Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Peace

  • 2011 Earth Charter Award

    David KriegerI’m honored to receive this Earth Charter Award from Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions, and particularly an award presented in memory of two dedicated and lifelong peace makers, Bill Hammaker and Betty Eagle. 


    The Earth Charter is a great collaborative and visionary document.  Its words are both poetic and inspirational.  It opens we this passage: “We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny.”


    How succinct.  How beautiful.  How true.


    I believe we should all strive to live as world citizens.  I believe strongly in the principles embodied in the Earth Charter, including those for which this award is given: democracy, nonviolence and peace.  They are, at the same time, both goals to achieve and maintain, and a way to live our lives. 


    Democracy, from my perspective, means the opportunity for all members of a society to participate fully and fairly in the political process.  That possibility has been usurped in our political process by the power of money to buy candidates, legislators and legislation.  Regardless of what they may rule at the Supreme Court, as they did in Citizens United, money cannot be allowed to equate to free speech in democratic elections.  We can do far better than we have in making our institutions and political process open and fair.


    It concerns me greatly that our democracy, such as it is, has become so militarized.  We now spend more than half of the discretionary funds in our national budget on the military, some $700 billion annually.  This does not include the tens of billions of dollars we also spend for nuclear weaponry through the Department of Energy, or the budget of the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the interest on the national debt to pay for our foreign wars.  We spend more on our military than all other countries in the world combined.


    We also have more than 700 military bases and our powerful naval fleets spread throughout the world.  We are the only country on Earth that does this.  We are an empire without formal subjects, but we bind countries and leaders to us by our economic power to reward and punish and by the implied threat of our military might.


    A militarized democracy with global reach becomes a militarized empire.  It fights wars of its choosing, despite its obligations under international law, and its people are easily manipulated and lied into war.  The US is now fighting wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and something less than wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.  We are developing a new technology of warfare, based on sanitized long-distance killing with drones and a Global Strike Force that allows the US to attack with no risk of taking casualties.  Recently we have assassinated two American citizens in Yemen using drones.  President Obama signed off on these assassinations.  So much for due process of the law!


    The Global Strike Force plans to replace nuclear warheads with powerful conventional warheads on some inter-continental ballistic missiles, making it possible to attack any target on the globe in under an hour.  Drones and the Global Strike Force make long-distance killing more possible, but no more palatable. 


    Nonviolence is a strategy for social change.  It is more powerful than weapons of war.  These can kill and maim, but they have far less power to influence the human heart than techniques of nonviolence.  The world moves in strange ways.  Gandhi was the great leader of a nonviolent movement to end colonialism in India.  He was influenced by Thoreau and Tolstoy, and in turn he influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. and many other leaders of nonviolent revolutions. 


    Nonviolence is the means to bring about a new world order, one based upon peace and justice.  We have seen it again show its remarkable power during the Arab Spring.  We are witnessing it show its power now on Wall Street in what will hopefully become an American Fall.


    A.J. Muste said this about peace: “There is no way to peace; peace is the way.”  Without achieving peace in the Nuclear Age, we are all – wherever we live on the planet – potential victims of nuclear annihilation.  Nuclear weapons go beyond the homicide and genocide of warfare, and make possible omnicide, the death of all. 


    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which I helped found three decades ago, works to abolish nuclear weapons.  It is a stretch even to call them weapons.  They are the ultimate long-distance killing devices, making the destruction of our world, including all that we hold dear, all too possible. 


    By our capacity for destruction, we have reached a point in our societal evolution at which peace is not only desirable but necessary for our survival – peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age.  The questions I ask myself are these: Will humanity choose peace?  Will we grow up and put away our adolescent resort to violence as a means of resolving conflicts?  Will we awaken in time to avert catastrophe?


    The answers to these questions remain unclear, but it is clear that we are at a point of decision.  Everything begins with choice and intention.  We need to make the right choices and we need to set our intention to build a new world on a foundation of peace.  We need to stop wasting our resources on war and its preparation.  We need to find news ways to appreciate the miracle of life – our own and others.  We need to become planetary patriots, replacing the acronym MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) with a new acronym: PASS (Planetary Assured Security and Survival).  It is our job to pass the planet on intact to new generations.


    Our world badly needs peace leadership if we are to create peace.  I urge each of you to be a peace leader by speaking out and acting for peace.  There are many areas of study and training, but a critical one that is often overlooked is peace leadership.  This training is one of our most important projects at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.  I hope you all will join in this essential effort, keeping in mind the final words of the Earth Charter: “Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.”


