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponek, both of whom had resigned in the 1990s to protest the UN’s role in Iraq; several seemingly credible eyewitnesses who had held important nongovernment jobs in pre-invasion Iraq, who gave accounts of the devastation and cruelty of the occupation; Tim Goodrich, a former American soldier and co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who gave a moving presentation of why he turned against the war; and overall assessments of how the war fits into American ambitions for global empire, by such renowned intellectuals as Samir Amin, Johan Galtung and Walden Bello. Their presentations combined an acute explanation of the strains on world order arising from predatory forms of economic globalization with the view that the US response to 9/11 was mainly motivated by regional and global strategic aims and only incidentally, if at all, by antiterrorism.

    After compromise and debate, the jury reached a unanimous verdict that combined findings with recommendations for action. Its core conclusion condemned the Iraq War as a war of aggression in violation of the UN Charter and international law, and determined that those responsible for planning and waging it should be held criminally responsible. George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz were listed in the verdict by name. Less predictable was that the UN was faulted for failing to fulfill its responsibilities to protect member states against aggression. One recommendation supported the rights of the Iraqi people to resist an illegal occupation, as authorized by international law. Further recommendations specified that US media be held responsible for contributing to the war of aggression, that American products associated with corporations doing business in Iraq–like Halliburton, Coca-Cola, Bechtel and Boeing–be boycotted and that peace movement activists around the world urge the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Iraq. The verdict was framed as a moral and political assessment of the Iraq War, and relied on the guidelines of international law to lend weight to its conclusions. The jury’s view of international law accords with a virtually unanimous consensus of international-law experts outside the United States and Britain.

    Arundhati Roy imparted the prevailing spirit of civic dedication and moral leadership in a public statement at the culminating session. Her words summarize the experience for many of us: “The World Tribunal on Iraq places its faith in the consciences of millions of people across the world who do not wish to stand by and watch while the people of Iraq are being slaughtered, subjugated and humiliated.”

    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.

    Originally published in the August 1, 2005 edition of The Nation.