Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Peace

  • Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba’s 2004 World Citizenship Award Acceptance Speech

    Memorial Hall, Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, October 8, 2004

    Dr. David Krieger, honorable guests, colleagues and friends. It is my greatest honor to represent 619 member cities of the organization Mayors for Peace in accepting this year’s World Citizenship Award from such a prestigious organization as the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

    It is indeed a pleasure to be recognized here in Hiroshima by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation among such prestigious leaders in the movement for the abolition of nuclear weapons. This organization, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, has spearheaded our movement by showing us the direction to follow. It has also given us concrete examples by taking specific measures that have been effective in accomplishing our goal.

    The recent Nuclear Age Peace Foundation campaign called “Turn the Tide” is an excellent example of a job well done, one that will have a great effect on the world.

    I also would like to add that we are fortunate to find a leader in the person of Dr. David Krieger as well as in the persons all of us here, leaders in a joint effort for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    I would like to take this opportunity to summarize what our organization, Mayors for Peace, has been trying to accomplish and what we are aiming to accomplish. To start my review, I would like to mention one trend that is very important, at least in my mind.

    The problem of nuclear weapons was created by science and technology. Partly because of this, our movement to abolish nuclear weapons is firmly based on science, scientists, scientific thinking and all the relevant facts.

    Here I am using the words “science,” “scientists,” and so forth broadly. Let me mention a few examples that might be noteworthy. In the 1980s, a great movement was created, the nuclear freeze movement, largely through the efforts of physicians. Medical science, one of the scientific realms, declares that there is nothing these powerful scientists can do once nuclear war erupts.

    Environmental scientists also show us clearly that from the environmental and ecological points of view that nuclear war is not preventable. The only way to get rid of this danger is to abolish all nuclear weapons.

    Other scientists and experts can tell you from their areas of expertise that the only way is to get rid of all nuclear weapons.

    Here I would like to add another component to this list of experts’ opinions about nuclear weapons. That is, the perspective of mayors or city managers.

    Actually there is an American president who describes what I am going to say very well. Let me quote him first. The president is Abraham Lincoln. He said, “You may fool all of the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time. But you can not fool all of the people all of the time”.

    In a sense, this is an abstract statement but it is most true on the level of running a city, dealing with daily lives of citizens. For example, in lofty or high places, one could argue whether weapons of mass destruction exist or not and can get away with not saying the truth.

    But on the level of issues that mayors deal with, when garbage piles up on the streets there is no denying it. You cannot just lie. We have to deal with daily lives of citizens at that level. That is why mayors really see the facts clearly. We see the truths that surround us very clearly and we base our judgment on those facts and truth.

    Last October, in Manchester England , Mayors for Peace held an executive committee meeting. The discussion was based on facts that we have to deal with on a daily bases. We have come to the conclusion that nuclear weapons will have to be eliminated as soon as possible. We have set the deadline for the year 2020.

    Although some people said that wouldn’t be doable, we set the year 2020 partly because of the hibakusha. Hibakusha is the Japanese word for survivors of atomic bombs. As a matter of fact, after we announced the deadline we received warm words from our hibakusha friends. Their only complaint or criticism was that 2020 was not soon enough because they may not alive to see the day.

    To honor these hibakusha , we would like to stick to that goal and work harder in order to realize our goal no later than the year 2020. To start a summary of our activities let me start with what the hibakusha themselves have done. I believe it is very important to mention this. The World Citizenship Award, I am sure, has been given to Mayors for Peace because we do represent the voices of hibakusha.

    In the Peace Declaration of 1999, I summarized and pointed out three important contributions that the hibakusha had made by that time. The first one is the fact that they chose to live under circumstances in which they could not have been blamed had they chosen death. They not only chose to live, but to do so as decent human beings. This is quite an accomplishment that we tend to take for granted.

    The second accomplishment is that they effectively prevented a third use of nuclear weapons. When we tell their stories of August 6 and August 9, we feel like we live them. Certainly, anybody who went through that experience wishes to avoid telling it. Despite that fact they kept telling the world what would happen if another nuclear weapon should be used.

