Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: Hawaii

  • Cynthia Lazaroff | In Her Own Words

    Cynthia Lazaroff | In Her Own Words

    Can you tell us a bit about the professional journey you took in engaging with U.S.- Russian relations?

    I was awakened to the gravity of the nuclear danger by my mentor and professor Richard Falk as an undergraduate at Princeton and became deeply concerned about the risk of a nuclear war between the US and USSR. I had already fallen in love with the Russian language and was so taken by Russian literature, I wanted to go and meet the “enemy” for myself and made my first trip to Russia in 1978 at the height of the Cold War as an exchange student at Leningrad State University.

    I made dear friends. They were not the enemy stereotype in U.S. media. They were people whom I found delightful, whom I came to love. Compared to life in the U.S., they were living in relative poverty, yet had a rich spiritual life. They showed me hospitality and generosity that touched me to the core.

    I would leave my dorm and, with as much secrecy as I could, go to stay with my friends, a Russian family who lived in a tiny room in a communal apartment. To the fullest extent possible, I wanted to experience what life was like for a Soviet.  I wanted all recognizable signs of being an American to disappear. I wore their clothes, the valenki (woolen felt boots) that they gave me. I literally put myself in their shoes.

    At that time, my Russian friends met with me at great personal risk, as recurrent unofficial meetings with foreigners almost certainly meant a visit from the KGB.  My friends paid a price.

    It was at this moment that I realized I had to try to do something, I didn’t know how or what or where it would lead me, I just knew that I had to try to do something about this insane disconnect between my experience with my Russian friends and the thousands of nuclear weapons our two countries had pointed at each other.

    What drove you to start the U.S.-USSR Youth Exchange Program? What was your ultimate goal, and do you feel you achieved it?

    I returned to Russia for the second time in 1980 to teach American culture in Soviet schools. My Soviet high school students demonstrated an unbridled enthusiasm, dedication, passion and curiosity for learning about the U.S. and what life was like for their American counterparts. I could see that enemy stereotypes had not yet poisoned their minds. One day I showed my students a film about teenagers surviving together in the wilderness on an Outward Bound program. They told me they dreamed of meeting American teenagers, of joining them in the wilderness, and one day, maybe even traveling to the United States.  At the time, such contacts were essentially forbidden, and foreign travel was reserved exclusively for officials, diplomats, top athletes or cultural figures. I promised my students I would do all I could to make this possible. They inspired me to start the first US-USSR Youth Exchange Program.

    It took five years to fulfill my students’ dream, to win the trust of Soviet officials to allow Soviet and American youth to join together for a wilderness exchange experience, the first joint ascent of Mt. Elbrus, Europe’s highest peak, 18,481’ located in the Caucasus Mountains of the former USSR.

    I read in an article that when you were beginning this program people responded by saying you looked like “…a cute little girl, and it’s hard to be taken seriously in this field as a woman…” Have you been able to overcome this? 

    When I started out in the early 1980s, I was in my early twenties, and there were very few women working in the field of U.S.-Russian relations. Having been a student at Princeton, which had only recently begun admitting women, I was accustomed to being the only woman in the room much of the time, so this was not an issue for me.

    But there were ingrained prejudices that women were not to be taken seriously in male-dominated professions – both in the U.S. and the former Soviet Union.

    I was blessed to find extraordinary mentors in both countries who did not harbor these prejudices, took my work seriously, advised and supported me in carrying the work forward.

    That said, I developed an exchange program with one of the most male-dominated institutions in the former USSR, the Soviet Sports Committee, where all of my counterparts were men who initially refused to see me and ignored all of my proposals for a very long time, not just because I was a woman, but also because I was an American, a citizen of a country that was the stated enemy of the Soviet Union.

    It took five years of trust-building, knocking again and again on doors that were closed. It took persistence and patience, finding points of human connection,and the support of mentors and colleagues – men and women in both countries – to break through the barriers in the Sports Committee and finally become partners.

