Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Peace

  • An Appeal to the Religious Communities of America

    “The warhorse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save.” –Psalm 33

    Nuclear weapons merit unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation. The 30,000 around the globe have more than 100,000 times the explosive power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These are doomsday arms-genocidal, ecocidal and suicidal.

    It is our belief that only God has the authority to end all life on the planet; all we have is the power, and it is past time to surrender it.

    To live in a world within minutes of possible annihilation is to defy God’s will, not to do God’s will. Therefore, we turn to you, our fellow believers. We want, we need your help to end this deadly peril to humanity and its habitat.

    Some important history. When the cold war ended, many thought the nuclear danger had ended with it. It did not, and now, having assumed a more sinister shape, it is mounting again.

    Scores of admirals and generals from many countries have come to believe that nuclear weapons invite far more than they deter catastrophic conflict. Recently, Robert McNamara described them as “illegal, immoral, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous.”

    Among other Americans who agree are General Andrew Goodpaster, former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe; and General Lee Butler, once Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Air Command (SAC).

    To these military leaders it is clear beyond denial that the possession of nuclear weapons by some states is the strongest incentive for other states to acquire them. They are also painfully aware that nuclear weapons, while most useful to terrorists, are utterly useless against them.

    Consequently, these leaders now advocate, as do we, the abolition of all nuclear arsenals. As General Butler declared five years ago, “A world free of the threat of nuclear weapons is necessarily a world devoid of nuclear weapons.”

    All Americans should know that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was a grand design struck in 1970. Since that time, over one hundred eighty non-nuclear countries have promised to forego nuclear weapons provided the nuclear powers abolished theirs.

    In other words—and this is crucial—non-proliferation was, from the beginning, inextricably linked to nuclear disarmament.

    But instead of honoring their obligations under Article VI of the treaty, the nuclear powers have substituted a double standard for the single one intended.

    For 35 years, they have practiced nuclear apartheid, arrogating to themselves the right to build, deploy, and threaten to use nuclear weapons, while policing the rest of the world against their production. It was a policy too blatantly unjust to be politically sustainable.

    There was a hopeful moment in 2000, when the five initial nuclear powers, including the United States, pledged “an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” But our government today refuses to honor this and other past pledges. As a result, the Non-Proliferation Treaty is unraveling. Other countries may soon follow the lead of North Korea, which withdrew from the treaty in 2003.

    A perilous situation now confronts humanity. The possibility of abolishing nuclear weapons is an opportunity we must seize, for time is running out. The tyranny of the urgent is today’s reality.

    A world free of nuclear weapons would represent a giant step towards the ultimate goal of a world free of war. People would become much less fearful, far more peace-minded, and the change would be reflected in military budgets.

    It is dispiriting to learn that, led by the United States, global military spending last year rose by six percent to top one trillion dollars. As a result, this year millions of people in the Third World will continue not only to be killed in wars but also to die in greater numbers from preventable and treatable diseases, while the children of the poor in America will continue to have their medical and educational needs untended. It is heartbreaking.

    Therefore, on this 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leaders from several religious traditions formed an ‘Interreligious Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons.’ Its aim is to work with all Americans—and people abroad—who agree with the statement:

    “No country shall have nuclear weapons.”

    We call on all members of America’s religious communities, as a testament of our common faith, to sign this appeal and take the concrete steps suggested in the accompanying addendum.

    Fellow believers, we know how often justice appears a weary way off, peace a little further. But if we give up on justice, if we give up on peace, we give up on God.

    So let us resolve to labor mightily for what we pray for fervently, confident in the poet’s contention that “we are only undefeated because we go on trying” and in the vision of the prophet that “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.”

    God bless you all.

    To sign on or request information, please contact:

    Jessica Wilbanks sign-on@nuclearlockdown.org 202-587-5232

    Addendum: Taking Action

    We invite you to join the Interreligious Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons by signing onto this appeal and joining in the following actions.

    1. Demand that the President and the Secretary of State frame and publish a plan outlining the steps whereby the American unequivocal commitment to eliminate nuclear arms can be realized.

    This plan would be preparatory to convening a conference of nuclear powers to set landmarks and deadlines by which, again under the most stringent international control, all nuclear weapons will be eliminated from the face of the earth. We reason that by building momentum now, we may make possible tomorrow what may seem improbable today.

    2. Circulate and study the educational and organizing materials that the Interreligious Network will send to all seminaries in America for distribution among their students and graduates.

    As part of this effort, we will also circulate an Urgent Call outlining steps to elimination, as well as statements and information from members of the medical, legal, and environmental communities.

    3. Encourage religious peoples to lobby Congress to stop funding any more nuclear weapons projects, specifically the Administration’s designs for “bunker-busters” and for the further weaponization of outer space.

    It is demeaning to our democracy that Congress keeps postponing or repressing public debate on a subject as morally compelling as our nuclear weapons policy.

    4. Meet with members of Congress, hold public meetings, meet with editors, reporters, columnists, and talk show hosts.

    Do everything possible to remind Americans that we are all in the race of our lives and we are not running fast enough.

  • The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

    The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

    In this 60th anniversary year of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Nobel Committee chose to again focus its award, as it had in 1985 and again in 1995, on abolishing nuclear weapons. The Nobel Committee announced that its Peace Prize for 2005 will go to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei. Ten years ago, the Prize went to Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and ten years before that to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

    The Nobel Committee is right to focus on nuclear dangers and the need to abolish these weapons, and Mohamed ElBaradei has been courageous in speaking out for both sides of the non-proliferation bargain: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and achieving nuclear disarmament. He has repeatedly pointed to the hypocrisy of the nuclear weapons states for their double standards and their failure to move resolutely in fulfilling their nuclear disarmament obligations.

