Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

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Why the Pentagon Papers Matter Now

This article was originally published by Reader Supported News.

The declassification and online release Monday of the full original version of the Pentagon Papers – the 7,000-page top secret Pentagon study of US decision-making in Vietnam 1945-67 – comes 40 years after I gave it to 19 newspapers and to Senator Mike Gravel (minus volumes on negotiations, which I had given only to the Senate foreign relations committee). Gravel entered what I had given him in the congressional record and later published nearly all of it with Beacon Press. Together with the newspaper coverage and a government printing office (GPO) edition that was heavily redacted but overlapped the Senator Gravel edition, most of the material has been available to the public and scholars since 1971. (The negotiation volumes were declassified some years ago; the Senate, if not the Pentagon, should have released them no later than the end of the war in 1975.)

In other words, today’s declassification of the whole study comes 36 to 40 years overdue. Yet, unfortunately, it happens to be peculiarly timely that this study gets attention and goes online just now. That’s because we’re mired again in wars – especially in Afghanistan – remarkably similar to the 30-year conflict in Vietnam, and we don’t have comparable documentation and insider analysis to enlighten us on how we got here and where it’s likely to go.

What we need released this month are the Pentagon Papers of Iraq and Afghanistan (and Pakistan, Yemen and Libya). We’re not likely to get them; they probably don’t yet exist, at least in the useful form of the earlier ones. But the original studies on Vietnam are a surprisingly not-bad substitute, definitely worth learning from.

Yes, the languages and ethnicities that we don’t understand are different in the Middle East from those in Vietnam; the climate, terrain and types of ambushes are very different. But as the accounts in the Pentagon Papers explain, we face the same futile effort in Afghanistan to find and destroy nationalist guerrillas or to get them to quit fighting foreign invaders (now us) and the corrupt, ill-motivated, dope-dealing despots we support. As in Vietnam, the more troops we deploy and the more adversaries we kill (along with civilians), the quicker their losses are made good and the more their ranks grow, since it’s our very presence, our operations and our support of a regime without legitimacy that is the prime basis for their recruiting.

As for Washington, the accounts of recurrent decisions to escalate in the Pentagon Papers read like an extended prequel to Bob Woodward’s book, Obama’s War, on the prolonged internal controversies that preceded the president’s decisions to triple the size of our forces in Afghanistan. (Woodward’s book, too, is based on top secret leaks. Unfortunately, these came out after the decisions had been made, and without accompanying documentation: which it is still not too late for Woodward or his sources to give to WikiLeaks.)

In accounts of wars 40 years and half a world apart, we read of the same irresponsible, self-serving presidential and congressional objectives in prolonging and escalating an unwinnable conflict: namely, the need not to be charged with weakness by political rivals, or with losing a war that a few feckless or ambitious generals foolishly claim can be won. Putting the policy-making and the field realities together, we see the same prospect of endless, bloody stalemate – unless and until, under public pressure, Congress threatens to cut off the money (as in 1972-73), forcing the executive into a negotiated withdrawal.

To motivate voters and Congress to extricate us from these presidential wars, we need the Pentagon Papers of the Middle East wars right now. Not 40 years in the future. Not after even two or three more years of further commitment to stalemated and unjustifiable wars.

Yet, we’re not likely to get these ever within the time frame they’re needed. The WikiLeaks’ unauthorised disclosures of the last year are the first in 40 years to approach the scale of the Pentagon Papers (and even surpass them in quantity and timeliness). But unfortunately, the courageous source of these secret, field-level reports – Private Bradley Manning is the one accused, though that remains to be proven in court – did not have access to top secret, high-level recommendations, estimates and decisions.

Very, very few of those who do have such access are willing to risk their clearances and careers – and the growing possibility (under President Obama) of prosecution – by documenting to Congress and the public even policies that they personally believe are disastrous and wrongly kept secret and lied about. I was one – and far from alone – with such access and such views, as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs in the Pentagon in 1964-65. (My immediate boss John T McNaughton, Robert McNamara’s primary assistant on Vietnam, was another; as documented in the recent publication of his personal diary.)

I’ve long regretted that it didn’t even occur to me, in August 1964, to release the documents in my Pentagon safe giving the lie to claims of an “unequivocal, unprovoked” (unreal) attack on our destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf: precursors of the “evidence beyond any doubt” of nonexistent WMDs in Iraq, which manipulated Congress, once again, to pass the exact counterpart of the Tonkin Gulf resolution.

