Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: assassination

  • State Violence and Killing Is Not the Answer

    OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA, NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE
    PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
    FROM:  MAIREAD CORRIGAN MAGUIRE, NOBEL PEACE LAUREATE.
    20th JUNE 20ll.


    DEAR MR. PRESIDENT,


    ‘STATE VIOLENCE & KILLING IS NOT THE ANSWER’


    Mairead MaguireAs you know, on lst May, 20ll, the NATO forces tried unsuccessfully to assassinate the Libyan Head of State, Moammer Gadaffi.  This attempt to assassinate the Libyan Head of State under US Army law, was a war crime and punishable as an International crime in its own right. During the attack by NATO forces one of President Gadaffi’s sons, and three of Gadaffi’s grandchildren were killed by NATO forces.


    The following day, 2nd May 20ll, the extra-judicial killing and assassination of Osama Bin Laden, and killings of a woman and two men who were with him, by the US Navy SEALs, continued the State Terrorism of the US Government. After the assassination you, Mr. President, addressed the media and attempted to make acceptable the idea that such violence is just and acceptable. Do you and your Government and Allies who support you, really believe that the vast majority of men and women around the world have lost all sense of what is right and what is wrong?  Do you really believe that we have all abandoned all sense of decency and ethical values exchanging them in support of your endorsed illegal, killing of unarmed civilians?  Do you really believe we will all remain silent whilst under your warrior leadership the US Government and its allies dismantle basic human rights and international laws, so long fought for by brave, courageous men and women (including Americans) replacing these with extrajudicial killings, torture and assassinations?


    Three months into the French, English, Italian led NATO/US campaign (never sanctioned by US Law) and shamefully agreed by U.N. (who identified the purpose of the operation to be for the protection of citizens!) people of conscience are horrified to hear that, yet again, on l9th June, NATO has carried out more air attacks on Libya, killing 15 unarmed civilians, including women and children.


    After 9/ll the whole world shared the grief of the American people, and many hoped that those who carried out such horrendous acts would be brought to justice through the Courts. We were moved by many of the families who lost loved ones on 9/ll when they started ‘Families for a peaceful tomorrow’ and called for justice not revenge. However, violence and revenge was the chosen path of the US Government and its Allies, who for ten years embarked on a path of violence and war.  In this time over 6,000 USA soldiers have needlessly died and countless thousands injured physically and mentally.  Wars in Iraq (over l million Iraqis killed) and Afghanistan (over 50,000 Afghans killed) were carried out by the US in their pursuit of vengeance.  The US-led so-called ‘war on terrorism’ in Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan has ‘terrorised’ unarmed civilians by carrying out aerial bombardments, night raids, death squads, extra-judicial killings and drone attacks killing many unarmed civilians, including women and children, and tragically they continue to this day.


    In a world struggling to birth a new consciousness, it is not incredulous that the best the US Government, NATO and its allies can offer as a model to world citizens, is the outdated example of violence, militarism,  and war, destroying humans and their environment?


    I believe real change and leadership is coming from the people’s movements and what is happening around the world amongst the masses of extra-ordinary men and women rising up, mostly peacefully and non-violently, in country after country for human dignity, equality, freedom and democracy and against violence, oppression, injustice and war, is the real force for change. We all take great hope and inspiration from the ‘Arab Spring’ and join in solidarity with our courageous Arab brothers and sisters in working for change.


    A new dawn, a new age of civilization is coming. It will be an age of solidarity, of each person dedicated to ‘protective love’ of each other and our World. It will be an age of nonviolent evolution which shows we can solve our problems as the human family by peaceful means not by violence, nuclear weapons and war.


    The peoples of the world are sending a clear message to you Mr. President, to NATO, and all our Governments, and armed opposition groups, that there will be no military solutions to these ethnic/political/economic problems, but only through ending occupations (USA -Iraq/Afghanistan,   Israel/Palestine) declaring ceasefires (Libya, etc.,) and entering into dialogue and negotiations with all parties to the conflicts, can we begin to solve these problems, the roots of which are inequality and injustice.