    ElBaradei has argued, for example, “We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security – and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.” For his outspokenness, he earned the wrath of the Bush administration, which tried unsuccessfully to block his appointment to a third four-year term at the IAEA.

    In making their announcement of the 2005 prize, the Nobel Committee stated: “At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its Director General. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which controls that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the Director General has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime. At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, IAEA’s work is of incalculable importance.”

    Mr. ElBaradei is deserving of the Nobel for his clear and persistent challenge to the policies of the nuclear weapons states. The Nobel Committee, however, sends the wrong message to the world in making the award to the IAEA. The IAEA is an international agency that serves two masters. On the one hand, it seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. But, on the other hand, it seeks to promote nuclear energy. Although these dual goals are enshrined in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they are not compatible. The spread of nuclear reactors carries with it the potential for the spread of nuclear weapons.

    Nuclear reactors have always been, and remain, a preferred path to nuclear weapons. It was the path taken secretly by Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa. It is the path once pursued by Brazil, Argentina, Iraq and Libya, and which now raises concerns with Iran. It is the path that has made Japan a virtual nuclear weapons state.

    The Nobel Committee had another and, in my view, better choice before it than the IAEA to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. Also nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was the Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. By selecting Nihon Hidankyo, along with Mr. ElBaradei, the Committee could have chosen to shine a light on the hibakusha, the aging victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who have devoted much of their lives to seeking to assure that no one in the future will ever again suffer their fate.

    In a letter sent in December 2004, I wrote to the Nobel Committee: “As individuals and collectively, the hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have reflected the spirit of peace in turning their personal tragedies into an enduring plea to rid the world of these most terrible weapons of mass destruction. To honor them with the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize in the 60th anniversary year of the bombings would, in a sense, be to honor all victims of war who fight for peace, but it would have special meaning for the aging hibakusha. It would recognize the human triumph in their alchemy of turning despair and bitterness into hope on the path to nuclear sanity and disarmament.”

    Once again, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been passed over for the world’s most prestigious peace prize. When the Nobel Committee chooses to make its award to the hibakusha, it will be a sign that there is an expanding recognition that the only safe number of nuclear weapons in the world is zero and that the fate of the world depends upon eliminating these omnicidal weapons as rapidly as possible. It will also recognize the truth of the oft-repeated position of the hibakusha that “human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist,” and that we must eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us.

    David Krieger is the 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.

  • North Korea Deal: Better Late Than Never

    The welcome nuclear framework agreement with North Korea signed in Beijing yesterday is a belated triumph of pragmatism over ideology, and suggests a way ahead on a deal with Iran.

    The preliminary deal provides an outline for a more detailed agreement to be negotiated between North Korea and the other five parties – the United States, Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan — to the still precarious nuclear talks. The main elements of the deal are essentially the same as the agreement nearly concluded at the end of the second Clinton term, and gift wrapped for the first Bush administration.

    President Bush and his most influential advisors spent the next five years denigrating that deal, and dissing Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, who favored it. The basic concept, “more for more,” combined greater concessions from the North (verified abandonment of its nuclear weapons and program) in exchange for broader security guarantees and economic ties and assistance from the United States and others, including a no-attack pledge from Washington and an affirmation of South Korea’s non-nuclear status.

    It has taken a combination of the grind of war in Iraq and the devastation of Katrina, plus a Secretary of State who knows how to play the inside game, finally to turn this around. The major changes in the US position commit Washington to nothing. The agreement includes but does not endorse Pyongyang’s stance on its nuclear rights: “The DPRK stated that it has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” It also makes an open ended statement about the possibility of future talks on suspended plans to build a proliferation-resistant reactor for the North: “The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor [sic] to the DPRK.”

    Despite the vague nature of these commitments, they were a bitter pill for the Bush administration, which has opposed the very idea of negotiations with the North, or with Iran. The administration’s motto has been: better to ignore bad behavior than risk being perceived as rewarding it. The ignorance-is-bliss policy rests on the false premise that regime change was in the offing in both North Korea and Iran. Both of these regimes, however, have turned out to be durable. The cost of waiting Kim Jong-Il out has been as many as a half dozen more nuclear weapons which, hopefully, now will be dismantled. Time is also the enemy in Iran, where bureaucratic momentum continues to build for a nuclear program supported by “hardliners” and “reformers” alike.

    The hope now is that the administration’s low-cost concessions to North Korea will be applied to Iran to stanch its nuclear program. Now, however, the administration and the EU 3 will have to deal with a new Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is tilting Iran’s policy to the east, and seems less willing to compromise to gain favor with Europe or the United States.

    Lee Feinstein is senior fellow and deputy director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. An international lawyer and specialist in national security affairs, he was Principal Director of Policy Planning under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and a senior advisor for peacekeeping policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Feinstein’s areas of specialization include weapons of mass destruction, international law and institutions, and foreign policy process. He has written widely on US foreign policy and national security and co-directed the CFR-Freedom House Task Force on Enhancing US Relations with the UN.

  • The Political Rehabilitation of Joseph Rotblat

    By the time of his death, which occurred on August 31, 2005, Joseph Roblat was a revered figure. A top nuclear physicist, Rotblat received—among many other honors and awards–a British knighthood and, together with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (an organization that he had helped to found), the Nobel Peace Prize (1995). As the president of the Pugwash conferences recalled: “Joseph Rotblat was a towering figure in the search for peace in the world, who dedicated his life to trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and ultimately to rid the world of war itself.”