    Spending much of your career engaged with global diplomacy, particularly in the shadows of a possible nuclear war, what was your experience as a woman in this field?

    In the 1980s, the ever present awareness of the existential threat of nuclear war inspired millions of people around the world to join together to oppose the arms race and act to reduce the risk of nuclear war. So I found myself part of a global movement of men and women, youth and children that transcended gender, racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, socio-economic and partisan divides, one that unified into what mediation expert William Ury calls the “Third Side,” a coalition that acts to serve the shared interests of the larger community. We all had one overarching common goal in mind – preventing a nuclear war.

    Today, the public has largely forgotten the existential threat of nuclear war. My prayer is that there is global awakening to the escalating nuclear danger today, and that a new Third Side for the 21st century emerges that once again brings people from all backgrounds and all walks of life together to act now to reduce the threat of nuclear war, to work to create a more peaceful world and eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.

    How, if at all, do you feel being a woman has informed or shaped the work you did (or the perspective your took) in this field?  

    I am a mother. I have carried in my own body a fragile new life. I have nurtured a new soul on this Earth. I have a visceral connection to future generations. Having lived through the Hawaii false ballistic missile alert, I have confronted in real time, my own death, the death of my children, the possibility of the end of human civilization, the mass extinction of life on Earth. I have been shaken to the core of my being. I would like that to happen with those who are engaged in nuclear war planning, abstract discussions of megadeaths, preparations for omnicide.

    Have you ever felt undermined or silenced in professional settings purely because you’re a woman? How did you respond?

    I came of age at a time when I didn’t know a single woman, including myself, who didn’t experience some form of condescending, derisive comments, sexual innuendo or harassment in the workplace, in public and private meetings with men. In these situations, I worked to steer such conversations and experiences back to the work at hand. I looked for and found support among men who did not want to be a part of a culture that perpetuated dominance and violence over others. Ultimately, it does not matter whether you are a man or woman, what matters is whether you embrace nonviolence, whether you have respect for the dignity of each individual human being.

    What are the most important takeaways you want people to leave with after reading your piece, “Dawn of a New Armageddon”?

    My prayer is that we all receive the wake-up call, the gift that I received during the 38 minutes of the false ballistic missile alert in Hawaii. My prayer is that without having to go through it themselves, in real time, people who read the story will come to know what it’s like to feel that you’re about to be hit by a nuclear missile, what’s it like to feel that the world as we know it might be coming to an end, that everyone we know and love, everything we cherish on this Earth could be vaporized in an instant. These are unacceptable stakes.  It is omnicidal insanity to accept the nuclear world we live in. I pray that we act, as we did in the 1980s, to compel our politicians to change our nuclear policy, first to take the ten immediate steps to reduce the nuclear risk as outlined in The Nuclear Playbook on our website. I see these 10 steps as achievable, critical steps we can take now with the ultimate aim of  creating a more peaceful world where we can eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.

    How has your experience on January 13th impacted your life and/or professional goals?

    A near-death experience, they say, changes you forever. For me and hundreds of thousands of others in Hawaii, living through the 38 minutes when we felt we were about to be hit by a nuclear missile was a deeply personal near-death experience. I felt the cell-splitting terror. We all felt the fear and it led us to reach out. We all called those dearest to say, “I love you.” The experience of feeling that you are about to be hit by a nuclear missile makes it absolutely clear what is most precious. I want us to be motivated not by fear but by love. To act from our love for this precious life, for the gift of this beautiful Earth, for the joy of sitting with a child who is asking you, “Momma, where did I come from?”

    I do not want to live in a world where I have to try to explain to my daughter why we have nuclear weapons. Just try explaining MAD to a child.  They look at you like you are trying to play a trick on them. They know that it is insane. They don’t have the sophistication to delude themselves. The 38 minutes brought me back to that child-like joy. I am here!  I am still here! I am in this exquisite world. I want to take care of my children, of this Earth. I see the vibrant colors of life anew, the gift of this life. May the stories of all of us who went through the 38 minutes be heard, be taken to heart, be felt in the gut, and compel us to act now.