    There is so much left to do.  How can we not commit to this beautiful struggle?


    None of us should be content to sit on the sidelines when there is so much to be done.  Despite all the world’s serious problems, and there are many, we must choose hope, for it is hope that propels us to action.  The opposite of hope is despair, which leads to indifference and inaction.  So, I urge you to see hope as a choice, and choose it and live as though we can and will change the world.

  • US Cancels Nuclear-Capable Missile Test on International Day of Peace

    David KriegerThe US Air Force is standing down its plan to launch a nuclear-capable missile on the United Nations International Day of Peace.  It’s a very small step, but it is a step in the right direction.  It’s possible that the Air Force planners didn’t know about the International Day of Peace or even that there is such a day.  There is such a day, though, and it is observed annually by the countries of the world on September 21st.


    When the Air Force announced that it had scheduled a test of a nuclear-capable Minuteman III inter-continental ballistic missile for September 21st, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation notified its Action Alert Network.  Members of this Network sent over 7,000 messages to President Obama calling for cancellation of the offending missile test, and for the president to act in taking US nuclear weapons off high-alert status. 


    Perhaps those thousands of messages awakened someone to the inappropriateness of demonstrating a nuclear show of force on the International Day of Peace.  But perhaps not.  In announcing the cancellation of the missile test, a spokesperson said it was being postponed in order to complete “post test analysis” of another Minuteman III test that failed on July 27th.  It makes sense to study previous failures, but one wonders why the Air Force would announce a test shortly after a failure, and then use the failure as the reason to cancel the new test.


    At any rate, the US has precluded one serious mistake, that is, to have thumbed its nose at the world community by performing a nuclear-capable missile test on the International Day of Peace.  Regardless of its public justification for standing down its missile test, it was the right decision to cancel it. 


    The International Day of Peace will now be a slightly more peaceful day.  But the fact remains that the United States and Russia each maintain some 1,000 nuclear weapons on high-alert status, a Cold War posture that has no place in the 21st century.  President Obama could take a meaningful step toward his stated goal of a world free of nuclear weapons by taking all US nuclear weapons off high-alert status.  This would be showing real leadership, the kind of leadership hoped for from the United States.


    The United Nations General Assembly called in its Resolution 55/282 in 2001 for the International Day of Peace to “be observed as a day of global ceasefire and non-violence….”  It would be a major step for the United States to actually observe the International Day of Peace by observing a ceasefire in its current wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and its hostilities in various other countries.  That would send a message to the world that the US is ready to begin leading an international effort for peace, rather than being so quick, determined and persistent in seeking to settle disputes with its powerful military forces. 

  • Could War Be Going Out of Style?

    Martin HellmanIn an article in current issue of Foreign Policy, American University Professor Joshua Goldstein provides data to support his title,“World peace could be closer than you think:”



    the last decade has seen fewer war deaths than any decade in the past 100 years, based on data compiled by researchers Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Worldwide, deaths caused directly by war-related violence in the new century have averaged about 55,000 per year, just over half of what they were in the 1990s (100,000 a year), a third of what they were during the Cold War (180,000 a year from 1950 to 1989), and a hundredth of what they were in World War II. If you factor in the growing global population, which has nearly quadrupled in the last century, the decrease is even sharper. Far from being an age of killer anarchy, the 20 years since the Cold War ended have been an era of rapid progress toward peace.


    Possible reasons for this substantial decline in war fatalities are given in the article. Professor Goldstein’s related, new book, Winning the War on War: The Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide, has garnered praise from some noteworthy reviewers, adding credibility to his assertion:



    “Winning the War on War does what no other book has attempted, providing a synoptic view, and narrative, of the slow but successful evolution of UN peacekeeping. It takes an unusual and unorthodox approach that works very well indeed.” Paul Kennedy, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History, Yale University; author of the bestseller, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.


    “Professor Goldstein has written a novel, highly informative, and exceedingly valuable book.” David Hamburg, President Emeritus, Carnegie Corporation of New York; former president, American Association for the Advancement of Science; author of No More Killing Fields.


    I hope you’ll enjoy this thought provoking article and book. I also hope that Prof. Goldstein is right about war fatalities being on a continuing downward trend. Aside from the horrendous loss of life, every war entails at least a small risk of spiraling out of control and ending with the use of nuclear weapons.

