Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: International Issues

  • Missile Defense and Space War Do Not Provide Security Against Terror

    Speech by Juergen Scheffran* at an anti-war demonstration in Berlin, October 13, 2001 (Revised translation from German)

    The events of September 11 have terribly demonstrated how vulnerable our industrial society is. Military lobbyists are using the public fear about terror for their own purposes. They try to convince us that war and new weapons can protect us against terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and missile attacks. They promote the vision of the military controlling outer space in order to counter all threats on earth.

    September 11 marks the complete failure of all security systems of the world’s greatest military power. All intelligence and secret services, expensive reconnaissance satellites and a giant high-technology military arsenal were incapable to detect people from the neighborhood using pocket knifes to convert commercial airliners into weapons of mass destruction. The attempt to achieve security from great distance with most advanced technical systems failed miserably against a determined enemy sitting within society, waiting for the appropriate moment to attack. Contrary to the vision of a high frontier in outer space, in reality the concept of frontier becomes meaningless in an interlinked, globalized and fractal society where the threat can be everywhere and nowhere.

    Nevertheless, US President George W. Bush still believes that his country can be protected by a multi-billion dollar space shield against ballistic missiles from rogue states. His Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is heading towards space weapons to prevent a Pearl Harbor in space. And the US Space Command aims at a comprehensive space dominance to control earth. The intention is to control the information flows around the globe, to achieve the capability to strike everywhere at any time, and to protect against all adverse consequences. A huge network of missile interceptors and laser weapons, military satellites and radars shall detect, pursue and destroy any threat.

    In order to realize these plans Bush has recently nominated the previous director of the Space Command, Richard Myers, to become the leader of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Instead of dreaming visions of space war, Myers now directs the attack on Afghanistan, a country which has been devastated by decades of civil war. People who until now were massacred by swords, knifes and rifles are now being attacked by laser-guided bombs which probably will not hit those responsible for the terror.

    The quest for total security may lead to total control and total war. Missile defense and space dominance feed a dangerous illusion of security which prevents the search for alternatives and real solutions. Those who feel protected against any threat are tempted to continue a miserable globalization policy, to ignore poverty and hunger, environmental destruction and climate change, scarcity of energy and water in the world. Similar to the attacks on Afghanistan, which sow new terror and drive the chain of violence, the attempt to control earth from space provokes feelings of powerlessness. Despair, anger and hate create the breeding ground for terrorism.

    Promoting missile defense and space war adds fuel to the flames of conflict, heats the arms race on earth and in space, provokes instabilities in crisis regions of the Middle East, South Asia and North-East Asia, wastes valuable resources which are required to solve global problems. The destruction of existing arms control and disarmament treaties, including START II, the ABM Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Biological Weapons Convention, ultimately will strike back to the USA. What they do, others can claim for themselves.

    Many have dreamt of invulnerability in history but noone ever reached it. Sometimes it is the recognition of the own vulnerability that requires conflict resolution, the settlement of disputes and agreement. The people in Central Europe had to live over four decades of the Cold War with the worst of all threats: complete nuclear annihilation. Inspired by the peace movement and Gorbachev’s New Thinking they learned that only a policy of common security and disarmament could bring peace to Europe. The history of Berlin clearly demonstrates that walls do not exist forever, that parts of the world can neither be excluded nor confined.

    Power projection into space and anti-terror wars cannot provide true security. The alternatives are clear and simple: avoid threats before they emerge; dry out the causes of terror; cut the instruments of violence and destruction. To be specific, it is essential to improve international control of missiles and space weapons, of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, leading towards their ultimate elimination and prohibition. Here Europe can be a leader instead of following the US in military strikes. In addition, the possible motivations and the social conditions of terrorism have to be tackled. Sustainable peace requires a broad basis within society which includes the well-being of all people. This is the best way to undermine the sources and resources of terror.

    *Juergen Scheffran is physicist, co-founder of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP) and editor of the INESAP Information Bulletin at the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany.

  • U.S. Needs a Contigency Plan For Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal

    There is growing concern, and evidence for concern, that the instability in Afghanistan could quickly spread to neighboring Pakistan and undermine the security of that country’s nuclear arsenal. Of all of the negative consequences this turn of events might bring, none would be more dangerous and catastrophic than nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

    Until Sept. 11, the Pakistani regime and the Taliban were very close, and there have been reports out of Pakistan that military officers assisted the Taliban in preparing for U.S. airstrikes—counter to direct orders from Pakistan’s leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Top military officers, including the head of Pakistan’s intelligence services, recently have been sacked, reportedly for their pro-Taliban views.

    Violence in the streets, while not widespread beyond the border area with Afghanistan, speaks to the tensions inside Pakistan. A Newsweek poll this week found that 83% of Pakistanis polled sympathized with the Taliban in the current conflict. It is possible, therefore, that Pakistani forces assigned to protect Pakistan’s nuclear forces could be compromised.

    This is surely the nightmare scenario, and immediate steps should be taken to prevent such a turn of events from coming to pass.

    Pakistan possesses enough nuclear material for close to 40 nuclear weapons, if not more. The U.S., however, knows very little about how this material is stored, what security measures are applied to its protection, how personnel with access to nuclear weapons and materials are screened and where the material is located.

    Pakistan has a responsibility to ensure that its assets are adequately protected and to convince other countries that this responsibility is taken seriously. Other countries and organizations have a responsibility to help Pakistan keep these materials secure, without in any way assisting that country in modernizing or deploying its nuclear capability.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, a U.N.-affiliated organization, has decades of experience in developing and verifying security measures associated with nuclear weapons-usable materials. The agency routinely assists countries in ensuring that their peaceful nuclear programs are adequately protected. Despite its lack of membership in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Pakistan could receive advice and assistance from the IAEA.

    In addition, the U.S. and other IAEA members have extensive experience—publicly available—on how to protect nuclear materials and on how to ensure that weapons-usable uranium or plutonium cannot be diverted without being detected. States could make equipment available to Pakistan that did not directly assist in its development or control of nuclear weapons, such as alarm systems and polygraph equipment for personnel screening. In addition, corporations and nongovernmental organizations with significant expertise in nuclear matters could provide Pakistan with assistance on security.

    Pakistan has resisted any outside attempts to help secure its nuclear materials. There is the risk that receiving assistance for its nuclear program from outside powers might further destabilize the current situation. Yet Pakistan has already made its strategic decision to throw in with the West against terrorism. Taking this additional step, while difficult, may be part of the price it pays to reestablish itself as a responsible global partner.

    If Pakistan does not agree to these types of programs, the U.S. should begin to work immediately on contingency plans should the Islamabad regime lose control over its nuclear arsenal. These plans should include the ability to rapidly deploy forces to Pakistan to find and regain control of any lost nuclear materials and, only as a last option in a crisis, remove them from Pakistan to a secure location.

    These steps might seem extreme. Yet when faced with the real possibility of losing control of nuclear weapons to the types of organizations capable of the destruction seen Sept. 11, they could be considered realistic and even prudent. The consequences of not being prepared to act are too great for us to imagine, even with our new ability to imagine the horrible.

