Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Peace

  • America’s Blinders

    Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled?

    The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq. A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk. In it, Powell confidently rattled off his “evidence”: satellite photographs, audio records, reports from informants, with precise statistics on how many gallons of this and that existed for chemical warfare. The New York Times was breathless with admiration. The Washington Post editorial was titled “Irrefutable” and declared that after Powell’s talk “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”

    It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived.

    One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.

    If we don’t know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. I am not speaking of the history we learned in school, a history subservient to our political leaders, from the much-admired Founding Fathers to the Presidents of recent years. I mean a history which is honest about the past. If we don’t know that history, then any President can stand up to the battery of microphones, declare that we must go to war, and we will have no basis for challenging him. He will say that the nation is in danger, that democracy and liberty are at stake, and that we must therefore send ships and planes to destroy our new enemy, and we will have no reason to disbelieve him.

    But if we know some history, if we know how many times Presidents have made similar declarations to the country, and how they turned out to be lies, we will not be fooled. Although some of us may pride ourselves that we were never fooled, we still might accept as our civic duty the responsibility to buttress our fellow citizens against the mendacity of our high officials.

    We would remind whoever we can that President Polk lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico in 1846. It wasn’t that Mexico “shed American blood upon the American soil,” but that Polk, and the slave-owning aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico.

    We would point out that President McKinley lied in 1898 about the reason for invading Cuba, saying we wanted to liberate the Cubans from Spanish control, but the truth is that we really wanted Spain out of Cuba so that the island could be open to United Fruit and other American corporations. He also lied about the reasons for our war in the Philippines, claiming we only wanted to “civilize” the Filipinos, while the real reason was to own a valuable piece of real estate in the far Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that.

    President Woodrow Wilson—so often characterized in our history books as an “idealist”—lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to “make the world safe for democracy,” when it was really a war to make the world safe for the Western imperial powers.

    Harry Truman lied when he said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima because it was “a military target.”

    Everyone lied about Vietnam—Kennedy about the extent of our involvement, Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon about the secret bombing of Cambodia, all of them claiming it was to keep South Vietnam free of communism, but really wanting to keep South Vietnam as an American outpost at the edge of the Asian continent.

    Reagan lied about the invasion of Grenada, claiming falsely that it was a threat to the United States.

    The elder Bush lied about the invasion of Panama, leading to the death of thousands of ordinary citizens in that country.

    And he lied again about the reason for attacking Iraq in 1991—hardly to defend the integrity of Kuwait (can one imagine Bush heartstricken over Iraq’s taking of Kuwait?), rather to assert U.S. power in the oil-rich Middle East.

    Given the overwhelming record of lies told to justify wars, how could anyone listening to the younger Bush believe him as he laid out the reasons for invading Iraq? Would we not instinctively rebel against the sacrifice of lives for oil?

    A careful reading of history might give us another safeguard against being deceived. It would make clear that there has always been, and is today, a profound conflict of interest between the government and the people of the United States. This thought startles most people, because it goes against everything we have been taught.

    We have been led to believe that, from the beginning, as our Founding Fathers put it in the Preamble to the Constitution, it was “we the people” who established the new government after the Revolution. When the eminent historian Charles Beard suggested, a hundred years ago, that the Constitution represented not the working people, not the slaves, but the slaveholders, the merchants, the bondholders, he became the object of an indignant editorial in The New York Times.

    Our culture demands, in its very language, that we accept a commonality of interest binding all of us to one another. We mustn’t talk about classes. Only Marxists do that, although James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” said, thirty years before Marx was born that there was an inevitable conflict in society between those who had property and those who did not.

    Our present leaders are not so candid. They bombard us with phrases like “national interest,” “national security,” and “national defense” as if all of these concepts applied equally to all of us, colored or white, rich or poor, as if General Motors and Halliburton have the same interests as the rest of us, as if George Bush has the same interest as the young man or woman he sends to war.

    Surely, in the history of lies told to the population, this is the biggest lie. In the history of secrets, withheld from the American people, this is the biggest secret: that there are classes with different interests in this country. To ignore that—not to know that the history of our country is a history of slaveowner against slave, landlord against tenant, corporation against worker, rich against poor—is to render us helpless before all the lesser lies told to us by people in power.

    If we as citizens start out with an understanding that these people up there—the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, all those institutions pretending to be “checks and balances”—do not have our interests at heart, we are on a course towards the truth. Not to know that is to make us helpless before determined liars.

    The deeply ingrained belief—no, not from birth but from the educational system and from our culture in general—that the United States is an especially virtuous nation makes us especially vulnerable to government deception. It starts early, in the first grade, when we are compelled to “pledge allegiance” (before we even know what that means), forced to proclaim that we are a nation with “liberty and justice for all.”

    And then come the countless ceremonies, whether at the ballpark or elsewhere, where we are expected to stand and bow our heads during the singing of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” announcing that we are “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” There is also the unofficial national anthem “God Bless America,” and you are looked on with suspicion if you ask why we would expect God to single out this one nation—just 5 percent of the world’s population—for his or her blessing. If your starting point for evaluating the world around you is the firm belief that this nation is somehow endowed by Providence with unique qualities that make it morally superior to every other nation on Earth, then you are not likely to question the President when he says we are sending our troops here or there, or bombing this or that, in order to spread our values—democracy, liberty, and let’s not forget free enterprise—to some God-forsaken (literally) place in the world. It becomes necessary then, if we are going to protect ourselves and our fellow citizens against policies that will be disastrous not only for other people but for Americans too, that we face some facts that disturb the idea of a uniquely virtuous nation.

    These facts are embarrassing, but must be faced if we are to be honest. We must face our long history of ethnic cleansing, in which millions of Indians were driven off their land by means of massacres and forced evacuations. And our long history, still not behind us, of slavery, segregation, and racism. We must face our record of imperial conquest, in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, our shameful wars against small countries a tenth our size: Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq. And the lingering memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is not a history of which we can be proud.

    Our leaders have taken it for granted, and planted that belief in the minds of many people, that we are entitled, because of our moral superiority, to dominate the world. At the end of World War II, Henry Luce, with an arrogance appropriate to the owner of Time, Life, and Fortune, pronounced this “the American century,” saying that victory in the war gave the United States the right “to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.”

    Both the Republican and Democratic parties have embraced this notion. George Bush, in his Inaugural Address on January 20, 2005, said that spreading liberty around the world was “the calling of our time.” Years before that, in 1993, President Bill Clinton, speaking at a West Point commencement, declared: “The values you learned here . . . will be able to spread throughout this country and throughout the world and give other people the opportunity to live as you have lived, to fulfill your God-given capacities.”

