Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Bush

  • Farewell to the ABM Treaty

    Farewell to the ABM Treaty

    Without a vote of the United States Congress and over the objections of Russia and most US allies, George W. Bush has unilaterally withdrawn the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, rendering it void. His withdrawal from this solemn treaty obligation became effective today, June 13, 2002.

    Bush’s action is being challenged in US federal court by 31 members of Congress, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). We should be thankful that there are still members of Congress with the courage and belief in democracy to challenge such abuse of presidential power.

    Since becoming president, Bush has waged a campaign against international law. Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty is but one of a series of assaults he has made, including pulling out of the Kyoto Accords on Climate Change, withdrawal of the US from the treaty creating an International Criminal Court, opposing a Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention that would allow for inspections and verification, and failing to fulfill US obligations related to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

    Bush told the American people that he was withdrawing from the ABM Treaty so that the US could proceed with the deployment of missile defenses defenses that most independent experts believe are incapable of actually providing defense. The president has traded a long-standing and important arms control treaty for the possibility that there might be a technological fix for nuclear dangers that would allow the US to threaten, but not be threatened by, nuclear weapons. In doing so, he has pulled another brick from the foundation of international law and created conditions that will undoubtedly make the US and the rest of the world less secure. He has also moved toward establishing an imperial presidency, unfettered by such constitutional restraints as the separation of powers.

    In 1972, when the US and USSR agreed to a treaty limiting anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems, they did so for good reasons, which are described below in the Preamble to the treaty to which I have added some comments.

    Proceeding from the premise that nuclear war would have devastating consequences for all mankind, [Nothing has changed here, except that 30 years later we might better use the term “humankind.”]

    Considering that effective measures to limit anti-ballistic missile systems would be a substantial factor in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms and would lead to a decrease in the risk of outbreak of war involving nuclear weapons, [This relationship between offensive and defensive systems still holds true.]

    Proceeding from the premise that the limitation of anti-ballistic missile systems, as well as certain agreed measures with respect to the limitation of strategic offensive arms, would contribute to the creation of more favorable conditions for further negotiations on limiting strategic arms, [The recent treaty signed by Bush and Putin only applies limits to actively deployed nuclear weapons and at levels high enough to still destroy civilization and most life on the planet.]

    Mindful of their obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, [The United States under the Bush administration has been contemptuous of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its Article VI obligations to achieve nuclear disarmament.]

    Declaring their intention to achieve at the earliest possible date the cessation of the nuclear arms race and to take effective measures toward reductions in strategic arms, nuclear disarmament, and general and complete disarmament, [These promises remain largely unfulfilled 30 years later.]

    Desiring to contribute to the relaxation of international tension and the strengthening of trust between States…. [The US missile defense program and related US plans to weaponize outer space have the potential to again send the level of international tensions skyrocketing, particularly in Asia.]

    The ABM Treaty was meant to be for an “unlimited duration,” but allowed for withdrawal if a country should decide “that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.” Bush never bothered to explain to the American people or to the Russians how the treaty jeopardized the supreme interests of the United States. It is clear, though, that withdrawal from the treaty as a unilateral act of the president has undermined our true “supreme interests” in upholding democracy and international law.

     

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

  • U.S. Can’t Ignore Nuclear Threat

    Originally Published in USA TODAY

    I’m worried that we’re about to make the same mistake we made a decade ago.

    In August of 1991, when a coup by Soviet hard-liners fell apart, then-president Mikhail Gorbachev gave credit to live global television for keeping world attention on the action, and Time magazine wrote: ”Momentous things happened precisely because they were being seen as they happened.”

    But if good things can happen because a lot of people are watching, bad things can happen when few people are watching. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the media moved off the story of the nuclear threat — and we moved into the new world order without undoing the danger of the old world order.

    In the wake of Sept. 11, people are realizing that the nuclear threat didn’t end with the Cold War. Soviet weapons, materials and know-how are still there, more dangerous than ever. Russia’s economic troubles weakened controls on them, and global terrorists are trying harder to get them.

