Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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  • Sergio Vieira de Mello: A Man of Peace

    In these dark times of violence and despair, of wars and genocide, the death of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Brazilian diplomat, special representative to the UN in Iraq, is an enormous loss in the struggle for peace.

    His distinguished career as an experienced and respected diplomat expanded over three decades and his achievements were important in the cause for justice and goodness.

    I had the opportunity to meet him during my work with the Cousteau Society. I remember his comments regarding Captain Jacques Cousteau, “He is truly the Quixote of Ecology”. We discussed the urgency to make people understand the need to protect the environment for future generations. Mr. Mello’s remarked, “the ones we need to convince are the decision makers and that is the difficult part”.

    In his own right de Mello was also a Quixote fighting for what is just and putting his life on the line in some of the most dangerous trouble spots in the world.

    He was an ardent defender of the role of the United Nations in the Iraq crisis. He relied on his previous experience as negotiator and diplomat in Lebanon, Rwanda, Kosovo and East Timor looking for the delicate balance between the UN’s presence in Iraq and the occupying forces.

    A couple of days ago a brave journalist was killed in Baghdad “by mistake” by U.S. forces. Ironically, those same forces couldn’t stop a huge truck loaded with explosives from reaching the UN building.

    Violence and anarchy run rampant in the occupied Arab nation and more American soldiers are killed or wounded nearly every day. More resources and more troops will be used to stabilized Iraq. But a war started by the U.S. showing its disdain for the UN and the Security Council will not easily reach the peace for which Mr. Mello and other brave UN officials have died this August 19th.
    Ruben Arvizu is the Director for Latin America of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Presently he is working to establish the Mexican chapter of NAPF.

  • Bush Nuclear Policy A Recipe for National Insecurity: Time to Change Course

    This August, during the very same week that the world commemorated the 58th anniversary of the only use of nuclear weapons—an act which obliterated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki– more than 150 military contractors, scientists from the weapons labs, and other government officials gathered at the headquarters of the US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska to plot and plan for the possibility of “full-scale nuclear war” calling for the production of a new generation of nuclear weapons—more “usable” so-called “mini-nukes and earth penetrating “bunker busters” armed with atomic warheads. Plans are afoot to start a new bomb factory to replace the one closed at Rocky Flats, now one of the most polluted spots on earth thanks to earlier production of plutonium triggers for the US hydrogen bomb arsenal, halted after the end of the Cold War. And there is a move to shorten the time to restart nuclear testing at the Nevada test site as well as to lift the restrictions that were placed on the production of “mini-nukes” by Congress.

    How did we get to this awful state, with North Korea and Iran threatening nuclear break-out and even Japan now talking about developing nuclear weapons of its own? What action can ordinary citizens take to end the nuclear madness and provide for real national security?

    President Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation, is often remembered for warning us to guard against dangers to our “liberties and democratic processes” from the “military-industrial” complex. But equally telling, and not as well-known, he also warned us against the “danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite”, noting that the “prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. “

    The fact is, our Doctor Strangeloves have been driving this nuclear arms race in partnership with military contractors engaged in pork barrel politics with a corrupt Congress, spreading nuclear production contracts around the country to the great detriment of our national health, and security. From the first time we thought we were able to put some limits on nuclear development, when the Limited Test Ban Treaty was negotiated in 1963 because of the shock and horror at the amount of radioactive strontium-90 in our baby’s teeth, the labs made sure there was continued funding to enable testing to go underground. And when Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996 to cut off nuclear testing, he bought off the labs with a $4.6 billion annual program—the so-called “stockpile stewardship “ program– in which nuclear testing was now done in computer simulated virtual reality with the help of so-called “sub-critical tests”, 1,000 feet below the desert floor, where plutonium is blown up with chemicals without causing a chain reaction. This program created a vast loophole in the not-so-comprehensive Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It is the fruits of this Faustian bargain that produced the research for the new nukes Bush is now prepared to put into production.

    What’s to be done?

    Although the majority of the Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, and most of the media keep stirring the pot with scare stories about nuclear proliferation from so called “rogue” states, we hardly hear about the essential bargain of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed in 1970, which has kept the lid on the spread of nuclear weapons until very recently. The NPT is a two-way street. It was a deal, not only for non-nuclear weapon states not to acquire nuclear weapons, but also for the nuclear weapons states to give them up in return. India and Pakistan never signed the treaty, as it elevated the privileges of the then five existing nuclear weapons states—US, USSR, UK, France and China. And while India had tested in 1974 for its own nuclear arsenal, it wasn’t until 1998, after the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed over its objections, that India broke out of the pack, swiftly followed by Pakistan. Under Bush, annual funding for the weapons labs went from $4.6 billion under Clinton to $6.4 billion—an obvious recipe for proliferation. Because we cling to our nuclear weapons despite our treaty obligations to eliminate them, other nations attempt to acquire them. Furthermore, our determination to “dominate and control the military use of space”, threatening the whole world from the heavens, is another incentive to less powerful nations to make sure they have the only equalizer that can hold us at bay—nukes of their own. In August, Russia, for the first time joined China at the UN disarmament talks in Geneva, calling for a treaty to prevent the weaponization of space. To eliminate the nuclear threat, we need to close down our military space program, close the Nevada test site, put the weapons designers out to pasture and begin negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear arms.