    What is the idea of our moral superiority based on? Surely not on our behavior toward people in other parts of the world. Is it based on how well people in the United States live? The World Health Organization in 2000 ranked countries in terms of overall health performance, and the United States was thirty-seventh on the list, though it spends more per capita for health care than any other nation. One of five children in this, the richest country in the world, is born in poverty. There are more than forty countries that have better records on infant mortality. Cuba does better. And there is a sure sign of sickness in society when we lead the world in the number of people in prison—more than two million.

    A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world. It might also inspire us to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars and killers who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join the rest of the human race in the common cause of peace and justice.

    Howard Zinn is the co-author, with Anthony Arnove, of “Voices of a People’s History of the United States.”

  • Review of David Schalk’s War and the Ivory Tower

    “History,” the French philosopher Julien Benda once remarked, “is made from shreds of justice that the intellectual has torn from the politician.” This contention may overestimate the power of the former and underestimate the power of the latter. But it does point to a tension between intellectuals and government officials that has existed at crucial historical junctures–for example, in late nineteenth century France (where the term “intellectual was first coined in connection with the Dreyfus affair) and in the late twentieth century Soviet Union (where intellectuals provided the major source of dissent).

    This tension is well-illustrated by David Schalk’s excellent study, War and the Ivory Tower, an examination of intellectual engagement during France’s war in Algeria (1954 to 1962) and America’s war in Vietnam (1964 to 1975). Originally published in 1991 and reissued in 2005, this book has new prefaces by Benjamin Stora (a French historian, born in Algeria) and George Herring (a U.S. diplomatic historian), as well as a new introduction by Schalk (a specialist on European intellectual history).

    Schalk defines intellectuals by what he calls “their more abstract and distantiated social role which sharply contrasts with almost all others in a modern society. Their function involves a certain kind of creativity, usually through the written word and dealing with ideas in some fashion, often applying ideas in an ethical way that may question the legitimacy of the established authorities.” Thus, “a significant percentage of the professoriate and some journalists” can be classified as intellectuals, as can “a substantial portion of the artistic community . . . who theorize in print about their creativity.” In his view, “there was, and perhaps remains, a symbiotic relationship between the intellectual and engagement,” a French term meaning “critical dissent.”

    Schalk argues convincingly that there were remarkable similarities between the Algerian and Vietnam wars. These include: the use of torture; the looming precedent of the Nuremberg trials; anti-colonial revolt; the undermining of democracy; the murky style of diplomacy; the racist views of Western troops; the unjustified optimism and arrogance of military and political leaders; the forced relocation of civilian populations; and the transformation of the two nations’ countrysides into vast “free fire zones,” in which the military sought to destroy everything that moved.

    There were also important differences, he notes, among them the relative absence of Marxism within Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN); the large French settler population in Algeria; and the presence in France of some 300,000 Algerian workers, whose monthly remittances to the FLN and its government in exile paid a significant portion of the costs of the Algerian independence struggle.

    Albert Camus has often been cited as an example of French intellectual resistance to the Algerian war. But, as Schalk reveals, Camus was conflicted about the struggle in Algeria, and at times fell silent about it. “A far more relevant model,” Schalk notes, is provided by the French Catholic intelligentsia, especially the left-leaning intellectuals gathered around the monthly Esprit. From 1954 and 1962, that journal published 211 articles on the Algerian war, 42 of them by its co-director (and later director) Jean-Marie Domenach. The responsibility of intellectuals, argued Domenach, was to show that “between the frivolous word and the recourse to arms there exists a path”–the path, he eventually concluded, of nonviolent resistance and peaceful protest. The French Left, he believed, had to be awakened from its paralyzing sense of impotence so that it would no longer “cultivate a despair that is the secret weapon of tyranny.”

    As Schalk notes, Esprit’s prominence in resistance to the war did not mean that the French Catholic intelligentsia solidly opposed French policy. Indeed, some conservative Catholic intellectuals were keen supporters of France’s war in Algeria. Denouncing conscientious objectors, Monseigneur Jean Rodhain declared in 1960, contemptuously, that if they would not fight for France, they should “go and live in another country.”

    Jean-Paul Sartre and writers connected with his journal, Les Temps modernes, also played key roles in the resistance to the Algerian war. Once the full significance of that conflict became apparent to Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and their associates, they dealt with it extensively in that journal. Schalk remarks that, as “the guiding spirit” behind Les Temps modernes, “Sartre channeled much of his amazing energy and intellectual power into the struggle to end the war.” His articles dealt “unsparingly with issues of collective guilt and thus the historical parallel with the Nazi years, torture, war crimes, and the danger of fascism.” He also published a report on the first clandestine congress of the Young Resistance, a group of draft resisters, with the mission of helping deserters and those who refused induction to leave France and locate employment elsewhere.

    In the fall of 1960, Sartre and others created a sensation by circulating what became known as the Manifesto of the 121, the “Declaration on the Right of Insubordination in the Algerian War.” Banned by the government and consequently unpublished (e.g. the pages of Les Temps modernes where it was to appear remained conspicuously blank), it sharply denounced the Algerian war, noting that “French militarism . . . has managed to restore torture and to make it once again practically an institution in Europe.” The signers declared that they “respect and deem justified the refusal to take up arms against the Algerian people,” as well as the “conduct of Frenchmen who . . . supply aid and protection to Algerians who are oppressed in the name of the French people.” They concluded that “the cause of the Algerian people, who are contributing in a decisive manner to destroying the colonial system, is the cause of all free men.”

    The most dramatic and controversial act of resistance by French intellectuals was organized by Francis Jeansen, a philosopher and former protégé of Sartre’s. In a powerful statement published in Esprit in May 1957, he pointed to French war crimes in Algeria, observing that “this politique is ours, these horrors are imputable to us.” In Jeansen’s view, the terrible responsibility borne by the French for their disgraceful behavior in Algeria necessitated extraordinary action. Consequently, he and his students began transporting suitcases filled with money from Algerian workers in France across the border to Swiss banks. From there the money was funneled toward the purchase of weapons for the Algerian independence struggle. Although some of Jeansen’s associates were arrested and tried, he was never caught by the French secret police, despite the fact that he surfaced briefly in Paris for a clandestine press conference.