    Mr. President, you came into office promising change and gave the world hope. You lit the passion in the hearts of many men and women longing for change, for dialogue and negotiation, to move beyond destructive militarism, nuclear weapons and war. That passion remains in the heart of humanity as can be seen in the mass nonviolent movements for social and political change taking place around the world. Will you, Mr. President, take this great opportunity in human history and help lead ,the world to a new beginning, so we can in the words of the late President John F. Kennedy ‘begin again the quest for peace?’ 


    Yours in Peace,  


    Mairead Corrigan Maguire
    (Nobel Peace Laureate)

  • Somehow

    “Somehow this madness must cease.”
    –Martin Luther King, Jr.

    David KriegerSomehow, like a small stunned bird
    cupped in your hands with its heart racing,
    is a word of hope or desperation,

    carrying a moral burden, a Sisyphean burden,
    to do whatever is possible, before
    it is too late.

    Might we not somehow awaken,
    open our eyes, stand up in the face of madness
    and, even with trembling legs

    and a fluttering heart, comfort
    the small bird until it can spread its wings
    and fly away?

    It is a delicate task to set aside
    the blanket of complacency, to somehow,
    as he did, clutch courage to your breast.

    David Krieger
    March 2011

  • John F. Kennedy Speaks of Peace

    On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated.  Nearly every American who is old enough can remember where he was when he heard the news of Kennedy’s death.  In my case, I was on a train platform in Japan when I was told of the assassination.  A Japanese man came up to me and said, “I’m very sorry to tell you, but your president has been shot and killed.”  I remember being stunned by the news and by a sense of loss. 

    On June 10, 1963, just six months before his life was cut short, Kennedy gave the Commencement Address at American University.  His topic was peace.  He called it “the most important topic on earth.”  As a decorated officer who served in combat during World War II, he knew about war.

    Kennedy spoke of a generous and broad peace: “What kind of peace do I mean?  What kind of peace do we seek?” he asked.  “Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons or war.  Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave.  I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children – not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

    He recognized that nuclear weapons had created “a new face of war.”  He argued, “Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces.  It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War.  It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.”

    Just eight months before giving this speech, Kennedy had been face to face with the Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis.  He knew that it was possible for powerful, nuclear-armed nations to come to the brink of nuclear war, and he knew what nuclear war would mean for the future of humanity.  “I speak of peace,” he said, “as the necessary rational end of rational men.”

    Kennedy asked us to examine our attitudes toward peace.  “Too many of us think it is impossible,” he said.  “Too many think it unreal.   But that is a dangerous defeatist belief.  It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable – that mankind is doomed – that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.”

    He understood that there was no “magic formula” to achieve peace.  “Genuine peace,” he argued, “must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts.  It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation.  For peace is a process – a way of solving problems.”  He also recognized that peace requires perseverance. 

    Kennedy gave wise counsel in his speech.  In the midst of the Cold War, he called for reexamining our attitude toward the Soviet Union.  “Among the traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war.”  He pointed out the achievements of the Soviet people and the suffering they endured during World War II. 

    In the speech, Kennedy announced two important decisions.  First, he pledged to begin negotiations on a comprehensive nuclear test ban.  Second, he initiated a moratorium on atmospheric nuclear testing.  The Partial Test Ban Treaty would be signed that August, ratified by the Senate in September and would go into effect on October 10, 1963.  The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was not reached until 1996, and the United States Senate rejected ratification of this treaty in 1999.  The treaty still has not entered into force.

    In his insightful and inspiring speech, Kennedy did get one thing wrong.  He said that “[t]he United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.”  One can only imagine Kennedy’s severe disappointment had he lived to see the escalation of the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War and many other costly and illegal wars the U.S. has started and engaged in since his death. 

    Every American should read Kennedy’s Commencement Address at American University and be reminded that peace is a possibility that is worth the struggle.  As Kennedy understood, war does not bring peace.  Peace itself is the only path to peace.  Kennedy believed, “No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.  Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable – and we believe they can do it again.”  Peace is attainable.  It is within our reach, if only we will learn from the past, stretch ourselves and believe that this is our destiny.