  • We Stand Our Ground

    Originally published by truthout.org

    I must begin by saying that standing here before you is, simply, one of the greatest honors of my life. I have never served in the armed forces in any capacity. My father, however, did. He volunteered for service in Vietnam in 1969. The changes that war wrought upon him have affected, for both good and ill, every single day of my life. Vietnam did not only affect the generation that served there. It affected the children of those who served there, and the families of those who served there. That war is an American heirloom, great and terrible simultaneously, handed down from father to son and from mother to daughter, from father to daughter and from mother to son. The lessons learned there speak to us today, almost thirty years hence.

    Let me tell you a quick story about my father. His call to the freedom bird came while he was still out in the field. He arrived at Dulles Airport to meet my mother still dressed in his bush greens, still wearing the moustache, with the mud of Vietnam still under his fingernails and stuck inside the waffle of his boot sole.

    A few days earlier, he had come across a beautiful old French rifle. It was given to him by a Vietnamese friend, a former teacher with three children who had been conscripted permanently into the military. My father managed to bring this rifle home with him, and sent it on the flight in the baggage hold along with his duffel.

    My father and my mother stood waiting at the baggage claim for his things to come down. The people there – and this was 1970, remember – backed away from him as if he was radioactive. They knew where he had just come from. If the greens were not a giveaway, the standard issue muddy tan he and all the vets wore upon return from Vietnam was. When the rifle came down the belt, not in a package or a box, just laying there in all its reality, the crowd was appalled and horrified. My mother and father looked at each other and wondered what these people were thinking. What did they think was happening over there? What did they think it is that soldiers do? Did they even begin to understand this war, and what it meant, what it was doing to American soldiers, to the Vietnamese soldiers like my father’s friend, and to the civilians caught in the crossfire?

    The looks on those people’s faces there said enough. The answer was no. They didn’t know, and apparently didn’t want to know. Now, thirty three years later, we are back in that same place again, fighting a war few understand that is affecting soldiers and civilians in ways only those soldiers and civilians can truly know. Ignorance, it seems, is also an American heirloom to be passed down again and again and again.

    Many of you know, far better than I do, what my father felt that day in Dulles. That is why I am honored to speak to you tonight. If the American people fully knew what this war in Iraq was really about, if they fully knew what it means today to be a soldier in that part of the world, they would tear the White House apart brick by brick. If the people had but a taste of the horror and the lies, they would repudiate this administration and all it stands for. The don’t know, because they have been fed a glutton’s diet of misinformation and fraud. Changing that is why we are here.

    The first of August saw a very interesting article published in the Washington Post. The title was, “US Shifts Rhetoric On its Goals in Iraq.” The story quotes an unnamed administration source – I will bet you all the money in my wallet that this “source” was a man named Richard Perle – who outlined the newest reasons for our war over there. “That goal is to see the spread of our values,” said this aide, “and to understand that our values and our security are inextricably linked.”

    Our values. That’s an interesting concept coming from a member of this administration. We make much of the greatness and high moral standing of the United States of America, and there is much to be proud of. The advertising, however, has lately failed completely to match up with the product.

    Is it part of our value system to remain on a permanent war footing since World War II, shunting money desperately needed for human services and education into a military machine whose very size and expense demands the fighting of wars to justify its existence?

    Is it part of our value system to lie to the American people, to lie deeply and broadly and with no shame at all, about why we fight in Iraq?

    Is it part of our value system to sacrifice nearly three hundred American soldiers on the altar of those lies, to sacrifice thousands and thousands and thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq on the altar of those lies?

    Is it part of our value system to use the horror of September 11 to terrify the American people into an unnecessary war, into the ruination of their civil rights, into the annihilation of the Constitution?

    Is it part of our value system to use that terrible day against those American people who felt most personally the awful blow of that attack?

    Is striking first part of our value system?

    Is living in fear part of our value system?

    It is not part of my value system. It never will be.

    This new justification for our war in Iraq is yet another lie, an accent in a symphony of lies. The values this administration represents play no part in the common morality of the American people, play no part in the legal and constitutional system we adore and defend. One of the worst things ever to happen to this country was allowing the people within this administration to use words like “freedom” and “justice” and “democracy” and “patriotism,” for those good and noble words become the foulest of lies when passing their lips.

    For the record, the justification for war on Iraq was:

    The procurement by Iraq of uranium from Niger for use in a nuclear weapons program, plus 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents – 500 tons, for those without calculators, is one million pounds – almost 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, several mobile biological weapons labs, and connections between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda that led directly to the attacks of September 11.

