Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Afghanistan

  • Open Letter from an American to the World: HELP!

    The Bush Administration is blundering into a global conflagration. There is currently no force within the U.S. likely to stop it. It is up to the rest of the world, and especially America’s friends and allies — both governments and their citizens — to constrain its rush to disaster.

    The Bush administration was warned by its European and Arab allies and its friends around the world to avoid:

    A long bombing campaign with significant civilian casualties in Afghanistan. –Seizure of Kabul by the Northern Alliance. Bombing Afghanistan during Ramadan. Failure to reestablish the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Each of these warnings was ignored. And the emerging result of these and similar Bush Administration policies is a vast global destabilization that is acquiring a momentum going far beyond the responses to September 11. As The New York Times reports, “new battlegrounds” have opened up “from the Palestinian territories to Kashmir.”

    Whether or not the war in Afghanistan was justified, the issue is no longer about destroying Al Qaeda, or removing the repressive Taliban regime, or even whether the U.S. will attack Iraq.

    The issue is now an emerging world crisis provoked by a superpower administration that is acting without rational consideration of the effects of its actions. The number of additional civil and international wars it may stir up is simply incalculable — and certainly is not being rationally calculated by the Bush administration.

    This represents a new stage in testing what it means to be the world’s only superpower. As a German official put it in The New York Times, in the past Washington determined its national interest in shaping international rules, behavior, and institutions.

    “Now Washington seems to want to pursue its national interest in a more narrowly defined way, doing what it wants and forcing others to adapt.”

    The Bush Administration has a list of dozens of countries for possible intervention, and it is presently debating who’s next. “Pentagon officials have openly agitated to finish off Mr. [Saddam] Hussein…. Recently an American delegation from the State Department was in northern Iraq, discussing activities in that part of Iraq with Kurdish leaders… [S]ome administration officials say that Pakistan may be where the next phase of the war must unfold.”

    Somalia, the Sudan, the Philippines — the shopping list goes on and on.

    The Bush administration’s global destabilization is not limited to the war on terrorism. U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty is initiating a new nuclear arms race.

    Joseph Biden, Jr., the chairman of the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, cites widely reported U.S. intelligence community conclusions that “pulling out of ABM would prompt the Chinese to increase their nuclear arsenal tenfold, beyond the modernization they are doing anyway…. And when they build up, so will the Indians, and when the Indians do, so will the Pakistanis. And for what? A system no one is convinced will work.”

    It is an illusion to believe that the U.S. is in any way in control of events. Consider the mid-East peace process. Just as Bush and Powell were rolling out a major peace initiative, the combination of war parties in Israel and Palestine sabotaged it completely.

    The U.S. then tilted wildly toward the very forces in Israel that had sabotaged the U.S. initiative. The attack on the Indian parliament — believed by our new friend India to have been organized with the connivance of our old friend Pakistan — threatens to provoke a war that the U.S. will now be in the middle of.

    The U.S. justification for its attack on Afghanistan as “harboring terrorists” has already been echoed almost word for word by India, Israel, Russia, and China for their own purposes. The use of the “right of self-defense” as a justification for a unilateral decision to attack any country one accuses of harboring terrorists provides a pretext that any national leader can now use to make war against anyone it chooses in complete disregard of international law.

    Internal constraints?

    There is something that peoples and governments around the world need to understand: There are currently no effective internal constraints on what the Bush Administration can or will do. Because of popular response to the September 11 attacks, the Administration feels –correctly, at least for a time — that it can do anything without having to fear dissent or opposition.

    It withdrew from the AMB treaty with barely a ripple of public questioning. Its endorsement of Sharon’s attacks on the Palestinian Authority wins overwhelming Congressional support. Open advocacy of a military attack and occupation of Iraq causes no stir.

    The peace movement that has challenged Bush administration policies may become a significant restraint in the future, but it isn’t now.

    Nor is there any effective institutional constraint. The U.S. Congress has almost unanimously given the Administration a blank check to conduct any military operations it chooses.

    Practical concerns of senior military officers at the Pentagon are apparently ignored by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his ubiquitous supporters. Secretary of State Colin Powell, looked to by many as a source of reason and restraint, has been unable to make the Administration heed any of the warnings listed above. It is hard to detect any indication of a business or foreign policy “Establishment” putting any constraints on the unleashing of US power.

    Most serious of all is a lack of constraint based on rational evaluation of long-term consequences. As an “exuberant senior aide” put it recently, the Bush administration is “on a roll”; its “biggest concern” is “how to make maximum use of the military as well as the diplomatic momentum he has built up abroad and the political capital he has accumulated at home.”

    As an article in The Guardian entitled “Washington hawks get power boost: Rumsfeld is winning the debate” puts it, “For the time being, at least, there is little in Washington to stop Mr. Rumsfeld chasing America’s foes all the way to Baghdad.”

    A time for friends to help friends

    The U.S. in the Cold War era at least purported to be protecting its allies. But today, as the U.S. projects its power unilaterally, it friends and allies are the ones most likely to feel the blowback from destabilization in the form of terrorism, refugees, recession, and war.

    It is up to governments and civil society outside the U.S. to put constraints on what it does — both for their own sake and for America’s.

    In the Suez Crisis of 1956, the armies of Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt and began advancing on the Suez Canal. The U.S. under President Eisenhower intervened — not to support the invaders but to restrain them. It is time for the world to return the favor. For example:

    * A “coalition” in which the U.S. Goliath cuts a separate deal with each “coalition partner” is a formula for U.S. dictation. U.S. coalition partners must insist that the U.S. spell out its intentions for open world discussion before they agree to provide any support.

    * U.S. coalition partners with few exceptions oppose U.S. attacks on Iraq, Somalia, the Sudan, or anywhere else. Yet it is no secret that planning for such attacks is under way in Washington. Coalition partners must move from private grumbling to a concerted public united front against such actions.

    * The U.N. can serve as an arena for challenging and providing alternatives to superpower supremacy. At the least, the U.S. can be forced to isolate itself by vetoing resolutions that run counter to its unilateralism.

    (The Security Council recently voted 12 to 1, with Britain and Norway abstaining, for a resolution calling for international monitors in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The U.S. vetoed the resolution — thereby isolating itself from many of its own “coalition partners.”)

    Strong, unified, public endorsement of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s campaign against an attack on Iraq would have a big impact in the U.S. at this point.

    * It has been widely reported in the U.S. that foreign critics of the war in Afghanistan have now concluded that they were wrong because the war was short and because it freed Afghans, especially women, from the tyranny of the Taliban.

    This is being used in Washington to argue that popular opinion abroad need not be regarded as an impediment to further U.S. attacks elsewhere. Washington needs to hear a clear message that that is not the case.

    * There are concrete ways in which people and governments can begin putting the brakes on Washington. The refusal of European countries to extradite suspects who may be subject to military tribunals or the death penalty provides an excellent example.

    This is going to be a long struggle, not just about one policy, but about a basic historical tendency of the world’s only superpower. It is sad but true that the rest of the world may not have enough leverage in the short run to stop the U.S. from attacking whomever it chooses to target next. But it is time to begin laying the groundwork for a long-term strategy of containment.

    Such international pressure can serve as a deterrent to the craziest actions the Bush administration is considering. For example, press reports suggest that opposition from Russia, Europe, and Arab countries may be leading Bush’s advisors at least to delay an attack on Iraq on the grounds that “there is insufficient international backing.”

    If U.S. friends and coalition partners toll the alarm bell, it will begin to evoke different responses in Congress, the Pentagon, corporate elites, and the American public as well, especially as the untoward consequences of the Bush administration juggernaut become apparent.

    Without an outside wake-up call, these forces are currently prepared to plunge into the abyss in an empty-minded trance.

    Restraining the Bush Administration is anything but anti-American. It is the best thing America’s friends can do for us right now. We have a slogan here: “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.”

    PLEASE: America’s friends need to take the car keys away until this power-drunk superpower sobers up.