Senator Morse – one of the two senators who had voted against that unconstitutional, undated blank cheque for presidential war in 1964 – told me that if I had provided him with that evidence at the time (instead of 1969, when I finally provided it to the senate foreign relations committee, on which he had served): “The Tonkin Gulf resolution would never have gotten out of committee; and if it had been brought to the floor, it would have been voted down.”

That’s a heavy burden for me to bear: especially when I reflect that, by September, I had a drawer-full of the top secret documents (again, regrettably, not published until 1971) proving the fraudulence of Johnson’s promises of “no wider war” in his election campaign, and his actual determination to escalate a war that he privately and realistically regarded as unwinnable.

Had I or one of the scores of other officials who had the same high-level information acted then on our oath of office – which was not an oath to obey the president, nor to keep the secret that he was violating his own sworn obligations, but solely an oath “to support and defend the constitution of the United States” – that terrible war might well have been averted altogether. But to hope to have that effect, we would have needed to disclose the documents when they were current, before the escalation – not five or seven, or even two, years after the fateful commitments had been made.

A lesson to be drawn from reading the Pentagon Papers, knowing all that followed or has come out in the years since, is this. To those in the Pentagon, state department, the White House, CIA (and their counterparts in Britain and other Nato countries) who have similar access to mine then and foreknowledge of disastrous escalations in our wars in the Middle East, I would say:

Don’t make my mistake. Don’t do what I did. Don’t wait until a new war has started in Iran, until more bombs have fallen in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, Libya, Iraq or Yemen. Don’t wait until thousands more have died, before you go to the press and to Congress to tell the truth with documents that reveal lies or crimes or internal projections of costs and dangers. Don’t wait 40 years for it to be declassified, or seven years as I did for you or someone else to leak it.

The personal risks are great. But a war’s worth of lives might be saved.

June 13, 2011
Nuclear Weapons: 20 Facts They Don’t Want You to Think About
Nuclear arsenals: who wants them? – A coterie of politicians.

Why do they want them? – For the illusion of power and to feed their egos.

How do they keep them? – By fostering a culture of fear.

How do they do that? – By positing a Threatening and Unknown Future.

There are 5 primary nuclear weapons states (and four others from proliferation). The politicians of these 5 nuclear states put the future of the citizens of all the other 187 states of the UN at risk as well as their own citizens because of their insistence in keeping their nuclear arsenals.

In no case have the citizens been asked if they want these arsenals.

The reason these politicians want these Armageddon weapons is because they believe it gives them stature and power; makes them players; gets their feet under the top table. For this perceived personal benefit they are prepared to put the survival of the human race at risk.

Nuclear arsenals are the ruthless tools of power-fixated individuals.

In order to keep their arsenals, these individuals must keep the citizens in ignorance. We have a vague dread of these things and what they can do. Humanity has a residual group memory of the unspeakable suffering of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But this is very scary. We don’t want to think about it. And that suits the power junkies just fine. Ignorance is power – for the junkies – but not the citizens.

If the truth about nuclear weapons was known there would be millions demonstrating in cities round the world. The arsenals would be dismantled. (By ‘known’ is meant really known; not just an idea in our heads. Known in the way we know a loved person has died or we have been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease).

The effects of nuclear explosions on people defy the imagination and our ability (and willingness) to contemplate such degrees of human suffering. But how can we make rational judgements if we do not face the nightmarish facts?

Reciting facts will not ensure the necessary degree of knowing. But it is a start – the basis for critical evaluation.