    But Rotblat’s steadfast support for nuclear disarmament and peace did not always receive such plaudits, as I discovered when I conducted two interviews with him and did extensive research in formerly secret British government records.

    Born in Warsaw in 1908, Rotblat moved to Britain in 1939, where he became a promising young physicist. During World War II, when he feared that Nazi Germany might develop the atomic bomb, he came to the United States to work on the Manhattan Project, America’s own atomic bomb program that he—like many other scientists—hoped would deter Germany’s launching of a nuclear war. But, in late 1944, when Rotblat learned that the German bomb program had been a failure, he resigned from the Manhattan project and returned to London to engage in nonmilitary work. This decision, taken for humanitarian reasons, plunged him into hot water with the authorities. Shortly after telling his U.S. supervisor of his plan to leave Los Alamos, he was accused by U.S. intelligence of being a Soviet spy. The charge, totally without merit, was eventually dropped.

    Back in Britain, Rotblat engaged in peaceful research and, in the postwar years, helped to organize the Atomic Scientists’ Association (ASA), which drew together some of that country’s top scientists. Much like America’s Federation of American Scientists, the ASA promoted nuclear arms control and disarmament. However, British government officials, then more interested in building nuclear weapons than in eliminating them, looked askance at its activities. In 1947-48, when the ASA organized an Atomic Train to bring the dangers of nuclear weapons (and the supposed benefits of peaceful nuclear power) to the attention of the British public, Prime Minister Clement Attlee objected strongly to plans for government cooperation with it. In March 1948, when Rotblat invited Attlee to visit the Atomic Train during its stay in London, the foreign secretary and the defense minister advised the prime minister to reject the offer, which he did.

    Rotblat’s relations with the British government continued on a difficult course in the 1950s. Working closely with the philosopher Bertrand Russell, Rotblat signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of July 9, 1955, which warned nations that if they persisted in their plans for nuclear war, civilization would be utterly destroyed. This venture, in turn, led to the Pugwash conferences—so named because they began in 1957 at a private estate in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. Designed to bring together scientists on both sides of the “iron curtain” for serious, non-polemical discussions of the nuclear menace, these conferences were low-key operations, with little publicity outside of scientific circles. Nevertheless, British officials were deeply suspicious of the Pugwash conferences and of Rotblat, who did most of the organizational work for them and, in 1959, became Pugwash secretary-general.

    Convinced that “the Communists” wanted to use the 1958 Pugwash conference “to secure support for the Soviet demand for the banning of nuclear weapons,” the British Foreign Office initially sought to promote an attitude of skepticism toward it. But, when Rotblat asked J.D. Cockcroft, a member of Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority, to suggest who might be invited to it, Cockcroft and the Foreign Office decided that a better strategy would be to go with the flow and arrange for the participation of a staunch proponent of the British government’s position in the meeting, which they did.

    Although one British diplomat noted that the conference “passed off quietly enough, and not too unsuccessfully from our point of view,” the British government remained on guard. Learning of plans for another Pugwash conference, in Vienna, the Foreign Office warned of the possibility “that this will be more dangerous from our point of view than its predecessors.” Communist participants might launch “a major propaganda drive against nuclear weapons,” and “the organizing committee consists of Lord Russell and Professor Rotblat.” From the British government’s standpoint, the Pugwash conferences were little better than “Communist front gatherings.”

    But British policy gradually began to shift, as the government grew more interested in nuclear arms controls. Asked by Rotblat if he would like to join the advisory body of the British Pugwash committee, Cockcroft referred the matter to the Foreign Office, which responded that he should do so, as it would help prevent Pugwash from “being exploited for propaganda purposes.” Although the Foreign Office did not think he should attend the next Pugwash conference, in Moscow, during 1960, it reversed course that summer and urged him to recruit additional politically reliable scientists to attend. Indeed, it now sought to take over the Pugwash movement for its own purposes. In response to a suggestion by Cockcroft, a Foreign Office official opined that “it would be most helpful if the Royal Society could be persuaded to sponsor British participation . . . and if this were to lead to the winding up of the present Pugwash Committee.”

    But the plans for a takeover failed. When the British government suggested topics for Pugwash meetings and more government officials who should be invited to them, Rotblat resisted, much to government dismay. In October 1963, a Foreign Office official complained that “the difficulty is to get Prof. Rotblat to pay any attention to what we think. . . . He is no doubt jealous of his independence and scientific integrity.” Securing “a new organizer for the British delegation seems to be the first need, but I do not know if there is any hope of this.”

    Nonetheless, despite lingering resentment at Rotblat’s independence and integrity, the British government had arrived at a positive appraisal of the Pugwash conferences. As a British defense ministry official declared in January 1962: Pugwash was “now a very respectable organization.” When the Home Office, clinging to past policy, advised that Pugwash was “a dirty word,” the Foreign Office retorted that the movement now enjoyed “official blessing.” Explaining the turnabout, a Foreign Office official stated that “the process of educating” Soviet experts is “bound to be of some use to us.” Furthermore, “we ourselves may pick up some useful ideas from our own scientists . . . and are not likely to be embarrassed by anything which they suggest.” Finally, “if there is ever to be a breakthrough, it is not inconceivable that the way might be prepared by a conference of this kind.”

    In fact, there soon was a breakthrough: the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963—a nuclear arms control measure that the Pugwash conferences played a key part in generating. The British government had no doubt about the connection, and in 1964 it honored Rotblat with a CBE—Commander of the British Empire—for his organization of the Pugwash conferences.

