Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: International Issues

  • Nuclear Weapons Exact a Terrible Price

    In today’s world, nuclear weapons no longer create security, they threaten it. In 1996, the World Court declared the use of nuclear weapons illegal under international humanitarian law, because these weapons of mass destruction cannot distinguish between combatants and innocent civilians and create unnecessary suffering. Maintaining the current U.S. nuclear arsenal of more than 10,000 warheads is extremely expensive. This year alone, it will cost the U.S. taxpayer $6.5 billion, or $18 million per day.

    If we know that nuclear weapons pose an acute danger to our security; that their use is illegal because of their inhumane and indiscriminate power; and that maintaining them is consuming enormous resources, which could otherwise be used to improve our ailing public schools and universities or strengthen our exhausted conventional military forces, how can we tacitly accept our government’s and the National Weapons Labs’ push for the development of new generations of nuclear weapons and increased nuclear weapons spending of up to $30 billion over the next four years?

    Under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of 1970, the United States remains committed to the gradual reduction and eventual elimination of its nuclear arsenal. Article VI of the treaty stipulates that “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” Accordingly, the United States is obliged to disengage from activities that risk fueling a new nuclear arms race, and to continuously reduce its nuclear arsenal. This has been confirmed at the last Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2000, when the United States signed on to “An unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapon States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament to which all States parties [to the NPT] are committed under Article VI.”

    The nuclear weapons activities at Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories are in direct violation of these international commitments.

    The ongoing research into new generations of nuclear weapons — so-called bunker busters and mini-nukes — and the related expansion of laboratory capabilities represent vertical proliferation prohibited under the treaty. In addition to providing the other eight nuclear-weapon states, including North Korea, with a powerful incentive to put the reduction of their arsenals on hold and develop similar new nuclear weapons, these activities give the 180 non-nuclear-weapon states an equally powerful incentive to break their non-proliferation commitment under the treaty and start working toward the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Recently discovered nuclear weapons programs in Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and possibly Iran underscore this logic.

    One cannot go around with a cigarette in one’s mouth, asking the rest of the world not to smoke. Yet this is precisely what the United States is doing. Only the total elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide in compliance with legal commitments under the treaty and under the strict control of the International Atomic Energy Agency can stop nuclear proliferation. New nuclear weapons research and design programs, combined with the expansion of nuclear weapons labs, undermine the international non-proliferation regime, stimulate the spread of nuclear weapons, and enhance the risk of these horrific weapons actually being used.

    The impending expiration of its lab oversight contracts with the Department of Energy offers UC [University of California] a unique opportunity to disengage from aiding and abetting in the violation of international law and the potential commission of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws of war. Conversely, successful bids for the continued management of Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Labs could mean that UC and its weapons scientists may one day be sued under emerging international criminal law.

    *Urs Cipolat is a lecturer on Law, Ethics and Science at UC Berkeley. He serves as program director at the Global Security Institute in San Francisco.

  • Let Us Think Big and Create a Department of Peace

    2004 Commencement Address at Pomona College

    Quite some years ago I gave a commencement address at Brandeis University which I thought was rather successful — possibly even brilliant. But I received a letter shortly thereafter from a distinguished alumnus of that University. He chastised me for not being more optimistic — for not inspiring the graduates with my hopes for the future into which they were venturing.

    I pondered the criticism and was concerned that I had, somehow let that graduating class down. And then I came to my conclusion: It was certainly true that I had not given them a rousing pep talk but, what the devil — I knew I had spoken the truth as I saw it. The speech was given at the depths of one of the most tortured decades in American history. It was the decade of the 1960’s — almost as divisive as the Civil War a century before — a nation torn by the battles for civil rights and women’s rights — the assassinations, the Vietnam war — an economic slump. There wasn’t much to be optimistic about.

    Well, here we are at Pomona , almost a half century later, and as we look around us, the world into which you are moving doesn’t look very much brighter.

    We are plagued with the Iraq war — a possibly improving economy — but still a tragically large population of unemployed or under-employed — and an environmental crisis that threatens the Earth . Here at home we have a collapsing infrastructure of aging bridges and dams — and a highway system badly in need of repair — and, perhaps worst of all, an inadequate educational system (not including Pomona , of course). Incidentally, those educational failures in our lower schools could be vastly reduced by a wage scale for teachers that would lure more of the best and brightest to the profession. And all of this as we face a national deficit that will hobble us through your generation — and very likely that of your children and even grandchildren.

    We have an administration in Washington that has brought us to this condition — and we have a Democratic candidate presumptive who so far has proposed few remedies that offer any specifics that, to this observer at least, promise the necessary new deal in Washington . On the most critical issue, for instance, surely a Democratic brain trust could come up with a peace plan for Iraq that — at least– would give us hope for a reasonably early dignified withdrawal.

    But the Kerry camp may well have been buffaloed by President Bush’s oft-repeated pledge that we won’t “cut and run” from Iraq . We all – and that includes this speaker – when we hear that – double up our fists and say “right on, right on!”

    Of course we don’t want to be seen as a nation of cowards, abandoning the fight we have started when the going gets tough. But let’s examine the proposition more closely. Nobody has seriously proposed that we “cut and run.” That is purely a jingoistic slogan of an administration intent upon playing the patriotic card to camouflage its lack of a plan to extricate us from its errors.

    Is it possible that the “cut and run” stigma has so intimidated the Democratic candidate that he can’t muster the courage to acknowledge that we must leave Iraq and to offer a plan to expedite the departure with honor?

    If that is a sound analysis — the nation can only hope that Senator Kerry soon regains his political courage and offers the electorate an alternative to the administration’s failed Iraq policy.

    So, with all these problems — am I supposed to stand here today and give you a message of unqualified hope for our immediate future? I’m sorry, but that would be outright dishonest. However, let me now render that inspirational message that is expected of commencement speakers.

    All those problems I enumerated before can be solved — or at least mitigated — by an enlightened population and courageous leadership. You — this class of ’04 — are particularly qualified by the education you have received here, to provide both.

    Almost certainly the problem of the most imminent danger is that of the rising threat of terrorism. Military defense is essential, of course – but equally — or perhaps more important — is the job of removing the source of the terrorists’ increasing strength. That source is the envy and the bitterness that the deprived peoples of the world hold for the richer nations — of which we are the foremost.

    Television, incidentally, is to a large degree, responsible for that state of affairs. Around the globe — in their hovels — the impoverished people watch television. Not infrequently — an entire village gathers around a single set run by a bicycle-powered generator.

    And what do they see? To a large part — reruns of American shows depicting a people who want for nothing – not food, clothing nor shelter — a people who live an opulent life beyond imagination. Can we wonder that the jealousy of those villagers — that their discontent — is fodder for radical leaders / who know only violence as a means to even the scales.

    Some might suggest that the solution is to get rid of television. That possibly has some merit, — but I find it a little difficult to agree. The challenge is to bring hope to the world’s depressed people — and thus diminish this source of their unrest.

    The soldiers in this great campaign to achieve a lasting peace — will be those of your generation. Some of you will serve in the rear echelons – the headquarters of those organizations — eleemosynary and profit-oriented — that will be organizing the building of these capitalist and democratic nations –building the power plants, the railroads, the factories that will provide the economic revolution raising the standard of living around the globe.

    Others of you will choose the more challenging and perhaps more adventuresome roles in the front lines. You will choose the course of volunteerism — a civic function of which we Americans are noteworthy. You will go to the world’s far corners to teach others the American philosophy and know-how. For the most part, by your knowledge — so much of it received right here at Pomona — you will inspire the people of the depressed lands.

    All of you, certainly, have been thinking long and hard of your future careers. Many of you, of course, will go on to advanced degrees in law, medicine, business, education. It is my conviction that you can have both — a period of rewarding public service and a successful professional career.

    In fact, the odds are high that you can gain immensely by participating in the campaign for peace — an experience that will profit you handsomely in the work-a-day world. The glory, though, is in playing an important role in history. I urge you not to believe that this dream of peace — and the way to achieve it — is without reality or a solid foundation.

