Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: anniversary

  • The Eighth Anniversary of the Iraq War

    David KriegerOn this eighth anniversary of the Iraq War, I feel a deep sense of sadness mixed with anger, along with regret for what might have been.  We’ve had eight years of futile war in Iraq and nearly ten years of the same in Afghanistan.


    Following September 11, 2001, the world stood with the US.  We had a choice then: to respond legally, morally and with wisdom; or, like a helpless giant, to flail out with our vast arsenal of weapons.  To our shame, our leaders, then and now, have taken the latter course. 


    Before this war began, many of us marched for peace.  People all over the world marched for peace, but peace was not to be.


    Dick Cheney said, “We will be greeted as liberators.”


    Donald Rumsfeld said, in effect, that the war would pay for itself: “The bulk of the funds for Iraq’s reconstruction will come from Iraqis – from oil revenues, recovered assets, international trade, direct foreign investment….”


    George W. Bush said, we will attack “at a time of our choosing.”  He dismissed the United Nations, saying “The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities.  So we will rise to ours.”  He chose to attack Iraq on the evening of March 19, 2003, and he did so with shock and awe, but without legality under international law. 


    Less than two months later, Bush dressed up in a flight suit, landed on the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, stood under a sign that said “Mission Accomplished,” and boasted with his usual shortsightedness, “In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”  The people of the world will have prevailed when Mr. Bush is on trial at the International Criminal Court.
     
    The result of our Global War on Terror is that we have spent more than $780 billion on the Iraq War and more than $387 billion on the Afghanistan War, a total of over $1.167 trillion.  These wars have cost California $147 billion, and have cost our 23rd Congressional District $2.6 billion.  These numbers grow by the day.  Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, has predicted that the total cost of the war in Iraq to the Federal government and to society will conservatively exceed $3 trillion.


    It is long past time to end this drain of our resources, which might have gone instead of war and massacre to support the poorest among us, to schools, to health care, and to improve our infrastructure. 


    The Global War on Terror, along with other excesses of capitalism, including massive fraud, has resulted in some 400 families in the US having assets exceeding those of the poorest 50 percent of Americans, some 155 million people.  Four hundred families versus half our population.  And many of our political representatives have fought for tax breaks for the very rich, while seeking to end the collective bargaining rights of the unions for public employees – teachers, nurses, firefighters and policemen.  This is just plain wrong.  But it is what we have become as a nation.


    Across this nation, people still haven’t connected the dots to understand the toll war takes on our society.


    Of course, the money wasted is only a part of the outrage that has weakened our country.  More importantly, some 4,500 American soldiers have died in Iraq. Of these, 4,300 Americans died since George Bush dressed up in his flight suit and gave his victory speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln.  But the death toll of Americans is dwarfed by that of Iraqis.  By some estimates, more than a million and a half Iraqis have died in the Iraq War.  Four million have been displaced from their homes.


    In Afghanistan, 1,498 American soldiers have died and 2,361 total coalition forces have died.  In 2010 alone, 2,777 civilians died in Afghanistan.  Of these, 1,175 were children and 555 were women.


    It is tempting to say that they all died because George Bush lied.  But George Bush’s lies were only one factor.  They also died because so many good Americans were silent in the face of these wars.  They also died because, in the case of Afghanistan, Barack Obama escalated the war and made it his own.


    Let me conclude with a poem I wrote about the war, titled “Worse than the War.”



    WORSE THAN THE WAR


    Worse than the war, the endless, senseless war,
    Worse than the lies leading to the war,


    Worse than the countless deaths and injuries,
    Worse than hiding the coffins and not attending funerals,


    Worse than the flouting of international law,
    Worse than the torture at Abu Ghraib prison,


    Worse than the corruption of young soldiers,
    Worse than undermining our collective sense of decency,


    Worse than the arrogance, smugness and swagger,
    Worse than our loss of credibility in the world,
    Worse than the loss of our liberties,


    Worse than learning nothing from the past,
    Worse than destroying the future,
    Worse than the incredible stupidity of it all,


    Worse than all of these,
    As if they were not enough for one war or country or lifetime,
    Is the silence, the resounding silence of good Americans.


    When will we say that we’ve had enough?  When will America try to regain its conscience, its soul, its decency and its honor?  When will we become a force for peace in the world?  The answer is: It’s up to us!  It’s up to us to take back our country and put it on the path to peace.