    These activities, led by prominent French intellectuals, fed into accelerating displays of public resistance. A silent protest against the war took place in Paris in June 1957. Banned by the government, it nevertheless drew some 500 to 600 people, including Sartre and Francois Mauriac; 49 of them were arrested for this “crime.” In December 1961, 50,000 people turned out for a march in Paris to protest OAS terrorism. This march also was banned by the government and was broken up by police, with more than a hundred participants hospitalized as a result of police brutality. In February 1962, when the authorities finally granted legal authorization for a peace demonstration, a crowd of half a million surged through Paris.

    As this account suggests, resistance to the war occurred against the backdrop of significant verbal and physical assault. Addressing French veterans’ groups, Robert LaCoste, France’s Resident Minister in Algeria, accused “the exhibitionists of the heart and the intellect who have mounted the campaign against torture” of being “responsible for the resurgence of terrorism. . . . I present them to you for your scorn.” Esprit’s increasingly critical stand led to arrests, fines, and seizures of issues of the journal by the government. On two occasions, the OAS bombed the headquarters of Esprit with plastic explosives. Sartre’s apartment and the offices of Les Temps modernes were also bombed with plastic explosives, and pro-war militants marched through the streets of Paris calling for his assassination.

    Despite the obstacles erected by the government and colonialist fanatics, however, by the end of the war French intellectuals were in a state of revolt, with the vast majority of them denouncing France’s role in Algeria.

    Similarly, notes Schalk, among American intellectuals–and particularly those affiliated with elite educational institutions and those who constituted the country’s most famous novelists, essayists, artists, and poets–opposition to the U.S. war effort in Vietnam became “overwhelming.” In October 1969, for example, the Harvard faculty voted 255 to 81 against U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, and 391 to 16 in support of the upcoming Moratorium Day against the war. An endless stream of antiwar petitions appeared in the New York Times and elsewhere, signed by faculty at top universities and by other intellectual luminaries.

    The most influential of these petitions–inspired by the Manifesto of the 121–was the “Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,” which appeared in the October 12, 1967, issue of the New York Review of Books. Signed by Philip Berrigan, Noam Chomsky, Paul Goodman, Denise Levertov, Dwight Macdonald, Herbert Marcuse, Linus Pauling, Susan Sontag, and others, the “Call” argued that the kinds of actions taken by U.S. troops in Vietnam–the destruction of villages, the internment of civilian populations in concentration camps, and summary executions of civilians–were those that America and its World War II allies “declared to be crimes against humanity . . . and for which Germans were sentenced at Nuremberg.” Everyone “must choose the course of resistance dictated by his conscience and circumstances,” they argued, but resistance to military service in Vietnam is “courageous and justified.” Addressing “all men of good will,” they asked them to join “in this confrontation with immoral authority. . . . Now is the time to resist.”

    The New York Review, the nation’s leading intellectual journal, devoted enormous attention to the Vietnam War, publishing 262 articles on the subject between 1964 and 1975. The most famous of them, Schalk notes, was Noam Chomsky’s “The Responsibility of Intellectuals,” which appeared in February 1967. In numerous ways, it set the tone for the “Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,” and represented the shift of American intellectuals from educational efforts to calls for extralegal action. “It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies,” Chomsky wrote. But he contrasted this obligation with the practices of establishment intellectuals, who lied and dissembled to serve power. The moral was clear: in the circumstances of the Vietnam War, the only appropriate response was resistance.

    In later writings, Chomsky admitted that he felt “uncomfortable about proposing draft refusal publicly, since it is a rather cheap proposal from someone my age.” But he did advocate tax resistance, “both because it symbolizes a refusal to make a voluntary contribution to the war machine and also because it indicates a willingness . . . to take illegal measures to oppose an indecent government.” In addition, Chomsky participated in antiwar demonstrations and was arrested during the October 1967 march on the Pentagon. Like almost all other American and French intellectuals, though, Chomsky consistently rejected violent protest. He wrote: “Continued mass actions, patient explanation, principled resistance can be boring, depressing. But those who program the B-52 attacks and the `pacification’ exercises are not bored, and as long as they continue in their work, so must we.”

    Other key U.S. intellectuals also became engagé, including Hans Morgenthau, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Joseph Heller, Mary McCarthy, Norman Mailer, Muriel Rukeyser, Eric Bentley, Ann Sexton, William Styron, Anais Nin, Henry Steele Commager, and Robert Penn Warren. Draft counseling, teach-ins against the war, and antiwar commencement ceremonies preoccupied some of America’s most illustrious minds. “For many intellectuals,” observes Schalk, “the Vietnam episode lay in a special category. It stood outside the normal realm of debate.” As Martin Bernal put it, in yet another article in the New York Review, the Vietnam War could be categorized with “Nazi concentration camps.” Reflecting their bitterness, Susan Sontag wrote in 1967: “America has become a criminal, sinister country–swollen with priggishness, numbed by affluence, bemused by the monstrous conceit that she has the mandate to dispose of the destiny of the world, of life itself, in terms of her own interests and jargon.”

    The powerful, of course, were enraged by the engagement of the intellectuals. Officials in the Johnson and Nixon administrations denounced them, launched investigations of them, placed them on “enemies” lists, attempted to disrupt their activities, and prosecuted them. In 1968, Benjamin Spock, William Sloane Coffin Jr., Mitchell Goodman, Marcus Raskin, and Michael Ferber were indicted for counseling, aiding, and abetting draft registrants to “fail, refuse, and evade” service in the U.S. armed forces; among the “overt acts” cited in the indictment was the “Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority.” Father Daniel Berrigan, after indictment for the destruction of draft records, declared himself a “fugitive from injustice” and went underground, from which he somehow granted interviews and made public appearances. Other prominent intellectual critics of the war, such as Staughton Lynd, had their academic employment challenged or terminated.

    Schalk places this chronicle of escalating engagement in France and the United States within three stages: a pedagogical stage, in which intellectuals critiqued official justifications for their country’s wars; a moral stage, in which they challenged the ethical basis of their country’s behavior; and a counter-legal stage, in which they promoted civil disobedience. This model proposed by Schalk nicely fits the trend of resistance in both countries.

    Indeed, Schalk has written a masterly work, which has stood up extraordinarily well in the years from its initial publication to this new edition, which appeared in late 2005. His careful style, thorough research, and judicious conclusions make this an excellent study of intellectual engagement. Its relevance goes beyond the crises of conscience in France and the United States over their governments’ brutal wars in the Third World to the role of intellectuals in modern society.

    In this broader framework, Schalk speculates on whether intellectual engagement is a phenomenon solely of the past, and concludes that it probably is not. But “to elicit a profound moral reaction from its intellectual elites,” he maintains, “a government in power has to do something stupid and evil enough.” Furthermore, “the external historical situation . . . must not appear totally hopeless and impermeable to change.”