    And so it goes. Today’s dangerously peace-minded heretic is tomorrow’s hero. Abraham Lincoln—that staunch critic of the Mexican War—became America’s best-loved President. Robert LaFollette—reviled and burned in effigy for his opposition to World War I—emerged as one of this nation’s most respected senators. Martin Luther King, Jr.—condemned for his protests against the Vietnam War—is now honored as this country’s great peacemaker.

    Perhaps today, when governments promise us endless military buildups and wars, opposition politicians should take note of this phenomenon.

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

  • White Flags and Cotton Grass

    In the town of Blue Hill on the coast of Maine, there is a field of small white flags, one flag placed for each soldier killed in the war in Iraq. Throughout the summer, I have walked past this piece of land located between the First Congregational Church and the public library and wondered who the land belongs to and who is responsible for keeping vigil, placing the flags, painting the rising numbers of dead in black on a white wooden sign: 1,873 American soldiers; 26,559 Iraqi civilians.
    I discovered the land belongs to Rufus Wanning, an arborist, known throughout Hancock County as the tree specialist who helped Blue Hill save the American elms that stand in the community like elders. Every week, Rufus would inspect each elm in town. When he saw the slightest sign or symptom of Dutch elm disease (a fungus transmitted by the elm bark beetle that plugs the vascular system of the tree, preventing the flow of water and nutrients), he would take his long clippers to the branch with wilting leaves, and in his neighbors words, “nip it in the bud.”
    The American elm, Ulmus americana, revered in the eastern United States for its majestic presence, can rise to almost 90 feet. They arch over city streets reminding one of ceilings found in gothic cathedral Since the 1930’s, however, when the pathogen infiltrated the elms from Europe, we have lost more than 100 million American elms in this country.
    In 1975, a federal inventory was taken to determine how many elms were growing in Blue Hill. They found 700 trees that measured 4″ or larger in diameter. In 2002 -2003, Rufus Wanning conducted another inventory. This time they found only 100 elms, with only 60 to 70 trees still alive from the 700 trees registered thirty years before. Now, most trees die before maturity at around 40 feet.
    A genetically modified elm tree named “The Liberty Elm” or ” America’s Freedom Tree” was developed in the 1960’s and has many scientists hopeful that it will be disease resistant.
    But the Liberty Elm is no substitute for the American Elm. That which is original cannot be soulfully cloned. Rufus Wanning said as hopeful as the Liberty Elm may be for replacing the classical elm, it does not have the same stature. American Elms have greater elevation.
    Last week, I had the privilege of meeting Wanning at a vigil on his land, the land he has given permission to the Peninsula Peace and Justice Center to use as a meditation and memorial to those who have died in the Iraq War. We gathered in support of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, who has simply asked to have a conversation with our president. Her son died in Iraq on April 4, 2004.
    Rufus Wanning stood to the side, quiet and anonymous to some, well known to others, a resident of the area since 1971.
    Robert Shetterly, an artist from Brooksville, who is engaged in a project of painting portraits called, “Americans Who Tell the Truth,” had just finished Cindy Sheehan’s portrait which he brought to the gathering. He spoke about the challenge of painting her eyes. “… the knowledge that she could not be intimidated or diverted, that the spin doctors and hate-mongers could belittle and disparage her to no avail. The eyes had no fear. They had a clarity of purpose that was at once sad, defiant, and calm.”
    Other members of the community stepped forward. Ann Ferrara spoke of three kinds of death: the one where breathing stops; the one where we are laid to rest; and the spiritual death that occurs when those we love are forgotten. She said, the first two cannot be stopped, the last one can. “We must not forget -”
    My eyes turned to the field of white flags and the magnificent elms that shaded them. I saw Rufus Wanning with his head bowed and his large hands clasped behind his back. In his humble stance, I thought about how his impulse to save trees is the same impulse to offer his land as a place of peace. And how the third death, the spiritual death that accompanies the act of forgetting must be extended to the remembrance of beloved lands as well as loved ones.
    For me, the white flags of the fallen became the white tufts of cotton grass blowing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. My eyes blurred. Boundaries blurred. What are we being asked to sacrifice in the name of greed, in the name of lies? What are we allowing to be buried if we fail to act out of our love and our outrage? There is no separation or compartmentalization when it comes to the sacred nature of life. The war in Iraq and the war on our environment is fueled by the same oil relationships.
    Any maintenance of peace and preservation of a just world, a world full of fragile beauty, will require a vigilance like the arborist of Blue Hill, Rufus Wanning and the fierce maternal voice of Cindy Sheehan. Peace will not become a forgotten casualty when members of our communities like Peter and Judy Robbins keep planting white flags as each soldier dies or as long as the artist Becky McCall respectfully kneels and paints the rising numbers of the dead in black on white.
    “I see people stopping at the memorial, looking and thinking.” Rufus says. “I think it’s having a remarkable accumulative effect.”
    In a sustained moment of silence, a late summer breeze was whispering through the canopies of American elms standing their ground in a small coastal town in Maine. I heard the voice of Edward Abbey, another American who told the truth, “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”

    Terry Tempest Williams is a writer who divides her time between Utah and Maine. She is the author of “Refuge” and most recently, “The Open Space of Democracy,” and is the 2005 recipient of the Wallace Stegner Award given by the Center for the American West.

  • A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    It is good to be back at All Saints. This church represents what a Peace Church should be. I appreciate that Reverend Bacon has gone to Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas in support of Cindy Sheehan and in opposition to the illegal war in Iraq.