  • Libyan Delusions

    Martin HellmanBack in March, as NATO attacks on Libya moved into full swing, I wrote three related blog posts (“Libyan Blowback?”, “More on Libya,” and “Let’s Make a Deal!”) that illuminated the nuclear proliferation aspects of our attacks. But, humanitarian concerns trumped nonproliferation considerations, and we attacked anyway. Or did we fool ourselves? Today’s Wall Street Journal has an article “Revenge Feeds Instability in Libya” on page A7 which suggests that we suffered at least some self-delusion:



    Tawergha, which rebels seized last month, … serves as a cautionary tale of what awaits Libya if the sort of victors’ justice Tawergha has endured for weeks is repeated as rebels move into other pro-Gadhafi cities. It could turn whole tribes and regions into disaffected swaths of society, fueling violence and instability. … rebels have been torching homes in the abandoned city 25 miles to the south. … On the gates of many vandalized homes in the country’s only coastal city dominated by dark-skinned people, light-skinned rebels scrawled the words “slaves” and “negroes.”


    “We are setting it on fire to prevent anyone from living here again,” said one rebel fighter as flames engulfed several loyalist homes. … “The revolution was supposed to give people their rights, not to oppress them,” said Hussein Muftah, a Tawergha elder who fled to Tripoli last month, referring to the Feb. 17 uprising.


    UN Security Resolution 1973, which formed the basis for NATO’s attacks on pro-Gaddafi forces, authorized military action to protect civilians. Where is the public pressure to “do something” now? Or were our earlier actions driven – probably unconsciously – more by hatred of Gaddafi than concern for human suffering?


    We need to probe our motivations more deeply before engaging in seemingly small wars. Otherwise, as my three earlier posts show, we increase the risk of a final, nuclear war.

  • Ten Years, Ten Lessons

    David KriegerSeptember 11, 2001 was a traumatizing day for the United States.  The photographs of the airplanes crashing into the World Trade Towers are still haunting, and the senseless loss of life is still painful.  Images of the burning trade towers and people jumping to their deaths are indelibly etched into the minds of those who saw them.

    U.S. policy decisions after 9/11 have turned what began as a traumatizing day into a traumatizing decade for the United States and the world.  It is not clear what our political leaders have learned over the span of these ten years, but here are some lessons that seem clear to me:

    1. The United States, despite its vast military power, was and remains vulnerable.  Our borders are not inviolate.  Our citizens may be attacked on our own territory.

    2. The U.S. is not hated for its freedom, as President George W. Bush opined, but for its policies in supporting dictatorial and repressive regimes, particularly in the Middle East.  Whatever freedoms the American people had on 9/11 have been greatly restricted over the past decade by the Patriot Act and other measures to increase governmental powers.

    3. Wars are costly and they undermine economic prosperity at home.  The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have overdrawn the U.S. budget and helped to create the current economic malaise in the country.

    4. American leaders are willing to lie the country into war, specifically the war in Iraq.  We should have learned this lesson from the Vietnam War.  There has been no accountability for the initiation of an aggressive war, as there was for the German leaders who were tried and convicted at Nuremburg following World War II for their crimes against peace.

    5. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have injured and killed large numbers of civilians.  For each terrorist who has been killed, more terrorists have been recruited to expand their numbers.  What the Bush administration called the “Global War on Terror,” and the Obama administration prefers to call the “Overseas Contingency Operation,” is unwinnable by military means and likely to be endless.

    6. A volunteer military can be used and abused with little response from the American people.  Large numbers of volunteer soldiers have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    7. Despite the illegality and moral repugnance of torture, American officials have been willing to engage in it and, as in the case of Dick Cheney, many remain unrepentant for its use.

    8. President Obama’s expansion of the war in Afghanistan has shown that there is bipartisan political support for keeping the flames of war burning.

    After the U.S. was attacked on 9/11, it had the sympathy of the world.  By its policies of endless war, the U.S. long ago lost those sympathies.  If the U.S. wants to find a more decent foundation on which to rest its policies, I would hope that it would be based upon these two larger lessons:

    9. War is not the answer to dealing with the threat of terrorism.

    10. The way forward is with policies that are legal (under U.S. and international law), moral (demonstrating appropriate care for the innocent) and thoughtful (not based in hubris, alienating to the rest of the world and conducive to creating more terrorists).