    George Herring, in his preface to the book, takes up this issue and applies it to American intellectuals and the current U.S. war in Iraq. “The insurgency that began in Iraq after the . . . spring 2003 U.S. invasion bears a marked resemblance to the wars in Algeria and Vietnam,” he observes. “The Abu Ghraib scandal calls forth memories of French torture in Algeria and the notorious tiger cages at Con Son in South Vietnam. Indeed, the sometimes-bewildered looks on the faces of American soldiers in Iraqi cities are reminiscent of the expressions of those who fought earlier wars in Algeria and Vietnam.” And, yet, he notes, intellectual dissent has been relatively muted. “Where is the outrage against government lies and blundering? Where is the call to resist illegitimate authority?”

    There are signs, though, that a storm has been gathering, and that the intellectuals, now restive, will once again lead the way in fearlessly exposing the lies and mendacity of the powerful, as they did so effectively during the Algerian and Vietnam wars. And if they do plunge once more into public debate and resistance, they will surely build upon the exemplary stance of their predecessors, chronicled so brilliantly in War and the Ivory Tower.

    Years ago, with his characteristic pessimism, Chomsky wondered gloomily what would happen to historical consciousness of the Vietnam War “as the custodians of history set to work.” But, as David Schalk shows us, a sensitive and forthright historian can illuminate the darkened terrain of the past and of the present.

    Lawrence S. Wittner, a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate, is Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford University Press).

    Originally published by the History News Network.

  • Bonhoeffer’s Message: No Compromise with Evil

    Seekers of peace and social justice should take note of today’s 100th birthday celebration of the life of German theologian and Nazi resister Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

    As much as anyone – and as early as anyone – Bonhoeffer spoke out against the wickedness of Adolf Hitler’s regime and took some of the most significant actions to thwart it. It was Bonhoeffer and a small circle of Lutheran ministers who first condemned the virulent anti-Semitism and reawakened militarism in Germany. It was Bonhoeffer who most loudly denounced his country’s suicidal summons for war. It was Bonhoeffer who attacked the timidity of German churches when they shrank away from the most severe moral crisis in a thousand years.

    His life deserves wider recognition.

    It was only two days into Hitler’s reign that Bonhoeffer delivered a radio address critical of the Nazi party. He warned Germans for buying into a dangerous cult that would lead to the eradication of their freedoms. He labeled the strutting, newly installed chancellor a Verfuhrer – “misleader.”

    Disturbed at the way Jews were being hauled off to the ghettos, Bonhoeffer called upon fellow ministers to speak up. The churches responded with sermons and empty platitudes. Rather than standing alongside the disowned and dispossessed, the churches rolled over. He admonished his brethren that they had a biblical command to “see the great events of the world from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled – in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.”

    Then came Kristallnacht – “night of the broken glass.”

    After thousands of Jewish homes, churches and synagogues were burned and ransacked by Nazi thugs, the response of most German citizens was a deafening silence. Bonhoeffer was livid. “If the synagogues are set on fire today,” he warned, “it will be the churches that will be burned tomorrow.”

    Dejected and confused, he sailed to the United States for a yearlong teaching sabbatical in June 1939. The ostensible reason was to let the political storms in Europe die down and then return the following year. The more compelling reason was that by this time – only weeks before the Nazi invasion of Poland – Bonhoeffer was a marked man. His friends in America had repeatedly warned him that to remain in Germany was folly. Either he would be drafted or jailed or shot. Come again to America and stay for a while, they said. War is imminent in Europe. It’s safe over here.

    Then, only two weeks later, Bonhoeffer dramatically changed course. “I have made a terrible mistake in coming to America,” he confessed to his host, Reinhold Niebuhr. “I must live through this difficult period of our history with the people of Germany… (We) face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of our nation in order that civilization may survive, or willing the victory of our nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose – but I cannot make that choice in security… . I must go back.”

    His boat departed for Europe on July 8, 1939.

    Three weeks later the war began.

    Between 1940 and 1943 Bonhoeffer was active in the movement to topple Hitler, by coup if possible or assassination if necessary. Defending his actions to his sister-in-law, Emmi Bonhoeffer, he explained, “If I see a madman driving a car into a group of innocent bystanders, then I can’t simply wait for the catastrophe and then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

    These efforts met with complete failure.

    In April 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested and sent to prison.

    After the failed attempt to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, he was taken to Buchenwald and then to the Bavarian prison at Flossenburg. A British inmate, Captain Payne Best, recalled that Bonhoeffer “always seemed to diffuse an atmosphere of happiness, of joy in every small event of life, and deep gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive.”

    On the morning of April 9, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and several of his fellow conspirators were executed. He had just turned 39.

    Steve Argo teaches history at Baraboo High School and is a member of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Baraboo.

    Originally published on Saturday, February 4, 2006 by the Madison Capital Times.

  • Supplemental Study Guide: Hold Hope, Wage Peace

    The supplemental study guide for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s book Hold Hope, Wage Peace is available as a PDF download at this link.

  • The Holocaust and the Nuremburg Trials

    The greatest tribute we can pay to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and similar tragedies is never to stop trying to make this a more humane and peaceful world. The United Nations Charter of June 1945, expressed the determination “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” Its Preamble spoke of the equality of nations large and small. It called for enhanced social justice, tolerance and respect for international law. In August 1945, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain and France signed another Charter – creating the International Military Tribunal (IMT) — to bring to justice some of the German leaders responsible for aggression, crimes against humanity. and related atrocities. How far have we come and what more must be done before these noble goals can be achieved?

    THE LEGACY OF NUREMBERG

    The International Military Tribunal

    Germany had surrendered unconditionally. Each of the four occupying powers assigned leading jurists to serve as judges and prosecutors for the IMT. It was agreed that the proceedings had to be absolutely fair. The situs would be in Nuremberg, the home of Nazi party rallies. Robert M. Jackson, leading architect for the trials, took leave from the US Supreme Court to serve as America’s Chief Prosecutor. In his Opening Statement, Justice Jackson set the standard: “We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow.”

    Adolf Hitler and some of his top aides committed suicide, as did Field-Marshal Hermann Goering after he was sentenced to death by the IMT. Of the twenty-four defendants, three were acquitted, nine were imprisoned and twelve were sentenced to hang. The world was put on notice that those who held the reins of power would be accountable for their crimes. The learned IMT jurists confirmed the legal jurisdiction of the court and the validity of the charges under existing law. All proceedings were open to the public. The accused were presumed innocent, given humane treatment, and guaranteed rights, which they, in the days of their pomp and power, never gave to any man.