    We are still in the season of Hiroshima. Sixty years ago that city was devastated by a single US nuclear weapon, and three days later the city of Nagasaki was devastated by another US nuclear weapon.

    What most Americans don’t know is that in between those two bombings, which took place on August 6th and 9th, 1945, the US and the other Allied powers in World War II agreed to hold the Nuremberg Tribunals at which they held the Axis leaders to account for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Between these two great crimes of slaughtering civilian populations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we agreed to the Nuremberg Tribunals. The most basic principle of these Tribunals is that no one stands above international law, no matter how high his or her position – not presidents, not prime ministers, no one.

    We Americans have a lot of ambiguity about nuclear weapons. We somehow think that they protect us, but they don’t. They make us more vulnerable. So long as the US continues to rely upon nuclear weapons for security, other countries will do so as well, and new countries will find it in their national interests to follow our example. If the most powerful country in the world demonstrates by its policies that it needs nuclear weapons, other countries will choose this route as well.

    The greatest threat, though, lies with terrorists. If they get their hands on a nuclear weapon – a possibility made more likely by our policies of retaining large numbers of these weapons – they will not hesitate to use them against us. Extremist groups cannot be deterred by nuclear threats. You cannot deter those you cannot locate and you cannot deter those who are suicidal. Deterrence has major flaws, and it has zero value against extremist groups.

    The US has not fulfilled its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Back in 1968, we promised good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. Those negotiations have yet to take place. We still have some 10,000 nuclear weapons in our arsenal. We and the Russians still have some 2,000 nuclear weapons each on hair trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. It is 15 years since the end of the Cold War. Our continued reliance on nuclear weapons is insane. It looks like the reflection of a “death wish” for the planet.

    In the year 2000, the US, along with all other parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. This would be a great step forward, except for the fact that the US has fulfilled none of these, and is now the major obstacle to nearly all of them. The Bush administration does not like to even see mention of nuclear disarmament in international documents. They held up agreement on the agenda for the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference for some ten days because they did not want to see reference to these 13 Practical Steps, nor of any of the components, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, and the promise of an unequivocal undertaking to achieve total nuclear disarmament – all points to which the US had previously agreed.

    A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    It’s long past time for a responsible US nuclear weapons policy, not only to fulfill our legal obligations and to uphold reasonable moral standards, but also to enhance the security of the US and the world. I would suggest that, at a minimum, a responsible US nuclear policy would include the following Ten No’s and a Yes.

    Ten No’s

    1. No new nuclear weapons
    2. No research and development of new nuclear weapons.
    3. No new plutonium pit production.
    4. No resumption of nuclear testing.
    5. No use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states.
    6. No first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances.
    7. No maintaining nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.
    8. No strategy of launch on warning.
    9. No nuclear weapons on foreign soil.
    10. No double standards.

    And a Yes

    Provide affirmative leadership to achieve existing obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament set forth at the treaty’s 2000 Review Conference. Above all, initiate good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, as called for in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control within a reasonable period of time.

    This does not mean unilateral disarmament. It means multilateral disarmament for all states with US leadership. It would constitute a major change of direction in US policy.

    Who Are We?

    I’ve thought a lot about the relationship of the war in Iraq to US nuclear weapons policies. I think what they have in common are these points: arrogance, double standards, disrespect for international law (and therefore the international community), and unilateralism. These characteristics are undermining what is decent and just about us. They are destroying us, and they have the potential to destroy the world.

    We need to ask ourselves the question: Who are we? Have we become people of the bomb? Is the bomb more important to us than our humanity? The Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955, emphasized: “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.” We need to return to our roots and regain our souls. The starting point is remembering our humanity.

    Take Action

    We can’t just recognize the problems intellectually. We must do something about them. We must all become part of the force for change. We can’t just sit back while illegal and immoral actions are committed in our names. We need to take heart and take action. We need to become involved and do our part.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has some resources that may be helpful at our www.wagingpeace.org website.

    First, you can sign up there for our free monthly e-newsletter, The Sunflower. It will keep you up-to-date on nuclear issues and provide action alerts.

    Second, at the website you can become involved in our Turn the Tide Campaign, and send letters to your elected representatives on key nuclear issues.

    Third, we have an excellent Speakers’ Bureau that can help you get the word out.

    Above all, use your creativity and your special talents to help others “remember their humanity” and take part in turning around US nuclear policy.

    Choose Hope

    There are times when the world looks pretty bleak, but we can take heart from all the great peace leaders who have preceded us. Here is my list of Fifty-One Reasons for Hope. I’m sure you can add to it, and I hope that you will.

    1. Each new dawn.

    2. The miracle of birth.

    3. Our capacity to love.

    4. The courage of nonviolence.

    5. Gandhi, King and Mandela.

    6. The night sky.

    7. Spring.

    8. Flowers and bees.

    9. The arc of justice.

    10. Whistleblowers.

    11. Butterflies.

    12. The full moon.

    13. Teachers.

    14. Simple wisdom.

    15. Dogs and cats.

    16. Friendship.

    17. Our ability to reflect.

    18. Our capacity for joy.

    19. The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Oscar Romero.

    20. The gift of conscience.

    21. Human rights and responsibilities.

    22. Our capacity to nurture.

    23. The ascendancy of women.

    24. Innocence.

    25. Our capacity to change.

    26. Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.