    *Jeremy Brecher is an historian and the author of twelve books, including GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW, and producer of the video documentary GLOBAL VILLAGE OR GLOBAL PILLAGE? (website: www.villageorpillage.org) Anyone is welcome to forward or reprint this piece.

  • The Unity of Lemmings

    The Unity of Lemmings

    As a consequence of the September 11th terrorist attacks, our country appears united as never before. President Bush has had approval ratings above 90 percent and it is reported that initial support for bombing Afghanistan also was above 90 percent.

    Congress was nearly unified in giving the President the authority to use force. Only Congresswoman Barbara Lee withheld her vote from this resolution. In doing so, she recalled the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in which Congress authorized the Vietnam War, and quoted Senator Wayne Morse, one of two Senators who voted against the resolution. “I believe,” said Morse, “that history will record that we have made a grave mistake in subverting and circumventing the Constitution of the United States. I believe that with the next century, future generations will look with dismay and great disappointment upon a Congress which is now about to make such a historic mistake.” Congresswoman Lee stated: “Senator Morse was correct, and I fear we make the same mistake today. And I fear the consequences.”

    Congress is also massively bailing out corporations and filling military coffers to overflowing. Civil liberties are being eroded and the United States is relentlessly bombing Afghanistan. So far, in addition to empty terrorist camps, we have accidentally bombed villages and hospitals, leaving an unknown number of Afghans injured and dead. We have bombed Red Cross warehouses three times. Aid workers in Afghanistan are warning that unless there is a bombing halt to allow food through to the Afghan people, millions of them could starve this winter.

    Perhaps it is time for an assessment of how well the President is really doing. I have suggested three criteria for judging the US response to terrorism: morality, legality and thoughtfulness.

    Morality can be evaluated on whether or not our response is resulting in widespread suffering and loss of innocent lives. It is. Although our military forces may be trying to avoid loss of innocent lives, they are not succeeding. Hundreds of innocent Afghans have already been killed. We call it “collateral damage.” If the relief workers in Afghanistan are correct, the US bombing could indirectly result in millions of innocent deaths by starvation this winter. Some half million Afghans have already fled their homes to avoid the bombing and have become refugees. On morality, the President’s military action is failing.

    Legality can be judged on whether or not our response is meeting the standards of domestic and international law. It is certainly questionable. Congress has not declared war against Afghanistan. It has simply given the President a blank check to use force. The United Nations Security Council has called on states “to work together urgently to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these terrorist attacks.” It has not, however, explicitly given authorization to carry out military action in Afghanistan, and it is questionable whether the present military actions against the Taliban regime can be construed as self-defense. Certainly if US bombing results in massive starvation in Afghanistan, its actions will be illegal under the laws of war.

    The Taliban regime offered at one point to turn Osama bin Laden over to a neutral third state if the US would provide evidence of his guilt and stop its bombing. Whatever one may think of the Taliban, this was not an unreasonable offer. President Bush refused, saying that he would not negotiate. It might also be noted that President Bush has not provided evidence of bin Laden’s guilt to the American people. On legality, the President’s military action appears to be failing and on the verge of causing a major humanitarian disaster.

    Thoughtfulness can be evaluated on the basis of whether the response is likely to reduce or increase the cycle of violence. Thus far, the cycle of violence is increasing by our military response, and there seems to be no clear end in sight. Some members of the Bush administration are calling for spreading the war into Iraq and other countries in which terrorists may be operating. They are also warning that this will be a long war.

    In terms of thoughtfulness, there has also been very little reflection at the level of the government with regard to US policies that are generating such strong hatred toward us. Rather than thoughtfulness, the Bush administration has relied primarily on force. Here, too, the President’s military action is failing.

    In addition to the other failures of our military action, we appear to be no closer to apprehending Osama bin Laden or to destroying his terrorist network. It also seems unlikely that capturing or killing bin Laden will put an end to terrorism.

    Rather than being united like lemmings behind a failing military action, perhaps we should be thinking about other ways to make the American people safe from terrorism. Perhaps we should be having more public discussion of alternatives rather than being bombarded by military “analysts” on the news night after night. Perhaps we should be reflecting upon the implications of our policies in the Middle East and throughout the world, and evaluating them on the basis of their justice, equity and support for democratic practices.

    Perhaps we should be thinking more deeply about our lack of support for the United Nations and for international law. Perhaps we should be reconsidering our failure to support the treaty banning landmines, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Kyoto Accords on Global Warming, the verification protocol of the Biological Weapons Convention, and the treaty creating an International Criminal Court. Perhaps we should be reflecting on our failure to live up to our obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the increased dangers that has created of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.

    Terrorism poses a very serious threat to the American people and to the survival of civilization. Our only way out is to forge bonds of unprecedented global cooperation to end terrorism by getting to its roots. This will require police and intelligence cooperation globally. The military may have a role, but it should be one primarily of helping to provide intelligence and protecting our transportation systems, our nuclear plants, and other vulnerable areas of our society.

    Before we reach the edge of the cliff and go over like lemmings, it’s time to stop blindly following the path of military force. We should instead give leadership to strengthening an international system through the United Nations capable of ending terrorism and the conditions that give birth to it.

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, a non-governmental organization on the roster of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

  • Depleted Uranium Weapons – A Threat to Human Health?

    The use of Depleted Uranium (DU) Weapons in the Gulf War, and more recently in the Balkan Wars, has drawn a lot of attention.

    This short review will explain what is DU, for what purpose DU weapons have been manufactured, and how many of them were used, first in the Gulf War and then later on in the Balkan Wars in Herzegovina and Kosovo.

    Widespread leukemia and other ailments have been claimed in the media. They were mostly attributed to the radioactivity of DU and partially to the chemical effects of the heavy metal. A critical analysis of these claims needs a brief review of basic physics and relevant radiation regulations as well as legal limits on toxic chemicals. How is DU ammunition dispersed on impact, and how can minute particles find their way into the human body. Possible health risks will be put in perspective and compared with other risks in war and in daily life. The question is raised, if DU weapons can be called still conventional or if they fit better the definition of radiological and chemical weapons. DU weapons and their “efficiency” have to be seen also in the context of treaties on so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), which are signed and even ratified, but do not yet have an implementation procedure or the political will to enact.

    1. What is Depleted Uranium (DU)?

    1.1 Activity of Uranium Ore Before and After Extraction

    Uranium is a chemical element that is more abundant than silver, gold, mercury and cadmium and is contained by 2 to 4 millionths in the Earth’s crust. It can be found on surface and in ore mines in many countries, among them Zaire, South Africa, and Canada and also in the Czech Republic. One ton of ore contains on the average about 3 kg of uranium.

    Uranium comes essentially in three isotopic forms. Isotopes are any of two or more forms of an element having the same atomic number (i.e. the same chemical property) but different atomic weights due to a different number of neutrons in the nucleus. Natural uranium contains 99.274% of 238U, 0.720% of 235U, and 0.0055% of 234U, they all have 92 protons in the nucleus, but 146, 143 and 142 neutrons, respectively. The half-life of 238U, 235U, and 234U is 4.49·109, 7.10·108, and 2.48·105 years, respectively, ranging from billion to million years. The longer the half-life the less radioactive decay products appear in a given time interval and could effect human health. When uranium is dug out of the Earth its radioactive decay products come along. However, in the chemical process of uranium extraction of the three isotopes from the ore, all radioactive daughter products in the radioactive decay series’ 238U and 235U are eliminated, with the exception of the radiogenic isotope 234U.

    In short, radiation background in mines and in extraction facilities is different and so are the health risks. There is an extensive evidence of excess lung cancers in underground uranium miners caused by the decay products of the radioactive gas radon (222Rn). But uranium mill workers have not shown increased mortality or excess lung cancers despite their increased exposure to uranium dust and radon decay products. There is no obvious explanation for this difference.