    Those 38 minutes woke me up. I realized that we are in great danger and we have to do something about it – that responsibility as a mother, as a human being, is with me. And it will never leave me – until we eliminate this threat.  That’s why I’ve joined forces with many others and started a campaign at nuclearwakeupcall.earth.

    Bio

    Cynthia Lazaroff is the founder of www.nuclearwakeupcall.earth.  She is a U.S.-Russian relations expert and an award-winning documentary filmmaker.  Cynthia is engaged in Track II and Track 1.5 diplomacy and mediation efforts with Russia and has founded groundbreaking U.S.-Russian exchange initiatives since the early 1980s.  She has spent the past year interviewing experts and officials in the U.S. and Russia on nuclear dangers.

    Cynthia has developed numerous film and television projects related to Russia and nuclear issues including Mother Russia for HBO, The Cuban Missile Crisis for NBC, and the award-winning mini-series Hiroshima, broadcast by Showtime on the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the bomb.  Her producing credits include the prize-winning Challenge of the Caucasus, featuring the first joint ascent of Mount Elbrus, Europe’s highest peak, by Soviet and American youth whom she co-led to the summit.

    Cynthia’s expertise on nuclear dangers made for a singular experience on January 13, 2018 when she received warning on her cell phone of a ballistic missile headed to her home in Hawaii.  While the alert turned out to be false, it was a wake-up call for Cynthia, who is determined to share her harrowing, 38 minute near-death experience that day in hopes that it will inspire others to wake up and take action to reduce the escalating and existential nuclear danger that threatens the future of all life on Earth. Her article for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists about this experience is at this link.

  • For Marshallese, Hawaii Is the Only Home We Have Left

    I am Marshallese and today is the Republic of the Marshall Island’s Independence Day. I am one of the ladies you see with the handmade dresses that looks like a muumuu but not quite. Mine is one of three Pacific Island countries that the United States government signed an international agreement with inviting us to live and work legally in the United States. The other countries are the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau. These are all different countries with different languages, cultures and institutions.

    Many newspaper articles over the last year claim that the U.S. invited us to live and work here as a way to make up for the permanent and devastating damage that the United States did to our islands from 1946-1958 when they used my homelands for nuclear bombing tests. That is only part of the story. The United States also keeps this agreement with our countries so that our governments will continue to allow the U.S. military to build and operate massive military bases on our islands.

    My family is from Bikini Atoll. This is where the United States concentrated most of its nuclear bomb testing. In fact, the largest nuclear explosions ever conducted by the U.S. military, much larger than the Hiroshima bomb, were tested in and around my family’s villages. These were mostly atmospheric tests, so the contaminated spread far and wide. Some of those nuclear tests were so powerful that entire islands were vaporized.

    The U.S. military evacuated my family twice due to the nuclear bomb testing; the first evacuation came before the nuclear bomb tests started, the second evacuation came after the U.S. military realized that they had not moved our families far enough away to keep us safe. In 1968, the United States Atomic Energy Commission announced that it was safe to resettle parts of Marshall Islands, but the International Atomic Energy Commission disputed those findings in 1994 and the families that had moved back home had to be relocated once again. The IAEA provides a good account of this history on its website.

    Even today, 55 years after the nuclear tests were stopped, many scientists and nuclear safety organizations report that it is unsafe to eat crops grown on the land there and fish from the local waters. More than a dozen of my aunties and sisters gave birth to deformed babies after the nuclear tests. This is heartbreaking for families. My family and I have given up our dream of ever returning to our ancestral village.

    But we are working hard to make a home here in Hawaii. It is hard, because many of us, especially those who faced evacuations and the devastating effects of the nuclear tests, came here with nothing but medical conditions and the will to live. Luckily, I attended a church school when I was young, so I learned English from a young age. This has helped my family through the turmoil of moving to a new country, getting a good job and helping my kids with school work.