    The third important accomplishment is that they created and live a new world view. This is what Dr. Albert Einstein believed. Although he thought it did not exist, it does in the minds of hibakusha and it has spread all over the world by now. I would like to express that value as “reconciliation” instead of “retaliation”. The hibakusha themselves say simply that no one else should go through the experience they had. This spirit has been captured in the Memorial Cenotaph in the Peace Park , as well as in the Japanese Constitution.

    These are the footsteps on which the Mayors for Peace base our decisions and future activities.

    The first activity that the Mayors for Peace launched actually occurred in April this year in New York .

    Mayors and deputy mayors gathered in New York City to attend the Preparatory Committee meeting of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference, speak to the national delegates from various countries, make speeches, speak to city council members in New York City, speak to journalists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and so forth. It was a series of very important activities, some of which were extremely effective.

    I would like to quote a deputy mayor who summarized the activities in April. Jenny Jones is the deputy mayor of London . She said, “At the beginning of the experience in New York I was not sure what would happen, but the entire experience was invigorating. I am recharged with energy and feel I can work even harder for the abolition of nuclear weapons once I go back to London “. She was pleased, energized and energetic. London will be represented at the NPT Review Conference next year in May. I’m hoping Mayor Ken Livingston himself will join us.

    The consensus among participating mayors and deputy mayors was that although not all of the comments from national delegates were encouraging, after we went through the experience, we believe that it is possible to abolish nuclear weapons by the year of 2020.

    The second step of our activity is basically the one-year period between August 6 of this year till August 9 of next year, although we will put more focus on the period between August 6 this year until the NPT Review Conference in May next year.

    During this period we would like to sponsor concerts, symposia, and other activities to raise public awareness and to gather more momentum worldwide. There are many different activities happening all around the world on a daily basis, and more mayors are joining the Mayors for Peace organization. Other organizations and NGOs are holding their own activities to help us gather forces together in May next year in New York .

    The important component of our campaign is for mayors and NGOs to approach their respective governments to get them to help us induce the NPT Review Conference to adopt formal documents outlining our proposal for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    Our aim is to have a universal nuclear weapons convention signed by the year 2010 and ultimately abolish all nuclear weapons by the year 2020. We also have a contingency plan in case our present course does not materialize. But I am not going to tell you about that because we would like to concentrate on realizing our goal rather than fearing that we may not be able to accomplish it.

    The third step is the NPT Review conference itself, which will be held in May next year. By the way, next year is 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings. We would like to have at least 100 mayors from Mayors for Peace cities and also at least 1000 NGO representatives representing various voices grassroots movements from around the world in New York during the NPT Review conference.

    I also would like to tell you that our efforts have been doubled, tripled or quadrupled – actually enhanced one hundred-fold by people of various organizations and NGOs around the world who have worked so hard. Let me just point out a few things that did not happen in the previous movement for abolishing nuclear weapons.

    Our efforts – grassroots movements and civil society movements – quite often have been ignored by formal governmental structures. In February this year, the European Congress actually adopted a resolution supporting the Mayors for Peace emergency campaign. In June in Boston , the US conference of Mayors consisting of 1183 American cities adopted by acclamation a resolution whose content was even stronger than that of European Congress. Many governments, including those who sent their ambassadors to Hiroshima in recent years, have endorsed our emergency campaign.

     

    In the area of NGOs, International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which won the Nobel Prize in 1985, has also recently adopted a resolution endorsing our emergency campaign in Beijing.

    And today we have honor of receiving the 2004 World Citizenship Award from the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which is another way of endorsing our campaign in an effort to expand this effort to abolish all nuclear weapons by the year 2020.

    In 1945, just after the atomic bombing, some people claimed that no life would grow in Hiroshima for 75 years. Of course you see the trees and flowers now, so this statement was not true. But in a different sense, as long as we have nuclear weapons on this earth, one could claim that no real life is actually thriving on the earth. We do not have life actualizing its fullest potential as long as there are nuclear weapons. Therefore, let us make sure that the year 2020, 75 years after the atomic bombings, will be the year real life is born again by abolishing nuclear weapons.