    1.2 Enriched and Depleted Uranium

    The extraction of energy from uranium for peaceful or military purposes asks for well-defined ratios of the two isotopes. In order to sustain the chain reaction of nuclear fission, uranium has to be enriched by the fissible isotope 235U to a reactor grade of 3.2 – 3.6% or weapon grade (90%+) uranium. This process not only produces the enriched product, but also a waste stream depleted in 235U, typically to less than 0.3%, which is often called the tail. The 235U content in the depleted uranium in the U.S. are lowered to 28% of its content in natural uranium.

    Depleted uranium is a byproduct of uranium enrichment process, with a relatively small contribution from reprocessing of nuclear spent fuel. In addition to the 3 natural isotopes 238U, 235U, and 234U, depleted uranium from this latter source also contains a minute quantity (0.003%) of a man-made isotope 236U. The specific activity of DU is 15,902 Bq/gram (for definitions of radioactive units see annex). Traces of 236U were found in Kosovo after the war and gave rise to – unjustifiable – concern in various press reports.

    Based on the measured isotopic composition of depleted uranium, the total activity (a-particles = helium nuclei, b-particles = electrons, g-rays) can be calculated as 22% less and the a-activity as 43% less compared to natural uranium.

    The gaseous diffusion process for enrichment of the fissible isotope 235U is used in the United States. This process requires uranium in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6), primarily because the compound can be used in the gas form for processing, in the liquid form for filling containers, and in the solid form for storage. At atmospheric pressure, UF6 is solid at temperatures below 57°C and a gas above this temperature.

    Workers in metal processing plants, including those who make DU penetrators, do not exhibit increased mortality or excess cancers.

    2. Application of DU

    Depleted Uranium is a low cost material that is readily available, since it was produced during the separation of weapon grade uranium. The Department of Energy in the U.S., as of June 1998, is in possession of almost 3/4 of a million metric tons (725·103 tons) stockpile of depleted uranium hexafluoride. This corresponds to a total activity of 527,000 Ci and a-activity 193,000 Ci. The a-activity per mass amounts to 0.389 mCi/kg.

    Depleted uranium’s high density (19.05 g/cm3, 1.7 times more than 11.35 g/cm3 for lead) and its high atomic number Z = 92 also provide useful solution for g-radiation shielding. It has been used at various occasions at particle accelerators, e.g. at CERN in the UA2 detector.

    Control surfaces on wide body aircraft require heavy counterweights. Tungsten (with density 19.3 g/cm3) or DU is ideal materials for this application where volume constraints prohibit the use of less dense metals. An airplane such as Boeing 747 needs 1,500 kg of counterweight. However, DU for this purpose gets out of fashion due to a few accidents and problems with surface embrittlement.

    2.1 DU Ammunition

    The US Army considered high-density materials such as tungsten and DU as metal in kinetic energy penetrators and tank armor already in the early 1970’s. DU was ultimately selected due to its availability and pyrophoricity. While 50% of tungsten has to be imported, mainly from China (US$ 150/kg in 1980), DU is provided for free to arms manufacturers. Tungsten also has much higher melting point than uranium and lacks pyrophoricity. DU penetrators contain no explosives; they act only by impact and immediate ignition of the dust (500°C). Conventional ammunition does not penetrate DU armor, however DU projectiles are capable of piercing it.

    2.2 Proliferation of DU Weapons

    The United States is no longer the only country with DU munitions. 17 countries including Britain, France, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, and other countries have acquired depleted uranium weapons. Probably NATO countries will follow soon. These weapons were extensively tested on at least 14 sites in the U.S. and also in Britain.

    As of early 1994 already more than 1.6 million tank penetrators and 55 million small caliber penetrators had been manufactured in the U.S. and another 200 million rounds (some part made out of tungsten) had been ordered by 1998. The approximate cost per shell of a 120-mm tank round is US$ 3,300, implying that handling of DU and manufacturing of ammunition takes the lion’s share, whereas the material itself comes almost for free.

    3. Combat and Accidents

    The US military used depleted uranium ammunition on the battlefield for the first time during the Gulf War in 1991. The amount of DU munitions released in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq during the Operation Desert Storm totals to 860,550 rounds and corresponds to 294,500 kg DU, for a total activity of 312 Ci and a-activity of 115 Ci. In addition, 9,720 DU aircraft rounds and 660 DU tank rounds (6,430 kg of DU) burned as a result of a monstrous fire in the ammunition storage area and motor pool at the US Army base in Kuwait.

    Data on the use of DU ammunition are still less well known for the war in Bosnia in 1994-1995 and in Kosovo in 1999. They are estimated to 11,000 and 31,000 rounds, corresponding to a total of 10,000 kg of DU.

    4. Effects of Depleted Uranium

    4.1 Effects of DU Penetrator Impact

    When a depleted uranium penetrator impacts armor, 18 – 70% of the penetrator rod will burn and oxidize into dust. The DU oxide aerosol formed during the impact has 50 – 96% of respirable size particles (with diameter less than 10 mm, conditions very similar to “desirable” particle size for efficiency in chemical or biological warfare), and 17 – 48% of those particles are soluble in water. Particles generated from impact of a hard target are virtually all respirable. While the heavier non-respirable particles settle down rapidly, the respirable DU aerosol remains airborne for hours.

    The solubility of the uranium particles determines the rate at which the uranium moves from the site of internalization (lungs for inhalation, gastrointestinal tract for ingestion, or the injury site for wound contamination) into the blood stream. About 70% of the soluble uranium in the blood stream are excreted in urine within 24 hours without being deposited in any organ and the remainder primarily depositing in the kidneys and bones. The kidney is the organ most sensitive to depleted uranium toxicity. When DU particles of respirable size are inhaled, roughly 25% of the particles become trapped in the lungs, where the insoluble particles can remain for years. Approximately 25% of the inhaled DU is exhaled (particle diameters between 1 and 5 mm) and the remaining 50% is subsequently swallowed.

    4.2 Radiological effects

    4.2.1 The Regulations

    The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the US (NRC) mandates an occupational annual dose equivalent for the whole body no more than 5 rem/year and no more than 10 rem in 5 years. No short-term health effects are detectable at this dose equivalent.

    The non-occupational annual dose equivalent limit for the general public is selected as 100 mrem/year, which is comparable to the average background of 363 mrem/year.

    There are well-defined legal limits for inhalation and digestion of DU.

    4.2.2 Calculated and measured doses

    The impact of one 120-mm tank round with the 5.35 kg DU penetrator on an armored target, with 18 – 70% of the penetrator rod oxidizing into aerosol, is taken as an example. The initial contaminated area from the impact of one DU tank round inaccessible to general public (50 m radius circle) is about 0.8 hectares. If contamination spreads with weather elements up to 38 hectares become inaccessible to general public, with 0.9 nCi/m2 the allowed surface contamination for general public.

    The air contamination after the impact and before the DU dust settles can be estimated to maximum of soluble uranium 16 times higher than the NRC limit for radiation workers and 3,500 times higher than the allowed air concentration for general public. The maximum air concentration of insoluble uranium is 800 times higher than the NRC limit for radiation workers and 180,000 times higher than the allowed air concentration for general public.

    The residual contamination in Iraq 8 years after the end of the Golf War in the oil fields north of Kuwait was measured. It showed radiation levels 35 times above the background over parts of the battlefield and 50 times above the background over the rusting tanks hit by DU ammunition.

    The accumulated dose equivalent becomes significant when spent but unexploded DU penetrators are worn by army personnel as war souvenirs in direct contact with the skin (1,800 rem/year) or when used by children as toys. The skin dose equivalent limit of 50 mrem/year for radiation workers would be reached in about 10 days.

    4.3 Chemical Toxicity

    4.3.1 Uranium Effects on Kidney

    The RAND review on radiological and toxic effects of uranium puts the overall maximum permissible concentration, i.e. concentration of metal in the kidney associated with no significant increase in the frequency of kidney malfunction, at 3 mg/kg of kidney for uranium and calls it a de facto standard.