    When President Bush (news – web sites) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (news – web sites) meet in Moscow next week, they will sign a treaty to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on each side. They need to reduce a lot more than that. Some of the poisonous byproducts of the two powers’ arms race are piled high in poorly guarded facilities across 11 time zones. They offer mad fools the power to kill millions.

    At a Bush-Putin news conference two months after the terrorist attacks, Bush declared: ”Our highest priority is to keep terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.” He also has told his national security staff to give nuclear terrorism top priority.

    Where’s the money?

    But it’s hard to see this priority in the budget and policies of the administration. Not a dollar of the $38 billion the administration requested in new spending for homeland defense will address loose weapons, materials and know-how in Russia. The total spending on these programs — even after Sept. 11 — has remained flat at about a billion dollars a year, even though, at this rate, we will still not have secured all loose nuclear materials in Russia for years to come.

    But what worries me most is not the lack of new spending, but the lack of new thinking. Where are the new ideas for preventing nuclear terrorism?

    We can’t just keep doing what we’ve been doing, and we can’t just copy old plans; we’ve got to innovate. If we are hit with one of these weapons because we slept through this wake-up call from hell, it will be the most shameful failure of national defense in the history of the United States.

    Waning public interest

    Unfortunately, public pressure for action is weak, partly because media attention on nuclear terrorism has begun to fade. And it’s fading not because the threat has been addressed or reduced, but because the media cover what changes, and threats don’t change much day to day. They just keep on ticking.

    The media need to stay on this story because it’s harder to get government action when there’s not much media coverage. If something’s not in the media, it’s not in the public mind. If it’s not in the public mind, there’s little political pressure to act. If public attention moves off this nuclear threat before the government has moved to reduce it, we will be making the same mistake we made after 1991.

    Leadership, however, means being out in front even if no one’s pushing from behind. Bush and Putin need to think bigger and do more. They need to reduce the chance that terrorists can steal nuclear weapons or materials or hire away weapons scientists. They need to work together as partners in fighting terror and encourage others to join. They need to launch a worldwide plan to identify weapons, materials and know-how and secure all of it, everywhere, now — if we are to avoid Armageddon.
    *CNN founder Ted Turner last year established the Nuclear Threat Initiative, dedicated to reducing the threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. He has pledged to provide $250 million to fund its activities.

  • Congress and Courts must not let Bush kill missile pact

    Originally Published in Legal Times

    The president’s plan to terminate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia was always a bad idea. It has only gotten worse with recent revelations that the Pentagon has submitted to Congress a document calling for contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against Russia, China, and a number of other countries. Unfortunately most members of Congress, including those opposed to termination, are under the impression that this is a done deal which they are powerless to reverse. But there is still time for Congress to act as a body before the president’s decision becomes effective next June — as a historical precedent illustrates.

    In December 1978, President Jimmy Carter decided to terminate the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1954 between the United States and Taiwan. Court challenges to his authority to do so without congressional consent went all the way to the Supreme Court. It is generally believed that Congress “lost” this case, Goldwater v. Carter (1979), and that the resulting Supreme Court decision precludes further challenges to unilateral presidential treaty termination. In fact, Goldwater embodies no such obstacle — and indeed suggests a course of action that Congress might follow, thus proving that its role in treaty termination is still very much alive. As then-Justice William Rehnquist, quoting Chief Judge J. Skelly Wright of the D.C. Circuit, stated in his Goldwater concurrence, “Congress has a variety of powerful tools for influencing foreign policy decisions that bear on treaty matters.”

    In the first stage of the Goldwater constitutional debate between 24 members of Congress and President Carter, Judge Oliver Gasch of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that the plaintiffs had standing to invoke the aid of the judiciary, and that their suit was not barred by the political question doctrine. Regarding the substantive question of treaty termination authority, on which the Constitution is silent, Judge Gasch first reviewed the history of two centuries of treaty termination. He found that, while there had been some apparently unchallenged instances of unilateral termination by the president, most of these “involved commercial situations where the need for the treaty, or the efficacy of it, was no longer apparent.” More significant, he found that “[t]he great majority of the historical precedents involve some form of mutual action, whereby the President’s notice of termination receives the affirmative approval of the Senate or the entire Congress.”

    The Sole Organ?