    You will be among those making a major contribution toward achieving what realists would say is impossible – a permanent peace among the peoples of our globe. I happen to believe we’ve got to put idealism on at least an equal footing with practicality. We’re going to make it, we human beings — if we cling to the belief, — if we work for, bringing to reality the achievement of peace.

    Let us think big. An Orwellian thought perhaps – but why not rename the Department of State – that is a meaningless title anyway – why not make it the Department of Peace , to emphasize the identify of a whole new American effort — a full court press toward a new destiny. That destiny, of course, is the establishment and keeping of the peace.

    If we can appropriate so much of our treasure, — those billions and billions of dollars annually, — in developing more efficient means of killing people — surely we should be able to appropriate funding for an equal effort to keep the peace.

    Success in that noble objective will depend on those of your generation who have had the opportunity of an education that equips you to take a leading role in our future – a role that you may begin, and possibly continue, in the public service of our country. And that could include elective office. The biographies of our future leaders may well include the notation….graduated from Pomona College , 2004.

    There is hope for the future, — and to a great degree it rests with you.

    May you have great success in your future endeavors. We wish that for you, and for the future of America – and all humankind.

  • The Role of the United States in Nuclear Disarmament

    An Address to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Symposium
    “Charting a New Course for U.S. Nuclear Policy” Santa Barbara , California

    I approach the subject of the United States’ performance in the nuclear disarmament debate with great respect for the country and a dedication to the facts of nuclear weapons.

    For eight years I lived in this great country and, in fact, three of my children were born here. I have had the opportunity in my professional life of travelling through or visiting all 50 states, and I understand well the energy and creativity of the American people in the arts and sciences, commerce, and outreach to the world. The aspirations for freedom and liberty have been a beacon for the world.

    There are many wonderful things I could say about the United States . But regrettably that is not my task tonight. I have been asked to speak on the United States and nuclear weapons. Here it is not easy to be complimentary.

    Twenty years ago, I was appointed Canada ‘s Ambassador for Disarmament, a job which brought me into close contact with my diplomatic counterparts in many countries, including, of course, a lengthy list of American officials. At various times I chaired the meetings of all Western ambassadors and the U.N. Disarmament Committee. I have written extensively on the 1995 indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the general illegality of nuclear weapons, and the 2000 Review of the NPT, in which all States gave an “unequivocal undertaking” towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons through a program of 13 Practical Steps. I have attended all three meetings of the Preparatory Committee for the 2005 Review of the NPT, the last one concluding six days ago.

    It is clear to me that the Non-Proliferation Treaty, that is to say the cornerstone of the non-proliferation regime, is in crisis. To examine how the crisis came about and what to do about it, we must look at the role of the U.S. While the other declared Nuclear Weapons States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China are all also in contravention of their responsibilities to the NPT, it is the U.S. that sets the pace. The U.S. is the leading military power in the world by far, the lynchpin of NATO, and the dominant voice at the United Nations. With 31 members, the U.S. delegation was the largest at the recent NPT PrepComm. U.S. views deeply affect the policies of all Western nations and Russia .

    The U.S. astounded many delegations at the PrepComm by disowning its own participation in the 2000 consensus that produced the “unequivocal undertaking.” It refused to allow the 2000 Review to be used as a reference point for the 2005 Review. The result was turmoil and a collapse of the PrepComm.

    The Treaty can certainly survive one bad meeting, but that is not the point. What delegates from around the world are deeply concerned about is the U.S. attempt to change the rules of the game. At least before, there was a recognition that the NPT was obtained in 1970 through a bargain, with the Nuclear Weapons States agreeing to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear weapons in return for the non-nuclear states shunning the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Adherence to that bargain enabled the indefinite extension of the Treaty in 1995 and the 13 Practical Steps of 2000. Now the U.S. is rejecting the commitments of 2000 and premising its aggressive diplomacy on the assertion that the problem of the NPT lies not in the actions of the Nuclear Weapons States but in the lack of compliance by states such as North Korea and Iran .

    The whole international community, nuclear and non-nuclear alike, is concerned about proliferation, but the new attempt by the Nuclear Weapon States to gloss over the discriminatory aspects of the NPT, which are now becoming permanent, has caused the patience of the members of the Non-Aligned Movement to snap. They see a two-class world of nuclear haves and have-nots becoming a permanent feature of the global landscape. In such chaos, the NPT is eroding and the prospect of multiple nuclear weapons states, a fear that caused nations to produce the NPT in the first place, is looming once more.

    That is the real point of the NPT crisis today. The crisis has been building through the two previous PrepComms, in 2002 and 2003, but a weak façade of harmony was maintained. Now the fuse has blown.

    Brazil bluntly warned:

    “The fulfillment of the 13 Steps on nuclear disarmament agreed during the 2000 Review Conference have been significantly – one could even say systematically – challenged by action and omission, and various reservations and selective interpretation by Nuclear Weapon States. Disregard for the provisions of Article VI may ultimately affect the nature of the fundamental bargain on which the Treaty’s legitimacy rests.”

    But the U.S. vigorously defended its policies, giving no ground to its critics. From the opening speech by John R. Bolton, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, U.S. representatives insisted that attention not be diverted from the violations of the NPT by would-be nuclear powers “by focusing on Article VI issues that do not exist.” In fact, Assistant Secretary of State Stephen G. Rademaker stated, “there can be no doubt that the United States is in full compliance with its Article VI obligations.” Over the past 15 years, he said, the U.S. has:

    • Reduced over 10,000 deployed strategic warheads to less than 6,000 by December 5, 2001 as required by the START Treaty.
    • Eliminated nearly 90 percent of U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons and reduced the number of types of nuclear systems in Europe from nine in 1991 to just one today.
    • Dismantled more than 13,000 nuclear weapons since 1988.
    • Not produced highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons since 1964 and halted the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons in 1988.
    • Not conducted a nuclear explosive test since 1992.
    • Removed more than 200 tons of fissile material from the military stockpile, enough material for at least 8,000 nuclear weapons.

    These reductions notwithstanding, the U.S. has made clear that nuclear weapons will be maintained to meet “the changing circumstances” in today’s security environment. The Administration is moving ahead with plans to try to convince Congress to approve funding for the development of a new Low-Yield Warhead.

    A March 2004 Report to Congress reveals that the U.S. is employing a double standard concerning compliance with the NPT. Whereas the U.S. wants to move forward into a new generation of nuclear weaponry, it adamantly rejects the attempt of any other state to acquire any sort of nuclear weapon. The U.S. clearly wants to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons; of that there can be no doubt. But it does not want to be questioned on what it regards as its right to maintain enormous stocks (despite numerical reductions) and to keep nuclear weapons as a cornerstone of its military doctrine.

    The U.S. is widely criticized around the world for this double standard. For example, Brazil said at the PrepComm: “One cannot worship at the altar of nuclear weapons and raise heresy charges against those who want to join the sect.” The New Agenda protested imbalanced statements assailing proliferation while remaining mute on the equal responsibility for disarmament by the nuclear powers. South Africa said: “One cannot undermine one part of an agreement and hope that other parts will continue to have the same force, or that others will not in turn attempt to follow the same practice.” New Zealand scorned the present diminishment of the Treaty as a whole and urged the U.S. to at least review its opposition to a nuclear test ban treaty.

    Criticism of U.S. nuclear weapons policies also emanates from important observers within the U.S. A briefing for PrepComm delegates and NGOs was convened by the Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers), which stated that, as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many in Congress “are now so consumed by fear of terrorism that they support policies that would have been unfathomable five years ago.” For example, policies of preemptive nuclear strikes, new “usable” nuclear weapons, and resumption of nuclear testing are now openly discussed in Washington . “The United States finds itself at a crossroads; it stands at the point between re-nuclearization and disarmament.” Daryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, told the briefing that the crisis of the NPT can be attributed to the expanding role of nuclear weapons in U.S. military policy. He said that if Congress does not rein in the Administration, present trend lines will lead to testing of new weapons and re-deployment of 2,400 strategic nuclear weapons after the Moscow Treaty expires in 2012. It was “troubling” that the U.S. contemplated the use of a nuclear weapon in response to a biological or chemical attack.