    After the widely adopted Kellogg Pact of 1928 outlawed the use of force, it should have come as no ex-post facto surprise to Nazi leaders that their blitzkrieg against other states would no longer be tolerated. Jackson noted that international law does not stand still but gradually evolves to meet changing needs. In 1946, the Nuremberg judgment and principles were unanimously affirmed by the first General Assembly of the United Nations. The law had taken a step forward. Aggressive war, which had previously been accepted as an international right, was confirmed as a punishable international crime.

    Subsequent Trials in Nuremberg

    Subsequent trials at Nuremberg, Tokyo and elsewhere built on the IMT foundation. The Allied Powers were unable to agree on another joint international trial but each could try their own captives. Since the IMT could provide only a snapshot of Nazi criminality, the US decided to conduct a dozen “subsequent proceedings” to be directed by General Telford Taylor, a key player on Jackson’s staff. Indictments were filed against doctors who performed forced medical experiments, judges who perverted the law, industrialists, military leaders and ministers who supported illegal Nazi policies. 142 of the 185 tried in the “subsequent proceedings” were convicted.

    In April 1946, I was recruited by the Pentagon to return to Germany to assist with the “Subsequent Proceedings.” I had worked as a research assistant to a Harvard professor writing a book on war crimes before I joined the army, as a private in the artillery, in 1943. When US troops advanced into Germany, I was transferred to General Patton’s Headquarters to help set up a war crimes program. As a war crimes investigator, I dug up bodies of captured Allied flyers beaten to death by enraged German mobs. I entered many concentration camps with the liberating army and witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand. I assembled documents and data to prove the full extent of Nazi criminality. The trauma of those indescribable experiences has never left me.

    After setting up offices in Berlin to gather evidence to support the planned new prosecutions, General Taylor assigned me to be Chief Prosecutor in what was known as the Einsatzgruppen case. The defendants were leaders of SS units that followed advancing German troops into occupied Poland and the Soviet Union. Their mission was to kill, without pity or remorse, every Jewish man, woman and child they could lay their hands on. Gypsies and any other perceived threats to the Reich were to suffer the same fate. According to their secret reports, these extermination squads, totaling about 3000 men, deliberately massacred over a million innocent people. The victims were killed simply because they did not share the race, religion or ideology of their executioners.

    The Mentality of Mass Murderers

    To prevent acts of genocidal barbarism, one must understand the mentality and reasoning of the murderers. The twenty-two defendants in the Einsatzgruppen case were selected on the basis of high rank and education. Many held doctor degrees — six were SS Generals. The principle defendant, General Dr. Otto Ohlendorf, patiently explained why his unit had killed about 90,000 Jews. Killing all Jews and Gypsies was necessary, said Ohlendorf. as a matter of self-defense.

    According to Ohlendorf, it was known that the Soviets planned total war against Germany. A German preemptive strike was better than waiting to be attacked. It was also known, said Ohlendorf, that Jews supported the Bolsheviks – therefore all Jews had to be eliminated. But why did he, the father of five children, kill the little babes — thousands of them? The bland reply was that if the children learned that their parents had been eliminated, they would grow up to be enemies of Germany. Long range security was the goal. He lacked facts sufficient to challenge Hitler’s conclusions. It was all very logical — according to General Dr. Ohlendorf.

    I had not called for the death penalty, although I felt it was richly deserved. I simply asked the court to affirm the right of all human beings to live in peace and dignity regardless of race or creed. It was “a plea of humanity to law.” The three experienced American judges concluded that a preemptive strike as anticipatory self-defense was not a valid legal justification for mass murder. If every nation could decide for itself when to attack a presumed enemy, and when to engage in total war, the rule of law would be destroyed and the world would be destroyed with it. All of the defendants were convicted; thirteen were sentenced to death and Ohlendorf was hanged. I was then 27 years old and it was my first case. The ideals that I then expressed have remained with me all of my life.

    HOW FAR HAVE WE COME?

    Restitution and Compensation

    Despite having promised my bride when we were wed in New York that we would be in Germany only for a brief honeymoon, we stayed on to help obtain restitution, compensation and rehabilitation for the survivors of persecution. As a salaried employee of Jewish charities, I directed innovative programs which had no historical or legal precedent. When, by 1956, Nazi victims of all persuasions had received payments from the West German government approaching about 50 billion dollars, we decided that it was time to return home with our four children born in Nuremberg. Practicing law in New York proved uninspiring. With war and killings raging all over the globe, I decided, at the age of fifty, to spend the rest f my life trying to replace the law of force by the force of law.

    New International Criminal Courts

    My mind turned to international criminal courts to deter international crimes. In 1946 the UN had called for a code of international crimes and an international criminal court to build on the Nuremberg precedents. Accredited as a member of a non-governmental organization, I obtained access to UN archives. I learned that delegates, unable, or unwilling, to agree upon a definition of the crime of aggression, argued that without it there could be no criminal code and without a code there could be no court. In truth, powerful nations were not ready to yield cherished sovereign prerogatives to any international criminal tribunal. After a definition of aggression by consensus was finally reached in 1974, the gates were opened for further work on the criminal code and court. The problems were thoroughly explored and documented in a number of books that I published between 1975 and 1983. My 1994 book New Legal Foundations for Global Survival was a comprehensive overview that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan generously described as “remarkable.”

    It took mass rapes in former Yugoslavia in 1991 to shake the world out of its lethargy. In 1993 the UN Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), to hold accountable those responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes and the genocide cloaked as “ethnic cleansing.” When – to the everlasting shame of the international community — over 800,000 people were butchered in Rwanda in fratricidal tribal rivalries, the Security Council set up another ad hoc tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), to bring some of the instigators and perpetrators to justice.

    Similar international tribunals, with limited jurisdictions, are beginning to function for crimes against humanity committed in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, East Timor and elsewhere. It should be obvious that temporary courts, created for a limited time in a limited area after the crimes have been committed, is hardly the most efficient way to ensure international justice. The missing link in the world’s legal order was a permanent court with universally binding laws that might help deter such crimes before they occurred.