    *Jon B. Wolfsthal is an associate in the Carnegie Endowment’s nonproliferation program and a former nonproliferation policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy.

  • This War is Illegal

    A well-kept secret about the U.S.-U.K. attack on Afghanistan is that it is clearly illegal. It violates international law and the express words of the United Nations Charter.

    Despite repeated reference to the right of self-defence under Article 51, the Charter simply does not apply here. Article 51 gives a state the right to repel an attack that is ongoing or imminent as a temporary measure until the UN Security Council can take steps necessary for international peace and security.

    The Security Council has already passed two resolutions condemning the Sept. 11 attacks and announcing a host of measures aimed at combating terrorism. These include measures for the legal suppression of terrorism and its financing, and for co-operation between states in security, intelligence, criminal investigations and proceedings relating to terrorism. The Security Council has set up a committee to monitor progress on the measures in the resolution and has given all states 90 days to report back to it.

    Neither resolution can remotely be said to authorize the use of military force. True, both, in their preambles, abstractly “affirm” the inherent right of self-defence, but they do so “in accordance with the Charter.” They do not say military action against Afghanistan would be within the right of self-defence. Nor could they. That’s because the right of unilateral self-defence does not include the right to retaliate once an attack has stopped.

    The right of self-defence in international law is like the right of self-defence in our own law: It allows you to defend yourself when the law is not around, but it does not allow you to take the law into your own hands.

    Since the United States and Britain have undertaken this attack without the explicit authorization of the Security Council, those who die from it will be victims of a crime against humanity, just like the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

    Even the Security Council is only permitted to authorize the use of force where “necessary to maintain and restore international peace and security.” Now it must be clear to everyone that the military attack on Afghanistan has nothing to do with preventing terrorism. This attack will be far more likely to provoke terrorism. Even the Bush administration concedes that the real war against terrorism is long term, a combination of improved security, intelligence and a rethinking of U.S. foreign alliances.

    Critics of the Bush approach have argued that any effective fight against terrorism would have to involve a re-evaluation of the way Washington conducts its affairs in the world. For example, the way it has promoted violence for short-term gain, as in Afghanistan when it supported the Taliban a decade ago, in Iraq when it supported Saddam Hussein against Iran, and Iran before that when it supported the Shah.

    The attack on Afghanistan is about vengeance and about showing how tough the Americans are. It is being done on the backs of people who have far less control over their government than even the poor souls who died on Sept. 11. It will inevitably result in many deaths of civilians, both from the bombing and from the disruption of aid in a country where millions are already at risk. The 37,000 rations dropped on Sunday were pure PR, and so are the claims of “surgical” strikes and the denials of civilian casualties. We’ve seen them before, in Kosovo for example, followed by lame excuses for the “accidents” that killed innocents.

    For all that has been said about how things have changed since Sept. 11, one thing that has not changed is U.S. disregard for international law. Its decade-long bombing campaign against Iraq and its 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia were both illegal. The U.S. does not even recognize the jurisdiction of the World Court. It withdrew from it in 1986 when the court condemned Washington for attacking Nicaragua, mining its harbours and funding the contras. In that case, the court rejected U.S. claims that it was acting under Article 51 in defence of Nicaragua’s neighbours.

    For its part, Canada cannot duck complicity in this lawlessness by relying on the “solidarity” clause of the NATO treaty, because that clause is made expressly subordinate to the UN Charter.

    But, you might ask, does legality matter in a case like this? You bet it does. Without the law, there is no limit to international violence but the power, ruthlessness and cunning of the perpetrators. Without the international legality of the UN system, the people of the world are sidelined in matters of our most vital interests.

    We are all at risk from what happens next. We must insist that Washington make the case for the necessity, rationality and proportionality of this attack in the light of day before the real international community.

    The bombing of Afghanistan is the legal and moral equivalent of what was done to the Americans on Sept. 11. We may come to remember that day, not for its human tragedy, but for the beginning of a headlong plunge into a violent, lawless world.

    *Michael Mandel, professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, specializes in international criminal law.

  • We Have Already Lost

    The Bombing Begins! screams today’s headline of the normally restrained Guardian. Battle joined, echoes the equally cautious International Herald Tribune, quoting George W. Bush. But with whom is it joined? And how will it end? How about with Osama bin Laden in chains, looking more serene and Christ-like than ever, arranged before a tribune of his vanquishers with Johnny Cochran to defend him? The fees won’t be a problem, that’s for sure.

    Or how about with Osama bin Laden blown to smithereens by one of those clever bombs we keep reading about that kill terrorists in caves but don’t break the crockery? Or is there a solution I haven’t thought of that will prevent us from turning our archenemy into an arch martyr in the eyes of those for whom he is already semi-divine?

    Yet we must punish him. We must bring him to justice. Like any sane person, I see no other way. Send in the food and medicines, provide the aid, sweep up the starving refugees, maimed orphans and body parts – sorry, “collateral damage” – but Osama bin Laden and his awful men, we have no choice, must be hunted down.

    Unfortunately, what America longs for at this moment, even above retribution, is more friends and fewer enemies. And what America is storing up for herself, and so are we Brits, is yet more enemies. Because after all the bribes, threats and promises that have patched together this rickety coalition, we cannot prevent another suicide bomber being born each time a misdirected missile wipes out an innocent village, and nobody can tell us how to dodge this devil’s cycle of despair, hatred, and-yet again-revenge.

    The stylized television footage and photographs of this bin Laden suggest a man of homoerotic narcissism, and maybe we can draw a grain of hope from that. Posing with a Kalashnikov, attending a wedding or consulting a sacred text, he radiates with every self-adoring gesture an actor’s awareness of the lens. He has height, beauty, grace, intelligence and magnetism, all great attributes, unless you’re the world’s hottest fugitive and on the run, in which case they’re liabilities hard to disguise.

    But greater than all of them, to my jaded eye, is his barely containable male vanity, his appetite for self-drama and his closet passion for the limelight. And, just possibly, this trait will be his downfall, seducing him into a final dramatic act of self-destruction, produced, directed, scripted and acted to death by Osama Bin Laden himself.

    By the accepted rules of terrorist engagement, of course, the war is long lost. By us. What victory can we possibly achieve that matches the defeats we have already suffered, let alone the defeats that lie ahead? “Terror is theatre,” a soft-spoken Palestinian firebrand told me in Beirut in 1982. He was talking about the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics 10 years before, but he might as well have been talking about the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The late Mikhail Bakunin, evangelist of anarchism, liked to speak of the Propaganda of the Act. It’s hard to imagine more theatrical, more potent acts of propaganda than these.

    Now Mr. Bakunin in his grave and Mr. bin Laden in his cave must be rubbing their hands in glee as we embark on the very process that terrorists of their stamp so relish: as we hastily double up our police and intelligence forces and award them greater powers, as we put basic civil liberties on hold and curtail press freedom, impose news blackouts and secret censorship, spy on ourselves and, at our worst, violate mosques and hound luckless citizens in our streets because we are afraid of the colour of their skin.