    Soluble uranium, which is absorbed in the blood circulation within the body, is eliminated rapidly through the kidney in urine. About 67% are excreted within the first day without being deposited in any organ. Approximately 11% is initially deposited in the kidney and excreted with a 15-day half-life. Most of the remaining 22% is initially deposited in the bone (up to 20%), which is the principle storage site in the body, and the rest is distributed to other organs and tissues.

    The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) established occupational limits for inhalation of heavy metals. The values for tungsten, lead, uranium in soluble form are 1, 0.05, and 0.05 mg/m3, for insoluble form 5, 0.10, and 0.25 mg/m3, respectively. Current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards set the values at 44 mg/l for groundwater and 20 mg/l for drinking water.

    4.4.2 Gulf War Illness

    An estimate for exposure of a veteran from the Gulf War is difficult to make and studies on the illness came not yet to a final conclusion. More than 10,000 veterans (out of a total of 695,000) reported mysterious illnesses, like muscle and joint pain, chronic fatigue, depressed immune systems, neurological disorders, memory loss, chemical sensitivities, rashes. They may have exceeded the OSHA limit for inhalation of DU by a factor of 3 and the ATSDR minimal risk level intake for general public by 17 times.

    Many factors may have contributed to the ailments, such as·

    • Multiple vaccinations against anthrax and botulinum toxoid
    • Medical treatment with pyridostigmine bromide to counter effects of potential chemical exposure
    • Petroleum from oil fire
    • Pesticide and insect repellants
    • Tropical parasites such as leishmaniasis
    • Depleted uranium dust and shrapnel from DU ammunition and armor.

    It is not clear to which extend DU contributed to the reported illnesses.

    However, there is ample evidence to show that contact with DU ammunition had consequences, especially for children, among them an increase of childhood leukemia in southern Iraqi provinces by a factor of 3 between 1989 – 93, while in the Central Provinces the incidence remained normal. Local concentrations of DU may have been exceedingly high producing this high incidence of leukemia.

    It appears premature to attribute reported illnesses of military personnel to effects of DU ammunition in Kosovo. In Kosovo, similar to Iraq, many parameters may have played a role in producing symptoms, that could be also attributed to the release of chemicals after bombing of factories.

    A study of possible health effects has been made [2], assuming that 100 tons of DU were distributed uniformly over a one-kilometer-wide strip along 100 kilometers on the “Highway of Death” between Kuwait City and Basra, a city in southern Iraq [2]. Under this assumption average dose for someone who lived in the area for a year would be about one millirem – or about 10 percent of the dose from uranium and its decay products already naturally occurring in the soil. The authors came to the conclusion that an individual’s estimated added risk of dying from cancer from such a dose would be about one in 20,000. The doses for heavy metal effects are probably also far below the exposure limits set by OSHA. However, since no exposure and urine tests had been done for two years after the war, it is now too late to draw any conclusions.

    5. Comparison of DU with other risks

    DU is a dangerous material when used as ammunition in war fighting. Obviously, the driver of an armored tank or vehicle, that is hit by a DU penetrator, has a high chance to die from the blast and/or the heat immediately, and he is no longer subject to the consequences of inhaling or digesting DU.

    The spread of DU weighs on the environment and the population, civil or military, in the vicinity of the impact as a long-term consequence. For DU, and likewise for chemical, biological or radiological weapons, the local concentration and time constants of the dispersed material play the important role.

    The legal limit for exposure to chemicals and radioactivity is set such, that values just beyond are not detrimental to human health or the environment. Only an excess value by order(s) of magnitude should give rise to serious concern.

    The consequences of the use of DU ammunition pale in comparison with the other direct and indirect effects of war. As an example may serve the estimated 30,000 unexploded fragmentation bomblets lying on Kosovo’s ground, adding substantial danger to the not yet cleared land mines.

    In order to put the danger from radioactive exposure into perspective the following example may be instructive.

    The risks associated with radioactivity and irradiation in general are, usually, measured in Sieverts. For most people, even scientists, this unit has no real meaning. Therefore, following a suggestion [3], a comparison is made with the risk with similar consequence of producing cancer. Cigarette smoking is such a case. The data are based on the following dose-effect relations: 0.04 lethal cancers per Sievert, 1 lethal cancer per eighty thousand cigarette packs.

    Comparison between effects of some irradiation exposures and cigarette smoking
    Annual dose in millisieverts Equivalent number of annual cigarette packs
    Natural total irradiation
    3
    9
    Radon
    2
    6
    Cosmic Rays
    0.3
    0.9
    Medical X-rays
    0.4
    1.2

     

    Comparison of allowed doses of irradiation to effects of cigarette smoking
    Maximum allowed dose in millisieverts/year Equivalent in cigarette packs/year
    Professionals 20 60
    Public 1 3

     

    6. Conclusions

    Depleted uranium produced as a by-product of uranium enrichment is classified as radioactive and toxic waste and it is subjected to numerous regulations for handling and disposal. Yet the US regulatory limits for general public exposure are exceeded – at least locally and temporarily – up to five orders of magnitude for airborne radioactive emissions and up to 3 orders of magnitude for residual radioactive contamination when DU ammunition has been used in battlefield. The use of DU ammunition, perhaps the most effective new weapon, was not publicly revealed until a year after the Gulf War. These weapons have an indiscriminate character and can have adverse health effects not only on combatants but also on the population at large. Precautions could have been taken to limit possible health effects for the combatants and the civil population, and immediate medical tests could have removed a lot of ambiguities of the effects of DU ammunition.

    Cancer can be the expected long-term consequence of both the radiological and toxic effects of depleted uranium exposure, albeit with an extremely low probability.

    In 1996 the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities passed a resolution in which they “urged all States to be guided in their national policies by the need to curb production and spread of weapons of mass destruction or with indiscriminate effect, in particular nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, napalm, cluster bombs, biological weaponry, and weaponry containing depleted uranium”.

    If nothing else, the double standard for DU in radiation protection and handling of low radioactive waste in the civilian sector on one hand and by the military on the battlefield on the other is morally and legally untenable.

    The manufacturing and use of DU weapons is a new man-made problem that should be addressed by the international community on an appropriate level. However, it pales compared to major, other unsolved problems in arms control. There is not yet an implementation program for the biological weapons convention (BWC, ratified in 1972!)! The elimination of enormous stockpiles of chemical weapons may take decades, but there is at least a working implementation body of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The number of nuclear warheads does not shrink, only some of their delivery vehicles are being discarded, slowly approaching the limit set in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II). The Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) is in danger to be discarded, the Test-Ban Treaty (TBT) is not yet ratified by all Nuclear Weapon States (NWSs), and major possessors of land mines have not signed up to the Ottawa Treaty.

     

    7. Some Selected References

    [1] Review of Radioactivity, Military Use, and Health Effects of Depleted Uranium Compiled by Vladimir S. Zajik, July 1999 http://members.tripod.com/vzajic/

    [2] After the dust settles Steve Fetter & Frank von Hippel The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, November/December 1999, pp. 42-45

    [3] Global warming or nuclear waste – which do we want? H. Nifenecker and E. Huffer europhysics news March/April 2001, pp. 52- 55

    Some radiation units:

    1 Curie = 1 [Ci] = 37·109 decays/second or = 37·109 Becquerel = 37·109 [Bq] 1 milliCurie-of-intensity-hour = 1 Sievert = 1 [Sv] 1 Sievert corresponds approximately to 8.38 Roentgen

    1 rem = roentgen equivalent man
    The dose equivalents for the uranium isotopes 238U, 235U, and 234U and their decay products uniformly distributed in the whole body are 1.28, 1.30, 1.32 [(mrem/year)/(pCi/kg)].