  • El sexagésimo quinto aniversario de la Era Nuclear

    El 16 de julio de 1945 marcó el comienzo de la Era Nuclear. Ese día, Estados Unidos llevó a cabo la primera prueba de un artefacto atómico. La prueba fue nombrada Trinidad y se llevó a cabo en el campo de pruebas de Alamogordo, en el desierto Jornada del Muerto en Nuevo México. La bomba tuvo como nombre clave  “El Artefacto”.


    La prueba utilizó un dispositivo de implosión de plutonio, el mismo tipo de arma que se utilizaría en la ciudad de Nagasaki tan solo tres y media semanas después. Su fuerza explosiva fue de 20 kilotones de TNT.


    Los nombres asociados con la prueba merecen reflexión. “El Artefacto”, que indica algo simple e inocuo, se hizo estallar en un desierto llamado Jornada del Muerto. El plutonio, la fuerza explosiva de la bomba, fue nombrado por Plutón, el dios romano del mundo subterráneo. El isótopo de plutonio que se usó en la bomba, plutonio-239, es uno de los materiales radiactivos más mortales en el planeta. En la Tierra sólo existía en pequeñas cantidades antes de que EE.UU. comenzara a crearlo para su uso en las bombas por la fisión del uranio-238.


    No existe una explicación definitiva de por qué la prueba fue nombrada Trinidad, pero en general parece que se asocia con un concepto religioso de Dios. Los pensamientos de J. Robert Oppenheimer, director científico del proyecto creador de la bomba y quien dio nombre a la prueba, ofrecen algunas pistas.


    “No está claro por qué elegí el nombre, pero sé bien las ideas que rondaban por mi cabeza. Hay un poema de John Donne, escrito poco antes de su muerte, que yo conozco y amo. Esta es una cita de ese poema: «En Occidente y Oriente / en todos los mapas – yo soy uno- uno solo, / Y la muerte toca la resurrección.”   Eso aún no explica lo de la Trinidad, pero en otro poema, más conocido como devocionario, Donne dice, ‘Golpea mi corazón, tres personas en un Dios.”’


    La reacción de Oppenheimer al ser testigo de la explosión atómica nos hace recordar estas líneas de la escritura sagrada hinduista Bhagavad Gita.


    Si el resplandor de mil soles


    Estallaran de una vez en el cielo,


    Eso sería como el esplendor del Poderoso …


    Me he convertido en la Muerte,


    El destructor de mundos.


    ¿Oppenheimer pensó que ese día había muerto, o más bien, todos nosotros.? Desde luego que esa primera explosión nuclear presagiaba la posibilidad de que el mundo sería destrozado (¿por un “Poderoso”?), Muy pronto eso ocurriría en Hiroshima y Nagasaki.


    Muchas cosas han pasado en estos 65 años de la Era Nuclear. En Hiroshima y Nagasaki hemos visto la devastación que las armas nucleares inflingen sobre las ciudades y sus habitantes. Hemos sido testigos de una carrera armamentista verdaderamente absurda entre Estados Unidos y la antigua Unión Soviética, en la que el número de armas nucleares en el mundo aumentó a 70.000. Hemos aprendido que un arma nuclear puede destruir una ciudad, unas pocas armas nucleares pueden destruir un país, y una guerra nuclear podría destruir la civilización y la mayoría de las formas de vida en el planeta.


    Las armas nucleares han puesto en peligro la especie humana, y aún hoy existen más de 20.000 armas nucleares en el mundo. Nueve países ya poseen estas armas. La humanidad sigue jugando con el fuego del omnicidio – la muerte de todos. Todavía estamos esperando por los líderes que nos llevarán más allá de esta amenaza global hacia un futuro común. En lugar de seguir esperando, tenemos que convertirnos en líderes.


    En este 65 º aniversario del embarque en el camino de la muerte, debemos cambiar de rumbo y eludir el precipicio nuclear. Las armas son ilegales, inmorales, antidemocráticas e innecesarias militarmente. La manera más segura de ponerlas bajo control es mediante la negociación de un nuevo tratado, una Convención de Armas Nucleares, para que en forma transparente, progresiva, verificable e irreversible se logre la eliminación de las armas nucleares.