    Like many of the immigrant groups in Hawaii, even those of us who were teachers and principals and government employees in our home country can only get the lowest, most entry level jobs when we get the United States.

    Those of us from Marshall Islands, Micronesian and Palau know that we are not yet accepted in Hawaii. We know that some people don’t like our traditional dresses and skirts, call us all “Micros” and think that we don’t know how to fit in. We are trying. We are trying hard to get an education for our kids, get medical care for our elders, and jobs that will allow us to be self-sufficient.

    So today I am celebrating my home country’s Independence Day, and on July 4 I will celebrate the U.S. Independence Day. Parts of the American National Anthem remind me a lot of home, “And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air” sound a lot like the stories my people tell of the bombings of our islands.

    Many of our kids are born and raised here in Hawaii and as a mother and grandmother, I pray every day that our kids will be accepted here and be able to live healthy, productive lives. We are working hard to learn the language and cultures here, please also learn a little about us so that we can all understand and accept each other.

    I hear people say sometimes, “why are there so many of them here? Why do they dress like that? Why don’t they just go home?” Many of us have no home left, so we are doing the best we can.

    Litha Joel Jorju is a founding member of the Maui Marshallese Women’s Club, part of Faith Action for Community Equity Maui.

  • Reflections on the Connections between the War in Iraq and Hawaii: the Stryker Brigade and the Watada Case

    Two great volcanoes comprise most of the Big Island of Hawai’i. Mauna Loa, measured by volume, is the largest mountain in the world, and Mauna Kea, if measured from the sea floor, would rank as the tallest. Both peaks are considered sacred, the realm of the gods (wao akua), not just for Hawai’ians, but throughout all of Polynesia.

    In October of 2002, the first of a series of protests against the imminent U.S. attack against Iraq took place at the Mo‘oheau Bandstand on the Hilo Bayfront. As I drove down to Hilo, I was struck by the majestic and stunning presence of Mauna Kea rising 13,792 ft. above Hilo—so unusually clear on a rare cloudless morning. It was a day that was startling in its beauty even for Hawai‘i, and as I listened to the various speakers call our attention to the horrors of what seemed about to take place in Iraq, my gaze often drifted to the tranquil bay and the waves softly rolling down on the sands below. The contrast couldn’t have been sharper between the peaceful setting of Hilo Bay and the looming war in Iraq. If it weren’t for the voices of the Hawai’ian rights activists—reminding us of the illegal overthrow of the Hawai’ian nation—I might have thought only of the profound difference between these beautiful islands and the war-torn country of Iraq. In fact, what was taking place a world away in Iraq was really not that far away at all and is, indeed, deeply connected to what happened and was still taking place in Hawai‘i. I was reminded of the “infinite extent of our relations” as Thoreau once put it, and from this perspective, the connections between the war in Iraq, the overthrow of the Hawai’ian nation, and the continuing controversy surrounding the military’s presence in Hawai‘i become more and more clear.

    The Stryker in Hawai’i Hawai’i senior Senator Daniel Inouye apparently doesn’t see these connections as is evident in a recent editorial in the Honolulu Advertiser in support of the Army’s plan to transform the 2nd Brigade in Hawai’i into a Stryker Combat Brigade.[1] The Army’s plan would involve basing about 300 Stryker vehicles at Schofield Barracks on Oahu and also expanding the Army’s Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island which the brigade will use for training. The Army’s project to bring a Stryker brigade to Hawai’i has met strong resistance for the last several years from native Hawai’ian groups as well as environmental and peace activists. In October of 2006 a federal appellate court, in response to a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit environmental group Earthjustice acting on behalf of three native Hawai’ian groups, found that the Army had violated environmental laws in not adequately considering alternatives to locating the brigade in Hawai’i.[2] The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed an April 2005 decision by U.S. District Judge David Ezra allowing the Army to proceed with its plans to bring the Stryker brigade to Hawai’i. The Army must now complete a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement assessing the feasability of alternative locations for the brigade. The appellate court decision ultimately sent the case back to Honolulu and U.S. District Judge Ezra in order to determine what an injunction must cover. On the eve of Judge Ezra’s decision Senator Inouye’s editorial appeared in which he argued that for the safety of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan “we must allow the training to resume while the Army completes the supplemental environmental study.” Not surprisingly, Judge Ezra’s decision allows for the Army’s plans to go forward while the SEIS is conducted.[3] Live fire training of the Stryker brigade is expected to commence at Pohakuloa on the Big Island in February.

