Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: David Krieger

  • Looking Back on September 11th

    Each rising of the sun begins a day of awe, destined
    to bring shock to those who can be shocked.

    This day began in sunlight and, like other days,
    soon fell beneath death’s shadow.

    The darkness crossed Manhattan and the globe,
    the crashing planes, tall towers bursting into flame.

    The hurtling steel into steel and glass endlessly played
    on the nightly news until imprinted on our brains

    People lurching from the burning towers, plunging
    like shot geese to the startled earth beneath.

    But such death is not extraordinary in our world of grief,
    born anew each brief and sunlit day.

    White flowers grow from bloodstained streets
    and rain falls gently, gently in defiance, not defeat.

  • The Need for a Global Survival Curriculum Element

    The university in the latter 20th century and early 21st century has been primarily a place where young people are trained to play managerial or professional roles in society.  Too often these roles have been shaped by corporate rather than societal needs.  Universities must have far higher aspirations than to train middle managers for the corporate world.  We live in a time when there are serious dangers threatening humanity, often dangers of our own collective making and cleverness.  We need new socially-concerned models of leadership, not based upon the corporate or military hierarchical models.  The university has a great responsibility to generate such new models of leadership.

    David KriegerHumankind has lived uneasily with nuclear weapons for nearly 70 years.  These weapons do not make us safer.  In fact, they threaten the very survival of humanity, including even that of their possessors.  The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have long been warning humanity that we must abolish these obscenely powerful weapons before they abolish us.  Yet, despite promises and legal obligations of the nuclear weapons states to pursue negotiations in good faith for a cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, more than 16,000 of these weapons still exist on the planet and some 1,800 of these remain on high alert ready to be fired in moments.  One nuclear weapon could destroy a city, a few nuclear weapons could destroy a country, a hundred nuclear weapons could bring on a nuclear famine, a few hundred nuclear weapons could end civilization, and a larger nuclear war could lead to the extinction of most or all complex life on the planet.

    In the Nuclear Age, our technologies have become powerful enough to destroy humanity.  This applies not only to nuclear technologies, but to other powerful technologies as well, such as the burning of fossil fuels for energy, which is impacting the Earth’s climate with predictably dangerous consequences for planetary life.  Other great global issues, in addition to nuclear war and climate change, include population growth, pollution of the oceans and atmosphere, food and water shortages and mal-distribution, nuclear wastes, inequality of resources, poverty, terrorism and war as a means of resolving conflicts.

    All great dangers in our time are global or potentially so, and consequently their solutions must also be global.  No country, no matter how powerful, can solve global problems alone.  We are all dependent upon one another for survival.

    One critical missing element in the university curriculum is a focused awareness of the great global dangers of our time, dangers that threaten civilization and the future of the human species.  To fill this vacuum, I have suggested a universally required course, “Global Survival 101.”  Such a course would provide an introduction to the great issues of global survival in the 21st century.  It would raise awareness of these dangers and educate students on key elements of world citizenship – including knowledge, responsibility, stewardship and participation – needed to safely navigate through and end these threats.

    I would envision such a course to be solutions-oriented, and to provide hope that, with cooperative efforts, global solutions are possible.  Present generations must be a voice for and must act for future generations that are not yet here to speak and act for themselves.  Based upon such a curriculum element, the leaders of tomorrow must step up and become the leaders of today.  The World University Consortium could pioneer in establishing such a course or a broader set of interrelated and interdisciplinary courses.

  • Letter: Nuclear Weapons Do Not Make Us Safer

    This letter to the editor of the Washington Post was published on August 22, 2014.

    Are NATO-based nuclear weapons really an advantage in a dangerous world, as Brent Scowcroft, Stephen J. Hadley and Franklin Miller suggested in their Aug. 18 op-ed, “A dangerous proposition”? They are not. They make the world a far more dangerous place.

    Nuclear deterrence is not a guarantee of security. Rather, it is a hypothesis about human behavior, a hypothesis that has come close to failing on many occasions. Additionally, nuclear weapons are not “political weapons,” as the writers asserted. They are weapons of mass extermination.

    The United States and the other nuclear-armed countries are obligated under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and/or customary international law to pursue negotiations in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and complete nuclear disarmament. This is the substance of the Nuclear Zero lawsuits brought by the Marshall Islands against the nine nuclear-armed countries at the International Court of Justice and in U.S. federal court. The United States continues to evade its obligations.