    None of these weapons have been found. The mobile weapons labs – termed “Winnebagoes of Death” by Colin Powell – turned out to be weather balloon platforms sold to Iraq by the British in the 1980s. The infamous Iraq-al Qaeda connection has been shot to pieces by the recently released September 11 report. And the Niger uranium claim was based upon forgeries so laughable that America stands embarrassed and ashamed before the judgment of the world. This is all featured on the White House’s website on a page called ‘Disarming Saddam.’ The Niger claims, specifically, have yet to be removed.

    Lies. Lies. All lies.

    That Washington Post story, however, reveals a deeper truth here. Now that the original and terrifying claims to justify this war have been proven to be utterly and completely phony – Niger recently asked for an apology, by the way – the administration is falling back upon the justification for war that these men have been formulating for years and years and years.

    They call it Pax Americana, a plan to invade Iraq, take it over, create a permanent military presence there, and use the oil revenues to fund further wars against virtually every nation in that region. This we call bringing our “values” over there. Norman Podhoretz, one of the ideological fathers of this group of neoconservatives who now control the foreign policy of this nation, described the process as “The reformation and modernization of Islam.” That’s a pretty fancy phrase. I am a Catholic, and can therefore call it by its simpler name: Crusade. We know all about those.

    This is the Project for a New American Century, the product of a right-wing think tank that, in 1997, was considered so far out there that no one ever thought its members would ever come within ten miles of setting American policy. One broken election, however, vaulted these men into positions of unspeakable power. Their white papers, their dreams of empire at the point of the sword, have become our national nightmare, and the nightmare of the world. I speak of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Bolton, Lewis Libby, and the rest of these New American Century men who have taken our beloved country and all it stands for it and thrown it down into the mud.

    You will note that I did not name George W. Bush, for blaming Bush for the gross misadministration of this government is like blaming Mickey Mouse when Disney screws up. He is not in charge. Truman said “The buck stops here,” and so we point to Bush as a symbol of all that has gone wrong. But he is not in charge. These other men, these New American Century men, have delivered us to this wretched estate, and by God in Heaven, there will be a reckoning for it.

    But is it all ideology for these men? Of course not. There is the payout. Have you ever heard of a company called United Defense, out of Arlington, Virginia? Let me introduce you. United Defense provides Combat Vehicle Systems, Fire Support, Combat Support Vehicle Systems, Weapons Delivery Systems, Amphibious Assault Vehicles, and Combat Support Services. Some of United Defense’s current programs include:

    The Bradley Family of Fighting Vehicles, the M113 Family of Fighting Vehicles, the M88A2 Recovery Vehicle, the Grizzly, the M9 ACE, the Composite Armored Vehicle, the M6 Linebacker, the M4 Command and Control Vehicle, the Battle Command Vehicle, the Paladin, the Future Scout and Cavalry System, the Crusader, Electric Gun Technology/Pulse Power, Advanced Simulations and Training Systems, and Fleet Management. This list goes on and on, and includes virtually everything an eternal war might need.

    Who owns United Defense? Why, the Carlyle Group, which bought United Defense in October of 1997. For those not in the know, the Carlyle Group is a private global investment firm. Carlyle is the eleventh largest defense contractor in the US because of its ownership of companies making tanks, aircraft wings and other equipment. Carlyle has ownership stakes in 164 companies which generated $16 billion in revenues in the year 2000 alone. The Carlyle Group does not provide investment or other services to the general public.

    Who works for the Carlyle Group? George Herbert Walker Bush works for the Carlyle Group, has been a senior consultant for Carlyle for some years now, and sits on the Board of Directors. This company is profiting wildly from this war in Iraq, a tidy gift from son to father.

    And then, of course, there is Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, profiting in the millions from the oil in Iraq. Halliburton subsidiary, Brown & Root, is also in Iraq. Their stock in trade is the building of permanent military bases. Here is your permanent military presence in Iraq, and all for an incredible fee. Cheney still draws a one million dollar annual check from Halliburton, what they call a ‘deferred retirement benefit.’ In Boston, we call that a paycheck.

    Pax Americana. That which President Kennedy spoke so eloquently and specifically against when he said, “What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced upon the world by our weapons of war.” This is now the rule of law for this nation. It must be stopped, and we must be the ones to stop it.

    This is America. At bottom, America is a dream, an idea. You can take away all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities, our armies – you can take all of that away, and the idea will still be there as pure and great as anything conceived by the human mind. I do very much believe that the idea that is America stands as the last, best hope for this world. When used properly, it can work wonders.

    That idea, that dream, is in mortal peril. You can still have all our roads, our crops, our people, our cities, our armies – you can have all of that, but if you murder the idea that is America, you have murdered America itself in a way that ten thousand September 11ths could never do. The men and women within this current administration are murdering the idea that is America with their Patriot Acts, their destruction of civil liberties, their lies, their daily undermining of even the most basic tenets of decency and freedom and justice that we have tried to live up to for 227 years.

    That, and that alone, should be enough to get you on your feet with your fist in the air, whether or not you believe we have any chance of stopping all this. We may not win, but we damned well have to fight them. If we don’t, we are the traitors some would say we are.

    When you stare into the obsidian darkness of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, it stares back at you. The stone of the monument is jet black, but polished so that you must face your own reflected eyes should you dare to read the names inscribed there. You are not alone in that place.