    The Pohakuloa Training Area is already the largest live-fire military training area in the Pacific. It consists of approximately 109,000 acres of land that have been used for the last 60 years as a live-fire area and bombing range for an assortment of military weapons. The Strykers will come to the Big Island on the new Hawai’ian Superferry, offloading at Kawaiihae Harbor and then traveling up to Pohakuloa via a newly constructed military road. It is partly for the construction of this access road, and also to increase the training area for the Strykers, that the military’s plans include the expansion of the Pohakuloa Training Area by approximately 23,000 acres of land recently purchased from the Parker Ranch.

    Pohakuloa sits between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Even the Army acknowledges, in its Environmental Impact Statement, that “the entirety of Mauna Kea, whose southwestern slopes form part of PTA’s base, is considered holy.” Mauna Kea (The White Mountain) is associated with Poli‘ahu, the snow goddess of the summit, while Mauna Loa (The Long Mountain), last erupting as recently as 1984, is associated with Pele, the goddess of volcanic fires. The area between the two sacred mountains, considered to be a site of conflict between Poli‘ahu and Pele, is called “Pohakuloa” (The Veil that Covers the Spiritual Realm). Within the Pohakuloa Training Area there are seven stone shrines and a reported 291 archeological sites.

    By the Army’s own admission in the EIS, Pohakuloa is “spiritually and historically one of the most important places in Hawai’ian tradition and history…It is difficult to describe the emotional and spiritual link that exists between Native Hawai’ians and the natural setting. Hawai’ians generally believe that all things in nature have mana, or a certain spiritual power and life force. A custodial responsibility to preserve the natural setting is passed from generation to generation, and personal strength and spiritual well being are derived from this relationship. Because of this belief, Mauna Kea may be the most powerful and sacred natural formation in all Hawai‘i.” [4] The EIS acknowledges that there will be “significant unavoidable adverse biological impacts” upon the environment at Pohakuloa. The PTA is said, by former area commander Lt. Col. Dennis Owen, to have “the highest concentration of endangered species of any Army installation in the world.” The negative impacts will come from fires that result from live-fire training, as well as from off-road maneuvers by the Stryker vehicles that will adversely affect sensitive species and habitat. The Army also acknowledges significant negative impacts on air quality (caused by wind erosion by the off-road maneuvers of the Strykers), soil loss and soil contamination from training activities, lead and asbestos contamination caused by the construction and demolition of buildings, and destructive impacts on such cultural, historic, and archeological resources such as the Ke‘amuku Village and sacred sites such as the Pu‘ukohola Heiau.

    The Army also proposes an increase in live-fire training. This poses a significant risk, according to the EIS, to workers and army personnel from unexploded ordnance. Environmentalists have drawn attention to the danger from unexploded ordnance that litters many former military sites in Hawai‘i, as well as the military’s poor record of cleaning up these sites. The EIS states that “only simulated biological agents” will be used and that hazardous materials do not pose a significant impact. There is also some concern about the potential toxic contamination from depleted uranium since the primary armament on Stryker vehicles is the Stryker Mobile Gun System which uses ammunition made from depleted uranium. The Army has claimed that depleted uranium weapons will not be used in training at Pohakuloa, but this has hardly eased the concerns of local residents.