    All the fears that we share – Dare I fly? Ought I to tell the police about the weird couple upstairs? Would it be safer not to drive down Whitehall this morning? Is my child safely back from school? Have my life’s savings plummeted? – are precisely the fears our attackers want us to have.

    Until Sept. 11, the United States was only too happy to plug away at Vladimir Putin about his butchery in Chechnya. Russia’s abuse of human rights in the North Caucasus, he was told – we are speaking of wholesale torture, and murder amounting to genocide – was an obstruction to closer relations with NATO and the United States. There were even voices – mine was one – that suggested Mr. Putin join Slobodan Milosevic on trial in The Hague: Let’s do them both together. Well, goodbye to all that. In the making of the great new coalition, Mr. Putin looks a saint by comparison with some of his bedfellows.

    Does anyone remember any more the outcry against the perceived economic colonialism of the G8? Against the plundering of the Third World by uncontrollable multinational companies? Seattle, Prague and Genoa presented us with disturbing scenes of broken heads, broken glass, mob violence and police brutality. Tony Blair was deeply shocked. Yet the debate was a valid one, until it was drowned in a wave of patriotic sentiment, deftly exploited by corporate America.

    Drag up Kyoto these days; you risk the charge of being “anti-American.” It’s as if we have entered a new Orwellian world where our personal reliability as comrades in the struggle is measured by the degree to which we invoke the past to explain the present. Suggesting there is a historical context for the recent atrocities is, by implication, to make excuses for them: Anyone who is with us doesn’t do that; anyone who does, is against us.

    Ten years ago, I was making an idealistic bore of myself by telling anyone who would listen, that with the Cold War behind us, we were missing a never-to-be repeated chance to transform the global community.

    Where was the Marshall Plan? I pleaded. Why weren’t young men and women from the U.S. Peace Corps, Britain’s Voluntary Service overseas and their continental European equivalents pouring into the former Soviet Union by the thousands?

    Where was the world-class statesman and the man of the hour, with the voice and vision to define for us the real, if unglamorous, enemies of mankind: poverty, famine, slavery, tyranny, drugs, bush-fire wars (racial and religious), intolerance, greed?

    Now thanks to Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, all our leaders are world-class statements, proclaiming distant their voices and visions in distant airports while they feather their electoral nests.

    There has been unfortunate talk – and not only from Silvio Berlusconi – of a “crusade.” Crusade, of course, implies a delicious ignorance of history. Was Mr. Berlusconi really proposing to set free the holy places of Christendom and smite the heathen? Was George W. Bush? And am I out of order in recalling that we (Christians) actually lost the Crusades? But all is well: Signor Berlusconi was misquoted and the presidential reference is no longer operative.

    Meanwhile, Mr. Blair’s new role as America’s fearless spokesman continues apace. Mr. Blair speaks well because Mr. Bush speaks badly. Seen from abroad, Mr. Blair in this partnership is the inspired elder statesman with an unassailable domestic power base, whereas Mr. Bush – dare one say it these days? – was barely elected at all.

    But what exactly does Mr. Blair, the elder statesman, represent? Both he and the U.S. President at this moment are riding high in their respective approval ratings, but both are aware, if they know their history books, that riding high on Day One of a perilous overseas military operation doesn’t guarantee you victory come election day.

    How many American body bags can Mr. Bush sustain without losing popular support? After the horrors of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the American people may want revenge, but they’re on a very short fuse about shedding more American blood.

    Mr. Blair – with the whole Western world to tell him so, except for a few sour voices back home – is America’s eloquent white knight, the fearless, trusty champion of that ever-delicate child of the mid-Atlantic, the “Special Relationship.”

    Whether that will win Mr. Blair favour with his electorate is another matter because the Prime Minister was elected to save the country from decay, and not from Osama bin Laden. The Britain he is leading to war is a monument to 60 years of administrative incompetence. Our health, education and transport systems are on the rocks. The fashionable phrase these days describes them as “Third World,” but there are places in the Third World that are far better off than Britain.

    The country Mr. Blair governs is blighted by institutionalized racism, white male dominance, chaotically administered police forces, a constipated judicial system, obscene private wealth and shameful and unnecessary public poverty. At the time of his re-election, which was characterized by a dismal turnout, Mr. Blair acknowledged these ills and humbly admitted that he was on notice to put them right.

    So when you catch the noble throb in his voice as he leads us reluctantly to war, and your heart lifts to his undoubted flourishes of rhetoric, it’s worth remembering that he may also be warning you, sotto voce, that his mission to mankind is so important that you will have to wait another year for your urgent medical operation and a lot longer before you can ride in a safe and punctual train. I am not sure that this is the stuff of electoral victory three years from now. Watching Tony Blair, and listening to him, I can’t resist the impression that he is in a bit of a dream, walking his own dangerous plank.

    Did I say “war”? Has either Mr. Blair or Mr. Bush, I wonder, ever seen a child blown to bits, or witnessed the effect of a single cluster bomb dropped on an unprotected refugee camp? It isn’t necessarily a qualification for generalship to have seen such dread things- and I don’t wish either of them the experience – but it scares me all the: same when I’ll watch uncut, political faces shining with the light of combat, and hear preppy political vices steeling my heart for battle.

    And please, Mr. Bush – on my knees, Mr. Blair – keep God out of this. To imagine God fights wars is to credit Him with the worst follies of mankind. God, if we know anything about Him, which I don’t profess to, prefers effective food drops, dedicated medical teams, comfort and good tents for the homeless and bereaved, and without strings, a decent acceptance of our past sins and a readiness to put hem right. He prefers us less greedy, less arrogant, less evangelical, and less dismissive of life’s losers.

    It’s not a new world order, not yet, and is not God’s war. It’s a horrible, necessary, humiliating police action to redress the failure of our intelligence services and our blind political stupidity in arming and exploiting fanatics to fight the Soviet invader, then abandoning them to a devastated, leaderless country. As a result, it’s our miserable duty to seek out and punish a bunch of modern medieval religious zealots who will gain mythic stature from the very death we propose to dish out to hem.

    And when it’s over, it won’t be over. The shadowy bin Laden armies, in the emotional aftermath of his destruction, will gather numbers rather than wither away. So will the hinterland of silent sympathizers who provide them with logistical support.

    Cautiously, between the lines, we are being invited to believe that the conscience of the West has been reawakened to the dilemma of the poor and homeless of the Earth.

    And possibly, out of fear, necessity and rhetoric, a new sort of political morality has, indeed, been born. But when the shooting dies and a seeming peace is thieved, will the United States and its allies stay at their posts or, as happened at the end of the Cold War, hang up their boots and go home to their own back yards? Even if those back yards will never again be the safe havens they once were.

    *John Le Carre is the author of 18 novels, including his most recent, The Constant Gardener.