    You stand shoulder to shoulder with the dead, and when those names shine out around and above and below the person you see in that stone, you become their graveyard. Your responsibility to those names, simply, is to remember.

    Remember what that dream, that idea that is America, is supposed to be. Never forget it. Never let your children forget. Hand it down, generation after generation, because it is the most valuable heirloom we all possess. If we lose it, we have lost everything.

    When all else fails, I fall back on the words of the extraordinary anti-war activist, Daniel Berrigan. A friend of Berrigan’s, Mitchell Snyder, was for years an advocate and activist for the homeless in Washington DC. Snyder became despondent over the fact that his government could spend billions on bombs and planes and guns, but could not seem to find the money to help the homeless. Snyder became so despondent that he committed suicide. Daniel Berrigan penned these lines in memory of Snyder, and it is in these lines that I find my hope and strength when the darkness creeps too close.

    Some stood up once, and sat down Some walked a mile, and walked away Some stood up twice, then sat down, “I’ve had it” they said, Some walked two miles, then walked away. “It’s too much,” they cried. Some stood and stood and stood. They were taken for fools, They were taken for being taken in. Some walked and walked and walked. They walked the earth, They walked the waters, They walked the air. “Why do you stand,” they were asked, “and why do you walk?” “Because of the children,” they said, “And because of the heart, “And because of the bread,” “Because the cause is the heart’s beat, And the children born And the risen bread.”

    The cause is the heart’s beat. This cause is my heart’s beat. It is yours. May it be there for all time, until that day comes when we can, once again, stand in awe and pride before our flag and our government and our nation, when we can once again revel in the rescued dream that is America.

    Until then we are at the barricades, and on the streets, and in the faces of all those who would spend the precious blood of our men and women on lies and profit and greed. The obsidian darkness of that memorial demands this of us. The golden ideals of this nation demand this of us. The laws of our forefathers demand this of us. Most importantly, we demand this of ourselves.

    They can take nothing from us that we are not willing to give, and we are not willing to give this great nation up. Let them be warned. We stand our ground.

  • Nagasaki Peace Declaration 2003

    Today, the modern buildings and houses of Nagasaki’s verdant cityscape make it difficult to imagine what happened here at the end of the Second World War on August 9 at 11:02 AM, fifty-eight years ago. An American aircraft dropped a single atomic bomb that was detonated at an altitude of about 500 meters over the district known as Matsuyama-machi. In an instant, the resulting heat rays, blast wind, and radiation descended upon Nagasaki and transformed the city into a hell on Earth. Some 74,000 people were killed, and 75,000 injured. Many of those who were spared from death were afflicted with incurable physical and mental wounds, and many continue today to suffer from the aftereffects of the atomic bombing, and from health problems induced by the stress of their experience. We have ceaselessly called for the eradication of nuclear weapons and the establishment of world peace, so that such a tragedy is never repeated.

    Nevertheless, in March of this year, the US and the UK launched a preemptive attack on Iraq, whom they accused of possessing weapons of mass destruction. In the ensuing war, waged in the absence of a United Nations resolution, the lives of many civilians were sacrificed in addition to those of soldiers. We deeply regret that this conflict could not be averted, despite our appeals for a peaceful resolution based on international cooperation, and a rising worldwide anti-war movement.

    In January of last year, the United States government conducted a nuclear posture review, recommending the development of mini-nuclear weapons and the resumption of nuclear explosions for test purposes, and openly proposing the use of nuclear weapons under certain circumstances. At the same time, following nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, the disclosure by North Korea that it too possesses nuclear weapons has served to heighten the tension of international society. International agreements supporting nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation, and the prohibition of all nuclear weapons testing now appear to be on the verge of collapse.

    Mother Theresa, when she visited Nagasaki, commented as she viewed a picture of a boy whose body had been burnt black in the atomic bombing, “The leaders of all the nuclear states should come to Nagasaki to see this photograph.” We do indeed invite the leaders of the US and the other nuclear weapons states to visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, so that they may witness with their own eyes the tragic outcome of these instruments of destruction.

    We also urge the government of Japan, the only country to have sustained a nuclear attack, to stand at the forefront of efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. In response to concerns voiced both domestically and internationally over the possibility of Japan’s remilitarization and nuclear armament, the government must uphold the principle of an exclusively defensive posture, and the Three Non-Nuclear Principles (stating that Japan will not possess, manufacture or allow nuclear weapons into the country) must be passed into law, thus demonstrating the sincerity of Japan’s intentions. The Korean Peninsula Non-Nuclear Joint Statement must be realized in cooperation with other nations, and, based on the spirit of the Pyongyang Declaration, work must begin on the establishment of a Northeast Asia nuclear-weapon-free zone.

    It is our hope that younger generations may continue to work for the advancement of science and technology in pursuit of human happiness. May they also consider what has been wrought upon humanity when these have been misused, and learn from the events of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. May they turn their eyes to the wider world around them, consider what must be done to bring about peace, and join hands in concerted action.