    When Mr. Nelson Mandela was released from the prison after 28 years, he was asked by a journalist, “What are you going to do next?” I suppose the journalist wanted to hear some important political action that Nelson Mandela was planning at the time. But Nelson Mandela answered “I would like to listen to classical music while watching a beautiful sunset on a beach.”

    So in that spirit I would like to promise you that Mayors for Peace, and I personally, will do our best to accomplish our goal by the year 2020. And I know that all of you will join us, so that in the year 2020 we will be able to listen to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and rejoice that finally peace has come while watching the sun set beautifully into the Seto Inland Sea over Hiroshima. Let’s work together.

    Thank your very much.

  • 2004 World Citizenship Award Presentation to Mayors for Peace

    2004 World Citizenship Award Presentation to Mayors for Peace

    World citizenship has become essential to our survival as a species. Our powerful technologies have made our problems global, and the solutions to these problems must also be global. If the Earth is destroyed, no country, no matter how powerful, will be spared the devastation. We all have a vested interest in preserving our planet. Our time calls out for world citizenship.

    On our planet today are many greedy plunderers, individuals and corporations that would use up the Earth’s resources for their own short-term profits, polluting the air, water and land without regard for the good of the planet and its inhabitants. These plunderers, who often seek out the weakest national link to gain greater advantage in enhancing their profits, are destroying our wondrous life-supporting planet.

    Some governments have stockpiled thousands of nuclear weapons, the worst of all weapons of mass destruction, weapons that are capable of reducing our great cities to rubble. Despite obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, these governments have clung tenaciously to their large nuclear arsenals, threatening the survival of the human species and most life on Earth.

    Finding global solutions to global problems demands a worldwide constituency for change, a constituency of world citizens, who put the problems of the planet ahead of their concerns for their particular geographic portion of the planet. The number of world citizens on the planet is relatively small, but growing. The growth curve is in a race against time to save the planet from plunder and destruction and to achieve sustainability for future generations.

    In 1998, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation began presenting an annual award for World Citizenship. Previous honorees have been media innovator Ted Turner; Queen Noor of Jordan; poet and philosopher Daisaku Ikeda; artist Frederick Franck; and entertainer and humanitarian Harry Belafonte. This year’s honoree is – for the first time, an organization – Mayors for Peace.

    Mayors for Peace was selected for their innovative approach to the abolition of nuclear weapons. They have initiated an Emergency Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons by the year 2020, which they call Vision 2020. Witnessing the strain on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by the failure of the nuclear weapons states to fulfill their treaty obligations for nuclear disarmament and recognizing the dangers that nuclear arsenals pose to all cities, the Mayors for Peace created their Emergency Campaign. The Campaign calls for initiating negotiations for nuclear weapons abolition in the year 2005, concluding these negotiations in the year 2010, and completing the process of eliminating these weapons by the year 2020. The Emergency Campaign brings the issue of nuclear disarmament to cities throughout the world through the commitment of mayors who have a responsibility to protect their constituents.

    In 2004, the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign brought 16 mayors and deputy mayors from 12 countries to the United Nations in New York for the Preparatory Committee meeting to the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference (NPT). The organization is currently making preparations to have more than 100 mayors and deputy mayors at the 2005 NPT Review Conference. Their presence made a strong impact in 2004 and will undoubtedly make an even greater impact in 2005.

    The superb leadership of Mayors for Peace has come from its president, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba of Hiroshima , and its vice-president, Mayor Iccho Itoh of Nagasaki. It is altogether fitting and proper that the leadership of this organization and campaign should come from these cities that suffered the devastating consequences of nuclear weapons dropped on them. We hope that the survivors of the bombings in these cities, the hibakusha , who are ambassadors of the Nuclear Age, will take particular pride in this World Citizenship Award and the efforts of their mayors for a world free of nuclear weapons. We also hope that this Award will help in mobilizing additional mayors to join in the global effort to eliminate nuclear weapons.

    It is my honor and pleasure to present the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2004 World Citizenship Award to Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba representing the Mayors for Peace.