  • Stop the Bombing and Bring In the UN

    The US military action in Afghanistan is failing. Many innocent Afghans are being killed, and the US is no closer to finding or defeating the terrorists responsible for perpetrating the September 11th crimes against humanity. The United Nations and other relief organizations are warning that millions of Afghans could die of starvation this winter unless the bombing is halted soon. In other words, the bombing of Afghanistan is leading to a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions. We, therefore, call on the US and British forces to halt the bombing to allow relief organizations to do their job of getting food to the Afghan people.

    Terrorism is a global problem that can only be solved globally. Every country on Earth, every person on the planet, has a stake in ending the threat of terrorism. This matter must go back to the United Nations Security Council and must be handled by the United Nations as a matter of priority. If the US and UK continue their bombing, killing more innocent people, they will simply be adding fuel to the fire of terrorism. Some have suggested that they are providing the spark to ignite a global conflagration.

    On the other hand, if the international community joins together in a serious effort to combat terrorism, it could lead to unprecedented cooperation between national police and intelligence services. Such efforts could leave terrorists with no place to hide, and are essential to preventing terrorism.

    A global action through the United Nations will also demonstrate that this is not simply retaliation or vengeance on the part of the United States. To make a United Nations effort effective will require leadership and support by the United States, but it must be an effort that is truly directed by the Security Council of the United Nations.

    The United Nations should also set up a special International Tribunal for terrorists until the International Criminal Court is established, which will probably be next year. A trial before an impartial International Tribunal will help educate the world on the need to put an end to all terrorism. Such a trial will also be acceptable to virtually all countries throughout the world, whereas a trial of terrorists in the US would be viewed as biased in many countries.

    In sum, step one on the path to ending terrorism is to stop the bombing of Afghanistan now; step two is to turn over to the United Nations Security Council the job of preventing terrorism and bringing terrorists to justice.

    Military force is deepening the crisis without producing significant results. The vulnerability of civilization to determined and suicidal terrorists makes prevention the key to victory. Our future security, and that of the rest of the world, will be dependent on multilateral and cooperative efforts under an internationally accepted legal framework.

    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Statement on the Bombing of Afghanistan

    (The following statement was made at a Press Conference of Prominent Canadians Calling for a Halt to the Bombing of Afghanistan in Toronto)

    The relentless bombing of Afghanistan, now in its 18th day, goes beyond the intent of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368. When the Security Council gave its assent “to take all necessary steps” to respond to the September 11 attacks, it did not approve a bombing campaign that would kill innocent civilians in their Afghan villages, drive 70 percent of the people in Herat (population 800,000) out of their homes, kill 10 civilians yesterday on a bus at the city gates of Kandahar, and destroy a Red Cross warehouse among other unfortunate acts of what is drily called “collateral damage.”

    It may seem comforting to say that civilians are not targeted, but it is not “collateral damage” when thousands of refugees fleeing the bombs are jammed along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in unspeakable conditions. UNICEF warns that the crisis “is threatening the lives of millions of women and children” and that “1.5 million children may not make it through the winter.” Christian Aid, which reported that 600 people have already died in the Dar-e-Suf region of northern Afghanistan due to starvation and related diseases, says needy people are being put at risk by government spin-doctors who are showing a callous disregard for life.

    The bombing of Afghanistan, one of the most desperate and vulnerable regions of the world, is producing an international catastrophe. The bombing is immoral, unproductive and only by the most dubious logic can it be said to possess even a shred of legality.

    As Article 51 of the U.N. Charter makes clear, it is the Security Council that has the authority and responsibility to maintain or restore international peace and security. Let me emphasize: the bombing coalition, in exceeding the exercise of the right of self-defence, which gave a legal cover to the bombing, has sidelined the legitimate authority of the Security Council to manage this crisis.

    It is said that the invocation for the first time of Article 5 of the NATO Charter provides the legal grounds for Canada to give its support to the military campaign. The Article provides the solidarity that an attack on one member will be considered an attack on all and thus NATO will take the responsive actions it deems necessary. But where has it been proven that the government of Afghanistan, despotic as it is, engineered or carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? It has yet to be confirmed that any of the 19 suspected hijackers comes from Afghanistan. Is the belief that Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader, is in Afghanistan justification for imposing catastrophe on the whole populace?

    Continued bombing is not what the United Nations intended. The bombing must stop now – and Canada, to be faithful to its own values, must press the United States and its coalition partners to call a halt so that humanitarian aid can reach the desperate people of Afghanistan.

  • Canadians Are Ready to Fight, But Want Some Answers

    Orginally Published in the Globe and Mail Metro**

    Thanksgiving weekend brought Canadians face to face with the harsh reality of living in a post-Sept. 11 world. At a time traditionally set aside to join family and friends in quiet celebration of our blessings, we found ourselves as a charter member of a military operation against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden.

    There is no more difficult decision for a government to make and people to accept than the commitment to fight. It calls for a clear declaration of support for our military personnel who are asked to do the fighting. That’s why it is strange that Parliament will not meet until next week.

    The House of Commons should be convened immediately, not only as the forum through which Canadians can express their solidarity, but as a place where tough questions can be asked about the conduct and objectives of this military operation.

    We all knew this battle was coming, but little clue was given as to the nature of Canadian involvement. Now that it is upon us, and promises to be a long-term engagement of a particularly tricky and complex kind, it is vital that there be a much better understanding of how this use of force will reduce the terrorist threat, what the consequences will be for the broader goal of instituting an international legal order, and whether Canada will do more than offer troops.

    Both Prime Minister Jean Chretien and President George W. Bush spoke of a grand strategy involving diplomatic, humanitarian and financial efforts. But little is known about what this means and who will call the shots. The “coalition” members — including Canada — have yet to meet, other than through a series of bilateral telephone calls and visits to the White House. This strikes me as a hub-and-spoke arrangement, where direction comes from the centre with little input from the outside members. This is not a foundation for building an international partnership based on collective responsibility and contribution, nor one in which Canada can play an active creative role.

    To use one example: This country has been at the forefront of establishing an international legal system to hold accountable those who commit crimes against humanity, including acts of terrorism. The construction of such a criminal system should be one of the prime goals of an anti-terrorist coalition. But the Bush administration has just endorsed a bill submitted by Senator Jesse Helms that would deny U.S. aid to any country that ratified the statute setting up the international criminal court. Hardly a position Canada should be supporting.

    Then there is the problem of the humanitarian consequences of an attack against Afghanistan, where there is already a refugee disaster in the making. It is shrewdly recognized by the Bush administration that the military action will exacerbate the situation, so it is dropping food and medicine and trying to persuade the people to stay put. While an important gesture, it is not an effective response. The refugee needs go far beyond airlifted supplies. These people, reeling from two decades of civil war, need sanitation, water, medical treatment, shelter and security, just for starters.

    The matter of Afghan refugees is a priority, requiring an international effort preferably through the United Nations, as suggested by Kofi Annan. Will Canada take the lead in mobilizing this kind of multilateral exercise? Can we take the lead in this kind of initiative now that we have been singled out by the U.S. President as a prime member of the military team attacking the Taliban? Or has our value as an independent player been compromised? Closer to home is the question of Canadians’ own security now that we are identified as front-line participants. Most analysts expect a retaliation to this attack. Osama bin Laden has promised a holy war. The probability of our being in the front line of that retaliation has increased commensurate with our role in the coalition. That means added responsibility to provide protection for Canadians here and abroad. This is especially crucial in enhancing security for our embassies and other visible overseas organizations such as cultural centres, aid projects and large Canadian business operations. We are about to learn the hard price to pay in fighting the war against a hidden, dedicated, merciless, covert enemy.

    The aftershock of the Sept. 11 attacks is now being felt. How Canadians will muster their resources to help restore a sense of security for people around the world is the issue of our day. We have just begun to ask the pertinent questions.

    * Lloyd Axworthy, foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 2000, is director and CEO of the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues at UBC.

  • Call for Children to Help Children

    Dear Parents and Teachers:

    President Bush has asked each child in America to send one dollar to the White House to help Afghan children. However, the President is already spending billions of dollars to bomb Afghanistan. These bombs have hit villages, hospitals and a Red Cross relief storage building. They have already killed many Afghans, including children.