    Here in Nagasaki, the hibakusha atomic bomb survivors, growing increasingly older, are continuing to earnestly retell their experiences of the atomic bombing, and large numbers of young people are actively engaged in peace promotion and volunteer activities. Nagasaki City will persevere in providing opportunities for learning and reflection, that the experiences of the atomic bombing may not become lost and forgotten. In November of this year, we will host for the second time the Nagasaki Global Citizens’ Assembly for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, an international gathering of peace-supporting NGOs and individuals, held in advance of the 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, calling to the peoples of the world for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

    Today, on the 58th anniversary of the atomic bombing, as we pray for the repose of those who died and recall to mind their suffering, we the citizens of Nagasaki pledge our commitment to the realization of true peace in the world, free from nuclear weapons.

    Iccho Itoh
    Mayor of Nagasaki
    August 9, 2003

  • Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Sponsors Sadako Peace Day Event

    On August 6, 2003 the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation held its the 9th Annual Sadako Peace Day event to commemorate the anniversary of the tragic atomic bombing of Hiroshima with music, poetry, and inspiring words.

    Sadako Peace Day celebrates the courage of Sadako Sasaki, a young survivor of Hiroshima, who developed leukemia at age twelve, ten years after the bombing. Following the Japanese legend that if one folds 1,000 paper cranes one’s wish will come true, Sadako began folding paper cranes, wishing to be well and to achieve world peace. She only folded 646 cranes before she died, and her classmates finished folding the cranes after her death. On August 6, 1995, the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and La Casa de Maria inaugurated the Sadako Peace Garden in Montecito, California, where they have since held the Sadako Peace Day event every year.

    The Mayor of Santa Barbara, Marty Blum, noted the importance of this year’s event, stating, “Your presence here today acknowledges the need to learn from the past.” In addition to Mayor Blum, several other moving speakers shared their insights on the struggle towards a more peaceful world, including Nuclear Age Peace Foundation President David Krieger, and Reverend Mark Asman. Reverend Asman asserted, “The message of nuclear power and might is a completely wrong message enshrined and encapsulated by fear.”

    Jackson Kunz, a fifth grader at Marymount School, read a hopeful poem entitled World Peace by Sky McLeod, the winner of the 2002 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, 12 and under category. Additional poems where read by Sojourner Kincaid Rolle and Perie Longo. Reflective music was performed by EdWing on the butterfly harp and zithers, Ming Freemen on keyboards, Claudia Kiser on cello, and Sudama Mark Kennedy on shakuhachi. Jim Villanueva, Executive Director of the La Casa de Maria, concluded the ceremony.

    The Foundation would like to thank the public libraries in Venice, Florida and Coloma, Wisconsin for sending hundreds of beautiful paper cranes used to decorate the Sadako Peace Garden for the event. If you would like to be a part of next year’s Sadako Peace Day but are not in the Santa Barbara area, you can send your folded origami cranes to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at 1622 Anacapa St., Santa Barbara, CA 93101. The origami paper crane is now recognized around the world as a symbol of peace.

    Thank you.

     Poems read at the event:

    A Space Where A Poem Ought Be 
    by Sojourner Kincaid Rolle

    I’ve known of missing poems before
    poems stronger than the suppressing hand
    poems more powerful than the invisibility

    poems that speak from the realm of the soul
    from the place that needs no facade
    the place unpalpable where the poem touches

    a father’s unrenderable gaze

    absent from the family photograph
    frozen in clenched smile abstraction
    hovering somewhere near the unfathomable

    a hole where a heart once lay

    cached between bone and muscle
    a conduit for that which makes life livable
    its beat but an echo its rhythm but a spasm of memory

    hurt where a friendship once was

    its demise never anticipated
    its loss never contemplated
    it measure infinite

    space where a leg ought be

    the missing limb but bits of flesh femur blood
    soft shrapnel on a once abandoned war ground
    the mined soil holding secret its maiming terror

    nothing where something ought be

    it is said that to which the missing was adjoined
    the left behind
    mourns its disattached

    one sees the shining knee –
    the favored other

    there is emptiness – longing
    grief is spoken
    and desire


    Listen to That Finch
    by Perie LongoListen to that finch, small thing
    with red neck
    singing its heart out in all this traffic
    unconcerned with where we race,
    not plotting against us,
    not giving a fiddle for the news
    or anyone’s views but his
    about the tops of trees, and light.

    If we hadn’t stood up
    in the beginning of time, we’d do the same,
    voice boxes high in the throat,
    no way to make words,
    just notes coming through,
    clicks or growls.

    Maybe its time to get down,
    crawl on our hands and knees
    around on the earth between
    the daisies and land mines
    and pray, call loud our loved one’s names,
    hiss when someone who doesn’t love us
    gets too close
    but not blow him up, no.