  • Pursuing Justice for the Crimes of September 11, 2001 and Reducing the Risks of Terrorism

    After more than three weeks of massive military build-up as well as restraint and diplomatic activity in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States and Britain began air strikes on Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. The U.S.-British air strikes are being accompanied by small humanitarian airdrops, but have triggered a large increase in refugees. The United States has sought and obtained a condemnation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 from the United Nations Security Council, though the resolutions do not directly authorize the use of force.

    For a number of reasons, the military air strikes by the United States and Britain, with the support of Pakistan and Russia, are likely to aggravate the crisis.

    There is a tension between reducing the risks of further terrorism and carrying out actions to bring the perpetrators of the September 11 crimes to justice. That tension should be explicitly recognized in the organization of a response. Bombing Afghanistan in the context of the massive suffering of the Afghani people has created even angrier appeals to religious war in the region. There is already a great deal of turmoil in Pakistan. A disintegration of Pakistan is possible and creates heightened risks that nuclear materials or warheads might be captured or transferred by sections of the Pakistani establishment to the Taliban and/or the al-Qaeda network. The Pakistani government has had close ties with the Taliban and still maintains relations with that regime. The Pakistani government’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency has played a major role in training and supplying the Taliban. The nuclear implications of that historical relationship for the region, the United States, and the rest of the world are unclear. There is clearly some risk, though its magnitude is difficult to establish in the midst of this crisis.

    The U.S. choice of response to terrorism is raising the risks of wider wars. For instance, there was a terrorist attack in Kashmir on October 2, 2001, when about 40 people were killed. The Indian government has warned that it will attack the Pakistani-occupied portion of Kashmir if there are further attacks, on the same grounds that the U.S. is justifying its air attacks on Afghanistan.

    To take the approach that this is a war rather than a police action to arrest suspects who have committed crimes against humanity (in the legal definition under international law) is to accord the terrorist network the status of a state, which Osama bin Laden has implicitly claimed for years. This approach legitimizes the use of weapons of mass destruction, since states, including the United States and Britain, have long claimed the prerogatives of such use for themselves. The very doctrine of air warfare has its historical roots in the idea of terrorizing populations.(1) The United States, Britain, France, NATO, and Russia all maintain the option of using nuclear weapons first in any conflict. Osama bin Laden has more than once referred to the U.S. use of nuclear weapons over Japan, an act carried out in wartime, as justification for the attacks he is calling on terrorists to carry out against the United States. He repeated that justification after the October 7, 2001 U.S.-British strikes on Afghanistan.

    Military action threatens to de-stabilize the situation in Saudi Arabia, where feelings against the stationing of U.S. troops since 1991 have run very high and are the main source of popular support for Osama bin Laden. The flow of oil as well as the position of the U.S. dollar as a global currency are dependent on Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). OPEC’s decision of the, anchored by Saudi oil reserves, the largest in the world, to denominate the price of oil in U.S. dollars, is one of the anchors of the U.S dollar. In the present crisis, the states of the Persian Gulf may be pushed by their people to follow the 1999 example of Saddam Hussein, who asked to be paid for Iraqi oil in euros, the new European currency. If OPEC decides to denominate the price of oil in euros, the effect on the U.S. and world economies could be profoundly de-stabilizing, with unpredictable economic, political, and military consequences.(2) Other oil exporting countries also face de-stabilization, notably Indonesia, where anti-U.S. government tensions have been high since the International Monetary Fund’s intervention in its financial crisis in 1997.

    The United States, British, and Russian governments, as distinct from the people who were killed on September 11, are widely seen in the region and the world as having had major roles in the crisis in the Central Asian, South Asian, and Middle East regions that has spawned terrorist cells. The proxy war between the Soviet Union and the United States carried out via Pakistan’s government, with financing both from the Saudi government and by all accounts, from drug trade profits, has been at the center of the chaos and mass deprivation in Afghanistan. Many of the present opponents of the United States were its allies and instruments then. (For instance, in a proclamation published in the Federal Register, President Reagan said of the Islamic opposition to the Soviets on March 20, 1984 that “[w]e stand in admiration of the indomitable will and courage of the Afghan people who continue their resistance to tyranny. All freedom-loving people around the globe should be inspired by the Afghan people’s struggle to be free and the heavy sacrifices they bear for liberty.”)

    The United States and Britain are also seen as promoting and being allied with undemocratic regimes for the sake of oil supplies and profits, both historically and at the present time.

    The British military role is also likely to inflame unpleasant memories. The present Pakistani-Afghan border dates back to its British demarcation by Colonel Algermon Durand in 1893, and was part of the British-Russian imperialist rivalry in the region. It divided the Pushtu people, who found themselves on both sides of the line. After the partition of South Asia in 1947, Pakistan, allied with the United States, tried to use Islam as an ideological counterweight to Pushtu nationalism on its side of the border. The various coups between 1973 and 1979 in Afghanistan cemented the drift of Afghanistan and Pakistan into opposite camps of the Cold War. The arrival of Soviet troops at the end of 1979 sealed the division and a devastating proxy war followed. When wars and partitions result in such immense misery, memories are long and bitter, as the continuing problems in South Asia, Israel/Palestine, and Ireland/Northern Ireland demonstrate. Military attacks and wars have not contributed to solutions in any of these conflicts, only aggravated them and inflamed and hardened hatreds.

    The announced U.S.-British goal of protecting the civilian population of Afghanistan is at odds with aerial bombing. An operation more complex and vast than the Berlin airlift of 1948-1949 (“Operation Vittles”) would have to be launched in order to meet emergency demands. Operation Vittles involved airlift to an airport of thousands of tons of food, fuel, and other supplies every day, over distances of a few hundred miles. Given the magnitude of the historical refugees crisis and the one that is being created by the threat and reality of bombings, an operation of similar or larger scale will be needed over much vaster distances and more inhospitable terrain. It will need to be over areas that are controlled by the Taliban as well as forces opposed to the Taliban, meaning that inefficient airdrops are involved. The starving people in theTaliban controlled areas are hardly in a position to topple that government. They face a humanitarian crisis of stunning proportions. Both Pakistan and Iran, already hosting millions of refugees between them, are trying to keep their borders closed. In sum, the relief operation will have to be roughly a hundred times larger than the one carried out on October 8, if it is to have substantial actual effect in relieving the suffering of the people of the region. By all accounts, the best way to deliver food aid is by road. This mode of aid is made difficult or impossible by air attacks, which have, moreover, already resulted in the deaths of four civilian U.N. workers.

    For profound historical, legal, practical, and moral reasons, the use of military force, especially air strikes, to resolve the crisis, is a recipe for continued violence, terrorism, insecurity, and injustice, not to mention the immense increase in suffering for millions of Afghani people. These problems will not be resolved until the U.S., British, and Russian governments show far more understanding of their own role in the problems of the people of the region. And until that time, military action by these countries, directly or by proxy, is likely to increase problems rather than contribute to their solution.