    A detailed critique of the stand taken by the U.S. at the PrepComm was published in News in Review , a daily record of the PrepComm published by “Reaching Critical Will,” of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Written by Andrew Lichterman and Jacqueline Cabasso of the Western States Legal Foundation, the document gave several examples to show that the U.S. is not in compliance with the NPT: more than 2,000 U.S. strategic nuclear warheads remain on hair-trigger alert, and U.S. Trident submarines continue to patrol the seas at Cold War levels, ready to fire hundreds of the most destructive and precise weapons ever conceived on 15 minutes’ notice. Answering the U.S. claim that it is not developing any new nuclear weapons, the document said:

    “Fact: The 2005 budget provides for upgrades to every nuclear weapon in the U.S. stockpile, requests $336 million to manufacture and certify new plutonium pits, the first stage in a nuclear weapon, requests $28 million for 2005 and $485 million over five years to design a “Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator,” and requests $30 million for Enhanced Test Readiness to reduce the time needed to prepare for and conduct a full-scale underground nuclear test to 18 months.”

    There is no way to reconcile this resurgence of nuclear weapons development ( Germany called it a nuclear “renaissance”) with disarmament. Even as it says it is adhering to the NPT, the U.S. is flouting it. I have come to the conclusion that only a change in attitude by the U.S. Administration can now save the Treaty.

    Many delegations indicated privately that they are waiting to see the future direction of U.S. policy inasmuch as a Presidential election will occur before the 2005 Review. The positions of John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee are being examined. An analysis of his comments shows that Kerry is opposed to the Bush Administration’s plans to develop new nuclear weapons, which Kerry believes “will make America less secure by setting back our country’s longstanding efforts to lead an international non-proliferation regime. It could set off a dangerous new nuclear arms race, while seriously undermining our ability to work with the international community to address nuclear proliferation threats in places like North Korea and Iran .” Instead, Kerry believes the United States should work for the creation of “a new international accord on nuclear proliferation to make the world itself safer for human survival.”

    In terms of concrete measures to advance non-proliferation and disarmament, Kerry supports the CTBT (having opposed Bush’s decision to withdraw), and advocates greater emphasis on securing nuclear stockpiles around the world by extending ongoing American efforts in the former Soviet Union to other countries to ensure fissile materials do not fall into the hands of terrorists. Kerry recognizes the importance of international cooperation in achieving results in non-proliferation, and promotes a multilateral approach, pointing to the shared global interest in preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons. This approach should extend to U.S. Missile Defence programs, which Kerry supports, but believes should be developed in accordance with American treaty obligations, ensuring that American foreign relations are not damaged in the process.

    The election of the U.S. President is not my business. I must direct my efforts and the policies of the Middle Powers Initiative toward dealing with the governments that are in place around the world. Thus the MPI advocates the formation of a new coalition of States determined to save the NPT in 2005. A working partnership of important non-nuclear States must occupy the centre of the nuclear weapons debate and exert its strength in 2005. The beginning of such a partnership exists in the New Agenda Coalition, which was largely responsible for the success of the 2000 Review Conference. The leading non-nuclear States of NATO, such as Canada , Germany , Norway , Belgium , the Netherlands and Italy , must now work closely with the New Agenda to lead the international community toward a positive, if still modest, success in 2005.

    They must stop being cowed by the all-powerful NWS; they must speak up forcefully, in the name of humanity, to the United States , a country that has done much good for the world in other contexts but whose nuclear weapons doctrine is a threat to civilizations everywhere.

    Speaking up takes courage and leadership. The middle power States, which by and large stayed out of the U.S.-led Iraq war, are not lacking in either. They have to make prudential judgments on when to give voice to their concerns.

    It is paradoxical that just when the voice of the public is most needed to move governments on nuclear disarmament, it is most difficult to awaken the public. The public is by no means uncaring about war; they just do not see the connection between retention of nuclear weapons and the likelihood of mass destruction ahead.

    An awakening of the public is, of course, a profound concern of the NGOs, stalwart in the dedication they showed to the issue, many traveling to the PrepComm at their own expense and continually deprived of funding by foundations which have turned their attention elsewhere.

    An awakening of the public is precisely the strategy of Mayor Akiba of Hiroshima in his Emergency Campaign for Mayors For Peace. If the people in the municipalities around the world make their voices heard, the national politicians and diplomats will be quick to get the message.

    The recent comments by Mikhail Gorbachev are especially practical in this instance. Gorbachev says, referring to the panoply of human security issues besetting the world, that he is convinced the citizens of the world need a reformulated “glasnost” to invigorate, inform and inspire them to put the staggering resources of our planet and our knowledge to use for the benefit of all.

    The empowerment of peoples is needed to address the dominance of short-term interests and lack of transparency where the planet’s fate is being decided by what to do about nuclear weapons.

    Gorbachev says he has faith in humankind. “It is this faith that has allowed me to remain an active optimist.”

  • Bremer Knew, Minister Claims

    Iraq’s first human rights minister launched a blistering attack yesterday on America’s chief administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, saying that he had warned him repeatedly last year that US soldiers were abusing Iraqi detainees.

    In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Abdel Bassat Turki, who resigned a month ago, said he informed Mr Bremer last November and again in December of the rampant abuse in US military prisons. “He listened very well. But that was all he did,” he added.

    Dr Turki also claimed that he had received “information” of abuses committed against prisoners “just this week”, but refused to give details.

    Following allegations of abuse, he said, he had asked for permission to visit Abu Ghraib prison last November – the month the photos were taken of US guards abusing naked Iraqi inmates. But Mr Bremer refused his request.

    In December, a month before the US military set up its own secret inquiry into Abu Ghraib, he telephoned Mr Bremer to complain about the treatment of female detainees.

    “They had been denied medical treatment. They had no proper toilet. They had only been given one blanket, even though it was winter,” he said.

    Dr Turki’s claims heap embarrassment on the US-led coalition and the Pentagon, and suggest both had been aware of the widespread abuse much earlier than previously admitted. Dan Senor, Paul Bremer’s spokesman, told the Guardian that Mr Bremer only found out about the “humiliation” of prisoners in January.

    Yesterday Dr Turki said that in March he and other US-appointed ministers had demanded an investigation after a US soldier raped a woman prisoner, documented by Major General Antonio Taguba in his report on Abu Ghraib.

    “We were told this matter would be dealt with in secret, and with only Americans attending,” he said.

    Originally published in The Guardian

  • Cold Turkey

    Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.

    But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

    ————————-

    When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.

    Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.

    I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express . It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.

    Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.

    I have to say that’s a pretty good sound bite, almost as good as, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, 500 years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.

    The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.

    But back to people, like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, who’ve said how we could behave more humanely, and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorites is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this:

    Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:

    As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
    As long as there is a criminal element, I’m of it.
    As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

    Doesn’t anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?

    How about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?

    Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

    Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

    Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

    And so on.

    Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.
    For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

    “Blessed are the merciful” in a courtroom? “Blessed are the peacemakers” in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

    ————————-

    There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

    But, when you stop to think about it, only a nut case would want to be a human being, if he or she had a choice. Such treacherous, untrustworthy, lying and greedy animals we are!

    I was born a human being in 1922 A.D. What does “A.D.” signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that.

    Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?

    No problem. That’s entertainment. Ask the devout Roman Catholic Mel Gibson, who, as an act of piety, has just made a fortune with a movie about how Jesus was tortured. Never mind what Jesus said.

    During the reign of King Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England, he had a counterfeiter boiled alive in public. Show biz again.

    Mel Gibson’s next movie should be The Counterfeiter . Box office records will again be broken.

    One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

    ————————-

    And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 A.D., have to say about the human record so far? He said, “History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.”

    The same can be said about this morning’s edition of the New York Times .

    The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, wrote, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

    So there’s another barrel of laughs from literature. Camus died in an automobile accident. His dates? 1913-1960 A.D.

    Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade .

    But I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren’t crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls’ basketball.

    Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

    Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:

    I often think it’s comical
    How nature always does contrive
    That every boy and every gal
    That’s born into the world alive
    Is either a little Liberal
    Or else a little Conservative.

    Which one are you in this country? It’s practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other? If you aren’t one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.

    If some of you still haven’t decided, I’ll make it easy for you.

    If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal.
    If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative.

    What could be simpler?

    ————————-

    My government’s got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

    One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.

    Other drunks have seen pink elephants.

    And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.

    We’re spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call “Native Americans.”

    How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.

    So let’s give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That’ll teach bin Laden a lesson he won’t soon forget. Hail to the Chief.

    That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you’ll be asked to repay.

    Nobody let out a peep when they did that to you, because they have disconnected every burglar alarm in the Constitution: The House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the free press (which, having been embedded, has forsaken the First Amendment) and We the People.

    About my own history of foreign substance abuse. I’ve been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn’t seem to do anything to me, one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then, and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.

    I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.

    But I’ll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver’s license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.

    And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

    When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won’t be any more of those. Cold turkey.

    Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn’t like TV news, is it?

    Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

    And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on.

  • Nuclear Hero’s ‘Crime’ Was Making Us Safer

    Mordechai Vanunu is the preeminent hero of the nuclear era. He consciously risked all he had in life to warn his own country and the world of the true extent of the nuclear danger facing us. And he paid the full price, a burden in many ways worse than death, for his heroic act — for doing exactly what he should have done and what others should be doing.

    Vanunu’s “crime” was committed in 1986, when he gave the London Sunday Times a series of photos he had taken within the Israeli nuclear weapons facility at Dimona, where he had worked as a technician.

    For that act — revealing that his country’s program and stockpile were much larger than the CIA or others had estimated — Vanunu was kidnapped from the Rome airport by agents of the Israeli Mossad and secretly transported back for a closed trial in which he was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

    He spent the first 11 1/2 years in solitary confinement in a 6-by-9-foot cell, an unprecedented term of solitary under conditions that Amnesty International called “cruel, inhuman and degrading.”

    Now, after serving his full term, he is due to be released today. But his “unfreedom” is to be continued by restrictions on his movements and his contacts: He cannot leave Israel, he will be confined to a single town, he cannot communicate with foreigners face to face or by phone, fax or e-mail (purely punitive conditions because any classified information that he may have possessed is by now nearly two decades old).

    The irony of all this is that no country in the world has a stronger stake than Israel in preventing nuclear proliferation, above all in the Middle East. Yet Israel’s secret nuclear policies — to this day it does not acknowledge that it possesses such weapons — are shortsighted and self-destructive. They promote rather than block proliferation by encouraging the country’s neighbors to develop their own, comparable weapons.

    This will not change without public mobilization and democratic pressure, which in turn demand public awareness and discussion. It was precisely this that Vanunu sought to stimulate.

    Not in Israel or in any other case — not that of the U.S., Russia, England, France, China, India or Pakistan — has the decision to become a nuclear weapons state ever been made democratically or even with the knowledge of the full Cabinet. It is likely that in an open discussion not one of these states could convince its own people or the rest of the world that it had a legitimate reason for possessing as many warheads as the several hundred that Israel allegedly has (far beyond any plausible requirement for deterrence).

    More Vanunus are urgently needed. That is true not only in Israel but in every nuclear weapons state, declared and undeclared. Can anyone fail to recognize the value to world security of a heroic Pakistani, Indian, Iraqi, Iranian or North Korean Vanunu making comparable revelations?

    And the world’s need for such secret-telling is not limited to citizens of what nuclear weapons states presumptuously call rogue nations. Every nuclear weapons state has secret policies, aims, programs and plans that contradict its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the 1995 Declaration of Principles agreed to at the NPT Renewal Conference. Every official with knowledge of these violations could and should consider doing what Vanunu did.

    That is what I should have done in the early ’60s based on what I knew about the secret nuclear planning and practices of the United States when I consulted at the Defense Department, on loan from the Rand Corp., on problems of nuclear command and control. I drafted the Secretary of Defense Guidance to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the general nuclear war plans, and the extreme dangers of our practices and plan were apparent to me.

    I now feel derelict for wrongfully keeping secret the documents in my safe revealing this catastrophically reckless posture. But I did not then have Vanunu’s example to guide me.

    When I finally did have an example in front of me — that of young Americans who were choosing to go to prison rather than participate in what I too knew was a hopeless, immoral war — I was inspired in 1971 to turn over a top- secret history of presidential lies about the war in Vietnam to 19 newspapers. I regret only that I didn’t do it earlier, before the bombs started falling.

    Vanunu should long since have been released from solitary and from prison, not because he has “suffered enough” but because what he did was the correct and courageous thing to do in the face of the foreseeable efforts to silence and punish him.

    The outrageous and illegal restrictions proposed to be inflicted on him when he finally steps out of prison after 18 years should be widely protested and rejected, not only because they violate his fundamental human rights but because the world needs to hear this man’s voice.

    The cult and culture of secrecy in every nuclear weapons state have endangered humanity and continues to threaten its survival. Vanunu’s challenge to that wrongful and dangerous secrecy must be joined worldwide.

    Daniel Ellsburg is a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council.

  • What is a Nation? What is a State? Exploring Minority Rights and their Limits

    (April 9-10, City College of Santa Barbara, “Tribes, Sects, Cultures, & Sovereign States: Group/Minority Rights or Individual Rights, of Both?”)

    I welcome this opportunity to participate in a conference devoted to what has become one of the two most tormented arenas of political violence in the world today. The two arenas are significantly interrelated. Our focus during these two days on the dynamics of various forms of fragmentation internal to the sovereign state, can be understood as a fundamental challenge to the normative program of establishing an effective human rights regime applicable to all persons. The resulting tension is generating multiple crises of identity, authority, and loyalty that can often not be resolved peacefully. Of course, the second arena of challenge is associated with issues posed by 9/11 and the American recourse to a “Great Terror War” as an inevitable response, the chief characteristics of which is to define “terror” to encompass all anti-state political violence and to include a strategy of regime change to promote the project of global domination under the anti-terrorist banner.

    The Iraq War dramatically highlights the interaction between domestic fragmentation in the aftermath of authoritarian rule with the political impossibilities of imposed democracy as the solution for nation and state in Iraq as a member of international society. With deep irony, the American project of regime change in Iraq has turned a previously Draconian Iraqi state into a scene of multiple terrorism, associated with religious extremism, national resistance, and the state terrorism of the occupiers. The most likely futures for Iraq under these circumstances are the resumption in some form of Sunni authoritarianism, the outbreak of civil war, the emergence of a Shi’ia Islamic Republic, or a prolonged and bloody American occupation that is likely to exert unpredictable shocks here in the United States, making the tumult of the Vietnam Era seem mild by comparison. In other words, this conference is addressing issues that are already shaking the foundations of world order in a manner that I would argue are more profound than anything that has happened for several hundred years (with the possible exception of the advent of nuclear weaponry). We lack an appropriate political language to understand and a political leadership with the capacity for creative and constructive response. We confront a dire set of circumstances in Iraq that do not contain credible positive options for a favorable end game at present.

    But even before this lethal brew arising out of 9/11 and its misguided plunge into a cycle of perpetual warfare, the issues associated with the conference were made highly relevant by several prominent developments in the 1990s: the ending of the cold war, which gave rise to a new surge of nationalism that had been previously largely concealed within the sinews of authoritarian states. This was especially the case in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. In the Soviet instance, the collapse of Soviet control over its internal empire of republics containing a variety of minority peoples was essentially unopposed, but political violence erupted at the next lower level of political organization, and persists in a variety of settings, including Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere in Central Asia. In the Yugoslav instance, the tension between a normative order premised on the territorial unity of the state and an emergent set of normative claims associated with the application of the right of self-determination in non-colonial settings produced a series of severe ethnic wars during the 1990s with extensive killing fields, mixed outcomes, persisting turmoil.