    President Carter invoked his foreign affairs power in support of his position. He cited the famous — or infamous, depending on one’s view — dictum in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp (1936) that the president is “the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.” Judge Gasch dismissed the president’s argument in the following terms: “While the President may be the sole organ of communication with foreign governments, he is clearly not the sole maker of foreign policy. In short, the conduct of foreign relations is not a plenary executive power.”

    In further support of the plaintiffs’ position, Judge Gasch relied on the constitutional status of treaties as the supreme law of the land and the president’s obligation to faithfully execute the laws. The president “alone cannot effect the repeal of a law of the land which was formed by joint action of the executive and legislative branches, whether that law be a statute or a treaty,” he wrote. The judge also quoted these words — a prescient comment on what has come to be known in common parlance as the imperial presidency — of Justice Felix Frankfurter: “The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority.”

    In conclusion, Judge Gasch wrote that “the President’s notice of termination must receive the approval of two-thirds of the United States Senate or a majority of both houses of Congress for it to be effective under our Constitution.”

    President Carter appealed, and the D.C. Circuit reversed in a per curiam opinion with concurrences. After reviewing a number of arguments in support of reversal, the per curiam opinion (filed by Chief Judge Wright) concludes, “Viewing the issue before us so narrowly and in the circumstances of this treaty and its history to date, we see no reason which we could in good conscience invoke to refrain from judgment . . . .” Perhaps more important for purposes of guiding Congress today, the opinion also takes pains to point out that the Senate had not, “since the giving of the notice of termination, purported to take any final or decisive action with respect to it, either by way of approval or disapproval.” This implies that had the Senate taken a final or decisive action of disapproval, the result might have been different.

    No Single Voice

    Chief Judge Wright, with Judge Edward Tamm concurring, would have dismissed the complaint for lack of standing. They also pointed out that “if Congress wants to participate directly in a treaty termination it can find the means to do so.”

    Judge George MacKinnon, though concurring in part, thunderously dissented from the per curiam opinion’s reasoning. He chastised the majority for rendering “an obviously expedient decision” with which, he said, history “will not deal kindly.” He reviewed the 200-year history of treaty termination at length and concluded that reliance upon “miniscule precedent forcibly illustrates the great weakness in the President’s claim to absolute power in the present circumstances.” And he added, in a passage particularly relevant to the contemporary state of affairs, that “[foreign affairs become our national affairs. Hence, to the extent that we complacently grant to the President unbridled power in the international realm, we increase his power nationally, to an ever expanding degree.”

    The Supreme Court had the last word in Goldwater, but it turned out to be a rather garbled one. It ordered the judgment of the D.C. Circuit to be vacated, and remanded the case to the District Court with directions to dismiss the complaint. The individual justices were somewhat more verbose.

    Justice Lewis Powell Jr. agreed with the Court’s result, but would have dismissed the case as not ripe for judicial review. He thus disagreed with Justice Rehnquist (with whom Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justices Potter Stewart and John Paul Stevens concurred) that the issue was nonjusticiable on the grounds that it constituted a political question. On the contrary, Powell wrote words that, like the D.C. Circuit’s per curiam opinion, might offer some guidance to Congress today. He stated, “If the Congress, by appropriate formal action, had challenged the President’s authority to terminate the treaty with Taiwan, the resulting uncertainty could have serious consequences for our country. In that situation, it would be the duty of this Court to resolve the issue.”

    Justice Harry Blackmun, joined by Justice Byron White, held that it was indefensible for the Court to have decided the case without briefing and oral argument; they would have set it for oral argument and given it “the plenary consideration it so obviously deserves.” Justice William Brennan Jr., accusing Justice Rehnquist of profoundly misapprehending the political question principle as applied to foreign relations, would have affirmed the “prudently narrow” judgment of the D.C. Circuit solely on the ground that the power to recognize and withdraw recognition from foreign regimes is the president’s alone. Justice Thurgood Marshall concurred in the result, without joining the statements of any of his brethren or issuing one of his own.