So here are 20 facts they don’t want you to think about:-
1. There are at least 23,000 nuclear weapons (1) in existence: sufficient to wipe out the entire human population of the planet many times over.
2. Of the 23,000 nuclear weapons in existence around 2,500 are on High Alert (2). This means they are ready to be launched at a moment’s notice.
3. The missiles delivering nuclear weapons to their target travel at faster than 1000 miles in 4 minutes (3).
4. The only way our armed forces have of knowing if a nuclear attack is in progress is through an electronic early warning system. This system, like all electronic systems, is subject to malfunction.
5. When the electronic warning system signals that a nuclear attack is in progress the military chiefs of staff have a matter of minutes to decide if the warning is true or false.
6. If the chiefs of staff instruct the Prime Minister/President that an attack is in progress he has a matter of minutes to decide if this information is reliable and to press the button launching a retaliatory strike.
7. Central London would be utterly destroyed by a single megaton bomb (4).
8. One such bomb would, due to the blast alone, cause 98% deaths from Westminster to the City of London and from Lambeth to Marylebone (4).
9. A modelled attack on Detroit (5) (when the population was 1.32 million) predicted that a single 1 megaton bomb exploded above the city would cause up to 630,000 deaths and injuries from blast alone. 83% of the population would be immediately killed or injured. Many of the remaining population would die or suffer terribly from the effects of radioactive fallout.
10. One 5 megaton nuclear bomb has as much explosive power as all the explosives used in the second world war (6).
11. If a nuclear power station or nuclear waste disposal site were the target of a nuclear attack it has been estimated that the resulting contamination would cover an area nearly 3 times that of Wales (7).
12. Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki referred to the pain and suffering as ‘indescribable’ and ‘hell on earth’. Eventually some survivors of Hiroshima arrived in hospital elsewhere. Such was their degree of suffering that when a nurse entered the ward they screamed for her to kill them (8).
13. There have been various crises since 1945 when the world came within a hair’s breadth of nuclear war. Our luck will run out. The system is held primed at all times.
14. In one crisis a single man saved the world from destruction. If Stanislav Petrov, in 1983 had told his Russian superiors that his electronic monitors were signalling a massive nuclear attack from the US there would have been a global nuclear war (9). He did not tell them and the signals turned out to have been due to a malfunction.
15. A nuclear war would cause a blanket of particles in the atmosphere that would blot out the sun’s rays and result in the death of the vegetation on which life depends. This would be in addition to the death to people, animals and plants caused by the explosive power, the radiation and the shockwaves.
16. Each of the weapons carried on the UK Trident submarine is 7 times more destructive than the Hiroshima bomb which killed 140,000. The UK Trident submarine carries 16 Trident missiles. Each missile can contain 3 No. 100 kiloton weapons. A single submarine is designed to carry over 300 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb.
17. The nuclear weapons on a single Trident submarine can destroy over 40 million people (extrapolating from Hiroshima).
18. The UK nuclear arsenal alone has the destructive power to destroy over 80% of the 195 capital cities of the world (10, 11).
19. We in the UK have 4 Trident submarines; our ally, the US, has 14 (12).
20. Trident renewal will cost the taxpayer 97 thousand million pounds yet it is totally useless in opposing any real existing threat (13).
We ignored the threats from the banking system until the first banks started to collapse. Then we took emergency action.

We are behaving in the same way with the immeasurably more dangerous nuclear weapons arsenals. If we wait till the first nuclear weapons are launched no emergency action will help the millions of dead and dying. Our power-obsessed politicians will have done their irretrievable worst.

1. http://www.abolition2000uk.org/Blackaby%208%20final%20complete%20with%20cover.pdf

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-alert_nuclear_weapon

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:James_Kemp/Trident_missile

4. Based on medact report ‘The medical consequences of nuclear weapons’, http://www.medact.org/content/nuclear/Medical%20Consequences%20of%20Nuclear%20Weapons%2007.pdf

5. Medact report, p21

6. http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/ethics/basics/granoff_nuclear-weapons-ethics-morals-law.htm

7. Medact report, ‘The medical consequences of nuclear weapons’

8. See film ‘White |Light, Black Rain’ by Japanese director Steven Okazaki and book ‘Hibakusha’ by George Marshall and Gaynor Sekimori

9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

10. http://geography.about.com/od/countryinformation/a/capitals.htm

11. http://www.abolition2000uk.org/Blackaby%208%20final%20complete%20with%0cover.pdf

12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_(missile)

13. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/peace/trident-costs-are-running-out-control-20090917
June 10, 2011
How Many Nuclear Weapons Still Threaten Humanity?

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is one of the most authoritative institutes in the world on issues of war and peace. The recently-released 2011 SIPRI Yearbook provides estimates of the number of nuclear weapons in the world. It finds that only four countries have deployed nuclear warheads, by which it means warheads placed on missiles or located on bases with operational forces. Two of these countries are the US and Russia, which have 2,150 and 2,427 deployed nuclear weapons, respectively. Under the terms of the New Start agreement, ratified in 2010, each country is required to reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 by the year 2017. The other two countries with deployed nuclear weapons, according to SIPRI, are the UK with 160 deployed weapons and France with 290 deployed weapons.