    A different approach to resolving the crisis is urgently needed. The most important ingredient is that American people must work with the international community to put together a force for a police action to carry out the arrests in Afghanistan that does not involve U.S., British, Russian, or non-state proxy militaries. The September 11, 2001 tragedy has brought the people of the world closer to the people of the United States in their suffering. The heartfelt worldwide demand for justice and for greater security against terrorism can be the basis for a framework to address the issues of justice relating to the crimes against humanity committed on September 11, 2001 and other aspects of the crisis that have enveloped the world since that date.

    Basis of a solution

    1. It is essential to de-legitimize the use of or threat of use of weapons of mass destruction and other tactics that have the same effect, whether by states or non-state groups. The people who were killed did not create the chaos in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region or contribute to the hatreds that led to the September 11 attacks. Therefore the search for justice for those attacks should not be linked to any other injustices and problems, which should also be addressed in their own right.

    2. The use of military force by the United States and Britain, as well as the arming of proxy military forces, should stop immediately.

    3. The process of apprehending the suspects should be carried out under the mandate of the U.N. Security Council using existing international law to pursue crimes against humanity. The people of the United States should rely at this time on a police action in which neutral countries from all over the world are mainly involved. It is crucial that this be defined explicitly as a police action to make arrests.

    4. The U.N. force must have firm rules of operation. Violence against civilians, including bombing of cities, villages, and refugee camps, should be prohibited. The parties to the coalition should commit to respecting human rights. Participating states and personnel should act within the confines of humanitarian and international law, including the Nuremberg principles. They should expect to be held to the same level of accountability in an international judicial process that they seek to impose.

    5. Even though its military forces would not be involved, the United States will, as a practical matter, have a powerful voice in how the U.N. force operates for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the September 11 attacks were on U.S. soil. In order that the United States have moral authority in regard to threats and acts of mass destruction, the United States should take the leadership against the very idea of mass destruction by explicitly renouncing first use of nuclear weapons. To show its good faith, it should begin the process of de-alerting them. It should invite Russia and all other nuclear weapons states into an urgent process of verifiable de-alerting of all nuclear weapons and of putting all nuclear warheads and weapons-usable nuclear materials under international safeguards. This will strengthen the international coalition against terrorism and fulfill longstanding demands of the international community. It will also help stabilize nuclear situation in South Asia, with attendant positive security implication for that region, and the rest of the world, including the United States.

    6. There should be no proxy wars, as for instance, was the practice during the Cold War, or arming of groups that could result in proxy wars.

    7. There should be explicit recognition that the suffering of the Afghani people has its roots, in large measure, in Cold War politics and proxy wars. That recognition, both from Russia and the United States, is long overdue. When translated into practical humanitarian policies, this means that the alleviation of their suffering must be a central, co-equal goal to that of apprehending the suspects. Most of all, any process must take into account that a re-ignition of the civil war would be disastrous for the people of Afghanistan and probably Pakistan, and could have other far-reaching serious de-stabilizing consequences.

    8. It is essential that the United States protect human rights, civil rights (including freedom of speech, assembly, and religion and freedom from discrimination) at home. The rights of immigrants should be respected along with all other people living in the United States. While the evidence clearly indicates that the crimes of September 11 were likely committed by non-citizens, there are many examples where U.S. citizens have committed acts of terror, including the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City and the many crimes over a long period by the “Unabomber.” Immigrants should be accorded due process and liberties guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.

    9. The formation of a coalition against terrorism and the rules of its operation should be taken up as a matter under the many treaties against terrorism that already exist. The crisis of September 11 should be used as the time to create a direction for the world community that will be based on morality, equity, the rule of law and justice for all. It is crucial to create a direction in which the rules and norms of behavior against mass violence imposed on individuals and non-state groups be extended to states, rather than the opposite, which is the direction that the bombing of Afghanistan is taking the world.

    Notes 1: The doctrine was first elaborated by an Italian, Brigadier Douhet, who wrote: “The conception of belligerents and nonbelligerents is outmoded. Today it is not the armies but whole nations which make war; and all civilians are belligerents and all are exposed to the hazards of war. The only salvation will be in caves, but those caves cannot hold entire cities, fleets, railways, bridges, industries, etc.” That doctrine of air warfare was first employed on a large scale by Germany during the mid-1930s against Spain and again in 1940 and thereafter against Britain, and also by Britain and the United States, in conventional bombing, fire bombing, and nuclear bombing during World War II. For a history of aerial warfare see Jack Colhoun, “Strategic Bombing,” at http://www.ieer.org/comments/bombing.html 2. For an analysis of the oil-dollar problem see Arjun Makhijani, “Saddam’s Last Laugh” at http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/03/09/

  • Neglecting Moral Approach to US and World Security

    From Mr David Krieger,

    Sir, Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, in his speech to the Labour party conference of October 2, invoked “the moral power of a world acting as a community” to combat terrorism. But to take a truly moral approach to US and global security, the US must heed seven urgent moral imperatives that we are still neglecting:

    First, to take far stronger measures to prevent future attacks rather than simply to avenge the acts of September 11, beginning with redressing US intelligence’s massive failure to detect the threat, despite ample warnings.

    Second, to assign top priority to preventing terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction, focusing resources on plausible threats of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons attacks, before funding costly missile defences against the implausible ones.

    Third, to deploy military protection now for all nuclear power plants and rapidly phase them out. Nuclear reactors are dormant radiological weapons in proximity to highly populated areas. Until shutdown, protect plants and spent fuel with troops and anti-aircraft weapons.

    Fourth, to bring the world’s nuclear weapons and fissile materials under control and move quickly towards eliminating these weapons. In the short term, reduce nuclear arsenals now to reliably controllable numbers to keep them out of terrorist hands.

    Fifth, to commit to multilateral action to bring terrorists to justice, expressly under UN auspices and existing international treaties on terrorism and sabotage. Try perpetrators for transnational crimes against humanity before an international tribunal established for this purpose.

    Sixth, to use US pre-eminence to uphold security and justice, not just for ourselves and industrialised allies but for the world, recognising that true security is co-operative and that life in the US is ultimately only as secure and decent as life on the planet.

    Last, to have the moral courage to reconsider US policy in light of the question: Why are Islamic extremists willing to die to murder us? Is it, as President George W. Bush said, hatred of freedom and democracy, or our Middle East policy?

    Until the 1960s, the Islamic world generally admired the US as a non-colonialist beacon of freedom and democracy. Subsequent US policies changed that. While terrorists cannot dictate US actions, neither can we fail to amend policies detrimental to our security simply for fear of appearing soft on terrorism.

    *David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Search for a Political Solution in Afghanistan

    Statement by Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, October, 8 2001

    Following is the text of a statement made today by Secretary-General Kofi Annan on military strikes in Afghanistan:

    Immediately after the 11 September attacks on the United States, the Security Council expressed its determination to combat, by all means, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts. The Council also reaffirmed the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. The States concerned have set their current military action in Afghanistan in that context.

    To defeat terrorism, we need a sustained effort and a broad strategy to unite all nations, and address all aspects of the scourge we face. The cause must be pursued by all the States of the world, working together and using many different means — including political, legal, diplomatic and financial means.