    Plan of Action

    So what is the lesson in this convoluted judicial history for the current dispute between Congress and the president? First, it is not possible to discern a coherent reason for the Court’s action in Goldwater. Given the fact- based but divergent opinions of Powell and Brennan, the nonsubstantive opinions of Blackmun and White, and the Sphinx-like silence of Marshall, it is impossible to extract from the judgment a majority rule that would provide guidance to a Court considering a new challenge to presidential termination.

    Second, and equally important, some of the concurring and dissenting judicial voices suggest a plan of action for Congress. Congress can act, as an institution, to pass legislation or a sense of the Congress (or of the Senate) resolution, or to hold hearings, to assert its role in foreign affairs and indicate its strong objection to allowing the president to unilaterally terminate the ABM treaty. Such steps might work to stop the president’s action. And if they do not, they would at least provide a stronger basis for judicial intervention than existed in Goldwater.

    If Congress fails to act, it will only risk — in the words of Justice Frankfurter — “the accretion of dangerous power” taking another giant step forward.
    *Peter Weiss is president of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, based in New York.

  • The President Has Gone Too Far

    The President Has Gone Too Far

    The president can no longer be considered simply a vacuous puppet brought to power by big business, a family name, and election fraud. He must now be viewed as a dangerous opponent of our constitutional form of government, international law and the international order that was born in the aftermath of World War II.

    The US withdrawal from the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, announced by the Bush administration on May 6, 2002, has all the markings of a watershed event, an event that could make one weep for what it portends for the future of humanity and our country. The Bush administration is marching ahead in its assault on international law. Never before has a nation removed its sovereign signature from a treaty. Now it is done.

    In a one paragraph letter to the United Nations Secretary General, the US undersecretary of state for arms control, John Bolton wrote, “The United States does not intend to become a party to the treaty. Accordingly, the United states has no legal obligations from its signature on December 31, 2000.” In other words, our commitment means nothing. There is no reason for other sovereign states to rely upon the commitments of the United States. The administration has sent a clear signal that the US will decide which laws it will support and which it won’t and the rest of the world be damned.

    The Bush administration demonstrates little interest in supporting international law. It is also pulling out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to pursue missile defenses and space weaponization. This is an administration of militarists and unilateralists. They talk about withdrawing from the International Criminal Court because they fear that US servicemen could be brought to justice under the provisions of the Court, but what they really fear is that US leaders will be held to the same set of standards that the Court will apply to all leaders throughout the world.

    In an article written in 1999, the same John Bolton pointed out that it was not American soldiers that would be in the most jeopardy, but rather “the president, the cabinet officers who comprise the National Security Council, and other senior civilian and military officers responsible for our defense and foreign policy.” But what would US leaders have to fear if they do not commit the most heinous of crimes under international law, crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, the same crimes for which the Nazis were held accountable at Nuremberg?

    Since Bush has become president, the United States has increased its military budget by nearly $100 billion, from $300 billion to almost $400 billion. Military power is the administration’s answer to international law. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld talks in plain language about our efforts to kill whomever we deem as our enemy. We are breaking with our allies, who are committed to international law. The US has become a unilateralist superpower, a rogue superpower, a dangerous force for international anarchy.

    The House of Representatives has rubbed salt in the wound of our allies in the international community who support the Court by voting 264 to 152 in a sense of the Congress amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization Bill that no funding in the bill “should be used for any assistance to, or to cooperate with or to provide any support for, the International Criminal Court.” The House of Representatives, at the instigation of Tom DeLay, Also attached an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Bill that would prohibit US cooperation with the Court and would even authorize the US to invade Holland to free members of U.S. armed forces, civilians and allies held by the Court.

    Most of the Senate has remained silent on Bush’s decision to withdraw from the Court. Senator Christopher Dodd, whose father was a prosecutor at Nuremberg, referred to the president’s decision as “irresponsible, isolationist, and contrary to our vital national interests.” Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle responded to Mr. Bush’s decision with these words of opposition: “This decision vastly decreases our ability to shape the ICC, ignores the fact that the ICC will come into existence regardless of whether we are involved or not, and raises the specter of unilateralism just as we will be turning to our allies for help in a series of crucial policy, diplomatic–and perhaps military–undertakings.”