The total number of deployed nuclear weapons in the world stands at 5,027 in 2011. Of these, SIPRI estimates that some 2,000 are kept on high operational alert, ready to be fired within moments of an order to do so.

In addition to its deployed nuclear weapons, the US has 6,350 additional weapons for a total of 8,500. Russia has 8,570 additional weapons for a total of 11,000. The UK has an additional 65 weapons for a total of 225. France has an additional 10, for a total of 300. Four other countries have only non-deployed nuclear weapons, according to SIPRI: China with 240; India with 80-100; Pakistan with 90-110; and Israel with 80.

SIPRI does not list North Korea among the countries having a stockpile of nuclear weapons, although relatively small nuclear devices have been tested by North Korea in 2006 and 2009. SIPRI acknowledges that there is a widespread belief that North Korea has separated enough plutonium for a small number of nuclear weapons, but indicates there is controversy over the amount of plutonium they have separated and the yield of their nuclear tests. They also point out that “doubts persist about whether North Korea has the design and engineering skills needed to manufacture a fully functional operational nuclear weapon.” It seems highly likely to me, however, that North Korea possesses a small number of nuclear weapons and is the ninth nuclear weapon state.

Between 2010 and 2011, the US reduced its nuclear stockpile from 9,600 to 8,500. During the same period, Russia reduced its stockpile from 12,000 to 11,000. While the US and Russia were reducing their arsenals, the UK, France, China and Israel were holding steady at lower levels. India and Pakistan, on the other hand, were increasing the sizes of their arsenals: India from 60-80 to 80-110, and Pakistan from 70-90 to 90-110. Overall, the total number of nuclear weapons in the world decreased from 22,600 to 20,530.

The trends are these: modest reductions by the US and Russia, indicating a continuing commitment to maintaining their nuclear arsenals at a relatively high level of overkill; no reductions by the UK, France, China and Israel, indicating a continuing commitment to retaining their arsenals at current levels, at least until more substantial progress in reductions is made by the US and Russia; and increases in the arsenals of India and Pakistan, indicating a continuing nuclear arms race in South Asia.

The modest reductions made by the US and Russia and the further reductions agreed to by the two countries in the New START agreement are offset by their commitments to modernizing their nuclear arsenals and improving their systems of delivery. A SIPRI media statement pointed out that “both countries currently are deploying new nuclear weapon delivery systems or have announced programs to do so, and appear determined to retain their nuclear arsenals into the indefinite future.”

Regarding India and Pakistan, the SIPRI statement pointed out that they “continue to develop new ballistic and cruise missile systems capable of delivering nuclear weapons” and that both countries “are also expanding their capacities to produce fissile material for military purposes.” Other experts have done simulations of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan with 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons and have estimated that it could lead to a blocking of sunlight and lowering of temperatures, causing widespread drought and crop failure, resulting in some one billion deaths around the world.

While there are some ten percent fewer nuclear weapons in the world from 2010 to 2011, it is not time to breathe a sigh of relief at what has been accomplished. The overall trend is toward fewer nuclear weapons, but weapons and delivery systems that are more highly modernized – what the US refers to for itself as a “safe, secure and effective nuclear stockpile.” In reality, the only type of stockpile that will meet the criteria of being “safe, secure and effective” will be a global stockpile of zero nuclear weapons. Any number other than zero will continue to present unacceptable risks to humanity. What is needed now is a new treaty, a Nuclear Weapons Convention, for the “safe, secure and effective” elimination of all nuclear weapons. The US and Russia, the countries with the largest nuclear arsenals, should be providing the leadership to achieve this goal.

June 9, 2011
What Nuclear Weapons Teach Us About Ourselves

Nuclear weapons are the most fearsome and destructive killing devices yet created by the human species. They have the capacity to destroy cities, countries and civilization. Yet, although these weapons give rise to some concern and worry, most humans on the planet are complacent about the inherent dangers of these weapons. It is worth exploring what our seeming indifference toward these weapons of mass annihilation teaches us about ourselves, and how we might remedy our malaise.

1. We are ill-informed. We appear to go about our daily lives with a self-assured degree of comfort that we will not be affected by the dangers of the weapons. We need more education about the extreme dangers and risks posed by nuclear weapons.

2. We are tribal. We divide ourselves into national tribes and identify with our own tribe while demonizing “the other.” We need to be more global in our thinking. We need to think as members of the human species, not as members of a national tribe.