    Estados Unidos condujo al mundo a la era nuclear. El presidente Obama ha señalado que el país también tiene una responsabilidad moral para encontrar una salida. Esto se puede lograr, pero no con ciudadanos ignorantes, apáticos y en estado de negación. Sesenta y cinco años en el Camino de la Muerte es demasiado tiempo. Llegó el momento para que los ciudadanos despierten y se involucren en este tema como si su futuro dependiera de ello, y en realidad así es.


    La ferviente oración de los hibakusha, los supervivientes de Hiroshima y Nagasaki, es “¡Nunca más!” Ellos hablan para que su pasado no se convierta en nuestro futuro. Es algo en lo que cada uno de nosotros debe participar, tanto con voces y acciones para lograr un mundo libre de armas nucleares.

  • Hiroshima Peace Declaration 2005

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Tadatoshi Akiba Mayor The City of Hiroshima

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

  • 2004 Sadako Peace Day

    2004 Sadako Peace Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Looking Back at September 11th

    Looking Back at September 11th

    As we approach the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, it is worth reflecting on how little has been accomplished and how much has been lost in the past year. We have demonstrated that our military machine is powerful and can smash poor countries farther back into the stone age, but we are not capable of finding Osama bin Laden, nor of putting an end to terrorism. We have demonstrated that civil liberties can be curtailed in the effort to combat terrorism, but our airports seem no safer today than they were on the day of the terrorist attacks.

    We have an administration committed to perpetual war, an administration busy seeking new targets for attack. We have a new doctrine of “pre-emption,” one that the Bush administration is pushing to engage in “regime change” in Iraq, with little regard for the consequences. In the past year, the Bush administration has become even more disdainful of international law than it was previously. The administration seeks cooperation only on its own terms, and primarily for our wars on terrorism, on drugs and on the Bush-designated “axis of evil.” When it comes to arms control and disarmament, sustainable development and environmental protection, and support for human rights, the Bush administration is AWOL.

    Some wonder how September 11 may be remembered in American history. I think it is likely to be remembered, at least shorter term, as the day that Americans were forced to face their own vulnerability, the same vulnerability that most of the world experiences daily. It may also be remembered as the day that opened the door to Orwell’s 1984 becoming the American reality the day that the Bush administration assumed the role of Big Brother. September 11 may be remembered as the day that initiated a headlong thrust towards trading our civil liberties for vague promises of security, and the day we received in return only the prospects of a permanent state of war.

    Longer term, how posterity will remember September 11 will depend entirely on our ongoing response to it. If we continue attempting only to seek out terrorists to pound with our military force, the events of September 11 will mark a turning to ultimate disaster, to the undermining of global security and the security of the American people. September 11 brought out an immense display of American nationalism and flag-waving, and the anniversary of the attacks will undoubtedly bring out more of the same. This hyper-nationalism and its militaristic manifestations are dangerous reflections of our national insecurity.

    Following September 11, the world was at first tremendously sympathetic to America for our loss, but that sympathy has by now mostly been replaced by apprehension and anger. The administration’s reliance on military force, its undermining of international law in treaty after treaty, and its failure to provide leadership toward a more peaceful and equitable world have demonstrated arrogance and disrespect for the world’s people. If the United States does not change its policies and use its enormous power to build a more equitable world, there are likely to be more tragedies like September 11 in our future.

    If, on the other hand, the events of September 11 were to result in Americans realizing the need for our leadership to achieve a new cooperative global order, rooted in international law, to solve the vast array of critical problems in our world such as poverty, environmental devastation, human rights abuses and the threat of weapons of mass destruction then these terrorist attacks will be remembered as a terrible but critical wake-up.

    Judging from our approach to date, there are few signs that America has awakened to the need for this kind of positive leadership. We have not yet begun to explore diplomatic and cooperative paths to change, nor the deeper question of why the attacks occurred. Rather, we have become more isolationist and unilateralist, more focused on ourselves to the exclusion of the rest of the world.

    The “regime change” that is needed most in the world is not by war in Iraq, but by peaceful means in the United States. This regime change, by means of the ballot, would bring far more security to the American people and the people of the world than toppling Saddam.

    The American people are challenged as never before to bring an end to terrorism by supporting policies fulfilling the promises of democracy and dignity for all in our troubled world. This will require not only regime changes, but also sea changes in our thinking and actions. It must begin with ordinary citizens having the courage to speak out clearly, forcefully and repeatedly about the dangerous militaristic and authoritarian direction that our country is taking under the Bush administration.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.