    The United States, which has an unparalleled opportunity to lead the world in upholding human rights and achieving a just peace, has slipped precipitously from the aftermath of World War II when it led the world in bringing Nazi leaders to justice at the Nuremberg Trials. The US chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, Justice Robert Jackson, argued, “The law must also reach the men who seize great power and deliberately combine to make use of it to commit an evil which affects every home in the world. The last step in preventing the periodic outbreak of war, which is unavoidable with international lawlessness, is to make a statesman responsible before the law.”

    Bush’s policies promote international lawlessness and impunity under international law to leaders accused of grave crimes such as Osama bin Laden, General Augusto Pinochet, Idi Amin, Pol Pot and Henry Kissinger. The president’s policies encourage present and future leaders to believe that their crimes will also be blessed with impunity under the law. In the eyes of the world, including those of our closest allies, these policies underscore the US abdication of leadership in upholding international law and human rights.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Star Wars Steals from Our Future

    Native Americans tell the story of how the white man came to be named Wasichu, the fat-taker. “You shall know him as washi-manu, steal-all, or better by the name of fat-taker, wasichu, because he will take the fat of the land. He will eat up everything….This new man is coming, coming to live among you. He will lie, and his lie never ends. He is going to make a dark, black hoop around the world.”

    Today the fat-taker lives in the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon, and inside the aerospace industry. George W. Bush, and his team, are requesting massive increases in Pentagon spending during the coming year. Cuts will be made in education, child care, health care, social security and the like. Our future is being destroyed to fatten the weapons corporations and their rich allies.

    Star Wars research & development (R & D) will be the recipient a significant portion of this theft from our children. Everything from space-based lasers, nuclear-powered rockets, and Theatre Missile Defense (TMD) systems (that will be used to surround China) are now on-line. Hundreds of billions of dollars will be wasted on these new “21st Century weapons technologies” as Bush calls them.

    The Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space enters its 10th year of organizing in 2002. On May 10-12 the organization will hold an International Space Organizing Conference & Protest in Berkeley, California. (On May 10 a protest will be held at Lockheed Martin – Sunnyvale where work is underway on many of these key space weapons technologies.) On May 11 Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has been invited to deliver the keynote address at the international conference. Kucinich has recently introduced HR 3616, the “Space Preservation Act”, that would ban all weapons in space.

    For the past two years the Global Network has organized in October, an international day of protest to stop the militarization of space. In 2001 there were 115 local actions held in 19 countries. In 2002, the day of protest will be expanded to an entire week of events to be called “Keep Space for Peace Week” and will be held on October 4-11. Groups will organize local events throughout the week that would include things like visits to political leaders, community teach-ins, meetings with religious leaders, visits to local schools, media work, public displays, and protests at military bases and aerospace corporation facilities.

    The U.S. Space Command predicts that because of “corporate globalization” the gap between “haves” and “have nots” will widen worldwide in coming years. With space “control and domination” in place, the Space Command will become the military arm for the multi-national corporations enabling the U.S. to suppress those who protest U.S. global dominance. The fat-takers now have a global strategy. Suppress all the people around the world. Lower the standard of living for everyone. Cut social spending and increase profits for the few who are rich. Control the people of the world by controlling space. With space domination in place the military will be able to hear everything, see everything, and target everyone on Earth.

    We are back to the days of kings, queens, lords, and castles protected by knights in shining armor. The time has come for the peasants to organize and revolt. Our children’s future depends on it.
    *Bruce K. Gagnon is Coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

     

  • Bush Can’t Operate as a One-Man Band

    Within one short month, President Bush has launched two major assaults on our system of checks and balances. Without gaining statutory approval from Congress, he announced his plan to punish terrorists with military commissions. And now he claims the right to act unilaterally once again terminating the Antiballistic Missile Treaty without gaining legislative approval.

    In both cases, Bush is on weak constitutional ground. Basic principles require the president to gain the consent of Congress on matters of high importance.

    When President Roosevelt created military tribunals during World War II, he did so under express statutory authorization and after an express declaration of war. But Bush proposes to proceed solely in his capacity as commander in chief and without a formal declaration of war. While the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Roosevelt’s action, its decision cannot be readily stretched to support the constitutionality of Bush’s bare assertion of power.