    The normative debate surrounding Kosovo discloses some of the larger issues at stake, as well as suggesting the elusiveness of solutions dependent on outside intervention and subsequent occupation under international auspices. In this instance, under the combined authority of the NATO KFOR peacekeeping presence and the United Nations post-conflict administrative control over political and economic reconstruction of a Kosovo, producing a continuously tense condition of de facto independence. It will be recalled that back in 1999 the justification for the Kosovo War, conducted without any proper prior authorization by the UNSC, was the protection of the Albanian majority population from oppressive Serbian domination, which included a variety of allegation of serious human rights abuses, and the expectation that far worse was in the offing, designed at the very least to induce coercively a proportion of the Albanian population to flee the country.

    There were many ambiguities associated with this NATO undertaking, especially the irony of embracing the KLA, which in the subsequent Bush/Sharon period would qualify without doubt as a “terrorist organization.” But there were other disturbing aspects of recourse to war in Kosovo: deep suspicions that the US Government was not interested in achieving a diplomatic solution, indications of mixed motives in Washington, including finding a role for NATO in the period after the cold war, and assurances that the US would stay involved in European affairs. Beyond this, the conduct of the Kosovo War by its reliance on high-altitude bombing, the extension of the target list to include civilian targets in Belgrade, the provocative bombing of the Chinese Embassy, the use of depleted uranium ordinance, the absence of any combat casualties on the NATO side were among the elements that cast a long dark shadow across the humanitarian pretensions of the operation.

    Since the end of the active hostilities, there have been a series of difficulties, but most relevant for our purposes, has been a pattern of what has been called “reverse ethnic cleansing” in which the new category of victims have become the remnants of the Serb minority that continues to live in Kosovo, and were ethnically identified with the former perpetrators. The persistence of de facto independence for Kosovo also seems to violate an earlier UN pledge that its engagement with Kosovo would not challenge the sovereign unity of Serbia, which had been the lead republic in the former federated state of Yugoslavia. Kosovo is an example of third-order self-determination claims, considering movements against alien or colonial rule as first-order claims, independence for the autonomous units in a federal state as second-order claims, and positing sovereignty claims by indigenous peoples as fourth-order claims. Although it is dangerous to be dogmatic, and not sensitive to context, third-order self-determination claims seem to be fraught with difficulties, especially if the proposed independent territorial community includes an important minority that is ethnically or religiously associated with the former sovereign state.

    The conceptual issue can be understood as follows: when does ‘a minority’ qualify as ‘a nation’ or ‘a people’ (the language used to designate the holder of the right of self-determination in international law) and when should ‘a nation’ be entitled to form ‘a state’ even at the cost of fragmenting a former state? And there is the related issue posed relating to humanitarian intervention or, as the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, phrased it, an exercise of “The Responsibility to Protect” by the organized international community, that is, the United Nations? Kosovo illuminates the dilemmas

    associated with this theme of nationhood verse statehood as the basis of political community. If a minority feels beleaguered and discriminated against, and does not succumb to assimilation, it will often tend to form a defensive nationalism as a mode of cultural survival. This is especially true if the minority is geographically distinct, speaks a separate language, adheres to a different religion, and has sufficient numbers to consider itself capable of becoming a viable independent political entity. Under these circumstances, the unity of the state is likely to be drawn into question, and the dominant elites will be inclined to tighten their control over such a restive minority, which in turn radicalizes still further separatist tendencies. As a result, quite often armed struggles occur, which can produce prolonged political violence with much suffering and bloodshed. Looking around the world at places such as Sudan, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Colombia, parts of Indonesia, to mention a few of the more prominent instances, it is obvious that this tension between national consciousness and state unity is one of the great divisive forces active in the world with no happy ending in sight.

    Whether the engagement of the international community is a plus or minus depends on the circumstances. There seems to be little doubt that from an Albanian perspective, the NATO intervention was welcome, ending the Serb oppressive rule, attracting back almost all of the hundreds of thousands of Albania refugees who had fled the country, producing a UN presence that created space in Kosovo for a potential economic recovery and the possible construction of a political democracy. To date, these hopes have not been realized. Further, even if the record in Kosovo after the intervention had been more encouraging we need to pose a decisive question from the perspective of shaping global policy: did the Kosovo War produce a precedent that can give rise, with adjustments for circumstances, to a principled framework that would operate in other roughly comparable settings?

    This past week was the tenth anniversary of the terrible genocide that took as many as 800,000 mainly Tutsi lives in Rwanda while an authorized UN protective presence stood by paralyzed and unaugmented, despite strong advance warnings of what was being contemplated by the Hutu rulers. It is well-documented that the great champions of humanitarian intervention earlier in the Balkans and more recently in Iraq, Great Britain and the United States, used the full extent of their political leverage to inhibit a UN protective role in Rwanda as the genocidal pattern started to unfold back in 1994. In this respect, the Rwandan case stands out as the clearest case where there existed an international responsibility to protect, a duty to respond to imminent humanitarian emergencies, if at all possible, on the basis of a proper mandate from the UN Security Council. As a practical matter, to avoid the Kosovo dilemma, it would be a beneficial reform in such situations in the future, if the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, would formally, or at least informally, waive their right of veto in circumstances of humanitarian emergency. Of course, there is an inevitable gray area. Opponents of the Kosovo intervention argue to this day that no such humanitarian emergency existed at the time, that the allegations of atrocity were partially fabricated, and that diplomatic options had not been tried with due diligence by the US Government, which evidence shows was hell bent on war.

    It is also important to mention the case of Somalia, where a humanitarian undertaking, with UN backing, was quickly terminated in 1993 when a firefight in Mogadishu cost 18 American lives. In that instance, the American-led peacekeepers had initially been welcomed by the people of the country when it appeared that the UN mission was to bring food and medicine to a suffering population in what was then described as “a failed state.” Failed or not, when the Clinton presidency expanded the original mission undertaken two years earlier by Bush, Sr. to include state-building, which meant choosing political leaders. The unresolved struggle for power in Somalia among the ethnic factions that suddenly felt marginalized and threatened quickly morphed into a frenzy of opposition against the international presence recast as “intruders.” At the time, American officials tried to invalidate this opposition by calling the resistance to the US-led presence as the work of corrupt and greedy “war lords,” which seemed a way of denying the people of Somalia first-order self-determination in the face of chaotic circumstances. Interestingly, in the setting of Iraq we seek increasingly to invalidate the growing resistance by describing its partisans as “remnants of the Baathist regime,” “dead-enders,” “thugs and criminals,” and whatever other delegitimizing labels our leaders can conjure up to justify the persistence of an occupation that is more and more deeply resented by all sectors of Iraqi society, with the possible exception of the Kurds.

    It is not plausible to discuss this range of concerns without a few comments on the Israel/Palestine conflict, whose persistence has for so longer challenged the conscience of humanity. From the perspective of the conceptual concerns of this essay the conflict passed through a series of phases, omitting any discussion of its deeper historical roots that stretch back to biblical times, yet give resonance to conflicting present expectations of the right to the contested land. The present shape of the struggle evolved out of a period following World War I when Palestine was a Mandate of the League of Nations, administered as a unified territory under British administrative control in their role as Mandatory authority. Within the mandate, there lived a Palestinian nation and a rather small Jewish minority, aspiring to become a ‘homeland’ for world Jewry in accordance with the promise given by the Balfour Declaration to the world Zionist movement in 1917. In 1948, amid growing tensions between the two peoples, greatly aggravated by the spillover into Palestine of the wider effects of The Holocaust, the United Nations decreed a partition of Palestine that would have provided two states for the two nations. This plan was repudiated by the Arab governments that launched a war designed to resist Israeli statehood, but leading to an Israeli victory and the expulsion from a large part of the Palestinian territory of its Palestinian residents, producing a huge refugee population. In this period, the Palestinians lived in the area of the West Bank under Jordanian administrative control, in effect, a captive nation, with a residual number of Palestinians living as a minority in Israel.