    David Krieger is a founder and the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org)

  • Truths Worth Telling

    Kensington, California – On a tape recording made in the Oval Office on June 14, 1971, H. R. Haldeman, Richard Nixon’s chief of staff, can be heard citing Donald Rumsfeld, then a White House aide, on the effect of the Pentagon Papers, news of which had been published on the front page of that morning’s newspaper:

    “Rumsfeld was making this point this morning,” Haldeman says. “To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can’t trust the government; you can’t believe what they say, and you can’t rely on their judgment. And the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it’s wrong, and the president can be wrong.”

    He got it exactly right. But it’s a lesson that each generation of voters and each new set of leaders have to learn for themselves. Perhaps Mr. Rumsfeld – now secretary of defense, of course – has reflected on this truth recently as he has contemplated the deteriorating conditions in Iraq. According to the government’s own reporting, the situation there is far bleaker than Mr. Rumsfeld has recognized or President Bush has acknowledged on the campaign trail.

    Understandably, the American people are reluctant to believe that their president has made errors of judgment that have cost American lives. To convince them otherwise, there is no substitute for hard evidence: documents, photographs, transcripts. Often the only way for the public to get such evidence is if a dedicated public servant decides to release it without permission.

    Such a leak occurred recently with the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which was prepared in July. Reports of the estimate’s existence and overall pessimism – but not its actual conclusions – have prompted a long-overdue debate on the realities and prospects of the war. But its judgments of the relative likelihood and the strength of evidence pointing to the worst possibilities remain undisclosed. Since the White House has refused to release the full report, someone else should do so.

    Leakers are often accused of being partisan, and undoubtedly many of them are. But the measure of their patriotism should be the accuracy and the importance of the information they reveal. It would be a great public service to reveal a true picture of the administration’s plans for Iraq – especially before this week’s debate on foreign policy between Mr. Bush and Senator John Kerry.

    The military’s real estimates of the projected costs – in manpower, money and casualties – of various long-term plans for Iraq should be made public, in addition to the more immediate costs in American and Iraqi lives of the planned offensive against resistant cities in Iraq that appears scheduled for November. If military or intelligence experts within the government predict disastrous political consequences in Iraq from such urban attacks, these judgments should not remain secret.

    Leaks on the timing of this offensive – and on possible call-up of reserves just after the election – take me back to Election Day 1964, which I spent in an interagency working group in the State Department. The purpose of our meeting was to examine plans to expand the war – precisely the policy that voters soundly rejected at the polls that day.

    We couldn’t wait until the next day to hold our meeting because the plan for the bombing of North Vietnam had to be ready as soon as possible. But we couldn’t have held our meeting the day before because news of it might have been leaked – not by me, I’m sorry to say. And President Lyndon Johnson might not have won in a landslide had voters known he was lying when he said that his administration sought “no wider war.”

    Seven years and almost 50,000 American deaths later, after I had leaked the Pentagon Papers, I had a conversation with Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, one of the two senators who had voted against the Tonkin Gulf resolution in August 1964. If I had leaked the documents then, he said, the resolution never would have passed.

    That was hard to hear. But in 1964 it hadn’t occurred to me to break my vow of secrecy. Though I knew that the war was a mistake, my loyalties then were to the secretary of defense and the president. It took five years of war before I recognized the higher loyalty all officials owe to the Constitution, the rule of law, the soldiers in harm’s way or their fellow citizens.

    Like Robert McNamara, under whom I served, Mr. Rumsfeld appears to inspire great loyalty among his aides. As the scandal at Abu Ghraib shows, however, there are more important principles. Mr. Rumsfeld might not have seen the damning photographs and the report of Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba as soon as he did – just as he would never have seen the Pentagon Papers 33 years ago – if some anonymous people in his own department had not bypassed the chain of command and disclosed them, without authorization, to the news media. And without public awareness of the scandal, reforms would be less likely.