    27. The internet.

    28. War resisters.

    29. Everyday heroes.

    30. Lions, tigers, bears, elephants and giraffes.

    31. Conscientious objectors.

    32. Tolstoy, Twain and Vonnegut.

    33. Wilderness.

    34. Our water planet.

    35. Solar energy.

    36. Picasso, Matisse and Miro.

    37. World citizens.

    38. Life.

    39. The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    40. The King of Hearts.

    41. Rain.

    42. Sunshine.

    43. Pablo Neruda.

    44. Grandchildren.

    45. Mountains.

    46. Sunflowers.

    47. The Principles of Nuremberg.

    48. A child’s smile.

    49. Dolphins.

    50. Wildflowers.

    51. Our ability to choose hope.

    It is our ability to choose hope, even in dark times, that can keep us going. I urge you to never stop fighting for a more decent world. We will not attain peace by making war, and we will not end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity by continuing to rely upon these most destructive and cowardly of all weapons for our security.

    Nothing will change if we are complacent and accept the status quo. We need to rise to our full stature as human beings, and exert our full human powers to change the world and create a more decent future for ourselves and for those who follow us on this miraculous life-supporting planet.

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

  • Seeing Our Way Out of Iraq

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Nagasaki Peace Declaration 2005

    Today the bells of Nagasaki echo in the sky, marking 60 years since the atomic bombing. At 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, a single atomic bomb was dropped from an American warplane, exploding in this same sky above us, instantly destroying the city of Nagasaki. Some 74,000 people were killed, and another 75,000 wounded. Some of the victims never knew what happened. Others pleaded for water as death overtook them. Children, so burned and blackened that they could not even cry out, lay with their eyes closed. Those people who narrowly survived were afflicted with deep physical and mental wounds that could never be healed. They continue to suffer from the after-effects of the bomb, living in fear of death.

    To the leaders of the nuclear weapons states: Nuclear weapons must never be used for any reason whatsoever. This we know from painful experience. For sixty years we have repeated our plea, “No more Hiroshima! No more Nagasaki!” International society has also been exerting effort for the prohibition of nuclear weapons tests and the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones. In 2000, the nuclear weapons states themselves promised an “unequivocal undertaking” for the “elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

    Nevertheless, at the end of the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons held at United Nations headquarters in May of this year, no progress was achieved. The nuclear weapons states, and the United States of America in particular, have ignored their international commitments, and have made no change in their unyielding stance on nuclear deterrence. We strongly resent the trampling of the hopes of the world’s people.

    To the citizens of the United States of America: We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet, is your security actually enhanced by your government’s policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons, of carrying out repeated sub-critical nuclear tests, and of pursuing the development of new “mini” nuclear weapons? We are confident that the vast majority of you desire in your hearts the elimination of nuclear arms. May you join hands with the people of the world who share that same desire, and work together for a peaceful planet free from nuclear weapons.

    To the government of Japan: Our nation deeply regrets the last war, and our government has supposedly resolved not to engage in actions that might lead to the tragedy of war again. The peaceful ideals of our constitution must be upheld, and the threefold non-nuclear principle of neither possessing, manufacturing, nor allowing nuclear arms within our borders must be enacted into law without delay. The efforts of concerned countries for nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula, combined with the concomitant results of the threefold non-nuclear principle, will pave the way for a Northeast Asia nuclear-weapon-free zone. We urge you to adopt a stance that does not rely upon the “nuclear umbrella,” and to take a leading role in nuclear abolition.

    We would also point out that the atomic bomb survivors have become quite elderly. We further call upon the Japanese government to provide greater assistance to those who continue to suffer from the mental anguish caused by the bombing, and to extend sufficient aid to survivors who now reside overseas.

    Here in Nagasaki, many young people are learning about the atomic bombing and about peace, and are engaged in activities that they themselves have originated. To our young people: Remember always the miserable deaths of the atomic bomb victims. We ask each of you to earnestly study history and to consider the importance of peace and the sanctity of life. The citizens of Nagasaki stand behind your efforts. May you join hands with the world’s citizens and NGOs, that the bells of peace will ring loud and clear in the sky over Nagasaki.

    Today, as we mark 60 years since the atomic bombing, we pray for the repose of the souls of those who died, even as we declare our commitment, together with Hiroshima, never to abandon our efforts for the elimination of nuclear weapons and the establishment of lasting world peace.

    Iccho Itoh Mayor The City of Nagasaki

  • Hiroshima Peace Declaration 2005

    This August 6, the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing, is a moment of shared lamentation in which more than 300 thousand souls of A-bomb victims and those who remain behind transcend the boundary between life and death to remember that day. It is also a time of inheritance, of awakening, and of commitment, in which we inherit the commitment of the hibakusha to the abolition of nuclear weapons and realization of genuine world peace, awaken to our individual responsibilities, and recommit ourselves to take action. This new commitment, building on the desires of all war victims and the millions around the world who are sharing this moment, is creating a harmony that is enveloping our planet.

    The keynote of this harmony is the hibakusha warning, “No one else should ever suffer as we did,” along with the cornerstone of all religions and bodies of law, “Thou shalt not kill.” Our sacred obligation to future generations is to establish this axiom, especially its corollary, “Thou shalt not kill children,” as the highest priority for the human race across all nations and religions. The International Court of Justice advisory opinion issued nine years ago was a vital step toward fulfilling this obligation, and the Japanese Constitution, which embodies this axiom forever as the sovereign will of a nation, should be a guiding light for the world in the 21st century.