    Rather than continuing to posture with its nuclear weapons in Europe, the United States should be leading the way in convening negotiations to eliminate all nuclear weapons for its own security and that of all the world’s inhabitants.

    David Krieger, Santa Barbara, Calif.

    The writer is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The Bells of Nagasaki

    The bells of Nagasaki
    ring for those who suffered
    and those who suffer still.

    They draw old women to them
    and young couples
    with love-glazed eyes.

    They draw in small children
    walking awkwardly
    toward the epicenter.

    The Bells of Nagasaki,
    elusive as a flowing stream,
    ring for each of us, ring
    like falling leaves.

  • It Wasn’t Necessary

    “It wasn’t necessary to hit them
    with that awful thing”
    — General Dwight Eisenhower

    We hit them with it, first
    at Hiroshima and then at Nagasaki –
    the old one-two punch.

    The bombings were tests really, to see
    what those “awful things” would do.

    First, of a gun-type uranium bomb, and then
    of a plutonium implosion bomb.

    Both proved highly effective
    in the art of obliterating cities.

    It wasn’t necessary.

  • The Marshall Islands: Sounding a Wake-Up Call

    The Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) is an island country in the northern Pacific with a population of approximately 70,000 people. For such a small country, it is making big waves.  As a country at risk of being submerged due to rising ocean levels, the RMI has played a leadership role in the international conferences concerned with climate change.  As a country that suffered 12 years of devastating U.S. nuclear testing, it has also chosen to take action to assure that the no other country suffers the fate its citizens have due to nuclear weapons.  It has sued the nine nuclear-armed countries for failing to meet their obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.

    marshall_islands_flagThe RMI is a bold, courageous country.  It may be small, but its leaders are not intimidated by the most powerful countries in the world.  It speaks truth to power and it is tackling two of the most critical survival issues of our time.  It is acting for its own survival, but also for the future of humanity and other forms of complex life on the planet.

    In a July 12, 2014 article in the Guardian, “Why the next climate treaty is vital for my country to survive,” RMI Foreign Minister Tony de Brum wrote, “As I said to the big emitters meeting in Paris, the agreement we sign here next year must be nothing less than an agreement to save my country, and an agreement to save the world.”

    In an interview published on the Huffington Post on May 30, 2014, de Brum was asked about what effects the lawsuits against the nine nuclear-armed countries would have on the discourse of nuclear disarmament worldwide.  He replied, “It should stimulate intelligent discourse and wise solutions.  For what would it gain the world for instance, to be protected from climate change, only to suffer massive destruction from nuclear weapons?  All our efforts to be sane about the future must be connected to survival and peace.  The right hand cannot be out seeking climate peace while the left is busy waging nuclear war.”

    How are we to regard the bold actions of this small country?  One way they have been viewed is as quixotic, tilting at windmills.  But this misses the point.  They are doing what they can to save the world.  They are saying, in effect, that power does not have special prerogatives, particularly when the survival of their islands and of all humanity is at stake.  They are modelling by their behavior that we all have a stake in these survival issues.  If they can speak up, so can we, and the more of us who do speak up, the more likely we will save our planet and ourselves.

    I like to think of the lawsuits brought by the Marshall Islands as David pitted against the nine nuclear Goliaths, with the exception that the Marshalls have substituted the courts and the law for a slingshot.  Their action is nonviolent, seeking a judicial order to require the nuclear-armed countries to cease modernizing their nuclear arsenals and to begin negotiating for complete nuclear disarmament.

    Another way to think about the Marshall Islands is as “The Mouse that Roared.”  The RMI is small, but mighty.  In the classic Peter Sellers’ movie, a small, fictional country sets out to lose a war against the United States in order to obtain reparations and save itself from bankruptcy.  In the case of the Marshall Islands, they hope to win the battle, not for reparations, but for human survival on both the climate change and nuclear abolition fronts.

    Finally, it is worth observing that the Marshall Islands is not acting with malice toward the countries that it challenges on climate change or toward those it is suing for failing to meet their legal and moral obligations for nuclear disarmament.   In this sense, it is following the old saying, “Friends do not let friends drive drunk.”  The big, powerful countries have been driving drunk for too long.  The safety of their citizens is also at stake, as is the safety of every inhabitant of the planet, now and in the future.