    A federal judge has ordered the administration to issue a list of all documents relating to the scandal by Oct. 15. Will Mr. Rumsfeld release the remaining photos, which depict treatment that he has described as even worse? It’s highly unlikely, especially before Nov. 2. Meanwhile, the full Taguba report remains classified, and the findings of several other inquiries into military interrogation and detention practices have yet to be released.

    All administrations classify far more information than is justifiable in a democracy – and the Bush administration has been especially secretive. Information should never be classified as secret merely because it is embarrassing or incriminating. But in practice, in this as in any administration, no information is guarded more closely.

    Surely there are officials in the present administration who recognize that the United States has been misled into a war in Iraq, but who have so far kept their silence – as I long did about the war in Vietnam. To them I have a personal message: don’t repeat my mistakes. Don’t wait until more troops are sent, and thousands more have died, before telling truths that could end a war and save lives. Do what I wish I had done in 1964: go to the press, to Congress, and document your claims.

    Technology may make it easier to tell your story, but the decision to do so will be no less difficult. The personal risks of making disclosures embarrassing to your superiors are real. If you are identified as the source, your career will be over; friendships will be lost; you may even be prosecuted. But some 140,000 Americans are risking their lives every day in Iraq. Our nation is in urgent need of comparable moral courage from its public officials.

    Daniel Ellsberg is the author of “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers” and a member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council.

    Originally published by the New York Times.

  • Seeking Peace in the Nuclear Age

    Seeking Peace in the Nuclear Age

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded in 1982 by a small group of citizens who believed that peace is an imperative of the Nuclear Age – that our powerful technologies, particularly nuclear weapons, have brought us to the stage in human development when we must put an end to war before war puts an end to us. We created the Foundation in the belief that citizens can make a difference by influencing other citizens and government officials.

    The Foundation began with only a handful of individuals and now reaches millions of people annually through our programs, publications and websites. We operate internationally and are on the Roster in consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The Foundation has been named a United Nations Peace Messenger organization, and among our advisors are many Nobel Peace Laureates from throughout the world.

    The work of the Foundation is based upon a commitment to achieve a more secure and decent future for humanity. We have three principal goals: to abolish nuclear weapons; to strengthen international law and institutions; and to inspire and empower a new generation of peace leaders. We seek these goals by means of education and advocacy.

    Abolishing nuclear weapons may seem like an impossible goal, but it is critical to pursue because these weapons can destroy cities, civilizations and even the human species. The stated purpose of nuclear weapons has always been deterrence, to prevent others from using nuclear weapons by threatening to retaliate with massive force. But now that the Cold War has ended there are no nuclear weapons states that remain enemies, excepting possibly India and Pakistan , and even they are attempting to work out their differences.

    Nuclear weapons are not needed to deter friends, and they cannot deter terrorists who cannot be located. Thus, our most practical and safest course of action is the phased and verifiable elimination of all nuclear weapons. To succeed in this endeavor, the US must take the lead, for without the US it will not happen. The Foundation works with other organizations around the world on these issues. We helped form a network of over 2000 organizations working for a nuclear weapons-free future. We have also initiated a national campaign to chart a new course for US nuclear policy. The campaign is called Turn the Tide and it allows citizens to learn about US nuclear policies and to play a role in changing them.

    Each year the Foundation hosts a symposium on international law that looks at strengthening some aspect of the global legal structure. One of our symposiums focused on creating a United Nations Emergency Peace Service – a small UN rapid deployment force that could be used to stop genocides and crimes against humanity from occurring by moving rapidly to prevent them. Another symposium focused on the importance of supporting an International Criminal Court that will hold all individuals, including national leaders, accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

    The Foundation is also active in reaching out to young people. We are working to create a new generation of peace leaders. Michael Coffey , our Director of Youth Programs, travels around the country speaking to and working with youth on high school and college campuses. In 2005, the Foundation will host a conference of 50-60 young nuclear activists from around the country to learn from each other and from a team of experienced activists about being more effective in creating a nuclear weapons-free future. We are very excited about the potential of this youth conference to have a multiplier effect in reaching a broad audience of young people and influencing them to play a role in shaping their future.