    Since 1967, the Palestinian nation in the West Bank and Gaza has been living under harsh conditions of a prolonged occupation, agitated by the two intifadas and the Israeli repressive responses. From time to time a “peace process” has been initiated, most notably for seven years during the 1990s, with the aim of producing, or in effect, resurrecting the two-state solution proposed decades earlier by the UN, but now confining the Palestinian state to some 22% of the original mandatory territory, restricting drastically the rights of Palestinian refugees, and sustaining the great majority of Israeli settlements established in occupied Palestine in violation of international humanitarian law. In these circumstances, a two-state solution does not offer the Palestinians a fair solution. The alternative that has been discussed at various points has been the establishment of a single, secular bi-national state covering the entire territory of Palestine as it existed under the mandate. Israel refuses to consider such an outcome, both because it would mean the end of the Zionist conception of a Jewish state, and because it would cede too much authority to the Palestinians, especially in view of their demographic majority.

    The outside role of the United States has been decisive, but not helpful from the perspective of finding a sustainable peace. The US approach, rooted as much in domestic ethnic politics as in grand strategy, has accentuated the disparity in power between the two parties, and has made it seem unnecessary for Israel to base peace on the ‘rights’ of the Palestinians under international law rather than on ‘the facts on the ground’ and their military superiority and diplomatic leverage. The ordeal of this unresolved conflict underscores the dependence of global justice on geopolitical circumstances.
    What stands out from a review of these instances is precisely the primacy of geopolitics, by which is meant the way in which the particular struggle relates to the strategic designs of major political actors. In a unipolar world, geopolitics has become virtually indistinguishable from US foreign policy. Somalia was of marginal or no strategic interest, and the intervention was hence very shallow, and easily reversed in the face of national resistance. Rwanda, even more so, was not viewed as strategically relevant, and against the background of the Somalia experience of a year earlier, all the incentives were to turn aside the humanitarian emergency. Kosovo was, as earlier suggested, a mixed case, with strategic incentives sufficient to provide a realist underpinning to what was proclaimed to be a humanitarian intervention. At the time, a critic such as Noam Chomsky voiced his dissent by repudiating the humanitarian rationale, calling the operation “military humanism,” arguing that if the humanitarian motivations were genuine then the US would have flexed its muscles with respect to the embattled Kurdish minority in Turkey, and elsewhere.

    I think an assessment of this pattern of action and inaction is more complicated than Chomsky would have us believe. I would differ from Chomsky on Kosovo, regarding the factual circumstances in Kosovo that existed in 1999, especially against the background of the Bosnian experience culminating in the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, as presenting the international community with a genuine humanitarian emergency. I would further argue, which is admittedly controversial, that the mixed motives associated with American strategic interests in keeping NATO alive and Europe stable, made it more likely that the interventionary undertaking would not be as shallow and fragile as in Somalia and elsewhere in subSaharan Africa, and therefore it had a reasonable prospect of being effective.

    Applying this reasoning to Iraq, we notice, first of all, that there was no current humanitarian emergency, and that the humanitarian rationale was almost entirely a post-hoc effort to divert attention from the false security claims associated with alleged Iraqi possession of illicit stockpiles of WMD. But we further notice that the strategic stakes for the United States in Iraq are huge, and that however formidable the resistance to the American-led occupation has become, it is dismissed as irrelevant to the American engagement. The United States is suffering increasingly heavily casualties, but we have yet to hear a single mainstream voice utter a word in support of a Somalian exit strategy, or even a Vietnam exit strategy based on some sort of negotiated phased withdrawal.

    The aftermath of the Iraq War has brought to the turbulent surface the various tensions that I have been describing and commenting upon. It illustrates the degree to which nationalism under siege from alien sources can produce a strong unifying effect even in the face of deep religious and ethnic cleavages, at least temporarily, among internal groupings that had previously viewed each other as implacable and hostile adversaries. A cartoon in the LA Times by Mike Keefe makes this point rather vividly. The visual parts of the cartoon shows Sunnis and Shiites fighting together against the American occupiers. The caption reads: “Hey, Mission Accomplished..We’ve unified Iraq!” A primary lesson of the Vietnam War, apparently unlearned so far in the Iraq setting, is that whenever a national resistance becomes unified and resolved, it will over time prevail over even a militarily superior and determined intervening great power. Of course, the strategic motives were always suspect in Vietnam, causing leading realists of the day such as Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan to oppose the war from the outset. With respect to Iraq, too, there was a chorus of realist opposition in the period leading up to the Iraq War, but because the strategic consequences are so large, there is a far greater uncertainty at least at this stage as to what to do next. And also, with Vietnam, there was a coherent alternative to the American presence. In Iraq there has been an assumption that any hasty removal of the American presence would lead to a bloody struggle for power that would produce dangerous regional effects.

    In another important respect, the Iraq conflict increasingly illustrates the confusing reality of “nationalism.” If we look at Turkey, we can easily posit the 12 million Kurdish minority as “a captive nation” (especially, the six million or so Kurds living in eastern Anatolia); that is, a nationalism that is suppressed by the state. This reality is somewhat disguised by the misleading juridical claim that the Turkish state confers a Turkish nationalist identity on the entire population regardless of their preferred nationalist and ethnic identity. The great Turkish nation-builder, Kemal Ataturk, insisted in this vein that the Kurds were “mountain Turks,” and should be assimilated into the general population without any deference to autonomy claims or even cultural rights associated with language and traditions. There is thus a tension between nationalist aspirations of minorities and the statist aspirations of Turkish Kemalism. There is some prospect that the current less statist leadership in Turkey, the soft Islamic Ak Party, can revive the Ottoman practices of internal tolerances toward minorities, allowing Kurdish cultural rights to flourish and granting a strong measure of regional autonomy and self-administration in eastern Anatolia where at least half of the Kurdish minority is geographically concentrated.

    But if we now look back at Iraq one last time, we can take some account of the various religious and ethnic factions that supposedly divide the country. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was governed as an authoritarian state that oppressed both its Shi’ia majority and its Kurdish and Turkaman minorities. There was surely a Kurdish nationalist tendency seeking a separate political reality or, at minimum, internal self-determination based on an autonomous status, but these aspirations were opposed not only by Baghdad, but by regional forces threatened by Kurdish independence movements. Nationalism as a psycho-political reality was at odds with juridical nationalism handed down from above at the level of the state. Oddly, at this point, in the face of the American occupation, there is the possibility that juridical nationalism will command the loyalties of the entire Iraqi population, with the probable notable exception of the Kurds, and create in Iraq that previously unimaginable stabilizing fusion between the state and the nation at least for as long as the interventionary presence of the United States remains the defining preoccupation of the Iraqi people and their most influential leaders.

    If this fusion should occur, it will convert the Iraq War from its notorious status of last May of “mission accomplished” to a new tragic circumstance from a Washington perspective of “mission impossible.” Whether and how soon the United States discovers the reservoirs of moral and political imagination to extricate itself from this mission impossible remains to be seen. It may in the end depend on the oppositional prudence of the American citizenry rather than upon their elected representatives, who continue to act as sheep, not as responsible upholder of American interests, custodians of constitutional obligations, and promoters of the public good at home and abroad.

    In summary, I would like to offer several briefly stated conclusions:

    (1) It is important to acknowledge that the national aspirations of abused minorities (or in some instances of majorities) will not be realized by the benefits of juridical nationalism conferred on all citizens by the legal fiat of the territorial government;

    (2) The emergence of human rights as a focus of international concern poses a subversive challenge to the territorial supremacy of sovereign states;

    (3) The option of humanitarian intervention on behalf of abused minorities is unlikely to be effectively undertaken in the absence of accompanying strategic interests, and should be endorsed by the United Nations and world public opinion only in extreme cases;

    (4) The main justification for such protective international action should be premised on a condition of a current humanitarian emergency, which is not established by a record of past abuses, even if severe, or by the present fact of dictatorial rule;

    (5) In the absence of such a humanitarian emergency, interventions that claim humanitarian goals are likely to clash with nationalist goals, even those at the level of the state, and provoke nationalist resistance;

    (6) Nationalist resistance, especially if unified and coherently led, is not susceptible to military defeat, although the resisters and the civilian population may endure huge casualties and prolonged suffering;

    (7) The future of democracy and the promotion of individual and collective human rights should depend on the internal political processes of sovereign states, encouraged by educational ‘intervention’ in support of the values of human dignity for the foreseeable future;

    (8) Adherence to the norm of non-intervention, including by regional international institutions and the United Nations, seems desirable outside of the exceptional circumstances of a humanitarian emergency.