    The people of Afghanistan, who cannot be held responsible for the acts of the Taliban regime, are now in desperate need of aid. The United Nations has long played a vital role in providing humanitarian assistance to them, and it is my hope that we will be able to step up our humanitarian work as soon as possible.

    It is also vital that the international community now work harder than ever to encourage a political settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan. The United Nations is actively engaged in promoting the creation of a fully representative, multi-ethnic and broad-based Afghan Government.

  • Welcoming the Disarmament Committee of the United Nations General Assembly

    Statement by Under-Secretary General Jayantha Dhanapala, October 8, 2001

    I begin by congratulating you, Mr. Chairman, upon your election to guide the work of this Committee. Your distinguished career equips you well for the tasks ahead — a career that, in the disarmament area, features your prominent role in the historic 1995 Review and Extension Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as well as your chairmanship of the Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. I also congratulate the other members of the bureau and pledge the fullest support of the Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) in all your efforts to make this a productive session.

    On 10 September 2001, the Secretary-General issued his annual Message on the eve of what was to be the International Day of Peace. He urged people everywhere to “try to imagine a world quite different from the one we know.” He called on everybody to “picture those who wage war laying down their arms and talking out their differences.” He stated that this “should be a day of global ceasefire and non-violence.” And he closed with these words of hope: “let us seize the opportunity for peace to take hold, day by day, year by year, until every day is a day of peace.”

    The next morning, only an hour before the Secretary-General was planning to ring the Peace Bell, thousands of citizens from dozens of countries perished in acts of unmitigated brutality that defy description. The challenge now facing this Committee, as it convenes in the shadow of this dark and ominous cloud, is to confront these new and old threats to international peace and security. At this critical juncture — when the peoples of the world stand together in repudiating mass terrorism — we must all work together to build upon this remarkable display of unity. This is a time for cooperation, for reaffirming the rule of law, for recognizing common threats, and for acknowledging the extent to which our common security depends upon justice, fundamental human rights, and equitable development for all societies. For this Committee, it is particularly a time for reinforcing the roads and bridges leading to the fulfilment of multilateral disarmament commitments, while exploring new paths to reach the same destinations. It is, in short, a time to resume the work of realizing the vision described in the Secretary-General’s Message on the International Day of Peace.

    Only history will decide how much of a defining moment 11 September will be. But history will certainly not absolve us for failing to learn the lessons of this unspeakable tragedy. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his address on 1 October to the General Assembly, stated “While the world was unable to prevent the 11 September attacks, there is much we can do to help prevent future terrorist acts carried out with weapons of mass destruction.” For us in the disarmament community he set out several guidelines for future actions that I hope delegations will consider carefully.

    Some specific initiatives that merit serious consideration include:

    · First, the need to expand the membership of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, while strengthening controls over nuclear facilities and the storage and transportation of nuclear materials.

    · Second, the need for new efforts to negotiate a convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism — the recent terrorist attacks should add new urgency to these efforts.

    · Third, the need for a global database — based on publicly available material — on acts, threatened acts, or suspected acts of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. The Department for Disarmament Affairs is in contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on many of these issues and is prepared, if so mandated, to establish such a database.

    Mr. Chairman, the starting point for the work of this Committee must be the sobering realization that last month’s tragedy could have been so much worse had nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons been used. The objective facts require that we be neither alarmist sowers of panic, nor complacent do-nothings. We do, however, have a duty to protect innocent citizens throughout the world by reinforcing the multilateral disarmament regime. Many of the deadliest super-weapons remain difficult to manufacture due to the unique characteristics of their weapons materials, improvements in methods of detecting the production or testing of such weapons, and technical problems in converting dangerous materials into effective, deliverable weapons. The world community must do all it can to raise these hurdles, while strengthening the fundamental norms against the possession or use of such weapons. The best way to accomplish this is through the active pursuit of a robust disarmament agenda. Of one thing we must be clear — in the disarmament area there is no going back to business as usual.

    The agenda of this Committee has always been challenging, yet the tasks ahead are more critical than ever. Many of these challenges, however, existed well before the tragic events of 11 September. At the conclusion of its 37th session in Geneva last July, the Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters concluded that “there currently exists a crisis of multilateral disarmament diplomacy.”

    The symptoms of that crisis — while numerous earlier in the year — are now self-apparent even to casual observers. We are witnessing a weakening of the basic infrastructure of disarmament — one of the eight priority areas in the United Nations work programme. This state of affairs — if allowed to continue — will threaten the very sustainability of disarmament as a means of enhancing international peace and security.

    Disarmament is facing difficult times. There is no doubt that its future rests heavily upon a strong level of understanding and support in civil society. Yet today we see signs of private foundations and other funding agencies moving out of the field of disarmament or reducing their commitments to this goal. As funding grows scarce — a problem aggravated by the turbulent global financial markets — key groups in civil society are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain their work on disarmament issues. In academia, we find all too few articles in serious scholarly journals on disarmament per se and very few new doctoral dissertations that deal directly with disarmament. We find the news media focusing on the glare of current conflicts rather than the typically slow and incremental process of eliminating the weapons used in such conflicts — or eliminating the weapons that could even destroy the world. These trends must be reversed, and at a minimum, more funding made available to non-governmental groups working in the field of disarmament.

    On an inter-state level, we find few governments with offices specifically devoted to disarmament issues, and New Zealand still has the distinction of having the only minister of disarmament. We see a flourishing global arms market — the U.S. Congressional Research Service estimates the total value of arms transfers from 1993 through 2000 at around $303 billion — and almost 70 percent of these arms were imported by developing countries. Meanwhile, global military expenditures are again on the rise — amounting last year to an estimated $800 billion. This growth in the arms trade and military spending contrasts with the terms of Article 26 of the Charter, which refer to the least diversion of the world’s human and economic resources for armaments.

    At times it appears — certainly in terms of the United Nations budgetary procedures — that we are seeing instead the least diversion of resources for disarmament. It goes without saying that the smallest department in the United Nations is the Department for Disarmament Affairs, which is now seeking a modest increase in the 2002-2003 biennium budget that is before this session of the General Assembly. It is also not uncommon to read of financial problems and resource shortages in key treaty-based organizations like the IAEA and OPCW.

    Two of the classic diplomatic measures for advancing disarmament, non-proliferation, and anti-terrorism goals — export controls and sanctions — are now in dispute, based on claims that they are ineffective, discriminatory, or harmful to other global values. The utility and legitimacy of these mechanisms requires that these criticisms be addressed, with a view to reaching universally-agreed guidelines. The danger remains that without them, the world community would find itself confronted with a stark choice between ignoring gross violations of global disarmament and non-proliferation norms and having to defend such norms by force of arms.

    The treaties that constitute the global legal regime for disarmament are also seriously incomplete. None of the key treaties prescribing the elimination of weapons of mass destruction has universal membership, and un-documented allegations of non-compliance continue to be heard among the States parties, eroding confidence in the various treaty regimes. Many important treaties have still not entered into force, including START II and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), whose members will soon meet in New York to consider ways of accelerating the ratification process. With respect to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), many years of efforts to conclude a protocol to strengthen this key treaty have ended abruptly. The treaty’s next five-year Review Conference, scheduled to convene next month in Geneva, provides an opportunity to revisit this issue. It must not be missed.