    The same is true with the ABM treaty. The leading case involves President Carter’s unilateral termination of a defense treaty with Taiwan. In response, Sen. Barry Goldwater (RAriz.) convinced many of his colleagues to join him in a lawsuit before the Supreme Court.

    Senior Republicans such as Sens. Orrin Hatch, Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond signed Goldwater’s brief protesting “a dangerous precedent for executive usurpation of Congress’ historically and constitutionally based powers.”

    But in his plurality opinion, Justice William Rehnquist called the case a “political question” and left the matter for resolution “by the Executive and Legislative branches.” This is hardly an endorsement of presidential unilateralism.

    Seven new justices have joined the high court since Goldwater’s challenge, and there is no predicting the outcome of a new case. Even more has happened since the dark days of World War II when the court upheld FDR’s military commissions. As a new round of judicial challenges come to court, the justices will begin to see a troubling pattern, and perhaps they will have the courage to call a halt.

    This happened once before, when President Truman asserted a unilateral power, as commander in chief, to seize private steel mills during the Korean War. The court declared this unilateral action unconstitutional. Perhaps it may find the courage to do so again.

    But rather than waiting for the court to save us by a vote of 5 to 4, we should be asking fundamental questions now.

    The Bush administration would like to treat each new unilateral adventure as an isolated problem; defending its military commissions by invoking the president’s power as commander in chief; treaty termination by expanding his power “to conduct foreign affairs” (despite the fact that no such power is explicitly delegated to him by the Constitution).

    But there is a larger question involved: Why is Bush persistently pushing the constitutional envelope? We are only in the first year of his presidency. If this tendency is allowed to go unchecked, many more constitutional surprises may be in store for us.

    There is nothing inevitable about the administration’s present course. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has begun to retreat after Senate hearings. He has chosen to prosecute the suspected “20th terrorist” before an ordinary federal court.

    Similarly, the Senate should call the secretary of State for hearings on the ABM treaty. The issue is not merely the future of a missile system. If Bush can terminate our treaty with the Russians, we may wake up one morning to hear some future president canceling our treaty commitments to North Atlantic Treaty Organization or Israel or the United Nations.

    Senate hearings will not only serve to emphasize these broader questions. They will help create a climate of public opinion uncongenial to more presidential unilateralism.

    The only effective cure is to enlarge the debate and convince the administration that the public does indeed take the Constitution seriously.
    *Bruce Ackerman is a professor of constitutional law at Yale.

  • Response to “The President’s Other Two Wars”

    Dear Mr. Krieger:

    Thanks for the ‘report card’ on President Bush’s first year in office. From the perspective of peace activists, the report exposes America’s apparent failure to advance the cause of peace. It is a report worthy of careful review.

    My concern is to seek out the underlying forces/politicians/money that ‘push Bush’ into such an aggressive and warlike posture. It seems that the President is the willing ‘captive’ of tremendously strong and wealthy factions in America, mainly the military-industrial-complex, combined with the oil and energy industries. Those forces have powerful lobbyists working for them full time in Washington.

    In the short term, America will appear to be saving the world from terrorism and all kinds of evil. Longer term, America is likely to find itself the international pariah, increasingly isolated, paranoid and financially crippled by its hubris. I’m predicting that America will fall into ruin like the former Soviet Union.

    By coincidence, Afghanistan may well prove, again, to be one enormous failure, leading to the downfall of the former Superpowers. Count on it, ‘Evil Empires’ will continue to rise and fall like recurring nightmares. We have a long, long way to go before we can claim to be ‘civilized’.

    Fred Brailey. RR4, Orangeville, Ontario, Canada.

  • President Announces Restructuring of USA

    President Announces Restructuring of USA

    In a surprise announcement, President Bush has called for a restructuring that would convert the United States of America into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Department of Defense. “This will be a good move for both sides,” the President said. “It will give the Defense Department what they want and it will make the American people feel more secure.”

    The new entity will be known as the Department of Defense USA (NYSE symbol: DOD). Mr. Bush said that under the new structure he would remain on as president, while Donald Rumsfeld, currently Secretary of Defense, would assume the position of Chairman and Dick Cheney would continue as CEO.