3. We are self-serving. We see our own nuclear weapons and those of our allies as being positive and useful, while we view the nuclear weapons of our enemies as being negative and harmful. We need to realize that nuclear weapons, as instruments of indiscriminate mass destruction, are illegal, immoral and dangerous in any hands, including our own.

4. We are arrogant. We seem to take perverse pride in our cleverness at having created such overwhelmingly powerful weapons. We need to take pride in constructive uses of our science-based technologies, and recognize the inherent dangers and immorality of their destructive uses.

5. We are pathological. We rely for our protection upon these weapons that threaten to kill millions of innocent civilians. We need to realize that true security cannot be based upon the threat of mass murder of innocents.

6. We are deluded. We believe that we will not survive threats from “the other” if we do not rely upon these weapons of mass annihilation for our security. We need to engage “the other” in dialogue until we realize that our common humanity supersedes our differences, and our common future demands our unity.

7. We are reckless. We are willing to bet the human species and the human future that we can keep these weapons under control. We need to stop playing Russian roulette with the human future.

8. We are foolish. We trust our leaders to act responsibly, so as to keep nuclear weapons under control. We need to realize that this is too great a responsibility for any person and that all leaders do not act responsibly at all times.

9. We are timid. We do not challenge the status quo, which gives rise to such extreme dangers. We need to confront the challenges posed by nuclear weapons and give voice to our legitimate fears of the weapons themselves.

10. We are adolescent. As a species, we have not matured to the point of taking responsibility for, and directly confronting, the nuclear threat to ourselves and future generations. We need to grow up and take responsibility to assure our common future for ourselves and generations yet unborn.

Individually and collectively, we are threatened by nuclear weapons in the arsenals of nine countries. If we fail to act expeditiously to abolish these arsenals, the consequence is likely to be nuclear weapons proliferation to other countries and eventually their use. The question that confronts humanity is: Can we end the nuclear era and ensure our survival as a species? To do this, we will need to change our thinking about the weapons and about ourselves. I think this is what Albert Einstein was alluding to when he said, “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Preventing such catastrophes must begin with changing our thinking, followed by engaging in actions to end the danger. Species-wide threats must be faced with species-wide awareness and engagement.

The further question that awaits an answer, assuming we can change our modes of thinking, is whether we are sufficiently powerful to control and eliminate the threats posed by the weapons. Individually we are not and nationally we are not. But collectively and globally we have the potential to assert a constructive power for change that is far greater than the destructive power of the weapons themselves.

May 24, 2011
Militarist Madness

This article was originally published on the History News Network.

Despite the vast rivers of blood and treasure poured into wars over the centuries, the nations of the world continue to enhance their military might.

According to a recent report from the prestigious Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), world military expenditures grew to a record $1.63 trillion in 2010. Middle East nations alone spent $111 billion on the military, with Saudi Arabia leading the way.

Arms sales have also reached record heights. SIPRI’s Top 100 of the world’s arms-producing companies sold $401 billion in weaponry during 2009 (the latest year for which figures are available), a real dollar increase of eight percent over the preceding year and 59 percent since 2002. These military companies do a particularly brisk business overseas, where they engage in fierce battles for weapons contracts. “There is intense competition between suppliers for big-ticket deals in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America,” reports Dr. Paul Holtom, Director of the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program. Until recently, in fact, defense contractors scrambled vigorously to sell arms to Libya.

In numerous ways, the United States is at the head of the pack. Of the $20.6 billion increase in world military expenditures during 2010, the U.S. government accounted for $19.6 billion. Indeed, between 2001 and 2010, the U.S. government increased its military spending by 81 percent. As a result, it now accounts for about 43 percent of global military spending, some six times that of its nearest military rival, China.

U.S. weapons producers are also world leaders. According to SIPRI, 45 of its Top 100 weapons-manufacturers are based in the United States. In 2009, they generated nearly $247 billion in weapons sales—nearly 62 percent of income produced by the Top 100. Not surprisingly, the United States is also the world’s leading exporter of military equipment, accounting for 30 percent of global arms exports in the 2006-2010 period.

Being Number 1 might be exciting, even thrilling, among children. But adults might well ask if the benefits are worth the cost. Are they?