  • The Iraq War and the Future of International Law

    (From The American Society of International Law’s 98th Annual Meeting, Mapping New Boundaries: Shifting Norms in International Law. March 31-April 3, 2004)

    The timing of this panel, a year after the initiation of the Iraq War, is not too soon to assess, if tentatively, the impact of this globally controversial war upon international law. My assessment is organized around five questions that deserve responses at this point:

    –Should the Iraq War be treated as a defining moment for international law?

    –Should the refusal to endorse the Iraq War be regarded as a triumphant moment for the United Nations, especially the Security Council?

    –Can the Iraq War be interpreted as an illegal, but legitimate war of choice?

    –Should the legal norm of nonintervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states be abandoned?

    –Does the Iraq War provide an occasion for incorporating new norms of international law governing the use of force?

    My response to each of these questions is a resounding ‘no,’ and the remainder of this brief presentation will give the essential reasoning behind the answer.

    I. Should the Iraq War be treated as a defining moment for international law? No.

    There is some temptation to contend that the Iraq War was a defining moment for international law and for the authority of the United Nations. It could be argued, of course, that the Iraq War vindicates non-defensive wars of choice, and that UN opposition has made, as President Bush warned in his speech to the General Assembly of September 12, 2002, the organization “irrelevant.” But such a temptation is easily resisted.

    Recourse to war against Iraq in March 2003 on the facts and allegations that existed at the time is regarded around the world as so flagrantly at odds with international law and the UN Charter as generally understood to have little or no weight as a legal precedent. It is better understood as a prominent instance of a violation of the core obligation of the UN Charter, as embodied in Article 2(4), and as such qualifies as a potential Crime Against Peace in the Nuremberg sense. It provides an occasion to reaffirm the fundamentally sound idea embodied in international law that force can only legally be used under conditions of palpable defensive necessity (or possibly on the basis of an explicit mandate from the Security Council). Note that defensive necessity is broader than “self-defense,” and does take realistic account of the post-9/11 world that could validate preemptive uses of force against under exceptional conditions of demonstrated threat. The Afghanistan War might qualify under such legal reasoning as a valid claim of defensive necessity. It is worth noting that several of the staunchest supporters of the Iraq War as a matter of strategic and moral necessity, such as the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the influential American neoconservative, Richard Perle, have acknowledged that respect for international law was unwarranted to the extent that it would have precluded the Iraq War. In effect, the most articulate advocates of the Iraq War concede, either implicitly or explicitly, either its “illegality” or that if “regime change” of this sort was precluded then it was “bad law.” It is notable in this regard that the Bush administration made only the most minimal effort to provide a legal rationale for the Iraq War, and based its public justifications on a confusing mixture of security and humanitarian rationales. And as for the irrelevance of the UN, the difficulties of the occupation have led increasingly even the Bush administration to seek UN help in bringing stability to Iraq.

    Shifting ground, I would argue that if the Iraq War would have turned out to be successful as a political project, it might well have been a defining moment for American foreign policy and the character of world order. It could become a precedent for American unilateralism within the context of recourse to war and for regime-changing interventions. If this pattern were to be established it would have produced what might be called a geopolitical norm, that is, a use of power in a predictable pattern to achieve specified goals. The main feature of such a norm would be a repudiation of the authority of international law and the UN Charter by state practice that violates a consensus that joins the views of the majority of states and world public opinion.

    At present, the U.S. Government seems to be claiming the role of being the legislative agency for the creation of geopolitical norms, reinforced by ad hoc coalitions of the willing, in at least two areas impinging on the legal norms governing the use of force: (1) intervention in sovereign states to achieve regime change; (2) selective coercive pressure to promote counter-proliferation goals beyond the mandate of the non-proliferation treaty regime. To the extent that these geopolitical norms are acted upon it represents a fundamental shift from world order based on the principles of territorial sovereignty to a world order based on hegemonic edict. Such a world is best denominated as an imperial world order, and would likely be challenged by statist and non-statist forms of armed resistance.

    II. Should the refusal to endorse the Iraq War by the United Nations, especially the Security Council, be viewed as a triumphant moment? No.

    Many opponents of the Iraq War have praised the UNSC for remaining steadfast in the face of formidable U.S. pressure to provide a formal mandate for the initiation of a regime-changing war against Iraq. I agree that the Security Council deserves some credit for this result, but I would argue that it did only about 25% of the job entrusted to it by the UN Charter. If the American-led claims against Iraq were evaluated from the perspective of international law or by reference to the war prevention goals of the Charter, then the UN performance was still 75% or so deficient.

    There are several dimensions of this deficiency: (1) The UN imposed on Iraq a punitive peace via SC Res. 687 (3 April 1991) comparable in the setting of the Gulf War to the discredited Versailles approach to Germany after World War I; (2) The UN lent its authority to twelve plus years of punitive sanctions against Iraq (1991-2001) despite evidence of indiscriminate, severe harm to the Iraqi civilian population; (3) The UN did not censure the United States or the United Kingdom for repeated threats and uses of force that intruded upon the sovereign rights of Iraq in this same period; (4) SC Res. 1441 (8 Nov 2002) adopted the main premises of the American geopolitical norms relating to counter-proliferation and regime change, seemingly suggesting that if Washington had been more patient the endorsement of recourse to war would likely have been forthcoming.

    In the background of the UN role with respect to the Iraq War are some important issues of an admittedly hypothetical character. Suppose that the UNSC had authorized the Iraq War, would that make it ‘legal’? Is the UN legally entitled to endorse what would be otherwise considered to be a war of aggression without such an endorsement? Who is authorized to make such a determination if there is no judicial review of Security Council decisions, as seems to be the implication of the World Court judgment in Lockerbie? It seems reasonable that only the General Assembly has some sort of residual responsibility to assess whether the Security Council has acted beyond the constitutional limits imposed by the UN Charter, but it lacks the power of decision, and its judgment would be only an expression of opinion.

    III. Can the Iraq War be interpreted as an illegal, but legitimate war of choice? No.

    In my view, as suggested, the illegality of recourse to war against Iraq in 2003 was clear. It was also clear before and after the war that there was no reasonable basis for invoking the “illegal, but legitimate” formula developed by the Independent International Commission for Kosovo to deal with an exceptional circumstance of humanitarian emergency. With respect to Iraq, the worst humanitarian abuses were associated with the campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s, and against the Kurds and Shi’ia in southern Iraq immediately following the Gulf War in 1991. Perhaps, a case for humanitarian intervention could have been credibly made in these earlier settings. But the Kosovo exception was bases on the imminence of danger associated with the feared ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population, made credible by Serb behavior in Bosnia just a few years earlier and by the rising tide of atrocities in Kosovo in the months preceding recourse to war under the NATO umbrella, but without a Security Council mandate.

    Given the failure to find weapons of mass destruction of any variety in Iraq and considering the intense resistance to the occupation, there is also no way to maintain convincing that either a condition of defensive necessity or humanitarian emergency existed in Iraq as of 2003. If there was such an emergency it was not attributable to the Baghdad regime, however dictatorial its record, but as a result of UN sanctions and numerous uses of force against Iraq.

    IV. Should the legal norm of nonintervention in internal affairs of sovereign states be abandoned? No.

    The Iraq War along with other experience with interventionary diplomacy suggests that respect for the norm of nonintervention, along with accompanying respect for territorial sovereignty, continues to represent a prudent guideline for statecraft. If the US Government had adhered to such a guideline over the course of the last several decades it would have avoided its two worst foreign policy disasters: The Vietnam War and the Iraq War. Additionally, if it had refrained from regime-changing covert interventions in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954), it might have avoided the Iranian Revolution and the years of atrocity and brutality in Guatemala.