    With regard to the NPT, while it is still too early to predict the fate of the “thirteen steps” to nuclear disarmament agreed at the NPT 2000 Review Conference, it is fair to say that delegates attending next year’s first Preparatory Committee meeting for the treaty’s 2005 Review Conference will certainly expect hard evidence of a good faith effort to implement each of these important goals.

    The elimination of landmines is another very important international disarmament activity, given that they continue to impede the development and security of populations in almost one third of the world’s countries. Last month, I attended the third annual meeting of the States parties to the Mine Ban Convention in Managua, Nicaragua, convened by the United Nations pursuant to Resolution 55/33 V. Despite the uncertainties of air travel at the time, the event was marked both by an impressive attendance of more than 90 states and by positive results that augur well for the future implementation of this convention. The second annual conference of States parties to Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) will take place later this year. It will consider several proposals addressing the scope of the convention, compliance issues, small calibre weapons and ammunition, anti-vehicle mines, and the problem of explosive remnants of war. The Secretary-General is committed to fulfilling his responsibilities as Depositary to both of these important legal instruments.

    The global legal regime is particularly underdeveloped in the fields of conventional weapons, small arms and light weapons, preventing an arms race in outer space, and missiles and other delivery vehicles for weapons of mass destruction. Some of these problems, however, have been getting increased attention in recent years. General Assembly Resolution 55/33 A has asked the Secretary-General to prepare a report, with the assistance of a panel of governmental experts, on the issue of missiles in all its aspects, and to submit this report to the General Assembly at its 57th session. China has introduced in the Conference on Disarmament a proposal for a treaty banning the deployment of weapons in space. The Programme of Action successfully adopted at the July 2001 Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects provides a blueprint for international cooperation that may eventually lead to binding international norms. A question remains: will the events of 11 September encourage States to consider once again the need to prohibit the transfer of military-grade small arms and light weapons to non-state actors?

    The chronic deadlock in the Conference on Disarmament — the world’s single multilateral disarmament negotiating forum — is another serious problem that demands an urgent solution, one that will be found only in the political will of Member States to begin negotiations. Perhaps the new spirit of cooperation that has been re-kindled by the events of 11 September will help to breathe new life into this vitally important international institution.

    Taken alone, any one of these obstacles would be a cause for concern, but taken together, they suggest that disarmament is facing a very difficult road ahead. The crisis that disarmament is facing in multilateral diplomacy may reflect a deeper crisis of the nation-state system as it copes with the new forces of globalization. Large-scale terrorist events, and the possession or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, are only two of a growing list of twenty-first century problems that are straining the capacities of political institutions that were developed in other historical contexts, while casting new doubts on the utility of attempting to solve such problems through the exercise of military might. As highlighted in the Millennium Declaration, the Road Map to implement that declaration, and the Secretary-General’s recent report on the work of the organization, the United Nations offers indispensable tools to address precisely such twenty-first century problems.

    Despite the difficult challenges ahead for international peace and security, disarmament remains an attractive alternative to both deterrence and military defensive measures as responses to these challenges. One of the most important contributions of the United Nations in this field comes in the gathering and dissemination of information about worldwide progress in achieving important arms limitation and disarmament goals. On behalf of Member States, the DDA maintains the Register of Conventional Arms, which keeps track of the production and trade of seven categories of major weapons systems. This year more than a hundred governments made submissions to the Register, the highest level of participation since the Register was created nine years ago.

    More Member States are also using the Standardized Instrument for Reporting Military Expenditures — this year, nearly 60 have reported data using this instrument, almost double the average number from previous years. Last July, the States attending the United Nations Small Arms Conference assigned the DDA the responsibility of collating and circulating data on the implementation of the Programme of Action agreed at that conference. DDA’s role as the coordination centre in the Secretariat of all United Nations activities in the field of small arms was specifically welcomed in UNGA Resolution 55/33 F.

    As requested by the General Assembly, DDA is also working with a group of outside experts to prepare a study on disarmament and non-proliferation education that the Secretary-General will submit to the General Assembly at its 57th session. These experts have met twice this year and are making progress in identifying constructive initiatives at the primary, secondary, university and postgraduate levels of education, in all regions of the world. Through its many symposia, newsletters, databases, monographs, films, posters, brochures, lectures to student groups, intern and fellowship programmes, a regularly-updated web site, and its new 454-page annual United Nations Disarmament Yearbook — DDA is giving its educational responsibilities every bit of attention they deserve, despite the heavy strain on its limited resources.

    I would like to take this occasion to invite all members of this Committee to attend a special symposium on “Terrorism and Disarmament” that the DDA will host on the afternoon of 25 October, involving experts from the IAEA, the OPCW, and other institutions. This timely event will examine the specific contributions that disarmament can make in addressing global terrorist threats.

    Mr. Chairman, this Committee faces the difficult task of moving beyond the tears, the grief, and the anger from 11 September — and from all acts of terrorism in all countries — to the re-establishment of a just and stable foundation for international peace and security. The Committee must adhere to its long-standing priorities — it must keep its focus on discovering the ways and means of eliminating all weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons. As the Secretary-General stated in his message last month to the General Conference of the IAEA, “Making progress in the areas of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament is more important than ever in the aftermath of last week’s appalling terrorist attack on the United States.” Though all terrorism is tragic and unacceptable, the United Nations must place its highest priority on eliminating threats that potentially affect the greatest number of people — threats to international peace and security — threats, in short, that arise from weapons of mass destruction.

    The Committee has before it many resolutions that point the way ahead in achieving this basic aim. As it considers these resolutions, Member States may also wish to consider in their deliberations some broader questions that concern the disarmament machinery of the United Nations. Recent events, combined with the current crisis in multilateral disarmament diplomacy, may also suggest that the time has come to re-visit the proposal to convene a Fourth Special Session of the General Assembly on Disarmament.

    There is one question, however, that surely does not belong on this agenda, and that is the question of whether the primary focus of this Committee should change from “disarmament” to merely the regulation or limitation of arms. There is of course an important need for efforts on both fronts. When it comes to weapons of mass destruction, there is no question that the world would be far better off pursuing the total and verifiable elimination of such weapons than in perpetuating the fantasy that their possession can be permanently limited to an assortment of exclusive, but by no means leak-proof clubs. By contrast, controls over conventional weapons are in general better pursued by transparent regulatory approaches that limit the numbers or characteristics of agreed weapons systems — approaches that are consistent with the inherent right of self defence in Article 51 of the Charter. Together, both approaches complement each other well in serving the common interest of international peace and security

    Much ground has already been tilled. In their Final Document of the 2000 NPT Review Conference, the States parties reaffirmed their common conviction that “the total elimination of nuclear weapons is the only absolute guarantee against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons” — and that includes a terrorist use of a nuclear weapon. Given the consequences of even a single use of a nuclear weapon, is international peace and security best preserved by partial or conditional guarantees, or by an absolute guarantee? The same question also applies to other weapons of mass destruction.