    He might have the code for survival
    some cure to forget our fear.
    He might be God
    looking for something new to create
    just in case we obliterate ourselves

  • Sadako Peace Day 2003

    Sadako Peace Day 2003

    Welcome to our 9th annual Sadako Peace Day on the occasion of the 58th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

    In this beautiful garden, named for a young girl, Sadako Sasaki, who died as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima, we remember Sadako and all innocent victims of war. These children all have names. Their lives, as all lives, were precious. They were not meant to be collateral damage or statistics of war. All war kills, and no war spares the innocent, nuclear war least of all.

    It matters that we remember these victims and these historical events. It also matters how we remember. We live in a culture where victory is celebrated, but victory by means of nuclear devastation is no cause for celebration. It is cause for sober reflection on our past so that we may not intentionally or inadvertently destroy our future, nor the future of our children and of those yet unborn.

    Nuclear weapons have given us new responsibilities. The Nuclear Age, now 58 years old, requires us to accept personal responsibility for preserving our species and all life from the utter devastation that we know from Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the result of using nuclear weapons.

    Today we remember the hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whose prayer is fervent: “Never Again! We must not repeat the evil.”

    We remember also that hibakusha do not just happen.
    It is our job to break the silence, to speak up for the sanity of eliminating nuclear weapons, to urge our country to be a leader in this effort, rather than an obstacle. It is significant challenge, one that each of us is called upon to accept for the good of all and for all that is good.

     

    Hibakusha
    Do Not Just Happen
    by David Krieger

    For every hibakusha
    there is a pilot

    for every hibakusha
    there is a planner

    for every hibakusha
    there is a bombardier

    for every hibakusha
    there is a bomb designer

    for every hibakusha
    there is a missile maker

    for every hibakusha
    there is a missileer

    for every hibakusha
    there is a targeter

    for every hibakusha
    there is a commander

    for every hibakusha
    there is a button pusher

    for every hibakusha
    many must contribute

    for every hibakusha
    many must obey

    for every hibakusha
    many must be silent

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). This is an edited version of his welcoming remarks at the 9th annual Sadako Peace Day, held in Santa Barbara on August 6, 2003.

  • Statement at Sadako Peace Day

    I recently received a letter from the Mayor of Hiroshima as I am a member of the “Mayors for Peace” organization. In asking for assistance in his quest for ridding the world of nuclear weapons, he pointed out the following:

    “For a time in the late 1980s and early 90s, it appeared that we were moving in the right direction. The Cold War ended amid deep reductions in nuclear weaponry and a moratorium on nuclear testing. It seemed we would at last take down the words of Damocles hanging over our heads for so long.

    Unfortunately the culture of war has launched a powerful counterattack. Rather than reducing military spending and shifting funding toward the alleviation of human suffering, governments around the world appear to be increasing military budgets. In the wake of September 11, we appear to be more convinced than ever that the answer to violence is more killing”.

    I appreciate his wise words and his commitment to the cause. As the memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sit with us over the next few days, your presence acknowledges the importance of learning from the past and creating urgency today in calling for a nuclear-free future.

    Fifty-eight years have passed since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it seems we have not learned many lessons from the past.

    • The White House has issued an academic-sounding report called the “Nuclear Posture Review” that views nuclear weapons as viable, tactical tools of war.
    • The Bush Administration has called for resumption of underground nuclear testing and funds to rebuild the Nevada test site.
    • While our armed forces search in vain for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, our administration quietly seeks the repeal of a restriction on the development of so-called “mini-nukes”. What makes our own weapons of mass destruction so much safer and moral when human lives are in the balance?
    • From an environmental standpoint, the US Senate just passed a bill which seeks deployment of nuclear reactors and reprocessing of nuclear waste.

    For many of our friends and neighbors, it is easy to ignore what is going on in the world with the pressures of daily life and the fact that we live in a city as beautiful as Santa Barbara. Your presence here today, however, brings focus, attention and intention to a problem that must be addressed. To cast a wider net, why not talk to a friend or two tomorrow about what you did today and tell them why you came…. Thank you all for attending.