    We do much more at the Foundation, which you can find out about at our principal web site, www.wagingpeace.org. You can also visit our other web sites,www.nuclearfiles.org and www.ucnuclearfree.org.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is an organization that works daily to build a peaceful and nuclear weapons free world. It is a persistent voice for peace in our troubled world. We invite you to add your voice and help support our efforts to abolish nuclear weapons, strengthen international law and reach out to young people. Help us create a world we can be proud to pass on to our children and grandchildren.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. This is an edited version of remarks made at the kick-off event for the Foundation’s 20th Anniversary Campaign.

  • Letter from Ben Ferencz on the ICC

    Dear Friends:

    As a former combat veteran, with five battle stars received with my honorable discharge after World War Two, I owe it to the forty-million people who died in that war not to remain silent in the face of official calumnies that endanger our nation and the brave young people who serve in its military forces. I write as a graduate of the Harvard Law School and a former Chief prosecutor for the United States in one of the Nuremberg war crimes trials and one who has devoted almost all of my life trying to help create a more humane and peaceful world under the rule of law.

    What follows is an extract from the official US Congressional Record, House of Representatives debate on July 15, 2004, under the heading H. 5881 and H 5882. to Amend the Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill. The views expressed by the Chairman of the House of Representatives, Republican Tom DeLay of Texas , in strongly opposing the International Criminal Court (ICC) are widely shared by other members of the Republican party, as well as some conservative Democrats. The arguments advanced in opposition to the new court are, in my very considered judgment, demonstrably false and deliberately deceptive. They do not serve the interests of the United States or any of its citizens.

    Extract from Congressional Record:

    Amendment No. 6 offered by Mr. Nethercutt: At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following: LIMITATION ON ECONOMIC SUPPORT FUND ASSISTANCE FOR CERTAIN FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS THAT ARE PARTIES TO THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT    SEC. __. None of the funds made available in this Act in title II under the heading “ECONOMIC SUPPORT FUND” may be used to provide assistance to the government of a country that is a party to the International Criminal Court and has not entered into an agreement with the United States pursuant to Article 98 of the Rome Statute preventing the International Criminal Court from proceeding against United States personnel present in such country.

    The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of today, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt) and a Member opposed each will control 5 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Nethercutt).

    Mr NETHERCUTT. Mr. Chairman,…We have an obligation to protect our Armed Forces from unconstitutional extraterritorial prosecution. Moreover, this amendment sends a powerful message to the world community that when we commit U.S. troops overseas we will insist that they be protected by Article 98 agreements, if the Security Council will not do its part….

    The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) is recognized for 5 minutes.

    Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I agree with the motivations of this amendment, but I absolutely have to oppose the substance of it. The reason I do so is because I think it is going to accomplish exactly the opposite of the intent of this amendment….If we accept it, the U.S. will be hamstringing itself, placing a straitjacket on its diplomatic tools, when we have a lot of U.S. national security objectives that must carry the same or equal weight as securing Article 98 agreements. I urge a “no” vote on this…  Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader.

    Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman,  Let me see if I have got this straight: The United Nations has created an International Criminal Court, a shady amalgam of every bad idea ever cooked up for world government. The United States, its President, this Congress and the American people has categorically, unequivocally and completely rejected the ICC and its insistence on threatening the American people with prosecution. We reject its laughable legitimacy, we reject its U.N.-American denial of civil rights, and we reject its anti-American politics. And yet the ICC still asserts jurisdiction over the American people, including American soldiers fighting the war on terror and still salivates at the prospect of prosecuting one of us for anything the U.N. does not like. Now, some nations who receive economic support from the United States may use the money we give them to arrest and hand over American citizens to the U.N.’s kangaroo court? I do not think so. President Bush has shown great leadership by removing the United States from the treaty creating the ICC, and Congress has passed legislation, the American Servicemembers Protection Act, to ensure our soldiers and peacekeepers around the world are protected from prosecution in it. Federal law now requires all countries who seek American military assistance sign an agreement assuring us they will not hand over our soldiers to the ICC; and, since its enactment, more than 90 countries have signed such an agreement. The ASPA has proven to be a valuable tool in the war on terror, and the Nethercutt amendment takes that leverage to the next step, making American economic support contingent on a promise not to turn over our troops to the ICC. The Nethercutt amendment will forestall any attempt by a foreign country that receives American economic aid to arrest and extradite American soldiers to Kofi Annan’s kangaroo court. Now, let us be real clear: The ICC presents a clear and present danger to the war on terror and Americans who are fighting it all over the world. The United Nations just last month refused to extend protection from the ICC to American troops abroad. This was at once an ominous sign of things to come and an urgent call for Congress to do its duty and protect our men and women in uniform. That is exactly what this vote is. If you want to go home to your constituents and tell them that you think that their tax dollars should go to foreign countries who allow American soldiers to be imprisoned and shipped off to Brussels without their constitutional rights, then, by all means, vote no on the Nethercutt amendment. If, however, you think American troops should retain their human and constitutional rights even when they step on foreign soil and if you think American economic support should only go to countries who guarantee such protection for our soldiers, then stand with the American people, the President and the men and women winning the war on terror and vote yes ….