    Sadly, at the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, the U.S. seems lacking in sufficient self-reflection to grapple with these lessons. 

  • Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day Memorial

    Today, on August 6, we remember the tragic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki against the background of another catastrophe, the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the nuclear power plant at Fukushima, spreading dangerous and long-lasting radioactive contamination throughout a large region in Northern Japan. Our thoughts go to the brave people of Japan who have suffered this terrible recent disaster.


    As a result of the Fukushima catastrophe, world public opinion now increasingly rejects nuclear power generation. We can hope that the disaster will also contribute to a rejection of nuclear weapons.


    We value and love our natural environment for its beauty, but we are also starting to realize how closely our lives are linked to nature. We are becoming more conscious of how human activities may damage the natural systems on which we depend for our existence. There is much worry today about climate change, but an ecological catastrophe of equal or greater magnitude could be produced by a nuclear war. One can gain a small idea of what this would be like by thinking of the radioactive contamination that has made large areas near to Chernobyl and Fukushima uninhabitable, or the testing of hydrogen bombs in the Pacific, which continues to cause leukemia and birth defects in the Marshall Islands more than half a century later.


    In 1954, the United States tested a hydrogen bomb at Bikini. The bomb was 1,300 times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fallout from the bomb contaminated the island of Rongelap, one of the Marshall Islands 120 kilometers from Bikini. The islanders experienced radiation illness, and many died from cancer. Even today, half a century later, both people and animals on Rongelap and other nearby islands suffer from birth defects. The most common defects have been “jellyfish babies,” born with no bones and with transparent skin. Their brains and beating hearts can be seen. The babies usually live a day or two before they stop breathing. A girl from Rongelap describes the situation in the following words:


    “I cannot have children. I have had miscarriages on seven occasions… Our culture and religion teach us that reproductive abnormalities are a sign that women have been unfaithful. For this reason, many of my friends keep quiet about the strange births that they have had. In privacy they give birth, not to children as we like to think of them, but to things we could only describe as `octopuses’, `apples’, `turtles’, and other things in our experience. We do not have Marshallese words for these kinds of babies, because they were never born before the radiation came.”
    The environmental effects of a nuclear war would be catastrophic. It would produce radioactive contamination of the kind that we have already experienced in the areas around Chernobyl and Fukushima and in the Marshall Islands, but on anenormously increased scale. We have to remember that the total explosive power of the nuclear weapons in the world today is 500,000 times as great as the power of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What is threatened by a nuclear war today is the complete breakdown of human civilization.


    Besides spreading deadly radioactivity throughout the world,
    a nuclear war would incite catastrophic damage on global agriculture. Firestorms in burning cities would produce millions of tons of black, thick, radioactive smoke. The smoke would rise to the stratosphere where it would spread around the earth and remain for a decade. Prolonged cold, decreased sunlight and rainfall, and massive increases in harmful ultraviolet light would shorten or eliminate growing seasons, producing a nuclear famine. Even a small nuclear war could endanger the lives of the billion people who today are chronically undernourished. A full-scale nuclear war would mean that most humans would die from hunger. Many animal and plant species would also be threatened with extinction.


    Today, the system that is supposed to give us security is called Mutually Assured Destruction, appropriately abbreviated as MAD. It is based on the idea of deterrence, which maintains that because of the threat of massive retaliation, no sane leader would start a nuclear war.


    Before discussing other defects in the concept of deterrence, it must be said very clearly that the idea of “massive nuclear retaliation” is a form of genocide and is completely unacceptable from an ethical point of view. It violates not only the principles of common human decency and common sense, but also the ethical principles of every major religion.


    Having said this, we can now turn to some of the other faults in the concept of nuclear deterrence. One important defect is that nuclear war may occur through accident or miscalculation – through technical defects or human failings, or by terrorism.


    This possibility is made greater by the fact that despite the end of the Cold War, thousands of missiles carrying nuclear warheads are still kept on hair-trigger alert” with a quasi-automatic reaction time measured in minutes. There is a constant danger that a nuclear war will be triggered by error in evaluating the signal on a radar screen.