  • Hiroshima Peace Declaration 2003

    This year again, summer’s heat reminds us of the blazing hell fire that swept over this very spot fifty-eight years ago. The world without nuclear weapons and beyond war that our hibakusha have sought for so long appears to be slipping deeper into a thick cover of dark clouds that they fear at any minute could become mushroom clouds spilling black rain.
    The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the central international agreement guiding the elimination of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of collapse. The chief cause is U.S. nuclear policy that, by openly declaring the possibility of a pre-emptive nuclear first strike and calling for resumed research into mini-nukes and other so-called “useable nuclear weapons,”appears to worship nuclear weapons as God.
    However, nuclear weapons are not the only problem. Acting as if the United Nations Charter and the Japanese Constitution don’t even exist, the world has suddenly veered sharply away from post-war toward pre-war mentality. As the U.S.-U.K.- led war on Iraq made clear, the assertion that war is peace is being trumpeted as truth. Conducted with disregard for the multitudes around the world demanding a peaceful solution through continued UN inspections, this war slaughtered innocent women, children, and the elderly. It destroyed the environment, most notably through radioactive contamination that will be with us for billions of years. And the weapons of mass destruction that served as the excuse for the war have yet to be found.
    However, as President Lincoln once said, “You can’t fool all the people all the time.” Now is the time for us to focus once again on the truth that “Darkness can never be dispelled by darkness, only by light.” The rule of power is darkness. The rule of law is light. In the darkness of retaliation, the proper path for human civilization is illumined by the spirit of reconciliation born of the hibakusha’s determination that “no one else should ever suffer as we did.”
    Lifting up that light, the aging hibakusha are calling for U.S. President George Bush to visit Hiroshima. We all support that call and hereby demand that President Bush, Chairman Kim Jong Il of North Korea, and the leaders of all nuclear-weapon states come to Hiroshima and confront the reality of nuclear war. We must somehow convey to them that nuclear weapons are utterly evil, inhumane and illegal under international law. In the meanwhile, we expect that the facts about Hiroshima and Nagasaki will be shared throughout the world, and that the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Peace Study Course will be established in ever more colleges and universities.
    To strengthen the NPT regime, the city of Hiroshima is calling on all members of the World Conference of Mayors for Peace to take emergency action to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. Our goal is to gather a strong delegation of mayors representing cities throughout the world to participate in the NPT Review Conference that will take place in New York in 2005, the 60th year after the atomic bombing. In New York, we will lobby national delegates for the start of negotiations at the United Nations on a universal Nuclear Weapons Convention providing for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.
    At the same time, Hiroshima calls on politicians, religious professionals, academics, writers, journalists, teachers, artists, athletes and other leaders with influence. We must establish a climate that immediately confronts even casual comments that appear to approve of nuclear weapons or war. To prevent war and to abolish the absolute evil of nuclear weapons, we must pray, speak, and act to that effect in our daily lives.
    The Japanese government, which publicly asserts its status as “the only A-bombed nation,” must fulfill the responsibilities that accompany that status, both at home and abroad. Specifically, it must adopt as national precepts the three new non-nuclear principles – allow no production, allow no possession, and allow no use of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world – and work conscientiously toward an Asian nuclear-free zone. It must also provide full support to all hibakusha everywhere, including those exposed in “black rain areas” and those who live overseas.
    On this 58th August 6, we offer our heartfelt condolences to the souls of all atomic bomb victims, and we renew our pledge to do everything in our power to abolish nuclear weapons and eliminate war altogether by the time we turn this world over to our children.

    Tadatoshi Akiba,
    Mayor
    The City of Hiroshima

  • Remarks at Sadako Peace Day

    I want to begin my remarks today by thanking Chris Pizzinat and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation for inviting me to offer some reflections on the 58th anniversary of the day the United States government dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. In the shadow of this horrific event, I want to dedicate my remarks this afternoon to someone many of us know and love, Frank Kelly. For anyone who knows Frank, today is a day of somber and yet, at the same time, hopeful reflection. Frank is someone who, in spite of man’s inhumanity to man, has great hope for the human family. So here is to you Frank, in gratitude for a life lived in the power of hope.

    I have often wondered at the irony (or is it the hubris?) of the date, August 6th, the day chosen by the United States to drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. On the Christian calendar, August 6th is the feast of the Transfiguration. As the story goes, the Transfiguration is an event in the life of Jesus when he went with some of his disciples onto a mountaintop. There a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice called from the cloud, “This is my son, my beloved, on whom my favor rests; listen to him.” The disciples fell on their faces in fear, and Jesus came to them and said, “Stand up, do not be afraid.”

    August 6th presents us with two images: the mushroom cloud and the cloud of transfiguration. From each cloud speaks two very different messages. One is the voice of death and destruction. The other is the voice of love and empowerment. I draw upon my Christian path not to be partisan about religion, but because it is the path I know best. I offer the story of the Transfiguration as a touchstone for what is true and good about all of our diverse spiritual paths and traditions. I personally believe that all religious traditions, whether they be of church, temple, or mosque, have at their heart a single minded recognition that we are all made in the image of the one we call love. The challenge in our several religious traditions is to hold on to this message of love in the face of the voices of fear all around us. Sadly, those voices of fear are all to often from within our own religious traditions. Throughout the centuries, these voices of fear have lead to religious, political, and social enmity among diverse peoples and tribes. In spite of this history, and because of this history, we must be ever more bold in reclaiming our common message of love and inclusion. It is this message of love that has the capacity to capture the imagination and inspire the human heart.

    Let me begin by saying that in hindsight, we don’t gain anything by taking cheap shots at those who made decisions for the United States government to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But I do believe we are each held accountable to the lessons and actions we derive from the past in order to inform the values and decisions we make today. So what is our nuclear context today?