    While the military promises to do what it can to limit the adverse impacts from the training at Pohakuloa, it states that there is a practical limit to mitigation measures. The bottom line is that these adverse impacts and potential dangers are considered acceptable by the military.

    The issue that always looms large in the background of this controversy is the very presence of the U.S. military in Hawai‘i. For Hawai’ian sovereignty activists, the proposed expansion of the Pohakuloa Training Area is only the latest issue in a long history of U.S. military acquisitions of Hawai’ian lands—going back most notably to the 1875 “Treaty of Reciprocity” that ceded control of Pearl Harbor to the U.S. Navy. The military now controls 5 percent of land in Hawai‘i, 22 percent of O‘ahu (85,000 acres), and 4 percent of the Big Island (110,000 acres). Moreover, the proposed 23,000 acre expansion of the Pohakuloa Training Area is only about a quarter of the projected acquisition for the further development of the PTA.[5]

    It’s a sad irony that this latest land acquisition is almost the size of Kaho‘olawe (28,766 acres), the “Target Isle” used for bombing practice for nearly 50 years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Navy finally officially ceded control of Kaho‘olawe on November 11, 2003, after over two decades of protests by peace and Hawai’ian sovereignty activists. That campaign cost the lives of two Hawai’ian leaders, George Helm and Kimo Mitchell, who were lost at sea in 1977 in an effort to reach the island to protest the Navy’s occupation and bombing of the island. Their deaths became an emotional turning point in the struggle for Hawai’ian rights. Now, just as the Navy finally cedes control of Kaho‘olawe, the Army takes control of a similar-sized piece of land on the sacred slopes of Mauna Kea. It would be the largest military acquisition in Hawai‘i since WWII.

    For Hawai’ian sovereignty activists, Hawai‘i is an occupied country, and the lands in question are “stolen lands.” Though most Americans are either blissfully unaware or couldn’t care less, the sovereignty activists appear to have international law on their side. For its part, the United States government has already admitted to the illegal overthrow of the Hawai’ian nation, by issuing a formal apology by joint resolution of Congress in November of 1993 in acknowledgment of the 100th anniversary of the coup that dethroned Queen Lili’uokalani. Although the United States was the first nation to formally recognize the sovereignty of the Hawai’ian nation in 1842, it was the U.S. Navy that provided the force that enabled American business interests to dethrone the Queen in January of 1893. In recent years, experts in international law have called into question the legitimacy of “statehood” and American military occupation of Hawai’ian lands by pointing out that there is no known record of the Hawai’ian Kingdom ever relinquishing its sovereignty.

    Lessons from the war in Iraq Since that cloudless Hilo day in October of 2002, the war in Iraq has unfolded in its all-too-easily predictable catastrophe. As the violence spirals out of control and any remaining vestige of a fraudulent justification of the invasion evaporate—that Iraq is better off from having been ‘liberated’ from a despotic dictator or that the world is safer from the threat of global terrorism—the American people have slowly come to the realization that it was all a terrible mistake. It reminds me of a story I read in the paper a number of years ago when I was living in San Francisco about a jumper who had somehow managed to survive his plunge from the Golden Gate. As I remember it the hapless one said his first thought after his ill-conceived leap was “Oops, that was a mistake.” That’s about where we are today as a nation after failing to heed the warnings of so many experts and hundreds of thousands of protestors around the world and instead following the Fox News and New York Times propaganda that cheered on the Bush Administration’s leap into the abyss that is now the war in Iraq. All the head-scratching about what to do now, including the proposals of the Iraq Study Group, are nothing but the desparate flailings of one grasping at thin air after the ground has fallen away. The Bush Administration, of course, can only ‘stay the course’ and thus, with their sights now firmly set on ‘surging’ in Iraq and even more insanely on expanding the war into Iran, seems hell-bent on plunging the nation only further into the abyss.We’ve come to our “Oops” moment as a nation but we are still far from realizing just how devastating a mistake it was to launch this war.