    The Marshall Islands has given humanity a wake-up call. Each of us has a choice.  We can wake up, or we can continue our complacent slumber.  If you would like to be a hero for nuclear zero, you can support the Marshall Islands at www.nuclearzero.org.

  • Bombing Gaza: A Pilot Speaks

    The stain of death spreads below,
    but from my cockpit I see none of it.
    I only drop bombs as I have been trained
    and then, far above the haze and blood,
    I speed toward home.

    I am deaf to the screams of pain.
    Nor can I smell the stench of slaughter.
    I try not to think of children shivering
    with fear or of those blown to pieces.

    They tell me I am brave, but
    how brave can it be to drop bombs
    on a crowded city?  I am a cog,
    only that, a cog in a fancy machine
    of death.

  • ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND

    Archduke Franz Ferdinand

    with no troops at his command

    was brought down by an assassin’s hand.

    That’s how the war began.

     

    No one thought it would last long,

    but they were all sadly wrong,

    as with alliances and patriotic song

    they moved the war along.

     

    From the very start

    the men in trenches did their part

    until shot through the head or heart

    to be taken away on a medic’s cart.

     

    As history has taught before

    the fighting gave us only blood and gore.

    If not to stop the next great war,

    what are lessons for?

     

    One wonders if in time we’ll learn

    to put away our weapons, to discern

    the true value of a human life, to turn

    from war to peace before we burn.

     

    A century past the Archduke’s time

    the game of war is still a crime.

    A century past the Archduke’s time

    The arts of peace are still sublime.

  • The Nuclear Zero Lawsuits: Taking Nuclear Weapons to Court

    Nuclear Zero LawsuitsNuclear weapons remain the most urgent threat confronting humanity.  So long as they exist, there is the very real chance they will be used by accident, miscalculation or design.  These weapons threaten everyone and everything we love and treasure.  They are fearsome destructive devices that kill indiscriminately and cause unnecessary suffering.  No man, woman or child is safe from the fury of these weapons, now or in the future.  Nor is any country safe from them, no matter how powerful or how much it threatens nuclear retaliation.

    Given the extreme dangers of nuclear weapons, we might ask: why isn’t more being done to eliminate them?  There has been talk and promises, but little action by the nine nuclear-armed nations – United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.  All nine countries are modernizing their nuclear arsenals.

    One small Pacific nation, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, has decided to take legal action against the nine nuclear-armed countries, which are threatening our common future.  As Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, points out, “The continued existence of nuclear weapons and the terrible risk they pose to the world threatens us all.”

    To understand the nature of the legal actions taken by the Marshall Islands, it is necessary to go back in time.  Forty-six years ago, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was opened for signatures; two years later it entered into force.  The treaty seeks to stop the further spread of nuclear weapons, but it does more.  It also obligates its parties to level the playing field by negotiating in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament.  This treaty currently has 190 countries signed on, including five nuclear weapon states and 185 non-nuclear weapon states.

    The Marshall Islands is taking its case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague and, in addition, filing against the U.S. separately in U.S. Federal District Court in San Francisco.  The lawsuits argue that the nuclear disarmament obligations apply to all nine nuclear-armed states as a matter of customary international law.  The courts are being asked in these Nuclear Zero Lawsuits to provide declaratory and injunctive relief, by declaring that the nuclear weapon states are in breach of their obligations under international law and ordering them to begin negotiating in good faith to achieve a cessation of the nuclear arms race and a world with zero nuclear weapons.

    The Marshall Islands has shown courage and boldness by taking action in filing these lawsuits.  It is a country that knows firsthand the consequences of nuclear detonations.  Between 1946 and 1958, the U.S. conducted 67 nuclear weapon tests in the Marshall Islands.  These tests had an equivalent explosive force greater than 1.5 Hiroshima bombs being detonated daily for 12 years.  The Marshall Islanders paid a heavy price in terms of their health and well-being for these destructive tests.

    Now this small island nation is standing up against nine of the most powerful countries on the planet.  It is “David” against the nuclear nine “Goliaths.”  Its field of nonviolent battle is the courtroom.