Let’s take a look at the issue of terrorism. Much of the last decade’s huge military buildup by the United States was called for in the context of what President George W. Bush called the “War on Terror.” And the costs, thus far, have been high, including an estimated $1.19 trillion that Americans have paid for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus thousands of Americans and vast numbers of Afghans and Iraqis who have been slaughtered. By contrast, the benefits are certainly dubious. Neither war resulted in the capture or killing of the terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden, who was tracked down in another country thanks to years of painstaking intelligence work and dispatched by a quick commando raid. Wouldn’t Americans (and people in other lands) be a lot safer from terrorism with fewer wars and better intelligence?

Of course, there is also the broader national security picture. Even without terrorism, the world is a dangerous place. War is certainly a hardy perennial. Nevertheless, simply increasing national military spending does not make nations safer. After all, when one country engages in a military buildup, others—frightened by this buildup—often do so as well. The result of this arms race is all too often international conflict and war. Wouldn’t nations be more secure if they worked harder at cooperating with one another rather than at threatening one another with military might? Even if they were not the best of friends, they might find it to their mutual advantage to agree to decrease their military spending by an equal percentage, thus retaining the current military balance among them. Also, they could begin turning over a broader range of international security issues to the United Nations.

Maintaining a vast military apparatus also starves other areas of a society. Currently, in the United States, most federal discretionary spending goes for war and preparations for war—and this despite an ongoing crisis over unemployment and a stagnating economy. Continuing this pattern, the Obama administration’s proposed federal budget for fiscal 2012, while increasing military spending, calls for sharp cuts in funding for education, income security, food safety, and environmental protection. Even as congress wrestles with the thorny issue of priorities, huge numbers of teachers, firemen, health care workers, social workers, policemen, and others—told that government revenues are no longer sufficient to fund their services—are being dismissed from their jobs. Other public servants are having their salaries and benefits slashed. Social welfare institutions are being closed. Thus, instead of defending the home front in the United States, the immensely costly U.S. military apparatus is helping to gut it.

Ultimately, as many people have learned through bitter experience, militarism undermines both peace and prosperity. Perhaps it’s time for government officials to learn this fact.

May 23, 2011
Climate Change, Nuclear Risks and Nuclear Disarmament: From Security Threats to Sustainable Peace

2011_05_17_scheffran_climate.pdf

May 17, 2011
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

One of the strong focuses of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is Peace Leadership. Since the creation of the Foundation, we have encouraged leadership for peace and tried to shine a light on it. For 28 years, we have given an annual award for Distinguished Peace Leadership to some of the greatest Peace Leaders of our time. In giving these awards, our purpose has been not only to honor outstanding peace leaders, but to inspire others, particularly young people, to greater commitment in building a more peaceful and decent world.

In 1990, we had the great pleasure of honoring Archbishop Tutu. Actually, the honor we bestowed upon him paled in comparison to the honor he bestowed upon us by accepting. His acceptance speech upon receiving our award was entitled “God’s Dream,” and was published in the Foundation’s anthology, Waging Peace II.

In his acceptance speech, Archbishop Tutu pointed out, “A minute fraction of what nations spend on their budgets of death would be enough to ensure that children everywhere had adequate housing, a clean supply of water, adequate health facilities, and proper education. People would live with a sense of fulfillment and not labor under stressful anxiety that is caused by the uncertainties of what the future holds. Many, especially young people, ask whether life is worth living when it is lived under the shadow of the mushroom cloud.”

Though more than 20 years have passed since he uttered those words and since the Cold War ended, we and our children continue to live under that mushroom cloud and we continue to spend vast amounts globally on our militaries rather than on our common good. We fight unnecessary wars and develop new instruments of long-distance killing rather than building a world we can be proud to pass on to our children.

Archbishop Tutu is one of the great men of our time. He played a leading role in the movement to end apartheid in South Africa. He then led the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, bringing a new process for healing to his country and to the world. The world badly needs such social innovation to keep pace with the technological innovations that have put civilization and humankind in danger of annihilation.

For over 20 years, the Archbishop has served on the Advisory Council of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, where he has offered his advice and support. In 2002, Archbishop Tutu wrote the foreword for an anthology connected with the Foundation’s twentieth anniversary, Hope in a Dark Time. In his foreword, he wrote:

“I have had many blessings in my life. One of the greatest of these has been to witness the power of forgiveness. In the aftermath of the apartheid regime in South Africa, we chose the path of forgiveness and reconciliation. As the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I learned first-hand the transformative nature of forgiveness. It is a power that can cleanse the human heart and free us from hatred and bloodlust. I am convinced there is no future without forgiveness, and in forgiveness there is hope we can put an end to wars and violence.”