    The president announced that an important step toward achieving this goal would be to turn over another $48 billion to the Defense Department in fiscal 2003, raising their annual budget to nearly $400 billion. This comes on the heels of a $33.5 billion increase for fiscal 2002. The president also announced his intention to raise the budget for Homeland Security to $25 billion. “Our first priority is the military, our highest calling,” Mr. Bush said.

    The president likened the arrangement to a gated community for wealthy homeowners. “We’re rich,” he said, “and there are a lot of people that don’t like us for that. We need to protect ourselves from the people who don’t like us and are evil. The best way to do that is with our military forces, meaning our brave men and women with missiles, camouflage outfits and other defense stuff. These people are protecting us and they deserve a bigger ownership stake.”

    The president referred to a recently released study by a senior World Bank economist that found that the richest one percent of the world population earn as much as the poorest 57 percent. In bolstering his argument, the president pointed out that the poorest ten percent of Americans are still better off than two-thirds of the world’s population.

    “We can’t exactly build a Great Wall around America like the one they have in China,” the president stated, “although we can sort of put one up in the sky to keep out the missiles of evil people. We can also give enough money and power to our military that we won’t need to build a Great Wall, which would be costly and take resources away from the education of our children.”

    Wall Street reacted favorably to the president’s proposed restructuring. Said one analyst, “This reorganization has been needed for a long time. It really only recognizes the reality of the situation.”

    [For the record, in case this sounds too close to reality, it is not yet true, except for the president’s quote in paragraph 3, his intention to raise the Pentagon budget by $48 billion and the Homeland Security budget to $25 billion, and the World Bank expert’s figures on income disparity. The United States is not yet, in fact, officially a wholly owned subsidiary of the Department of Defense.]

  • 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.

  • The Crawford Summit

    Presidents Bush and Putin will be meeting at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas from November 13-15 at what has been billed as the Crawford Summit. One major purpose of this summit is to discuss reductions in nuclear arsenals. For a few years the Russians have been calling for reducing US and Russian nuclear arsenals to 1,500 or less strategic nuclear weapons. The US has said that it needs to evaluate its nuclear posture, and is now in the process of doing so.

    President Bush has said that he wants to move forward with reductions in nuclear arsenals, but he has tried to tie these reductions to Russian agreement on amending the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to allow the US to conduct missile defense tests that are currently banned by the ABM Treaty. In other words, President Bush has been using reductions in nuclear arsenals as a bargaining chip to gain Russian assent to amending the ABM Treaty.

    Perhaps it is not yet clear to President Bush that significant reductions in the Russian nuclear arsenal will make the US safer. In fact, leadership by the US and Russia to eliminate all nuclear weapons, as they are obligated to do in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, would be strongly in the interests of both countries as well as the world at large.

    Why is the US so eager to amend the ABM Treaty? I would suggest that there are three major reasons. First, the US wants to use theater missile defenses to protect its forward based forces throughout the world. This will give the United States greater degrees of freedom to use its military troops anywhere in the world without concern that US bases and troops will be vulnerable to missile attacks in response.

    Second, the US wants to weaponize outer space and wants to be rid of Article V, Section 1 of the ABM Treaty in which each party to the treaty “undertakes not to develop, test, or deploy ABM systems or components which are sea-based, air-based, space-based or mobile land-based.” The US views missile defenses as a way to develop and test space based weaponry.

    Third, amending the ABM Treaty will allow the US to transfer billions of taxpayer dollars to defense industries to develop, test and deploy missile defenses — defenses that have little potential for actually protecting Americans from either major threats such as terrorism or virtually non-existent threats such as missile attacks from so-called rogue states.

    If the Russians do not go along with an amendment to the ABM Treaty, the Bush administration has already announced that it plans to withdraw from the treaty a treaty that Vladimir Putin as well as most of our allies throughout the world consider the cornerstone of strategic stability.

    US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty would be viewed throughout the world as a symbol of US arrogance and unilateralism. It would certainly have negative effects on our ability to hold together a coalition against terrorism, on future cooperative efforts with Russia and China, and on the prospects for nuclear disarmament.

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