    The Marshall Islands is, in effect, challenging the nuclear weapon countries to be honorable and fulfill their obligations not only to the rest of the countries that signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but to all humanity.

    The Republic of the Marshall Islands is offering us a way to live on a planet that is not threatened by nuclear catastrophe due to human fallibility or malevolence. This courageous small island country deserves our strong and unwavering support.

    To find out more about the Nuclear Zero Lawsuits and how you can support them, go to www.nuclearzero.org.

  • Earth Day: The Discipline of Tending to Our Own Planet

    David KriegerWe live in a vast universe made up of billions of galaxies, each of which is made up of billions of stars. Our home is a small planet that revolves around a small sun in a remote galaxy. It is just the right distance from the sun so that it is not too hot or too cold to support life. It has air that is breathable, water that is drinkable and topsoil suitable for growing crops. In the immensity of space, it is a very small dot, what astrophysicist Carl Sagan referred to as a “pale blue dot.” Our Earth is the only place we know of that harbors life. It is precious beyond any riches that could be imagined.

    One would think that any sane, self-reflecting creatures that lived on this planet would recognize its beauty and preciousness and would want to tend to it with care. In Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic book, “The Little Prince,” the prince says: “It’s a matter of discipline. When you’ve finished washing and dressing each morning, you must tend to your planet.” But that is an imaginary planet with an imaginary little prince. On the real planet that supports life, the one we inhabit, there aren’t enough of us who exercise such discipline and tend to our planet with loving care.

    Think about how we have managed our planet. We have allowed the planet to become divided into rich and poor, where a few people have billions of dollars and billions of people have few dollars. While some live in greed, the majority live in need. We have parceled the planet into entities we call countries and created borders that countries try to protect. We have created military forces in these countries and given them enormous resources to prepare for war and to engage in war. Annual global military expenditures now exceed $1.7 trillion, while hundreds of millions of humans live without clean water, adequate nutrition, medical care and education.

    We have eagerly exploited the planet’s resources with little concern for future generations or for the damage we cause to the environment. Instead of using renewable energy from the sun to provide our energy needs, we exploit the Earth’s stores of oil and transport them across the globe. We have turned much of the world into desert. We have polluted the air we breathe and the water we drink. In our excess, we have pushed the planet toward the point of no return in climate change and then argued climate change as a reason to build more nuclear power plants.

    We keep relearning, in tragic ways, that we humans are fallible creatures. That is the lesson of our recurrent oil spills. It is also the lesson of the accidents at Chernobyl over a quarter century ago and at Fukushima three years ago. It is a lesson that we urgently need to learn about nuclear weapons – weapons we have come close to accidentally using on many occasions and have twice used intentionally.

    Nuclear weapons kill directly by blast, fire and radiation. The nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were small in comparison with today’s thermonuclear weapons.  In recent years, we have learned some new things about nuclear war. Atmospheric scientists have modeled a hypothetical nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side uses 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities. In addition to the direct effects of the weapons, there would be significant indirect effects on the environment. Smoke from the burning cities would rise into the stratosphere and reduce warming sunlight for ten years, which would lower average surface temperatures, reduce growing seasons and lead to famine that could kill two billion people globally.

    That would be the result of a “small” nuclear war, using less than one percent of the operationally deployed nuclear weapons on the planet. A nuclear war between the United States and Russia could lead to the extinction of most or all complex life on Earth, including human life. As we celebrate Earth Day this year, more than 20 years after the end of the cold war, both the United States and Russia maintain hundreds of launch-ready, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles on high-alert status, ready to be fired in moments.

    We who are alive today are the trustees of this planet for future generations. We’re failing in our responsibility to pass it on intact. We need a new Earth ethic that embraces our responsibility for fairness to each other and to future generations. We need new ways of educating that do not simply accept the status quo. We need to trade in our patriotism for a global humatriotism. We need a new approach to economics based on what is truly precious – life and the conditions that support it.

    Earth Day will have its greatest value if it reminds us to care for our Earth and each other all the other days of the year, individually and through our public policy. We need to inspire people throughout the world, young and old alike, with a vision of the beauty and wonder of the Earth that we can now enjoy, restore and preserve for future generations if we tend to our planet with the discipline of the little prince.

    This article was originally published by Truthout.