Archbishop Tutu is the Archbishop emeritus of Capetown. Among his many honors, he is a Nobel Peace Laureate. He is a humble and decent man, a man who makes us proud of our common humanity and inspires us to be better and to build a better world.

May 12, 2011
How Wars Are Made

The first step is always to prepare for war by making weapons and teaching young people to march, turn on command to the left and to the right, and fire their weapons at pop-up enemies.

The second step is to find a suitable enemy. This has never been difficult. Any country, any group can be turned into an enemy with the right approach. It is only a matter of perspective.

The third step is to dehumanize the enemy, the less human the better. Enemies should never have normal human feelings, such as love, compassion and sorrow. They must be made to seem stripped of such capacities and turned into grotesque and mean-spirited monsters.

The fourth step is to inspire our young people to kill the enemy. This is not hard and is best done with flags, parades and appeals to country and heroism. The young should be excited to kill. They will be killing the killers who want to kill them.

The beauty of the system is that it is perpetual. By sending out our young men and women to kill the enemy, we will be making new enemies, justifying our need to prepare for war. And as the enemy sends out their young to kill ours, they will be confirming our belief in their inhumanity.

May 4, 2011
Earth Day

I keep thinking that Earth Day should be about something far more profound than recycling. Not that recycling isn’t good. It’s just not good enough. We humans are destroying our earth: using up its topsoil, devouring its precious resources, polluting its air and water, altering its climate. And we are bombing and shelling the earth and each other with our wasteful and destructive military technologies. In short, we are behaving extremely badly and fouling our own nest. And we are doing this not only to ourselves, but to future generations.

Earth Day should be a spiritual day, a day of appreciation and thanksgiving for the earth’s abundance and beauty. We should stand in awe of the miracle of the earth and its myriad forms of life, including ourselves. We should kneel before the majesty and uniqueness of our planet. We should be humbled by the gift of this water planet and treat it with the care and love it deserves, not only on Earth Day, but every day.

How did we become destroyers of our planetary home, rather than its guardians? How did we become the spoilers of the future, rather than its trustees? We did it in part with our arbitrary lines that we call borders. We did it with our greed and selfishness, and with our lack of wonder and our lost hope. We did it by our unquenchable thirst for more and more, and by losing sight of fairness and decency. We did it by taking and not giving back. What is destroying the earth? It is us, and only us, collectively.

We seem to care more for material things than we do for each other. We associate richness with an abundance of things, and poverty with a scarcity of things. We are losing the arts of contemplation, communication, and care. We are failing in courage, compassion and commitment. Earth Day could be a beginning point in time for becoming who we could be: vibrant and creative citizens of earth, living in joy and harmony with the earth and each other. What can save the earth? It is us, and only us, collectively.

We live in the Nuclear Age, and nuclear weapons are the ultimate symbol of our lost connection to the earth, ourselves and each other. We have reached the point in our evolution, or devolution, at which we are willing to destroy the planet to provide ourselves with the illusion of security. Why don’t we commit this Earth Day to ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and all life? Why don’t we bring the Nuclear Age to an end and begin a new age of dignity, decency, responsibility and respect for life?

*To read the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, click here.

Vaya aquí para la versión española.

April 20, 2011
Nuclear Disarmament Education

What is nuclear disarmament education?

The short answer to this question is that it is education that either reports on or promotes nuclear disarmament. Reporting on nuclear disarmament is journalistic. It tells what has happened, is happening or is expected to happen in the nuclear disarmament field. Reporting on nuclear disarmament is the way the subject might be handled in a college classroom or in a news article. It provides historical perspective, but often a nationalistic one.

The promotion of nuclear disarmament is far more difficult and also far more important. It involves attempting to shift mindsets and cultural frameworks. There are many myths about nuclear weapons that must be overcome before one can effectively promote nuclear disarmament.

Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons

1. The use of nuclear weapons ended World War II. (Their use coincided with the end of World War II, but did not cause it. The Japanese surrendered because the Soviet Union entered the war against them.)

2. Nuclear weapons have prevented war since their creation. (Again, causality is an issue. Despite nuclear weapons, there have been many wars since their creation.)

3. No country will actually use nuclear weapons. (Countries have come very close to using nuclear weapons, by accident or design, on many occasions.)