    Helen Caldicott, in her most recent book, The New Nuclear Danger, recites some sobering statistics: “The US currently has 2,000 intercontinental land-based hydrogen bombs, 3,456 nuclear weapons on submarines roaming the seas 15 minutes from their targets, and 1,750 nuclear weapons on intercontinental planes ready for delivery. Of these 7,206 weapons, roughly 2,500 remain on hair trigger alert. Russia has a similar number of strategic weapons with approximately 2,000 on hair trigger alert. In total, there is enough explosive power in the combined nuclear arsenals of the world to “overkill” every person on earth roughly 32 times…” “…(T)o overkill every person on earth roughly 32 times(!)” The greater insanity is that our government has plans to fight and win a nuclear war and, if necessary, to strike first in order to win. Then layer onto this dark and sobering strategic reality the enormous financial and human resources diverted from global concerns for education, disease prevention, the environment, and where in the world are we? In the last 58 years, have we learned nothing from Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

    The Christian ethicist, Bill Rankin, in his book, Countdown to Disaster [p.91], written in the midst of the Cold War and reflecting on the Christian calling to peacemaking and nuclear disarmament, calls us all to sharpen our efforts for peace. Regardless of you faith tradition, I hope you will substitute your own faith perspective. Bill writes, “Christian peacemaking rests upon the ethical principal that life is good, that the creation is good, that each individual is precious to God, that all of us are part of one human family, and that room always must be made between persons for love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. From the perspective built upon these principles, peacemaking entails both the building up of the human community and the tearing down of militarism, understood as the precipitous resort to war as a means to solve international problems. In an apocalyptic time, salient commitments to peacemaking are both altruistic and self-interested, both idealistic and supremely realistic. Moreover, we have this on excellent authority, ‘the peacemakers are the blessed ones; they shall be called the children of God [Mat. 5:9].’”

    Which voice speaks to us today on this anniversary? Is it the voice of death and destruction, or is it the voice of love and empowerment? In my judgment, the message of nuclear power and might is a completely failed message, enshrined and encapsulated in fear. What will we do about this? We are each and together entrusted with our own voice and our own message. What are we doing with our voice and what message do we proclaim? From which voice do we draw our power and from which voice do we proclaim our message? Do we draw our inspiration from the message of fear of and power over the other, enshrined in the mushroom cloud of death, or do we stand at the center of hope and love as we proclaim our life-giving message of love and justice for all? Sadly, each of us has failed to stay centered in this life giving voice. Let us not be naïve about our failures, and let us not be naïve about the challenges we all face in hearing the voice calling each of us to live in the power of love. Let us not be naïve about the political and economic voices of darkness trying to snuff out the voice of love and empowerment.

    You and I are here because we know where we want to stand and what we want to proclaim. Our message has global political, economic and religious implications for the future of humankind. Today, in the shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, let us redouble our efforts to reclaim our vision of love and justice as the very center of our individual and corporate voice and let us be united in our message for one another as we seek to inspire local, national and global leaders, nations and peoples to live in and share this universal message of love and justice for all. Thank you.

  • A Time For Questions

    A Time For Questions

    These are times in which there are many more questions than answers, and many Americans are beginning to form and articulate these questions. Some of the questions on my mind are the following:

    1. If the president gives false information to the American people about the reasons for going to war, should he be held to account?

    2. If the United Nations Security Council does not authorize a preemptive war, can any country proceed to war or is this the sole prerogative of the US government?

    3. If a country proceeds to war without UN authorization, is this “aggressive warfare,” the type of warfare for which German and Japanese leaders were punished after World War II?

    4. When the North Korean government repeatedly states that the nuclear crisis can be defused if the US will negotiate a mutual security pact with them, why is the current US administration dragging its feet in proceeding to enter into negotiations?

    5. Does the United States have a responsibility to participate with UN forces in restoring security to civilians in civil wars, such as that in Liberia?

    6. Should American troops stationed in Iraq have the right to complain about the policies of civilian leaders responsible for our policy there?

    7. With half its combat forces in Iraq, is the US military stretched so thin that it cannot adequately protect Americans at home or participate in needed UN peacekeeping operations abroad?

    8. With the war in Iraq costing American taxpayers nearly $4 billion per month and the US deficit expected to exceed $400 billion this year, was it wise to pass large tax cuts for the richest Americans?

    9. Is the desire to control Iraq’s oil the reason that the US hasn’t asked the United Nations for help in providing peacekeeping in Iraq?

    10. What is the relationship of companies such as Halliburton, Bechtel and the Carlyle Group, which are profiting from the war in Iraq, to members of the current US administration?

    11. Are Americans safer to travel throughout the world after the Iraq War?

    12. Has the credibility of the United States throughout the world increased or decreased in the aftermath of the Iraq War?

    13. What is the current status of respect for the United States throughout the world?

    14. Why has the current US administration been hostile to the creation of an International Criminal Court to hold individual leaders accountable for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity?

    15. Is war an effective way to make peace?

    It is time to start demanding answers from our government to these questions and many more, and their answers should not be given only in secrecy behind closed doors. Questions about war and peace are far too important to be left only to politicians and generals without the voice of the people. It is time for an ongoing public dialogue that includes answers to questions from the public. If democracy is to have meaning, the people have a right to know and they deserve to have their questions answered.

    –David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future (Capra Press, 2003)..

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    Thanks for your message and the 15 questions each human being should be trying to answer today. More and more people actually are asking themselves these questions, so humanity’s slim chances for survival are increasing a little every day!

    – Olivier, Japan