    (End of extract)

  • A Great Olympic Moment

    A Great Olympic Moment

    The Olympics are always magnificent. They bring the world together. The competition of the talented young athletes demonstrates the power, speed, precision and grace of human achievement and, most of all, the beauty of the human spirit. We are reminded that we are one world, and we are capable of coming together to compete peacefully.

    In the Athens Olympics, there was a striking moment that demonstrated the power of the people. It occurred during the men’s gymnastic competition. The great Russian Olympian, Alexi Nemov was performing in the individual competition on the high bar. He performed a magnificent routine, releasing from the bar and flying over it four or five times. When he landed at the end of his routine the excitement in the room was palpable. There was a tremendous ovation.

    Then the judges’ scores came up. They were lower than the crowd in the arena thought was fair, and the people rose to their feet and jeered the scores. Many attempts were made to quiet the crowd in order for the next athlete to compete, but the people would not be silenced. They clearly believed that they had witnessed an injustice, and they were not willing to be silent in the face of this injustice.

    At this point one of the senior officials walked to the judges’ platform and spoke with two judges who had given particularly low scores. Then the scores were adjusted upward and new scores posted in the arena. But the crowd was still not fully satisfied as the scores remained below the crowd’s level of expectation for Nemov’s brilliant performance. The people continued to express their dissatisfaction.

    Then, Nemov stepped out and faced the crowd. With great humility, he gestured to the crowd to stop their protest and they responded. The arena finally quieted enough for the competition to continue.

    Why was this a great moment? Because the people spontaneously arose to protest a perceived injustice. Because the multinational crowd in the arena stood in solidarity with an athlete who they thought had been treated unfairly. Because the people in the arena that day demonstrated that their power was not to be denied. Because they showed the world that they would not be cowed by authorities, in this case the judges, from their own understanding of what is just and fair.

    If only we could learn from this great Olympic moment. People matter. Fairness matters. And there are times when it is necessary for people to raise their voices against those in power if individuals are to be protected and fairness is to be upheld.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The Optimism of Uncertainty

    In this awful world where the efforts of caring people often pale in comparison to what is done by those who have power, how do I manage to stay involved and seemingly happy?

    I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world.

    There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.

    What leaps out from the history of the past hundred years is its utter unpredictability. A revolution to overthrow the czar of Russia, in that most sluggish of semi-feudal empires, not only startled the most advanced imperial powers but took Lenin himself by surprise and sent him rushing by train to Petrograd. Who would have predicted the bizarre shifts of World War II–the Nazi-Soviet pact (those embarrassing photos of von Ribbentrop and Molotov shaking hands), and the German Army rolling through Russia, apparently invincible, causing colossal casualties, being turned back at the gates of Leningrad, on the western edge of Moscow, in the streets of Stalingrad, followed by the defeat of the German army, with Hitler huddled in his Berlin bunker, waiting to die?

    And then the postwar world, taking a shape no one could have drawn in advance: The Chinese Communist revolution, the tumultuous and violent Cultural Revolution, and then another turnabout, with post-Mao China renouncing its most fervently held ideas and institutions, making overtures to the West, cuddling up to capitalist enterprise, perplexing everyone.