    The International Criminal Court in the Hague

    After many years of difficult negotiations and compromises, the Statute for an International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted by a treaty signed in Rome on 17 July 1998. 120 delegations voted in favor and seven against. UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan called it “a gift of hope to future generations.” By July 1, 2002, the treaty went into effect with ratification by 60 nations. By the end of 2005, the number of ratification had swelled to one hundred. Ratification by some of the major powers is still outstanding. The United States, indicated its early support for the ICC, when President Bill Clinton addressed the General Assembly. He had the treaty signed at the UN on New Year’s Eve, 2000. But, in an unprecedented repudiation, the signature of President Clinton was canceled as the new Bush administration, in May 2002, notified the UN that the US had no intention of becoming a party to the ICC.

    Conservative forces in the US government argued that the uncontrolled prosecutor, might unfairly prosecute US servicemmbers. Nations were warned that US economic and military aid would be halted unless they signed agreements exempting US citizens and their employees from the reach of the new Hague tribunal. The US, that had done so much to advance the rule of law, turned its back on the Nuremberg principle espoused by Jackson, Telford Taylor and many others, that law must apply equally to everyone.

    The fears expressed by the US government are misguided and not shared by the hundred nations that support the ICC — including America’s staunchest allies and the entire European Community. Under the ICC Statute, every nation must be given priority to try its own nationals. Only when the country is unable or unwilling to provide a fair trial can the ICC exercise jurisdiction. No prosecutor in human history has been subject to more controls. The American Bar Association and leading jurists support the ICC. It is hoped that when the ICC has proved its fairness and merit, the US will end its unreasonable boycott and join the other nations seeking to uphold fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.

    WHERE ARE WE GOING?

    Changing the way People Think.

    In every great democracy it is inevitable that there will be differences of opinion. There have always been those who are convinced that warfare is an unchangeable part of man’s nature. War is seen as a glorious manifestation of Divine law — “the big fish eat the little fish. Despite pretensions to the contrary, such skeptics do not really believe in international law. They reject the utility of new rules of the road or new institutions that seek to improve human behavior. They deride as “dreamers” or “idealists” those who believe that entrenched practices and values can be altered. Yet, history proves they are mistaken.

    Slavery has been abolished, women’s rights are growing, colonialism has all but ended, sovereign states are forming multinational unions bound by common rules, international criminal law and humanitarian law have come into existence and international courts are beginning to flourish. Nations are increasingly recognizing that, in this interdependent world, they must cooperate for their common welfare. The revolution in technology and communication holds forth the promise of a completely altered international and integrated human society for the enhanced benefit of all.

    To be sure, adherence to traditional cultures can enhance the quality of life and should be nourished. Loyalty to one’s neighborhood, nation or religion are cherished values that should be respected. But, as Nuremberg showed, differences of race, religion or ideology cannot be tolerated as valid grounds for destroying those who happen to be different. It is not permissible “self-defense” to slaughter “the other” — it is the crime of murder.

    Aggression, according to the Nuremberg judges and other precedents, is “the supreme international crime” since it includes all the other crimes. There can be no war without atrocities and unauthorized warfare in violation of the UN Charter is the biggest atrocity of all. The best way to protect the lives of courageous young people who serve in the military is to avoid war-making itself. One cannot kill an idea with a gun but only with a better idea. If people believe that law is better than war they must do all they can to enhance the power of law and stop glorifying war.

    There can be no real peace for anyone until there is peace for everyone. Education for peace must start at the earliest ages and be carried through all the institutions and modalities of learning, Understanding, tolerance, compassion, compromise and infinite patience hold forth more promise than the threat of nuclear annihilation or the devastating perils of modern warfare. The memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, and countless wars since then, cry out for an improved social order and a more humane and peaceful world for everyone.

    Benjamin B. Ferencz, a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council, was Chief Prosecutor in the Nuremberg war crimes trial against Nazi extermination squads. He directed postwar restitution programs for survivors of persecution, practiced law in New York, was an Adjunct Professor at Pace Law School and is the author of many books and articles. He is a frequent lecturer on world peace. See his website: www.benferencz.org.

  • What Would J.F.K. Have Done?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Originally published by the New York Times.

  • How to Achieve Peace in the Middle East

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

    Amr Moussa

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

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

    Diagram A

     

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

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

    Diagram B – The Year 2010

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Abolition of Nuclear Weapons and War: The Responsibility of Scientists

    The abolition of nuclear weapons and war requires a leap in our thinking. How do we get from the world we live in to one without nuclear weapons and war? How do we even muster the optimism to believe that such a world is possible? How do we contribute to making a difference in achieving such a world? And what is the responsibility of scientists in this endeavor, I would say, this noble endeavor?

    Perhaps there are more questions than answers. But the starting point in our thinking should be the necessity of change. The fact that nuclear weapons have not been used in warfare since Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not predictive that they will not be used again.

    The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have long said, “Human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist.” Over time, certain consequences are inevitable if nuclear weapons are relied upon for security: first, more countries will desire these weapons, and they will proliferate; second, these weapons or the materials to make them will find their way into the hands of terrorists; third, the weapons will be used again, by accident or design; fourth, cities will be destroyed, causing untold suffering and harm; and fifth, there will be no winners in a nuclear war.

    Scientists can play an important role in preventing nuclear war, because they have the training to comprehend the magnitude of the resulting destruction. Scientists, and especially those that brought nuclear weapons into the world or who have worked on developing or improving them, have particular responsibilities to awaken the public to the dangers of the continuing nuclear threat to humanity and all life. Scientists possess voices of authority and can be influential by taking a strong moral stance, speaking out publicly and condemning their colleagues who continue to work on the development and improvement of nuclear arms.

    Scientists have played a pivotal role in every aspect of the initiation and development of nuclear weapons, and as advocates or opponents of their use. It was scientists who proposed the atomic bomb project to President Roosevelt. Leo Szilard went to Albert Einstein in 1939 and expressed his justified fears that the Germans might develop an atomic bomb and use it to prevail in World War II. Einstein, who hated war and militarism, signed a letter to Roosevelt warning of this danger. Roosevelt then set up a small uranium research project that would eventually become a full-scale bomb project involving thousands of scientific and technical workers.

    The onset of the Nuclear Age makes clear that scientists cannot maintain control of their destructive creations. The scientists on the US atomic bomb project, the Manhattan Project, worked hard to create a nuclear weapon in order to deter a potential German nuclear weapon. But by the time the US project succeeded, the Germans had already been defeated by the Allies. Thus, the original purpose of creating the weapons no longer existed when the first nuclear device was exploded. Nonetheless, the weapon was used just three weeks after its first test at Alamogordo, New Mexico on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and then three days later on Nagasaki.