4. Nuclear weapons make a country more secure. (Arguably, nuclear weapons make a country far less secure. All countries with nuclear weapons are targeted by the nuclear weapons of other countries.)

5. Nuclear weapons are effective for deterrence. (Nuclear deterrence is only a theory. It is not proven, and it may fail catastrophically.)

Before people will support nuclear disarmament, they must be educated to believe that nuclear disarmament is in their interest. Some people must be moved from their support for nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence to support for nuclear disarmament. Other people, probably a far larger category, must be moved from complacency to support nuclear disarmament. Education must be aimed at overcoming ignorance and apathy to awaken and engage people in action for nuclear disarmament. In this sense, education must also be advocacy.

Much nuclear disarmament education comes from governments and political leaders, and it is quite limited in its vision. It seeks incremental steps in arms control rather than disarmament or abolition. Arms control can be viewed as a way to maintain nuclear arms at somewhat lower levels. I prefer to talk and write about reasons to oppose or abolish nuclear weapons.

Ten Reasons to Oppose Nuclear Weapons

1. They are long-distance killing machines incapable of discriminating between soldiers and civilians, the aged and the newly born, or between men, women and children.   As such, they are instruments of dehumanization as well as annihilation.

2. They threaten the destruction of cities, countries and civilization; of all that is sacred, of all that is human, of all that exists. Nuclear war could cause deadly climate change, putting human existence at risk.

3. They threaten to foreclose the future, negating our common responsibility to future generations.

4. They make cowards of their possessors, and in their use there can be no decency or honor. This was recognized by most of the leading US military leaders of World War II, including General Dwight Eisenhower, General Hap Arnold, and Admiral William Leahy.

5. They divide the world’s nations into nuclear “haves” and “have-nots,” bestowing false and unwarranted prestige and privilege on those that possess them.

6. They are a distortion of science and technology, siphoning off our scientific and technological resources and twisting our knowledge of nature to destructive purposes.

7. They mock international law, displacing it with an allegiance to raw power. The International Court of Justice has ruled that the threat or use of nuclear weapons is generally illegal and any use that violated international humanitarian law would be illegal. It is virtually impossible to imagine a threat or use of nuclear weapons that would not violate international humanitarian law (fail to discriminate between soldiers and civilians, cause unnecessary suffering or be disproportionate to a preceding attack).

8. They waste our resources on the development of instruments of annihilation. The United States alone has spent over $7.5 trillion on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems since the onset of the Nuclear Age.

9. They concentrate power in the hands of a small group of individuals and, in doing so, undermine democracy.

10. They are morally abhorrent, as recognized by virtually every religious organization, and their mere existence corrupts our humanity.

These ten reasons to abolish nuclear weapons attempt to change a person’s mindset to become receptive to seeking the abolition of these weapons.

How can we engage in nuclear disarmament education?

Disarmament education generally takes place in the public arena, and thus is often dominated by the narrow and self-interested views of political leaders. In a world of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots,” it is often the nuclear “haves” that dominate the debate. But it is the nuclear “have-nots,” along with civil society that see the dangers of nuclear weapons most clearly and who promote nuclear disarmament.

Let me describe some of disarmament education activities of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, an organization that I helped to found 28 years ago and where I have served as president since its founding. Here are some of the educational activities we engage in to make the case for nuclear disarmament and the abolition of nuclear weapons:

1. Appeals, Declarations and Petitions (our latest Declaration is the Santa Barbara Declaration – Reject Nuclear Deterrence: An Urgent Call to Action)
2. Newspaper opinion pieces and magazine articles
3. Books, book chapters and briefing booklets
4. Websites (WagingPeace.org and NuclearFiles.org)
5. A monthly e-newsletter, The Sunflower
6. Public lectures and other events
7. Essay and video contests
8. Poetry contests
9. Peace leadership awards
10. An Action Alert Network
11. Peace leadership trainings

You can find out more about these educational activities and sign up for them at www.wagingpeace.org.

The task of nuclear disarmament education is clearly not an easy one, but it is a necessary one. Nuclear disarmament will require an informed public, and an informed public will require education to stir them from their ignorance and apathy. To accomplish this will continue to require a great deal of creativity, as well as insistence and persistence to move both the public and political leaders to action. Civil society organizations are in the vanguard in this critical educational effort.

April 15, 2011