    Incidents in which global disaster is avoided by a hair’s breadth are constantly occurring. For example, on the night of 26 September, 1983, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, a young software engineer, was on duty at a surveillance center near Moscow. Suddenly the screen in front of him turned bright red. An alarm went off. Its enormous piercing sound filled the room. A second alarm followed, and then a third, fourth and fifth. “The computer showed that the Americans had launched a strike against us,” Petrov remembered later. His orders were to pass the information up the chain of command to Secretary General Yuri Andropov. Within minutes, a nuclear counterattack would be launched. However, because of certain inconsistent features of the alarm, Petrov disobeyed orders and reported it as a computer error, which indeed it was. Most of us probably owe our lives to his coolheaded decision and knowledge of software systems. The narrowness of this escape is compounded by the fact that Petrov was on duty only because of the illness of another officer with less knowledge of software, who would have accepted the alarm as real.


    Narrow escapes such as this show us clearly that in the long run, the combination of space-age science and stone-age politics will destroy us. We urgently need new political structures and new ethics to match our advanced technology. Modern science has, for the first time in history, offered humankind the possibility of a life of comfort, free from hunger and cold, and free from the constant threat of death through infectious disease. At the same time, science has given humans the power to obliterate their civilization with nuclear weapons, or to make the earth uninhabitable through overpopulation and pollution. The question of which of these paths we choose is literally a matter of life or death for ourselves and our children.


    Will we use the discoveries of modern science constructively, and thus choose the path leading towards life? Or will we use science to produce more and more lethal weapons, which sooner or later, through a technical or human failure, will result in a catastrophic nuclear war? Will we thoughtlessly destroy our beautiful planet through unlimited growth of population and industry? The choice among these alternatives is ours to make.


    We live at a critical moment of history – a moment of crisis for civilization.


    No one alive today asked to be born at a time of crisis, but history has given each of us an enormous responsibility. Of course we have our ordinary jobs, which we need to do in order to stay alive; but besides that, each of us has a second job, the duty to devote both time and effort to solving the serious problems that face civilization during the 21st century. We cannot rely on our politicians to do this for us. Many politicians are under the influence of powerful lobbies. Others are waiting for a clear expression of popular will. It is the people of the world themselves who must choose their own future and work hard to build it. No single person can achieve the changes that we need, but together we can do it.


    The problem of building a stable, just, and war-free world is difficult, but it is not impossible. The large regions of our present-day world within which war has been eliminated can serve as models. There are a number of large countries with heterogeneous populations within which it has been possible to achieve internal peace and social cohesion, and if this is possible within such extremely large regions, it must also be possible globally.


    We must replace the old world of international anarchy, chronic war, and institutionalized injustice by a new world of law. The United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court are steps in the right direction. These institutions need to be greatly strengthened and reformed.
    We also need a new global ethic, where loyalty to one’s family and nation will be supplemented by a higher loyalty to humanity as a whole.


    Tipping points in public opinion can occur suddenly. We can think, for example, of the Civil Rights Movement, or the rapid fall of the Berlin Wall, or the sudden change that turned public opinion against smoking, or the sudden movement for freedom and democracy in the Arab world. A similar sudden change can occur soon regarding war and nuclear weapons.


    We know that war is madness. We know that it is responsible for much of the suffering that humans experience. We know that war pollutes our planet and that the almost unimaginable sums wasted on war prevent the happiness and prosperity of mankind. We know that nuclear weapons are insane, and that the precariously balanced deterrence system can break down at any time through human error or computer errors or through terrorist actions, and that it definitely will break down within our lifetimes unless we abolish it. We know that nuclear war threatens to destroy civilization and much of the biosphere.


    The logic is there. We must translate into popular action which will put an end to the undemocratic, money-driven, power-lust-driven war machine. The peoples of the world must say very clearly that nuclear weapons are an absolute evil; that their possession does not increase anyone’s security; that their continued existence is a threat to the life of every person on the planet; and that these genocidal and potentially omnicidal weapons have no place in a civilized society.


    Modern science has abolished time and distance as factors separating nations. On our shrunken globe today, there is room for one group only – the family of humankind. We must embrace all other humans as our brothers and sisters. More than that, we must feel that all of nature is part of the same sacred family – meadow flowers, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals, and other humans – all these are our brothers and sisters, deserving our care and protection. Only in this way can we survive together. Only in this way can we build a happy future.

  • 2011 Sadako Peace Day

    This is a transcript of David Krieger’s speech at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2011 Sadako Peace Day commemoration.