    Our government has provided some emergency food relief, but it is far from adequate. According to aid workers in Afghanistan, some 7.5 million Afghans may be threatened with starvation this winter unless the bombing is halted to allow food to reach the Afghan people.

    Recognizing that sending a dollar to President Bush’s effort will do very little to prevent mass starvation in Afghanistan this winter, we suggest that children send one dollar or more to the United Nations agency in charge of relief efforts for Afghan children at this address: UNICEF, 333 East 38th Street, New York, NY 10016.

    We also suggest that children write to President Bush to ask him to stop the bombing so that relief workers can get food through to the Afghan people to prevent millions of them, including children, from starving this winter.

    The President’s address is: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC 20509-1600. You can also email him at president@whitehouse.gov. Copies of emails can be sent to the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation at wagingpeace@napf.org.

    It is time for the children of the world to unite in calling for an end to all violence and for a global effort to provide food, shelter, clothing, health care and education for every person on the planet.

    We encourage you to share these ideas with your children, and to pass on this message.

  • This War is Illegal

    A well-kept secret about the U.S.-U.K. attack on Afghanistan is that it is clearly illegal. It violates international law and the express words of the United Nations Charter.

    Despite repeated reference to the right of self-defence under Article 51, the Charter simply does not apply here. Article 51 gives a state the right to repel an attack that is ongoing or imminent as a temporary measure until the UN Security Council can take steps necessary for international peace and security.

    The Security Council has already passed two resolutions condemning the Sept. 11 attacks and announcing a host of measures aimed at combating terrorism. These include measures for the legal suppression of terrorism and its financing, and for co-operation between states in security, intelligence, criminal investigations and proceedings relating to terrorism. The Security Council has set up a committee to monitor progress on the measures in the resolution and has given all states 90 days to report back to it.

    Neither resolution can remotely be said to authorize the use of military force. True, both, in their preambles, abstractly “affirm” the inherent right of self-defence, but they do so “in accordance with the Charter.” They do not say military action against Afghanistan would be within the right of self-defence. Nor could they. That’s because the right of unilateral self-defence does not include the right to retaliate once an attack has stopped.

    The right of self-defence in international law is like the right of self-defence in our own law: It allows you to defend yourself when the law is not around, but it does not allow you to take the law into your own hands.

    Since the United States and Britain have undertaken this attack without the explicit authorization of the Security Council, those who die from it will be victims of a crime against humanity, just like the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

    Even the Security Council is only permitted to authorize the use of force where “necessary to maintain and restore international peace and security.” Now it must be clear to everyone that the military attack on Afghanistan has nothing to do with preventing terrorism. This attack will be far more likely to provoke terrorism. Even the Bush administration concedes that the real war against terrorism is long term, a combination of improved security, intelligence and a rethinking of U.S. foreign alliances.

    Critics of the Bush approach have argued that any effective fight against terrorism would have to involve a re-evaluation of the way Washington conducts its affairs in the world. For example, the way it has promoted violence for short-term gain, as in Afghanistan when it supported the Taliban a decade ago, in Iraq when it supported Saddam Hussein against Iran, and Iran before that when it supported the Shah.

    The attack on Afghanistan is about vengeance and about showing how tough the Americans are. It is being done on the backs of people who have far less control over their government than even the poor souls who died on Sept. 11. It will inevitably result in many deaths of civilians, both from the bombing and from the disruption of aid in a country where millions are already at risk. The 37,000 rations dropped on Sunday were pure PR, and so are the claims of “surgical” strikes and the denials of civilian casualties. We’ve seen them before, in Kosovo for example, followed by lame excuses for the “accidents” that killed innocents.

    For all that has been said about how things have changed since Sept. 11, one thing that has not changed is U.S. disregard for international law. Its decade-long bombing campaign against Iraq and its 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia were both illegal. The U.S. does not even recognize the jurisdiction of the World Court. It withdrew from it in 1986 when the court condemned Washington for attacking Nicaragua, mining its harbours and funding the contras. In that case, the court rejected U.S. claims that it was acting under Article 51 in defence of Nicaragua’s neighbours.

    For its part, Canada cannot duck complicity in this lawlessness by relying on the “solidarity” clause of the NATO treaty, because that clause is made expressly subordinate to the UN Charter.

    But, you might ask, does legality matter in a case like this? You bet it does. Without the law, there is no limit to international violence but the power, ruthlessness and cunning of the perpetrators. Without the international legality of the UN system, the people of the world are sidelined in matters of our most vital interests.

    We are all at risk from what happens next. We must insist that Washington make the case for the necessity, rationality and proportionality of this attack in the light of day before the real international community.

    The bombing of Afghanistan is the legal and moral equivalent of what was done to the Americans on Sept. 11. We may come to remember that day, not for its human tragedy, but for the beginning of a headlong plunge into a violent, lawless world.

    *Michael Mandel, professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, specializes in international criminal law.

  • Who Are the Terrorists

    The horrendous events of September 11, 2001 in the U.S. have set into motion unprecedented changes in the world. Terrorism is a scourge of our times and must be eliminated. But elimination of the terrorists themselves will be insufficient if we do not eliminate the causes of their violent actions. We believe these causes lie in the gross inequities that exist in our world, accelerated by the process of globalized capital and the U.S. policy of corporate welfare supported by its adherents in the industrialized world. Still another cause is the failure to create a Palestinian state in the troubled land of Israel and a mode of living side by side in peace. And a further cause is the antiquated kingdoms of the Middle East, coupled to U.S. dependency on their oil reserves in an atmosphere where oil and politics do not mix. Finally, there is the dedicated programs and policies of the U.S. for the ideological cleansing of the world, supported by their operationalized nuclear threat.

    To all of the above, the U.S. response was predictable: “Dead or Alive” – this is the kind of juvenile rhetoric one might expect from a Texas vigilante. “You are either with us or against us” – nothing is that simple except to a simpleton. This is, yet again, a juvenile statement by the robotic president of the United States, who confuses ends and means. One can agree with the ends of stopping the terrorists, whose acts are totally unacceptable. But we disagree with the means the global bully has chosen. Once again he has attempted coalition building outside the rightful role of the United Nations while side-stepping international law. There is a relevant article of the Charter of the United Nations which applies, i.e. Article 51.

    Article 51 Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security. Measures taken by Members in the exercise of this right of self-defence shall be immediately reported to the Security Council and shall not in any way affect the authority and responsibility of the Security Council under the present Charter to take at any time such action as it deems necessary in order to maintain or restore international peace and security. Reading Article 51 carefully one can only conclude that the U.S. action is in contravention of the U.N. Charter as well as international law, for example the 1971 Montreal Sabotage Convention, of which it is a signatory, together with one hundred and seventy-three other states and which requires mediation through the International Court of Justice. But as the ultimate world bully, the U.S. dictates the terms of conflict resolution in a unilateral uncompromising way that suits its consistent interventionist position. In fact it deliberately bypasses the international security regime, including the United Nations, preferring NATO, a military organization it controls. The right to self-defence in Article 51 is similar to that of individual rights. It does not permit the individual to bypass the law, once they have defended themselves.