    No one foresaw the disintegration of the old Western empires happening so quickly after the war, or the odd array of societies that would be created in the newly independent nations, from the benign village socialism of Nyerere’s Tanzania to the madness of Idi Amin’s adjacent Uganda. Spain became an astonishment. I recall a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade telling me that he could not imagine Spanish Fascism being overthrown without another bloody war. But after Franco was gone, a parliamentary democracy came into being, open to Socialists, Communists, anarchists, everyone.

    The end of World War II left two superpowers with their respective spheres of influence and control, vying for military and political power. Yet they were unable to control events, even in those parts of the world considered to be their respective spheres of influence. The failure of the Soviet Union to have its way in Afghanistan, its decision to withdraw after almost a decade of ugly intervention, was the most striking evidence that even the possession of thermonuclear weapons does not guarantee domination over a determined population. The United States has faced the same reality. It waged a full-scale war in lndochina, conducting the most brutal bombardment of a tiny peninsula in world history, and yet was forced to withdraw. In the headlines every day we see other instances of the failure of the presumably powerful over the presumably powerless, as in Brazil, where a grassroots movement of workers and the poor elected a new president pledged to fight destructive corporate power.

    Looking at this catalogue of huge surprises, it’s clear that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience–whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union itself. No cold calculation of the balance of power need deter people who are persuaded that their cause is just.

    I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests. Wherever I go, I find such people. And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to know of one another’s existence, and so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that boulder up the mountain. I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement.

    Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope.

    An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

  • 2004 Sadako Peace Day

    2004 Sadako Peace Day

    This has been a very soulful commemoration of this 59th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima . We have heard beautiful and haunting music, poetry and reflections as well as the sweet sounds of small birds in the oak trees that surround us and provide a canopy above us.

    This garden, Sadako Peace Garden , was created nine years ago and dedicated on the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima , on August 6, 1995 , and each year since we have met in this garden on August 6 th to commemorate this important anniversary. This garden is dedicated to all who work for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons.

    As we reflect today, I believe that two critical questions of our time deserve our attention: What have we learned from Hiroshima that will help us prevent future Hiroshimas? And, what are we willing to do about what we have learned?

    If we have learned nothing from Hiroshima , as it sometimes seems, we are destined to have a tragic future. But even if we have learned that the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki must never be repeated, we still face a tragic future if we are not willing to act upon this understanding. It seems to me certain that in the Nuclear Age, ignorance and apathy will be our undoing. We cannot allow them to become the accomplices of nuclear weapons.

    That is why education about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and advocacy for eliminating nuclear weapons are so critical to our common future, and why organizations like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation are so important to building a more secure future.

    I want to share with you a poem that I received today by a poet in Tucson, Arizona, Karma Tenzing Wangchuk:

    Hiroshima Day –
    in my heart, I release
    a thousand cranes

    I hope that today we can all release a thousand cranes in our hearts and in our world. We are powerful beyond our imaginations, and the power of a thousand cranes released in many human hearts can change our world.

  • Lessons for Youth

    Lessons for Youth

    1. Learn from others, but think for yourself. (Use your mind and judgment.)
    2. Decide for yourself what is right or wrong. (Use your conscience.)
    3. Speak out for what you believe in. (Use your voice.)
    4. Stand up for what is right. (Use your power as an individual.)
    5. Set goals and be persistent in working for them. (Use your vision and determination.)
    6. Live by the Golden Rule. (Use your feelings as a point of reference.)
    7. Recognize the miracle that you are. (Be spiritually aware.)
    8. Never harm another miracle. (Be nonviolent.)
    9. Believe in yourself. (Be trustworthy, even to yourself.)
    10. Help others. (Be giving.)
    11. Be a citizen of the world. (Be inclusive and embrace all life.)
    12. Be a force for peace and justice. (Be courageous and committed.)

  • Let Us Think Big and Create a Department of Peace

    2004 Commencement Address at Pomona College

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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