    David KriegerWelcome to the 17th annual Sadako Peace Day commemorating the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 


    We are very pleased to have with us today our principal speaker, Dr. Jimmy Hara, a Los Angeles medical doctor who has been a leader in the struggle for a nuclear weapons-free world.  We are also honored to have with us Shigeko Sasamori, a survivor of Hiroshima, who will accept the Foundation’s World Citizen Award on October 9th on behalf of the survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.  We will also have with us for that occasion Tadatoshi Akiba, the distinguished former mayor of Hiroshima.


    Today is the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.  Three days ago, on August 6th, was the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  We have now lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation for two-thirds of a century.
     
    We come together to share in remembrance, reflection and resistance. 


    Remembrance of the tragedies that befell the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the massive death and destruction caused by these powerful new weapons. 


    Reflection on the power of our technologies for good or evil and on the only force capable of controlling our powerful weaponry and turning it to constructive ends – the human spirit.


    Resistance to the continued reliance upon these weapons of mass annihilation by a small number of states and to the unconscionable allocation of public resources to war and its preparation.


    We remember so as not to repeat the tragedy.  We reflect to place the tragedy within the context of our lives and our time.  We resist to fulfill our human responsibility to ourselves, to each other and to those who will follow us on this planet.


    We are a community committed to ending the threat of nuclear annihilation, and we are linked to other communities sharing this commitment across the globe. 


    We are linked to Sadako of the thousand cranes and to other innocent victims of war and nuclear annihilation.  Sadako wrote on the wings of a paper crane she folded, “I will write peace on your wings, and you will fly all over the world.”  Her cranes have indeed reached across oceans – to us here in Santa Barbara and to many other parts of the world.


    I’d like to read you an excerpt of the Nagasaki Peace Declaration, which was shared earlier today in that city:



    “Do we still believe that the world is safer thanks to nuclear deterrence? Do we still take it for granted that no nuclear weapons will ever be used again? Now seeing how the radiation released by an accident at just a single nuclear power station is causing such considerable confusion in society, we can clearly understand how inhumane it is to attack people with nuclear weapons.


    “We call upon all people in the world to simply imagine how terrifying it would be if a nuclear weapon hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs were to be exploded in the sky above our cities.


    “While intense heat rays would melt human beings and anything else nearby, horrific blast winds would fling buildings through the air and crush them instantly. A countless number of charred bodies would be scattered among the ruins. Some people would hover between life and death, while others would suffer from their injuries. Even if there were survivors, the intense radioactivity would prevent any rescue efforts. Radioactive substances would be carried far away by the wind to all corners of the world, resulting in widespread contamination of the earth’s environment, and in affecting people with a plague of health effects for generations to come.


    “We must never allow anyone in the future to experience such agony. Nuclear weapons are never needed. No reason can ever justify human beings possessing even one nuclear weapon.”


    We appreciate your being here and hope you will enjoy the program of music, poetry and contemplation.  We invite you to join us in working for a more peaceful world, free of nuclear weapons and nuclear threat.


    I’d like to conclude with a poem from my book, God’s Tears.  It begins with a quote by General Eisenhower.




    EISENHOWER’S VIEW


    “It wasn’t necessary to hit them
    with that awful thing    ”
    — General Dwight D. Eisenhower
     
    We hit them with it, first
    at Hiroshima and then at Nagasaki –
    the old one-two punch.


    The bombings were tests really, to see
    what those “awful things” would do.


    First, of a gun-type uranium bomb, and then
    of a plutonium implosion bomb.


    Both proved highly effective
    in the art of obliterating cities.


    It wasn’t necessary.


     

  • 2011 Hiroshima Peace Declaration

    Kazumi MatsuiSixty-six years ago, despite the war, the people of Hiroshima were leading fairly normal lives. Until that fateful moment, many families were enjoying life together right here in what is now Peace Memorial Park and was then one of the city’s most prosperous districts. A man who was thirteen at the time shares this: “August fifth was a Sunday, and for me, a second-year student in middle school, the first full day off in a very long time. I asked a good friend from school to come with me, and we went on down to the river. Forgetting all about the time, we stayed until twilight, swimming and playing on the sandy riverbed. That hot mid-summer’s day was the last time I ever saw him.”


    The next morning, August sixth at 8:15, a single atomic bomb ripped those normal lives out by the roots. This description is from a woman who was sixteen at the time: “My forty-kilogram body was blown seven meters by the blast, and I was knocked out. When I came to, it was pitch black and utterly silent. In that soundless world, I thought I was the only one left. I was naked except for some rags around my hips. The skin on my left arm had peeled off in five-centimeter strips that were all curled up. My right arm was sort of whitish. Putting my hands to my face, I found my right cheek quite rough while my left cheek was all slimy.”