    Unfortunately, the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty this past May left no doubt that the U.S., Russia, U.K., France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and a few other nations wishing to become nuclear-weapon states are ignoring the majority voices of the people and governments of the world, thereby jeopardizing human survival.

    Based on the dogma “Might is right,” these countries have formed their own “nuclear club,” the admission requirement being possession of nuclear weapons. Through the media, they have long repeated the incantation, “Nuclear weapons protect you.” With no means of rebuttal, many people worldwide have succumbed to the feeling that “There is nothing we can do.” Within the United Nations, nuclear club members use their veto power to override the global majority and pursue their selfish objectives.

    To break out of this situation, Mayors for Peace, with more than 1,080 member cities, is currently holding its sixth General Conference in Hiroshima, where we are revising the Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons launched two years ago. The primary objective is to produce an action plan that will further expand the circle of cooperation formed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the European Parliament, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and other international NGOs, organizations and individuals worldwide, and will encourage all world citizens to awaken to their own responsibilities with a sense of urgency, “as if the entire world rests on their shoulders alone,” and work with new commitment to abolish nuclear weapons.

    To these ends and to ensure that the will of the majority is reflected at the UN, we propose that the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, which will meet in October, establish a special committee to deliberate and plan for the achievement and maintenance of a nuclear-weapon-free world. Such a committee is needed because the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and the NPT Review Conference in New York have failed due to a “consensus rule” that gives a veto to every country.

    We expect that the General Assembly will then act on the recommendations from this special committee, adopting by the year 2010 specific steps leading toward the elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020.

    Meanwhile, we hereby declare the 369 days from today until August 9, 2006, a “Year of Inheritance, Awakening and Commitment.” During this Year, the Mayors for Peace, working with nations, NGOs and the vast majority of the world’s people, will launch a great diversity of campaigns for nuclear weapons abolition in numerous cities throughout the world.

    We expect the Japanese government to respect the voice of the world’s cities and work energetically in the First Committee and the General Assembly to ensure that the abolition of nuclear weapons is achieved by the will of the majority.

    Furthermore, we request that the Japanese government provide the warm, humanitarian support appropriate to the needs of all the aging hibakusha, including those living abroad and those exposed in areas affected by the black rain.

    On this, the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombing, we seek to comfort the souls of all its victims by declaring that we humbly reaffirm our responsibility never to “repeat the evil.”

    “Please rest peacefully; for we will not repeat the evil.”

    Tadatoshi Akiba Mayor The City of Hiroshima

    Tadatoshi Akiba, the mayor of Hiroshima and the president of Mayors for Peace, serves on the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council. The Mayors for Peace received the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2004 World Citizenship Award.

  • Today is Not a Good Day for War

    Perhaps there is no one more qualified to write a collection of poetry on the subject of war. David Krieger has pulled out all the stops, and compiled a book of poetry that is gut-wrenching, and hauntingly beautiful. Today is Not a Good Day for War is a group of poems that stems from observing not only what war does to human beings, but on examination also of the impact of modern conflict on the author’s soul.

    David Krieger has the ability to see the truth – certainly, but his position as President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (since 1982) has definitely enhanced his knowledge of the subject of ‘ wars ’. He has spoken all over the world on the subjects of international law, peace and war, and most importantly – the need to abolish nuclear weapons for all time. The word ‘war’ is so overused that it is accepted as an everyday part of our lives, as most of us have become almost immune to the reality of war – its’ effects, and unique ability to create countless calamities. But Krieger’s book Today is Not a Good Day for War dispossesses the reader from the torpor we have become susceptible to by the current consequences of being overly entertained. The poems snap us to attention, entreating us to question all aspects of war.

    This volume – which spans thirty-five years of writing – is an appeal to all of mankind. These poems answer five questions: who, what, how, when and where. Who is responsible? What can we do? How did we get here from there? When did we cross the line, and where should we be going to stop the increasing threat of another nuclear holocaust? The title is clear, and Krieger proves to the reader that there is never a day that is “good for war,” for the term is oxymoronic.

    This slim but powerful book – containing fifty-eight poems, has works that cover all aspects of the consequences of war. The poems convince one we are all victims, but does our apathy expedite the ease with which we accept war? One of the tragedies of our own culture, Krieger states very laconically in the poem, “Worse than the War” (p. 27), “/Is the silence…of good Americans./” And in the poem “The Young Men With The Guns”, Krieger’s vitriolic voice rises again with the lines “None of it could have happened/ without the people remaining silent./” (p.7, ls. 29-30). He is writing of the deaths of the priests in El Salvador, during the 1980s. He has several poems reminding us of the different horrors of wars – during the different decades, including Vietnam, Hanoi, the Basque village where Picasso painted Guernica, Dachau – Krieger is educated in all things murderous. But he offers hope through education – and education through poetry.

    Today is Not a Good Day for War reverberates with the themes of Nuclear Holocaust, and the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. August 6, 1945, is the antecedent for substantiating Krieger’s tone when writing of war. We learn of the hibakusha, to whom Krieger dedicates this book; they are “…the survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are ambassadors of the Nuclear Age.”

    On the day that the so-called ‘peace bomb’ was dropped by Enola Gay, the world changed forever. Krieger is resolute in his tone when writing of nuclear bombs. His opening poem, “Hiroshima Dreams” lets us know that the geographical name is not just a dot on some map thousands of miles from us that the Americans destroyed. It was a community “…filled with meandering dreams – /” (p.3, l.3)). The events of three days in August of 1945 are marked in the poem, “A Short History Lesson: 1945” (p. 15) with three lean stanzas, all sobering with bare-bones facts. The descriptive piece “ Hiroshima, August 6, 1945” is another example of Krieger’s intrinsic poetic voice when telling of “/the people – yes, the people – / of Hiroshima/…” (p. 17, st. 2, l.4).