    Only one scientist on the Manhattan Project left when he became aware that the Germans would not succeed in creating an atomic weapon and, therefore, in his mind the justification for developing a such a weapon no longer existed. His name was Joseph Rotblat, and he was a moral giant in the field of science. He resigned from Los Alamos and returned to London, never to work again on a weapons project. Ten years later, he became the youngest signatory of the mid-twentieth century warning to humanity, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, as well as a founder and leader of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Rotblat would spend the rest of his life working to abolish nuclear weapons.

    A second scientist, Leo Szilard, an important figure in the creation of the atomic bomb, stayed in the Manhattan Project, but tried by all means available to him to convince the US President not to use atomic weapons on Japan. Szilard urged US policymakers to demonstrate the power of these weapons to leaders of the world by exploding an atomic device in an uninhabited area. To this end, Szilard drafted another letter to President Roosevelt and had his friend Albert Einstein draft a cover letter for him. Unfortunately, Roosevelt died before Szilard could meet with him and argue his case.

    Szilard then sought a meeting with President Truman, but Truman sent him to see his Senate mentor, Jimmy Byrnes, who Truman would soon appoint to be Secretary of State. Szilard argued that the use of the atomic weapons against Japan was likely to start a dangerous nuclear arms race between the US and Soviet Union. Byrnes was dismissive of him. Szilard then organized a petition of Manhattan Project scientists to President Truman, but the petition didn’t reach Truman until after the bombs were used. Szilard would work for the rest of his life for the elimination of nuclear weapons, founding several organizations for this purpose, including the Council for a Livable World.

    J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of four key scientists that advised the Interim Committee that recommended to Truman the use of the weapons against Japan. The other three were Enrico Fermi, Arthur Compton and Ernest Lawrence. Oppenheimer, who had led the scientific team that created the bomb, wanted to use it against Japan, as did the other three, believing that its use might improve “international prospects.” A few years later, when Oppenheimer would oppose developing thermonuclear weapons, his loyalty to the United States was attacked, and the government held hearings and took away his security clearance.

    Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of his era, hated war. He once said, “That a man can take pleasure in marching in fours to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; unprotected spinal marrow was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism – how passionately I hate them! How vile and despicable seems war to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than take part in such an abominable business.” Yet, despite these strongly held views, when in 1939 his friend Leo Szilard urged him to write to President Roosevelt warning about the potential German atomic threat, Einstein complied.

    Einstein never worked on the Manhattan Project, and was deeply dismayed when he learned of the first bomb being used against Hiroshima. He would work for the rest of his life for the elimination of these omnicidal weapons. One of his most famous and important comments on the subject of nuclear weapons is: “The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

    The most important and famous statement of scientists was the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, released on July 9, 1955. The Manifesto, authored by Bertrand Russell with assistance from Joseph Rotblat, and containing many of Einstein’s publicly stated views, was the last public document signed by Einstein before his death. It was additionally signed by nine other leading scientists, including Joseph Rotblat. The Manifesto was a warning to all humanity that nuclear weapons placed before us the risk of “universal death.” The Manifesto called not only for the abolition of nuclear weapons, but of war itself. It stated:

    “No doubt in an H-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York, and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially since the Bikini test, that nuclear bombs can gradually spread destruction over a very much wider area than had been supposed.

    “It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radio-active particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish.

    “No one knows how widely such lethal radio-active particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.”

    The Manifesto concluded: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

    Among the nine signers of the Manifesto, in addition to Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, was the great chemist Linus Pauling. In the late 1950s, concerned about the health hazards of radiation from nuclear testing, Pauling and his wife, Ava Helen Pauling, organized a petition among scientists calling for an end to such testing. There were 9,235 scientists from around the world who signed the petition, which Pauling presented to the United Nations. The petition stated, in part: “An international agreement to stop the testing of nuclear bombs now could serve as a first step toward a more general disarmament and the ultimate effective abolition of nuclear weapons, averting the possibility of a nuclear war that would be a catastrophe to all humanity.”

    Pauling concluded the petition with these words: “We have in common with our fellow men a deep concern for the welfare of all human beings. As scientists we have knowledge of the dangers involved and therefore a special responsibility to make those dangers known. We deem it imperative that immediate action be taken to effect an international agreement to stop the testing of all nuclear weapons.” For his efforts, Pauling would receive a Nobel Peace Prize in addition to his Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

    When Linus Pauling received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in 1991, shortly after the onset of the Persian Gulf War, he offered this syllogism: “To kill and maim people is immoral. War kills and maims people. War is immoral.”

    In 1995, the 50 th anniversary year of the bombing of Hiroshima, Hans Bethe, a Nobel Laureate physicist who had been a senior Manhattan Project scientist, called for all scientists to cease from aiding in efforts to develop, improve or manufacture weapons of mass destruction. He stated:

    “Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills.

    “Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons – and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons.”

    Later in that year, Joseph Rotblat received the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize. In his Nobel Lecture, he quoted Hans Bethe’s plea, and also called for scientific guidelines in the form of a voluntary Hippocratic Oath:

    “The time has come to formulate guidelines for the ethical conduct of scientists, perhaps in the form of a voluntary Hippocratic Oath. This would be particularly valuable for young scientists when they embark on a scientific career. The US Student Pugwash Group has taken up this idea – and that is very heartening.

    “At a time when science plays such a powerful role in the life of society, when the destiny of the whole of mankind may hinge on the results of scientific research, it is incumbent on all scientists to be fully conscious of that role, and conduct themselves accordingly. I appeal to my fellow scientists to remember their responsibility to humanity.”

    Scientists today must follow the advice of Einstein, Szilard, Pauling, Rotblat and Bethe, and become more effective in working against weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons. Scientists need to become more assertive in speaking out for peace and the need to eliminate nuclear weapons, and more effective in organizing. International organizations like the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, Pugwash and the Union of Concerned Scientists must grow in size and outreach and become a moral and political force for social change.

    Scientists who give their talents to the military-industrial complex should be stigmatized, so that it becomes socially unacceptable for them among their peers to work on genocidal weaponry. The training of scientists should include moral, legal and ethical dimensions as these pertain to working on weapons of mass destruction.

    The bubble of respectability surrounding scientists who work on such weapons needs to be pierced, not only within the scientific community, but with the public at large. In the end, the problems that we face are not questions of scientific responsibility so much as they are questions of human responsibility. Due to their knowledge, skills and intellect, scientists should be at the forefront of educating humanity about the dangers of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, and should lead by example. Scientists need to tell the public directly that our weapons have become too dangerous to any longer tolerate the institution of war.