    Senator Inouye’s editorial in support of the Stryker brigade in Hawai’i illustrates this point. The Senator writes: “Our country is at war. With the pace of operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, our Army is stretched thin. We simply cannot afford to stand down any of our forces right now.” After reminding us that he voted against the Iraq war, the Senator concludes that the “issue on the Stryker brigade should not be a referendum on the Iraq war.” Perhaps it’s the other way around, however, and that the Iraq war should be a referendum on the Stryker brigade.

    Our country is at war—but it is a war that was completely unnecessary. The United States has the most powerful military force in the world, spending more on the military than all the other nations of the world combined; and yet the United States has demonstrated a propensity to use that great military force irresponsibly and that is one of the underlying causes and certainly not the solution to the problem of terrorism. We cannot defeat the problem of terrorism by participating in terrorism and that is certainly what we are doing when we engage in unnecessary wars of aggression. Perhaps the lesson that should be drawn from the war in Iraq is that it is time to stand down all of our forces right now. The best hope for a peaceful world is for the United States to pull out of Iraq, stand down its military force, and recommit itself to the rule of law among nations.

    The United States needs to overcome its addiction to war and a good place to start would be to pull out of Iraq and to shut down the Army’s plan to base a Stryker brigade in Hawai’i. As Kyle Kajihiro, program director of the American Friends Service Committee, puts it: “The Stryker Brigade in Hawai‘i is an illegal and catastrophic project meant for use in an illegal and catastrophic war. The bitter history of the U.S. military in Hawai‘i has demonstrated that if the military gets an inch, it will take a mile, or in this case, 25,000 acres of land. We refuse to allow our sacred ‘aina to be used to perpetuate wars of aggression against other countries and peoples, or to let politicians send our loved ones to kill or be killed in such immoral and illegal wars.”[6]

    Perhaps a concern for the safety of our troops is not the primary reason behind Inouye’s support for the Stryker brigade. Obviously any training that needs to be done before the troops are withdrawn can be done at existing facilities elsewhere. Kajihiro continues: “The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that the Army failed to answer the question ‘Why Hawai‘i?’ and ordered the Army to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) that considered alternatives. But it is unlikely that another EIS will be able to honestly answer such a question that is essentially political. Stryker Brigades are in Hawai‘i and Alaska because of the power of Hawai‘i’s and Alaska’s Senators to secure ‘military pork’. Politicians cannot claim to be against the war while promoting the military expansion that drives wars.”[7]

    Perhaps the war in Iraq should be a referendum on the Stryker brigade in Hawai’i for there is a deep connection after all between the war in Iraq and the U.S. military’s presence in Hawai’i—the war in Iraq is really only the latest symptom of the same problem that led to the overthrow of the Nation of Hawai’i in 1893. Time and again U.S. military power has been used not really for the defense of ‘freedom’ but for the expansion of corporate global interests.

    War, if ever justified, should be an absolutely last resort. All peaceful means of resolving a conflict should be exhausted before resorting to war. There is every indication that the Bush Administration, acting to extend those corporate global interests, did everything they could to avoid any peaceful solution and manufacture a reason for war.

    Perhaps the problem is that it is far too easy for the United States with its overpowering military force to go to war. There obviously needs to be some greater force of restraint that would make it much harder for the nation to engage in war. Part of the problem is that too few Americans really feel the cost of war. I imagine that if professional sports were banned while the nation was at war, our leaders would make every effort to find a peaceful solution. It might seem a ridiculous suggestion to make, but obviously if it is important enough to go to war then sacrificing professional sports should be no big deal. Conversely, if it is not worth sacrificing professional sports, then it is obviously not worth going to war. Can one imagine just how long the Vietnam War would have lasted if there could be no World Series while the nation is at war? Would the nation so easily have accepted the fraudulant arguments for war and leapt off the cliff into the hell that is Iraq if there could be no Super Bowls while the nation is at war?