    Their community and lives ravaged by an atomic bomb, the survivors were stunned and injured, and yet, they did their best to help each other: “Suddenly, I heard lots of voices crying and screaming, ‘Help!’ ‘Mommy, help!’ Turning to a voice nearby I said, ‘I’ll help you.’ I tried to move in that direction but my body was so heavy. I did manage to move enough to save one young child, but with no skin on my hands, I was unable to help any more. …‘I’m really sorry.’ …”


    Such scenes were unfolding not just here where this park is but all over Hiroshima. Wanting to help but unable to do so—many also still live with the guilt of being their family’s sole survivor.


    Based on their own experiences and carrying in their hearts the voices and feelings of those sacrificed to the bomb, the hibakusha called for a world without nuclear weapons as they struggled day by day to survive. In time, along with other Hiroshima residents, and with generous assistance from Japan and around the world, they managed to bring their city back to life.


    Their average age is now over 77. Calling forth what remains of the strength that revived their city, they continue to pursue the lasting peace of a world free from nuclear weapons. Can we let it go at this? Absolutely not. The time has come for the rest of us to learn from all the hibakusha what they experienced and their desire for peace. Then, we must communicate what we learn to future generations and the rest of the world.


    Through this Peace Declaration, I would like to communicate the hibakusha experience and desire for peace to each and every person on this planet. Hiroshima will pour everything we have into working, along with Nagasaki, to expand Mayors for Peace such that all cities, those places around the world where people gather, will strive together to eliminate nuclear weapons by 2020. Moreover, we want all countries, especially the nuclear-armed states, including the United States of America, which continues its subcritical nuclear testing and related experiments, to pursue enthusiastically a process that will abolish nuclear weapons. To that end, we plan to host an international conference that will bring the world’s policymakers to Hiroshima to discuss the nuclear non-proliferation regime.


    The Great East Japan Earthquake of March eleventh this year was so destructive it revived images of Hiroshima 66 years ago and still pains our hearts. Here in Hiroshima we sincerely pray for the souls of all who perished and strongly support the survivors, wishing them the quickest possible recovery.


    The accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station and the ongoing threat of radiation have generated tremendous anxiety among those in the affected areas and many others. The trust the Japanese people once had in nuclear power has been shattered. From the common admonition that “nuclear energy and humankind cannot coexist,” some seek to abandon nuclear power altogether. Others advocate extremely strict control of nuclear power and increased utilization of renewable energy.


    The Japanese government should humbly accept this reality, quickly review our energy policies, and institute concrete countermeasures to regain the understanding and trust of the people. In addition, with our hibakusha aging, we demand that the Japanese government promptly expand its “black rain areas” and offer more comprehensive and caring assistance measures to all hibakusha regardless of their countries of residence.


    Offering our heartfelt condolences to the souls of the A-bomb victims, reaffirming our conviction that “the atomic bombing must never be repeated” and “no one else should ever have to suffer like this,” we hereby pledge to do everything in our power to abolish nuclear weapons and build lasting world peace.

  • A Face of War: 12 Year-Old Ali

    David KriegerWe are preparing a new poetry collection of the winning poems in the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards.  Going through these poems has made me think about the many faces of war.  There are the faces of the leaders who choose to go to war.  There are the faces of the soldiers who fight in the wars.  There are the faces of loved ones left behind.  And, most powerful, there are the faces of the victims of war.  In general, the faces of the leaders are smug and certain; the faces of the soldiers are young and determined; the faces of the loved ones left behind are distracted and worried; and the faces of the victims are twisted in agony and death.

    The Foundation gives poetry awards in three categories: adults, youth (13–18) and children (12 and under).  One of the first place poems in the children’s category is about a young Iraqi boy named Ali Ismail Abbas.  Ali was 12 years old when tragedy struck his home in the form of US guided missiles, killing his father, his pregnant mother, his brother and 13 other family members.  Ali survived, after the amputation of both of his arms.  He had wanted to become a doctor.

    Daniel Amoss wrote this short poem about Ali:

    I saw his picture.
    War is a 12-year-old boy
    With no arms, brown eyes.

    His poem captures so much.  It reveals the brown eyes (soft? tearful? frightened?) of a boy whose family and whose dreams were destroyed by war.