    It is time for all scientists to take the advice of Hans Bethe and other great scientists who led efforts for nuclear disarmament, and cease to work in any fashion on developing, improving or manufacturing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, while providing leadership and support toward their abolition.

    David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and the deputy chair of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility. His most recent book is Hold Hope, Wage Peace.

  • 2005 Annual Dinner Remarks

    Martin Luther King, Jr. said of his time, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of good people.”

    Our voices and efforts can and do make a difference.

    We meet this year, as we have for the past two years, in a time of war, and I think we must all ask ourselves if we are doing enough to further the cause of peace.

    We just passed the 2,000 mark of young Americans dead in Iraq. And over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed.

    Are we doing enough to build a peaceful world?

    Our responsibility, and the reason the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation exists, is to build such a world, and create a future in which our children and grandchildren can look back on war as an artifact of the past.

    One path to creating such a future is to honor those who struggle for peace, and that is what we are engaged in this evening.

    Tonight we are fortunate to honor two exceptional peacemakers.

    I’ve worked closely with Senator Roche for nearly a decade, and I can tell you what a truly extraordinary man he is. You have already heard from Diandra about his achievements. Let me just add that he is a deeply spiritual person, whose persistence and courage is rooted in a solid base of faith and love for humanity. Knowing that humanity is endangered by nuclear arsenals, I doubt that Doug will cease his work until that danger and the weapons themselves no longer exist.

    Now, it is my privilege to introduce you to Daniel Ellsberg.

    The name Daniel Ellsberg has become synonymous with courageous truth telling for the risks he took in releasing the Pentagon Papers. There was an easier route that Dan could have taken. He could have looked at the Pentagon Papers and then looked the other way. He could have said that government secrecy is necessary, even if it deceives the people into supporting an illegal war. He could have kept his high-level job as a RAND Corporation analyst at the Pentagon and lived a comfortable life with all the perks that go with high government position.

    Can you imagine putting everything on the line for truth – your job, your family, your reputation, your freedom? Dan put it all on the line for truth, for democracy and, most of all, for the possibility of ending a war and saving lives – American and Vietnamese – and he did it with the expectation of losing his own freedom.

    Daniel Ellsberg is a Harvard Ph.D. with an exquisite mind. He is one of the brightest people I know. As a young man, he was a cold warrior, who after graduating from Harvard College volunteered for the Marines and served as a Marine Corps platoon leader and company commander. This is the background of the man who chose to reveal the government’s own secret findings about the Vietnam War to the American people.

    In becoming a whistle blower, Dan helped strengthen the roots of democracy and end a terrible war. He also helped bring down a presidency built on deception and misconduct. Dan’s courage and the illegal reaction of the Nixon administration, helped bring about Mr. Nixon’s early retirement, under duress, from the presidency.

    For releasing the Pentagon Papers, Dan was placed on trial on 11 felony counts that could have resulted in more than 100 years in prison.

    The government’s case against him was dismissed when Nixon’s “plumbers” were caught breaking into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. In this way, Dan was spared growing old in prison. Rather, he has stayed young by devoting himself to governmental accountability and continuing to work for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons. His award-winning memoir on Vietnam and the release of the Pentagon Papers, Secrets, is a book that all Americans should read.

    In his early career, Dan Ellsberg focused on nuclear weapons dangers. In addition to his ongoing efforts for government transparency and accountability and his encouragement of potential whistleblowers, he continues to analyze and to speak out on nuclear dangers.

    Daniel Ellsberg is a courageous and dedicated leader for peace. He is a true American hero. It is a privilege to present him with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2005 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

  • Awakening America – Before It Is Too Late

    “The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle’s own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction.” — Aesop’s Fables

    America has been warned in every conceivable fashion that its nuclear weapons will bring it to a bad end.

    It was warned by scientists on its own atomic bomb project, even before it bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it was warned by the destruction of those cities.

    It was warned by Mahatma Gandhi that it was too early to see what nuclear weapons would do the soul of the attacking nation.

    It was warned by Albert Einstein that we must change our modes of thinking or face “unparalleled catastrophe.”

    It has been warned by Nobel Laureates, by generals and admirals, by small countries and large ones.

    It was warned by Bertrand Russell, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Linus Pauling.

    It was warned by the Cuban missile crisis, and by other near disasters.

    It was warned by the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist.

    It has been warned by religious leaders that nuclear weapons jeopardize creation.

    It was warned by head of the US Strategic Command, General Lee Butler, that “we cannot at once keep sacred the miracle of existence and hold sacrosanct the capacity to destroy it.”

    It was warned by the mayors of cities and by earnest citizen groups.

    It was warned by drop drills, fall-out shelters and false alerts.

    It has been warned and warned until the sirens should be screaming in the White House and in the halls of Congress.

    But we live in a time of political leaders lacking a moral compass, of political leaders unable to change their thinking or to shed their hubris.

    Since nuclear weapons are the most cowardly weapon ever created, we live in a time of leaders marked by a significant courage-deficit.

    All signs suggest that we are headed toward disaster, toward a world in which America itself will be sacrificed at the altar of its hubris.

    We have become too attached to our double standards, to a world of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.”

    We spend on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems what it would cost to feed the world’s hungry, shelter the world’s homeless, care for the world’s sick and infirm, and educate the world’s children.

    In our comfortable reliance on our military might, we have failed to grasp that nuclear weapons are a far more powerful tool in the hands of the weak than in the hands of the strong.

    We have failed to grasp that America cannot afford to again use nuclear weapons, but extremist groups are eager to obtain these weapons and use them against us.

    We have failed to grasp that there is no defense against nuclear weapons, as we throw money into missile defenses like a helpless giant.

    America stands at increasing risk that its great cities will be destroyed by nuclear weapons.

    Our cities, our economy and our pride will fall together.

    When this happens, America will bellow and flail, flames will shoot from its nostrils, and the survivors will wonder how America was brought so low.

    Looking back, some will remember with dismay the many, many warnings. Others will say that it was karma.

    This is a glimpse into our future, yet another warning. The worst has not yet happened.

    It is not too late for America to wake up, to fulfill its obligations for the total elimination of nuclear weapons, and to lead the world to a nuclear weapons-free planet.

    It is late, but it is not too late. America may still wake up, and if it does it will be because people like all of us have not given up on America or on a human future.

    It will be because ordinary Americans do not have the courage-deficit that our leaders have so readily and consistently displayed.

    It will be because the voices of the people rise up and demand change and because we become the leaders we have been waiting for.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of a recent book of peace poetry, Today Is Not a Good Day for War.