    The Watada Case Unfortunately, as Americans love their bread and circuses so much, the only hope for any restraint on the reckless militarism of the United States might be in the example set by the rare courage of the soldier from Hawai’i, Lt. Ehren Watada, who faces court martial for refusing deployment to Iraq. The military judge presiding over the court martial has, however, denied the attempt by Lt. Watada’s defense to ‘put the war on trial.’ The ruling by military circuit judge Lt. Col. John M. Head on January 16 denied the defense motion for a hearing on the “Nuremburg defense” thus preventing Watada’s defense from presenting evidence on the legality of the war. The highest ranking soldier to refuse deployment to Iraq, Lt. Watada has argued in his defense that according to the Nuremberg Principles and U.S. military regulations he was under oath to follow only “lawful orders” and that the war on Iraq is illegal under international treaties and under Article Six of the U.S. Constitution. Lt. Watada’s trial at Fort Lewis, Washington is set to begin on February 5. [8]

    The ruling by Judge Head conflicts with the statement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunal, that the United States must be bound by the same rule of law used to prosecute the Germans: “If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”[9] The Nuremberg trials established that soldiers are not immune from prosecution for war crimes just because they were following orders. The judgement at Nuremberg means that the common view held by Judge Head and apparently many Americans that “soldiers like Lt. Watada can’t pick and choose when to fight” is just flat out wrong. In denying the “Nuremberg defense” the military is simply setting aside the judgement at Nuremberg and ignoring Justice Jackson’s explicit statement.

    Lt. Watada’s refusal to deploy to Iraq should call to mind Thoreau’s startling words about the three ways one can serve one’s country:

    “The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, &c. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw of a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, —as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and officer-holders; —serve the state chiefly with their heads; and as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.” (Henry David Thoreau, “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, 1848.)

    Thoreau is clearly right that it is plainly wrong to think that the highest service one can give to one’s country is to serve blindly with one’s body, even if it means giving one’s life. To serve without conscience, as a mere weapon of war, is really to forsake what is highest and most human within us. To force our soldiers to surrender their conscience is not only to ignore the judgement at Nuremberg, it is also treating our soldiers like horses and dogs. Sending our troops into an unnecessary and immoral war is in fact treating them far worse than horses and dogs.

    The nation would be stronger not weaker if it recognized Lt. Watada’s right to refuse deployment to an illegal war. If Lt. Watada’s action is recognized as right, the nation would be far less prone to engage in unnecessary and immoral wars. In refusing deployment to Iraq Lt. Watada is serving the country with his conscience, and in so doing, is giving the highest service. If Lt. Watada goes to prison, as seems now very likely, he will be a powerful symbol of the injustice of the nation and its shame in ignoring the judgement at Nuremberg and refusing to remember Justice Jackson’s counsel.

    1. U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, “Don’t fence them in,” Commentary, The Honolulu Advertiser, Sunday, December 17, 2006. 2. “Stryker base here is found illegal,” The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Friday, October 6, 2006. 3. “Judge Allows Stryker training to resume,” The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Saturday, December 30, 2006. 4. Army Transformation Environmental Impact Statement, Section 8:11 Cultural Resources, p.4. 5. See Haunani-Kay Trask, “Stealing Hawai‘i: The war machine at work,” The Honolulu Weekly, July 17, 2002. 6. Kyle Kajihiro, “Aloha ‘Aina Statement on Proposed Stryker Training,” DMZ-Hawai‘i, December 18, 2006. 7. See also Jeffrey St. Clair, “The General, GM, and the Stryker,” Counterpunch, April 22/23, 2006. 8. David Krieger, “The Iraq War Goes on Trial,” Peace Journalism, January 17, 2007. 9. Robert Jackson, Minutes of Conference Session of July 23, 1945, International Conference on Military Trials : London, 1945.

     

    Timothy J. Freeman teaches philosophy at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo. He can be reached at freeman@hawaii.edu