    It has been reliably reported, including in U.S. Congressional committee reports, that the U.S. has consistently supported terrorist groups all over the world. Throughout Central and South America it has helped to overthrow democratically-elected regimes in support of military juntas and dictators. It gave aid to terrorist groups in the Honduras army who murdered hundreds, including American nuns. It used the CIA to assassinate the democratically-elected Allende in Chile and his Chief of Staff, General Schneider. In fact the General’s son has lodged a case against Henry Kissinger who, together with Richard Nixon, ordered these murders. It poisoned the people of North Viet Nam with Agent Orange. Through its sanctions, some million Iraqis, many of them children, have died in the U.S.’s terror of hunger. In fact it has directly supported Asama bin Ladin in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, as well as by the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in Kosovo and Macedonia. It has supported the extreme right in Greece, the Philippines, Chile, Iran, Panama, Indonesia, Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Grenada, Cambodia, etc. In all of these actions not thousands but millions of civilians were killed. In its earlier history it carried out a genocidal war against its Native peoples, destroying their culture and seizing their lands. Then, on August 6th and 9th, 1945, it incinerated 200,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, followed by decades of radiation damage. And this was no more than a military experiment since Japan was prepared to surrender under acceptable conditions. Together with NATO, it committed war crimes in Serbia and Kosovo. It has refused to support a UN International Criminal Court, preferring to control the War Crimes Tribunal, its own creation. And the U.S. condoned the killing of a large proportion of the people of East Timor by the Indonesian military. Adding to this were the murders in Chile by Pinochet, involving thousands. The total of all these victims adds up to millions and the U.S. is largely culpable for their deaths.

    But there is still another kind of terrorism of which the U.S. is guilty. This is internal or structural terrorism derived from poverty, disease, murder, hunger and deprivation of all kinds. The U.S. has the highest rate of permanent poor among all the highly industrialized Western countries. Examining the arithmetic of structural terrorism, some 40 million Americans have no health coverage whatsoever, one in five children are born in and live in poverty. It has the highest infant mortality rate among nineteen industrialized countries. The U.S. is twenty-ninth in the world in population per physician (Cuba is eleventh in this category). The U.S. has the lowest life expectancy among the nineteen most industrialized nations. Twenty-one per cent of all Black Americans go to sleep hungry in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. All of this adds up to lives of hopelessness, hunger and disease for many millions of Americans. The U.S. also has the highest murder rate among the highly industrialized countries, and the only one that has the legal right to bear arms and the only one with capital punishment. The inverse ratio between the latter two is hardly ever acknowledged. The hypocrisy of the U.S. about these matters knows no bounds, with a co-opted media indulging in a shameful cover-up.

    But the greatest terrorist threat in the history of humankind is embodied in the U.S.’s nuclear warfighting policies, plans and programs. We have established beyond any possible dispute that not only does the U.S. (and NATO) have a “first use” policy, but in fact the U.S. has operationalized plans to fight a nuclear war against Russia, considered to still be the major obstacle to the completion of the U.S.¹s global hegemony. In the Reagan administration, when this policy first evolved, a nuclear war with the Soviet Union was first operationalized despite the realization that it would lead to the death of twenty million Americans and one hundred million Russians. More recently, following the demise of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has operationalized plans to launch a devastating pre-emptive strike against Russia. The counterforce strike is directed against all Russian nuclear launchers – on land, on and under the sea and in the air. It is guided by an elaborate list of strategic targets embodied in a single integrated operational plan (SIOP). This includes Russia¹s command, control, communications and intelligence centres (C½I). Such a counterforce strike would kill fifteen million Russian civilians, an act of terrorism that dwarfs what happened to the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (see W.M. Arkin, “SIOP – forever immoral”; The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept.-Oct., 2000, p.72). When we add the above fifteen million deaths to our calculations of murders, killings and assassinations, plus the internal structural terrorism described in the previous paragraphs, we can only conclude that the U.S. is the greatest terrorist nation in the world.

    But, not satisfied that some Russian missiles might escape destruction, the U.S. is committed to a national missile defense (NMD) system, despite the violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty and the 1967 Outer Space treaty. Their intention is to rule the world from space, universalizing free enterprise and investment and completing the ideological cleansing of the world, converting it to universal capitalism. The U.S. would be the CEO of this global enterprise. Yet such an NMD system would be totally ineffective against the kind of attacks that took place on Sept. 11, 2001 or against chemical and biological warfare. George W. Bush and Company have asserted that their NMD system is designed against so-called “rogue states”. This is a transparent scam that has been discredited by authoritative figures.

    The coalition that Bush pressed into in his declared war against terrorism is not as solid as he had hoped. For one thing, Saudi Arabia balked at permitting the U.S. to launch its attack against the Taliban from its territory. “In this case, you are with us”, did not mean you are against us. This is how oil talks. His staunchest supporter is Tony Blair, who must have had a sex change and is really Margaret Thatcher. For Tony Blair to praise the courage and bravery of the early attacks on the Taliban is misguided, when most of the launches came from cruise missiles 1,000 miles away. The question of whether the U.S. is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the Taliban deserves a resounding affirmative. It is an essential part of their strategic posture. Russia and China have their own reasons for supporting the U.S., which will quickly collapse if Iraq is attacked, a plan now in place.

    Richard Perle, the superhawk and former adviser to Ronald Reagan, now to George Bush, was asked if the U.S. might use nuclear weapons in its “war on terrorism” (CNN, 7 Oct., 2001). His answer was both interesting and predictable. He said the U.S. should use whatever weapons are appropriate to win this war. This is a predictable response but has subtle undertones which are a clear affirmative.

    One positive fallout of the terrorist attacks on America is that the U.S. budget is in a state of chaos. Bush’s huge tax reductions, mainly for corporate welfare, are now revealed as a risk not worth taking. Also, given the budget crisis, it is unlikely that NMD will proceed as planned, i.e. by the U.S. dropping out of the ABM treaty before the end of the year. However, for the victims of September 11th there can be no benefits, only the terrible disbenefit of their grieving families.

    The predictable is occurring yet again. As reported in the London Observer of October 21, 2001, U.N. officials in Afghanistan have reported that a disaster is looming with 7.5 million Afghans threatened by starvation directly attributable to the bombing. The bombing seriously threatens delivery of the humanitarian supplies into Afghanistan. The British charity, Christian Aid, has reported that six hundred people have already died in the Dar-e-Suf region from starvation and related diseases. All of this is exacerbated by the three-year drought that has hit Afghanistan. None of this is reported in the U.S. media, which, as always, is managing consent with American terrorism. Finally, how can the U.S. lead a campaign based on common security when it is the leading obstacle to the radical reduction of nuclear weapons, let alone their elimination.

  • We Have Already Lost

    The Bombing Begins! screams today’s headline of the normally restrained Guardian. Battle joined, echoes the equally cautious International Herald Tribune, quoting George W. Bush. But with whom is it joined? And how will it end? How about with Osama bin Laden in chains, looking more serene and Christ-like than ever, arranged before a tribune of his vanquishers with Johnny Cochran to defend him? The fees won’t be a problem, that’s for sure.

    Or how about with Osama bin Laden blown to smithereens by one of those clever bombs we keep reading about that kill terrorists in caves but don’t break the crockery? Or is there a solution I haven’t thought of that will prevent us from turning our archenemy into an arch martyr in the eyes of those for whom he is already semi-divine?

    Yet we must punish him. We must bring him to justice. Like any sane person, I see no other way. Send in the food and medicines, provide the aid, sweep up the starving refugees, maimed orphans and body parts – sorry, “collateral damage” – but Osama bin Laden and his awful men, we have no choice, must be hunted down.

    Unfortunately, what America longs for at this moment, even above retribution, is more friends and fewer enemies. And what America is storing up for herself, and so are we Brits, is yet more enemies. Because after all the bribes, threats and promises that have patched together this rickety coalition, we cannot prevent another suicide bomber being born each time a misdirected missile wipes out an innocent village, and nobody can tell us how to dodge this devil’s cycle of despair, hatred, and-yet again-revenge.

    The stylized television footage and photographs of this bin Laden suggest a man of homoerotic narcissism, and maybe we can draw a grain of hope from that. Posing with a Kalashnikov, attending a wedding or consulting a sacred text, he radiates with every self-adoring gesture an actor’s awareness of the lens. He has height, beauty, grace, intelligence and magnetism, all great attributes, unless you’re the world’s hottest fugitive and on the run, in which case they’re liabilities hard to disguise.