    It is not at all unrealistic or inappropriate for this Committee to keep its focus on the search for absolute guarantees, and the more it searches, the more it will return to disarmament — not regulation — as the solution for weapons of mass destruction. In addressing such weapons, the Committee should explore ways of bringing disarmament to the world, or of bringing the world to disarmament, but disarmament must be done. As members of this committee, ask not for whom the Peace Bell tolls. It tolls for you.

  • Changing the Equation of Terror

    The toppled towers of the World Trade Center have left behind dark shadows of fear, apprehension and uncertainty in our minds. There are strong cries for war and vengeance. Our Congress has reacted by vesting additional powers in the hands of the President and by giving even more billions of dollars to the military. But traditional military force cannot prevail against this enemy. Military forces cannot wage war against an unseen and perhaps unlocatable enemy.

    Our first priority should be to protect the American people from future terrorist attacks. We must ask why our intelligence services failed so badly, even when the warnings were abundant.

    Our second priority must be to deeply examine our policies that give rise to such hatred. We must not be afraid to look at the grief and suffering in the world, particularly in the Middle East, that we have contributed to by our policies. President Bush thinks we are hated for our freedom and democracy, but many in other parts of the world believe we are hated for the arrogant manner in which we have used our economic and military might. We may have freedom and democracy at home, but our policies abroad have supported and upheld despotic regimes throughout the world and our CIA has trained and supported extremists like Osama bin Laden.

    Our third priority must be to bring the perpetrators of these terrible crimes to justice. The terrorists have committed crimes against humanity in taking the lives of citizens of some 80 countries. To apprehend the criminals behind these crimes and bring them to justice will require a global effort and should be done multilaterally with the sanction of the United Nations. The criminals should be tried in a special International Tribunal created for this purpose.

    We live in a time when there is a confluence between arrogance, hatred, vulnerability and violence. This was true before September 11th and remains true today. Our vulnerability cannot be substantially lessened. It is endemic in our technological societies. The ability to do violence is also endemic. What can be changed are our policies that lead to hatred and our own violence. It will not be easy for Americans to be introspective and to consider the manner in which our policies and our violence have caused others to suffer and die, but unless we do so we will not be able to stop future terrorism directed against us.

    As bad as the terrorist attacks were on September 11th, damage in the future could be much worse. Terrorists in possession of biological, chemical, radiological or nuclear weapons could destroy not only buildings but cities. To prevent this, the US must provide leadership to the international community to assure that these weapons do not fall into the hands of terrorists. The only way to do this will be to put the tightest possible global controls on these weapons and the materials to construct them, while moving rapidly to eliminate them from the arsenals of all nations including our own.

    How the US responds to this crisis may well determine whether our new century will be even more violent and destructive than the 20th century, or whether we can find a way to serve justice by upholding the dignity of all persons. The future of our nation and of civilization depend upon our willingness to take a hard look at our role in the world and our willingness to change the variables in the equation of terrorism that we can control.

    *David Krieger, an attorney and political scientist, is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The West Shares the Blame: By Rejecting All that Is Alien to Its Culture, the Industrialised World Has Helped Terrorism

    By the time this article is published, the armed assault on Afghanistan, the Taliban regime, Osama bin Laden or his followers may have already begun. For some, it seems, they are all the same. But not to speak out against this is either a serious mistake or guilty acquiescence of the bellicose plans proclaimed repeatedly by US leaders.

    The west’s quiet acceptance, particularly among European countries, pains me. It should fill all of us with despair. Yes, there are big speeches and important agreements are signed. But ultimately, the west accepts – and even takes part in – the violent response.

    That the US was going to react as it says it will should come as no surprise. But the submission of other nations was difficult to foresee. It is alarming that countries such as France and Spain have not raised their voices to say “no”: to reject the violent solution as the only available option; to uncover the big lie of a “final solution” against terrorism.

    I live in a country that has been fighting terrorism for 30 years and that daily clamours for the rule of law as the best means to confront it. What is not possible is that Spain should now put on a military helmet and pledge unlimited support for the hypothetical bombardment of nothing; for the massacre of poverty; and for a breach of the most fundamental logic, which proves that violence begets violence. The spiral of terrorism is fed by the number of dead counted among its victims.

    It has been said of terrorism, particularly the Islamic or fundamentalist kind, that it is a widespread threat. But it is a phenomenon that has been helped by the west’s rejection of all that is different from its own culture or “civilised religion”.

    The west and its political, military, social and economic hierarchies have been more preoccupied with the abusive and shameful march of production, speculation and profit than with an adequate redistribution of wealth. It has favoured a policy of social exclusion over integration and progressive immigration. And it has insisted on maintaining – and insisted on payment of – external debt instead of using those funds in the same countries it is now asking for help and understanding. For all those conscious mistakes, the west is suffering the terrible consequences of fanatical religious violence.

    Lasting peace and freedom can be achieved only with legality, justice, respect for diversity, defence of human rights and measured and fair responses. It is impossible to build peace on foundations of misery. Above all, it should not be forgotten that there will come a time when justice is demanded of those responsible for these mistakes and the loss of a historic opportunity to make the world more just.

    I am not thinking here about the justice demanded of those who masterminded and carried out the tragic events of September 11. That is the remit of national or international justice, as well as the intelligence and police services that have to compile the evidence. This is necessary if a fair trial is to take place. It is not sufficient to say: “I have the evidence but I cannot make it public for fear of endangering my sources.” That is not a serious approach – it is simply illegal.

    Of course, everyone has already established the guilt of Osama bin Laden and, as the indisputable leader of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, he probably is guilty. We should not forget that we are dealing with a horrible crime – but the response nevertheless requires due process. In its haste to eliminate Mr bin Laden, the west seems to have forgotten this fact. And that is serious.

    The justice I am talking about is that which should be brought to bear not only on the Taliban for its brutal and oppressive regime but also on the leaders of western countries, who, irresponsibly and through the media, have generated panic among the Afghan people. Faced with the prospect of imminent invasion, this panic has forced them to flee towards supposed security and freedom. In reality, however, it merely drives them towards what is certain to be a human catastrophe. Who will answer for these deaths? Who will answer for the forced migrations? In all probability, the death of a few thousand Afghans will be of no interest to these leaders because, for all the grand speeches, their fate is already sealed.

    The response that I seek is not military. It is one based on law, through the immediate approval of an international convention on terrorism. Such a convention should, among other things, include: rules governing co-operation between police and the judiciary; rules that enable investigations to take place in tax havens; the urgent ratification of the statute of the International Criminal Tribunal; and the definition of terrorism as a crime against humanity.

    The time has come to look at the principles of territorial sovereignty, human rights, security, co-operation and universal criminal justice through the same lens. That, and that alone, should be the aim of the coalition of countries against terrorism.

    *Baltasar Garzon is Spain’s leading anti-terrorist judge. A version of this article first appeared in El Pais.