    I remember reading about Ali in 2003 when the story of his loss was covered in the media.  It was a devastating story of the horrors of war; in this case, of the unintended horrors of war.  I wrote this poem:
    TO AN IRAQI CHILD

    for Ali Ismail Abbas

    So you wanted to be a doctor?

    It was not likely that your dreams
    would have come true anyway.

    We didn’t intend for our bombs to find you.

    They are smart bombs, but they didn’t know
    you wanted to be a doctor.

    They didn’t know anything about you
    and they know nothing of love.

    They cannot be trusted with dreams.

    They only know how to find their targets
    and explode in fulfillment.

    They are gray metal casings with violent hearts,
    doing only what they were created to do.

    It isn’t their fault that they found you.

    Perhaps you were not meant to be a doctor.
    I wrote from the skeptical perspective of the cynics who justify the unjustifiable: “They are smart bombs, but they didn’t know/ you wanted to be a doctor.”  No, our bombs are not so smart.  And those who go along with the justifications for war are not so brave.  And those who make war, who choose force over reason, are not so wise.  Most often those who lead us into war pay no price, as do their victims such as Ali Ismail Abbas.  We would do well to remember Ali’s 12-year-old face, with its brown eyes, and his shattered dreams the next time a leader tries to sell us on a war.

  • An Open Letter to Graduates

    Dear Graduates,


    David KriegerHaving received a college degree, you are among the 6.7 percent of the world’s most educated elite.  If your education has been a good one, you are likely to have more questions than answers.  If your education has been mediocre, you are likely to think you have more answers than questions. 


    Did you have a chance in college to ponder these questions: What does it mean to be human?  Why are we here on Earth?  What are the greatest goals one can pursue in life?  What are the keys to a happy and fulfilled life?  If you didn’t, it’s not too late.


    You may have taken many introductory courses during your college years, but was there a course on Global Survival 101?  If not, you may not be prepared to make a difference in ending the great dangers to humanity in the 21st century. 


    Do you know how many nuclear weapons there are in the world?  Do you know which countries possess them?  Do you know what nuclear weapons do to cities?  Do you know whether these weapons are legal or illegal under international law?  Do you know whether they could end civilization and the human species?


    Do you know about the Nuremberg Principles, those that were derived from the tribunals at Nuremberg that held the Nazi leaders to account after World War II?  Do you know that these principles apply not just to Nazi leaders, but to all leaders who commit heinous crimes under international law?  Do you know what those crimes are? 


    Have you studied the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?  Do you know to whom these rights apply?  Do you know that these rights encompass economic and social rights as well as political and civil rights?


    Do you know that we all live on a single fragile planet and that we humans are the caretakers and stewards of this planet, not only for ourselves, but for future generations yet unborn?


    Do you realize that you are about to enter a world of vast inequities, as measured in money, health and happiness?  Do you understand that throughout the world there are more than a billion people who are malnourished and go to bed hungry every night?  Can you comprehend that in our world there are still 25,000 children who die daily of starvation and preventable diseases?


    Does your education lead you to believe that money will buy happiness?  It may buy fancy material things, and even status, but it is unlikely that it will buy happiness or fulfillment in life.  Caring for others and living with compassion, commitment and courage offers a far surer path to a fulfilled and happy life.


    Graduating from college is a commencement, not an ending.  It is a commencement into responsibility for one’s society and one’s world.  Exercising this responsibility is a daily task, a necessary and never-ending task.  It is a task that will require further education, outside the college classroom, but inside the multiversity of life. 


    The world needs to change.  We cannot continue to teeter on the precipice of nuclear and ecological disasters.  We cannot continue to exist divided into those who live in abundance and those who live in scarcity.  We cannot allow the greed of the few to overwhelm the need of the many.  We cannot continue to exploit the planet’s finite resources, in effect, stealing from the future.  We cannot continue to draw lines on the planet and separate ourselves into warring factions. 


    For the world to change, new peace leaders and change makers will be needed.  The first and most important questions you must ask yourself in your new role as graduates are these: Will I be one of the peace leaders and change makers, devoting myself to building a better world?  Or, will I choose to be detached and complacent in the face of the 21st century’s social, economic, political and military threats to humanity? 


    As the little prince, in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book by that name, stated so clearly, “It’s a matter of discipline….  When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend your planet.”  Look around.  Our beautiful planet needs a lot of tending.