    But greater than all of them, to my jaded eye, is his barely containable male vanity, his appetite for self-drama and his closet passion for the limelight. And, just possibly, this trait will be his downfall, seducing him into a final dramatic act of self-destruction, produced, directed, scripted and acted to death by Osama Bin Laden himself.

    By the accepted rules of terrorist engagement, of course, the war is long lost. By us. What victory can we possibly achieve that matches the defeats we have already suffered, let alone the defeats that lie ahead? “Terror is theatre,” a soft-spoken Palestinian firebrand told me in Beirut in 1982. He was talking about the murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics 10 years before, but he might as well have been talking about the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The late Mikhail Bakunin, evangelist of anarchism, liked to speak of the Propaganda of the Act. It’s hard to imagine more theatrical, more potent acts of propaganda than these.

    Now Mr. Bakunin in his grave and Mr. bin Laden in his cave must be rubbing their hands in glee as we embark on the very process that terrorists of their stamp so relish: as we hastily double up our police and intelligence forces and award them greater powers, as we put basic civil liberties on hold and curtail press freedom, impose news blackouts and secret censorship, spy on ourselves and, at our worst, violate mosques and hound luckless citizens in our streets because we are afraid of the colour of their skin.

    All the fears that we share – Dare I fly? Ought I to tell the police about the weird couple upstairs? Would it be safer not to drive down Whitehall this morning? Is my child safely back from school? Have my life’s savings plummeted? – are precisely the fears our attackers want us to have.

    Until Sept. 11, the United States was only too happy to plug away at Vladimir Putin about his butchery in Chechnya. Russia’s abuse of human rights in the North Caucasus, he was told – we are speaking of wholesale torture, and murder amounting to genocide – was an obstruction to closer relations with NATO and the United States. There were even voices – mine was one – that suggested Mr. Putin join Slobodan Milosevic on trial in The Hague: Let’s do them both together. Well, goodbye to all that. In the making of the great new coalition, Mr. Putin looks a saint by comparison with some of his bedfellows.

    Does anyone remember any more the outcry against the perceived economic colonialism of the G8? Against the plundering of the Third World by uncontrollable multinational companies? Seattle, Prague and Genoa presented us with disturbing scenes of broken heads, broken glass, mob violence and police brutality. Tony Blair was deeply shocked. Yet the debate was a valid one, until it was drowned in a wave of patriotic sentiment, deftly exploited by corporate America.

    Drag up Kyoto these days; you risk the charge of being “anti-American.” It’s as if we have entered a new Orwellian world where our personal reliability as comrades in the struggle is measured by the degree to which we invoke the past to explain the present. Suggesting there is a historical context for the recent atrocities is, by implication, to make excuses for them: Anyone who is with us doesn’t do that; anyone who does, is against us.

    Ten years ago, I was making an idealistic bore of myself by telling anyone who would listen, that with the Cold War behind us, we were missing a never-to-be repeated chance to transform the global community.

    Where was the Marshall Plan? I pleaded. Why weren’t young men and women from the U.S. Peace Corps, Britain’s Voluntary Service overseas and their continental European equivalents pouring into the former Soviet Union by the thousands?

    Where was the world-class statesman and the man of the hour, with the voice and vision to define for us the real, if unglamorous, enemies of mankind: poverty, famine, slavery, tyranny, drugs, bush-fire wars (racial and religious), intolerance, greed?

    Now thanks to Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, all our leaders are world-class statements, proclaiming distant their voices and visions in distant airports while they feather their electoral nests.

    There has been unfortunate talk – and not only from Silvio Berlusconi – of a “crusade.” Crusade, of course, implies a delicious ignorance of history. Was Mr. Berlusconi really proposing to set free the holy places of Christendom and smite the heathen? Was George W. Bush? And am I out of order in recalling that we (Christians) actually lost the Crusades? But all is well: Signor Berlusconi was misquoted and the presidential reference is no longer operative.

    Meanwhile, Mr. Blair’s new role as America’s fearless spokesman continues apace. Mr. Blair speaks well because Mr. Bush speaks badly. Seen from abroad, Mr. Blair in this partnership is the inspired elder statesman with an unassailable domestic power base, whereas Mr. Bush – dare one say it these days? – was barely elected at all.

    But what exactly does Mr. Blair, the elder statesman, represent? Both he and the U.S. President at this moment are riding high in their respective approval ratings, but both are aware, if they know their history books, that riding high on Day One of a perilous overseas military operation doesn’t guarantee you victory come election day.

    How many American body bags can Mr. Bush sustain without losing popular support? After the horrors of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the American people may want revenge, but they’re on a very short fuse about shedding more American blood.

    Mr. Blair – with the whole Western world to tell him so, except for a few sour voices back home – is America’s eloquent white knight, the fearless, trusty champion of that ever-delicate child of the mid-Atlantic, the “Special Relationship.”

    Whether that will win Mr. Blair favour with his electorate is another matter because the Prime Minister was elected to save the country from decay, and not from Osama bin Laden. The Britain he is leading to war is a monument to 60 years of administrative incompetence. Our health, education and transport systems are on the rocks. The fashionable phrase these days describes them as “Third World,” but there are places in the Third World that are far better off than Britain.

    The country Mr. Blair governs is blighted by institutionalized racism, white male dominance, chaotically administered police forces, a constipated judicial system, obscene private wealth and shameful and unnecessary public poverty. At the time of his re-election, which was characterized by a dismal turnout, Mr. Blair acknowledged these ills and humbly admitted that he was on notice to put them right.

    So when you catch the noble throb in his voice as he leads us reluctantly to war, and your heart lifts to his undoubted flourishes of rhetoric, it’s worth remembering that he may also be warning you, sotto voce, that his mission to mankind is so important that you will have to wait another year for your urgent medical operation and a lot longer before you can ride in a safe and punctual train. I am not sure that this is the stuff of electoral victory three years from now. Watching Tony Blair, and listening to him, I can’t resist the impression that he is in a bit of a dream, walking his own dangerous plank.

    Did I say “war”? Has either Mr. Blair or Mr. Bush, I wonder, ever seen a child blown to bits, or witnessed the effect of a single cluster bomb dropped on an unprotected refugee camp? It isn’t necessarily a qualification for generalship to have seen such dread things- and I don’t wish either of them the experience – but it scares me all the: same when I’ll watch uncut, political faces shining with the light of combat, and hear preppy political vices steeling my heart for battle.

    And please, Mr. Bush – on my knees, Mr. Blair – keep God out of this. To imagine God fights wars is to credit Him with the worst follies of mankind. God, if we know anything about Him, which I don’t profess to, prefers effective food drops, dedicated medical teams, comfort and good tents for the homeless and bereaved, and without strings, a decent acceptance of our past sins and a readiness to put hem right. He prefers us less greedy, less arrogant, less evangelical, and less dismissive of life’s losers.

    It’s not a new world order, not yet, and is not God’s war. It’s a horrible, necessary, humiliating police action to redress the failure of our intelligence services and our blind political stupidity in arming and exploiting fanatics to fight the Soviet invader, then abandoning them to a devastated, leaderless country. As a result, it’s our miserable duty to seek out and punish a bunch of modern medieval religious zealots who will gain mythic stature from the very death we propose to dish out to hem.

    And when it’s over, it won’t be over. The shadowy bin Laden armies, in the emotional aftermath of his destruction, will gather numbers rather than wither away. So will the hinterland of silent sympathizers who provide them with logistical support.

    Cautiously, between the lines, we are being invited to believe that the conscience of the West has been reawakened to the dilemma of the poor and homeless of the Earth.

    And possibly, out of fear, necessity and rhetoric, a new sort of political morality has, indeed, been born. But when the shooting dies and a seeming peace is thieved, will the United States and its allies stay at their posts or, as happened at the end of the Cold War, hang up their boots and go home to their own back yards? Even if those back yards will never again be the safe havens they once were.

    *John Le Carre is the author of 18 novels, including his most recent, The Constant Gardener.