    “The Bells of Nagasaki” is a reflective poem, telling us the bells “…ring for those who suffered/ and those who suffer still./” (p. 71; l. 2-3) We know David Krieger has been in the city, and has meditated upon the tragedies suffered there August 8 th, 1945, and has written several pieces exemplifying Nagasaki’s endless pain.

    He never wavers from impressing upon us of the likelihood of such an incident happening today, or tomorrow – but soon, if we do not wake ourselves up and stop the idiocy that moves forward the very idea of ‘nuclear’ deterrents. David Krieger continues to appear all over the world, giving speeches and reading poetry to people in the hopes that they become more cognizant of the perils that humanity as a whole faces today. His devotion is commendable , and the poetry he writes expounds his quest to blend facts with artistic metaphor. The poem, “On Becoming Death” (p. 60) is an excellent example:

    From Alamogordo to Hiroshima took exactly three weeks. On August 6th, Oppenheimer again became death. So did Groves, Stimson and Byrnes. So did Truman. So did a hundred thousand that day in Hiroshima. And so did America.

    Another fine sample of Krieger’s ability with poetic teaching is found in the poem “Passing Through Kokura”. The poem tells us that Kokura was the town to be bombed on August 8 th, 1945 – not Nagasaki, but, “…clouds covered Kokura, and/ the bombardier couldn’t see the ground./” (p. 46., st. 5, ls. 2-3), so FatMan fell on Nagasaki, as a matter of convenience.

    Such is the gravity of Krieger’s somber articulation. His poetic skills are varied. He uses rhyme and meter proficiently, and is a fine free-verse writer allowing him to create poetry that is enlightening, deliberative and meaningful. Krieger is obviously appertaining his own valid concerns through his extensive knowledge of the history of all things nuclear, using the art of poetry, making facts accessible to those not inclined to know how to find them.

    He writes of people who have impressed him, like Robert Bly, Miyoko Matsubara, Albert Einstein, Oppenheimer and Steve Stevens and Martin Luther King, Jr. He lists the “Unhealed Wounds of Humanity” (p. 42), while giving us all hope in the reflective piece “Fifty-One Reasons for Hope” (p. 78), reminding us we have limitless reasons for working towards peace.

    David Krieger creates questions for our reasons for agreeing to war in the poem “When The Draft Comes Back: Questions for young Americans”. The last stanza epitomizes the simple truth of soldiering: “…will you…look your leaders in their eyes/…when they lead the way themselves to war,/ you’ll consider going too?” For it is the leaders that always lead the citizenry blindly to conquer.

    Many artists are apprehensive about criticizing their ‘leaders’, but David Krieger is not afraid to be politically ‘incorrect’, penning verses that are unambiguous about where the blame should lie in the prevailing mood of ‘war, war, and more wars.’ The poem “Madmen” is an example as “The world is ruled by madmen C /” (p.14, l.1)

    David Krieger’s mettle is very effective when writing of those who seem dispossessed of compassion when committing our young to be killers. Without giving the reader the name of the character Krieger is writing about, he deftly establishes an image of our ‘second-in-command’ in the poem “A Dangerous Face”. The lines “It is the face of one who hides in dark bunkers/ and shuns the brightness of the sun./ …the face of one consumed by power.” (p. 34, 5 th st., ls. 1-2, 4) are indicative of Krieger’s artful ways with words. We know he is speaking of Cheney, while never mentioning his name. In the facing poem “Firing Squad”, he writes of Saddam Hussein, listing reasons why “Saddam Hussein is a bad man./” (l.1) We are forced to wonder, though, if Saddam was “bad” enough to justify harming the children of Iraq.

    The quintessence of Krieger can be difficult to paraphrase, if one is describing what Krieger himself thinks of nuclear weapons. Stanza two in the poem Sadako and the Shakuhachi (p. 80) is candid enough:

    Nuclear weapons are not weapons at all. They are a symbol of an imploding human spirit. They are the fire that consumes the crisp air of decency. They are a crossroads where science joined hands with evil and apathy. They are a triumph of academic certainty wrapped in the convoluted lie of deterrence. They are Einstein’s regret. They are many things, but not weapons B not instruments of war, but of genocide and perhaps of omnicide.

    The title poem “Today is Not a Good Day for War” tells us “today is not a good day for bombs to fall,/ Not when clouds hang on the horizon/ And drift above the sea.//” (p. 64, 2 nd st.), and if that isn’t a good enough reason, Krieger lyrically pens several other ingenuous motives.

    The book Today is Not a Good Day for War comes highly recommended, for it is a volume of “tough love” lessons, written by a man who writes with courage and intent, even if it hurts. David Krieger is a warrior – but he is writing for peace.

    ALSO BY DAVID KRIEGER:

    Peace: 100 Ideas (w/Joshua Chen)

    Hope In a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future (Editor)

    The Poetry of Peace (Editor)

    Choose Hope: Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age (w/Daisaku Ikeda)

    A Maginot Line in the Sky: International Perspectives on Ballistic Missile Defense (Editor, w/Carah Ong)

    Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age: Ideas for Action (Editor w/Frank Kelly)

    Waging Peace II: Vision & Hope for the 21st Century (Editor w/Frank Kelly)

    The Tides of Change: Peace, Pollution and Potential of the Oceans (Editor, w/ Elisabeth Mann Borgese