    The Iraq War confirms the wisdom of avoiding interventionary diplomacy unless genuine conditions of defensive necessity or humanitarian emergency exist, and even then caution is appropriate. As the Iraqi resistance confirms, interventionary wars are primarily ‘political’ phenomena, not ‘military,’ and are decided by the play of nationalist, ethnic, and religious passions. It is best to await the dynamics of self-determination to achieve transformative changes in dictatorial states. The experience with Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and South Africa is both instructive and encouraging.

    IV. Does the Iraq War suggest the need for adapting international law to the new conditions of international conflict in the aftermath of 9/11? No.

    From the argument made above, the simple conclusion here is that the Iraq War is an occasion for reaffirming the continuing viability and validity of the legal prohibition on non-defensive uses of force that is contained in the Charter. At the same time, the grave threats posed by the sort of mega-terrorist attacks of 9/11 do justify stretching the right of self-defense to validate uses of force, as necessary, to remove threats associated with non-state actors in the event that the territorial government is unable or unwilling to address the situation decisively and with due urgency. The Afghanistan War, with qualifications, arguably fits within such an expanded conception of self-defense.

  • We Need You

    We Need You

    The Foundation’s overarching goal is to help create a world free of nuclear weapons. In a rational world, this should not be a difficult task. A persuasive case can be made that a nuclear war could destroy civilization and possibly put an end to the human species and most forms of life. At a minimum, the use of these weapons could obliterate cities, including our own. We know what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a result of two small nuclear weapons. Today’s weapons have on average eight times the explosive power of those used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    But, of course, this is not a rational world. It is a world in which fear, denial and irrationality hold high office. It is a world in which international law is trampled on and strategies of “might makes right” are employed far too frequently by national leaders. In our world, many leaders cling to old views of power, failing to realize that in the Nuclear Age, as Einstein pointed out, “everything has changed save our modes of thinking.”

    At a recent Foundation event, a woman asked, “Can an organization like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation make a difference on the issue of eliminating nuclear weapons?” This is an important question. The honest answer is that it is a tough struggle, one in which there are no guarantees of success. In many respects, fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons is an act of faith rooted in a strong belief in a resilient human spirit.

    It is clear that the dangers of the Nuclear Age have not diminished, despite the end of the Cold War. It remains a dangerous world in which the ultimate expression of anger and frustration, a nuclear 9/11 or 3/11, must be prevented. The best way to prevent such an occurrence is to assure that nuclear weapons and materials do not proliferate any further than they already have. The best way assure this is to dramatically reduce the number of these weapons with the goal of their elimination, and to apply international safeguards to both nuclear weapons and materials.

    Achieving a nuclear weapons-free world is a colossal task,one that too many people consider unattainable and therefore not worth the effort. In fact, it is the consequences of not undertaking this effort that makes it so essential. The risks posed by nuclear weapons are far too great to leave to chance or to politicians or generals. They demand a response from the people; they demand our involvement.

    The work of the Foundation is perhaps even more necessary today than it was at
    the height of the Cold War. It is to bring critical issues related to nuclear dangers
    to people everywhere, and to provide quality information, analysis and ideas
    for advocacy. This is the work we engage in daily and the work we have engaged in
    for more than 20 years. Our only chance of success is to work with others to build a movement big enough to impact governments. To do this, we need your active support
    and involvement.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation seeks to be a voice of reason at a critical juncture in human history. This election year we are launching a campaign to Chart a New
    Course in US Nuclear Policy. We need your help. Please add your voice, and help us to extend the Foundation’s reach and its ability to achieve a more rational and caring world, one that we can be proud to pass on to the next generation.

  • The American Disaster in Iraq

    After the bloodiest week in the American occupation of Iraq, the same tired slogans about “seeing it through” and “staying the course” are about all that our leaders seem able to say. Such a paucity of moral and political imagination does not serve well the citizens of this country or of the world, and seems a recipe for a surefire descent further into the political inferno that Iraq is daily becoming. It is fine to wonder aloud whether 9/11 could have prevented by due diligence at the White House, but it is no excuse for not focusing on the least disastrous endgame for Iraq. Let us recall, as the Pentagon Papers demonstrated, that it took American leaders a decade of bloodshed to acknowledge in public the failure that they privately had come to recognize the Vietnam War to have been. It may be up to the American citizenry to shorten the learning cycle this time around, with so much more at stake.

    The steady descent into an American-led foreign policy whirlpool allows us to consider the worst features of the Bush approach to the challenges of world order.

    First of all, unilateralism with respect to waging war in flagrant violation of the UN Charter and international law, underscored by the American president’s arrogant assertion in the 2004 State of the Union Address: “America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our country.”

    Secondly, the mission impossible associated with imposing democracy on a sovereign state by force of arms in defiance of national aspirations. This undertaking is being daily exposed as a recipe for policy failure in Iraq, a country beset by internal religious, ethnic, regional conflicts and a political tradition with zero receptivity to American-style democracy.

    Thirdly, the imperial claim that America embodies the only model for political and economic success. As expressed in the important White House document of September 2002, National Security Strategy of the USA: “The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom– a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise.” All other political arrangements are illegitimate in the eyes of Washington, and it is some pathological version of this model that remains the blueprint for Iraq despite the overwhelming evidence that the Iraqis want to decide their future by themselves, and do not accept either prescriptions for their future whether issued as decrees by the occupiers or by their designated Iraqi representatives on the Iraqi Interim Governing Council.

    And finally, the obsessive preoccupation with the Middle East as the pivot of the American grand design for world domination. The neocons shaping the Bush presidency view strategic control of the region as vital for their conception of global security, which includes oil, safe havens for American private investment, and a lethal partnership with Israel. This was all made clear in their definitive planning document prepared in the months before George W. Bush came to Washington under the auspices of the Project for a New American Century. It is notable in this latter regard, that Israel’s approach to the Palestinians has inspired the tactics and structure of the American occupation of Iraq, with similar results of deepening indigenous resentments and gradually imposing on an oppressed people the stark choice between abject surrender and violent resistance. Also nightly more in evidence is the American use of tanks, missiles, and bombers against unarmed or lightly armed Iraqi resisters.

    As matters stand, there is no favorable endgame for this war. There is not yet in the American political or media mainstream, including the Kerry presidential bid, even a hint of withdrawal. The consensus in Washington is that the stakes are too large to admit failure, and that any hasty departure from Iraq would trigger a vicious civil war with adverse regional effects. At the same time, the much heralded transfer of sovereignty on June 30 seems like a fig leaf designed to disguise the realities of continuing military occupation, and is unlikely either to mean anything substantive about the exercise of authority in Iraq or to fool a single person in Baghdad. To begin with, how can the US Government transfer what it does not possess? Or put another way, if Iraqi sovereignty is a reality, what are American occupying forces doing in the country against the expressed will of the Iraqi people and their authentic representatives? And how are we to explain the current construction of 14 large military bases for US forces designed to accommodate a permanent military presence in the country? This is a terrain of American dreams, Iraqi nightmares!

    So far, the American political leadership has not faced up to the failure of its Iraq policy, and so is paralyzed, caught in a cycle of escalating violence that recalls Vietnam. Because of the strategic importance of Iraq, many think the better analogy is the French prolonged inability to acknowledge defeat in Algeria. It took all the prestige and patriotic credibility of Charles DeGaulle to extricate France, and even then France came perilously close to self-destructing in the aftermath. We here in the United States need to be asking ourselves and others, with a sense of urgency, what will it take to bring the Iraqi disaster to closure.

    On the broader front, the warnings and opportunities associated with the Madrid train bombings of March 11th are instructive. The Spanish citizenry immediately opted in its general elections three days later for an anti-war opposition party, and responded to their 9/11 with the slogan “No to terrorism! No to war!” If only America had displayed such political wisdom. Although it is late, it is not too late. A change in presidential leadership in November, although unlikely to offer much immediate prospect of change, will create some needed political space for moving in new, more constructive directions, and will at least rid the United States and the world of the current extremist worldviews that have given rise to the tragic ordeal of Iraq.