Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: protest

  • Defying the Nuclear Sword

    Defying the Nuclear Sword

    This article was originally published by Common Dreams, and is re-posted under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

    “. . . and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

    These lost words — Isaiah 2:4 — are nearly 3,000 years old. Did they ever have political traction? To believe them today, and act on them, is to wind up facing 25 years in prison. This is how far we haven’t come over the course of what is called “civilization.”

    Meet the Kings Bay Plowshares 7: Liz McAlister, Steve Kelly, Martha Hennessy, Patrick O’Neill, Clare Grady, Carmen Trotta and Mark Colville. These seven men and women, Catholic peace activists ranging in age from their mid-50s to late 70s, cut open the future, you might say, with a pair of bolt cutters a year and a half ago—actually they cut open a wire fence—and, oh my God, entered the Kings Bay Naval Base, in St. Mary’s, Ga., without permission.

    The Kings Bay Naval base, Atlantic home port of the country’s Trident nuclear missile-carrying submarines, is the largest nuclear submarine base in the world.

    Photo courtesy of Kings Bay Plowshares 7 (www.kingsbayplowshares7.org)

    The seven committed their act of symbolic disarmament on April 4, 2018, the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Here’s what they did, according to the Plowshares 7 website: “Carrying hammers and baby bottles of their own blood,” they went to three sites on the base—the administration building, a monument to the D5 Trident nuclear missile and the nuclear weapons storage bunkers—cordoned off the bunkers with crime scene tape, poured their blood on the ground and hung banners, one of which contained an MLK quote: “The ultimate logic of racism is genocide.” Another banner read: “The ultimate logic of Trident is omnicide.”

    They also spray-painted some slogans (such as “May love disarm us all”), left behind a copy of Daniel Ellsberg’s book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, and, oh yeah, issued an indictment of the U.S. military for violating the 1968 U.N. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed by 190 countries (including the United States).

    Article VI of the treaty reads: “Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

    Then they waited to be arrested.

    The plowshares movement has been taking actions like this since 1980. The Kings Bay action was approximately the hundredth.

    Three of the seven have been in prison ever since, and the other four, who were able to make bail, have had to wear ankle bracelets, limiting and monitoring their movement. In early August—indeed, between the anniversaries of the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the seven testified at a U.S. District Court hearing in Brunswick, Ga. The charges were not dismissed and their trial date is set for Oct. 21.

    What will happen, of course, is anyone’s guess. One of the defendants, Martha Hennessy (granddaughter of Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day), put the question this way: “Will we be allowed to speak?”

    That is to say, will the judge give the defendants and their legal team a chance to open the case to the size of humanity’s future—the omnicidal danger represented by the nuclear weapons in U.S. possession — or will she insist on limiting the case to the matter of trespassing and damaging (or belittling) government property?

    “We took these actions to say the violence stops here, the perpetual war stops here—at Kings Bay, and all the despair it represents,” said defendant Clare Grady. “We took these actions grounded in faith and the belief that Jesus meant what He said when He said, ‘Love your enemies,’ and in so doing offers us our only option for hope.”

    In other words, will this trial truly be equal to the “crime” that it’s about? The crime is the possibility of nuclear annihilation, the death of hundreds of millions of people — and the fact that there is no way to hold a nation accountable . . . at least not this nation . . . for its arrogant possession and ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction.

    Just for a moment, try to imagine national policy based on “love your enemies.”

    The mind stops, crying out: Are you kidding me? What could possibly seem more absurd? What could possibly ignite more cynicism? Hitler, Munich, blah blah blah. National policy, especially for the world’s dominant superpower, is based on the threat of unrelenting force. O Kings Bay Plowshares 7, what were you thinking? Globally speaking, nothing but force is possible, or imaginable without a dismissive snort.

    But then a pause sets in: “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares.”

    This concept, bigger than any specific religion, has failed (so far) to alter history. Preparing for and waging war has dominated human collective action throughout recorded history, and for nearly three-quarters of a century now, the human race (or a fragment of it), has been in possession of weapons of mass destruction, and some of the guardians continually plan to use them.

    Here, for instance, is a single sentence from the Nuclear Operations Handbook, which was mistakenly uploaded by the Pentagon last June, then quickly removed from public access, but not  before the Federation of American Scientists got ahold of it and reposted it: “Nuclear forces must be prepared to achieve the strategic objectives defined by the President.”

    Strategic objectives? Our current president, the guy with access to the button, recently suggested nuking hurricanes, a preposterous idea that would essentially use their winds to spread radiation. “Usable nukes” are being developed, and the United States is a country married to endless war, not to mention gerrymandering, voter suppression and a commitment to making certain that peace remains politically marginalized and beyond the reach of public opinion — thus guaranteeing that there is no way to bring political accountability to our insane nuclear stockpile.

    Enter the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, trespassing in defiance of this crime against the future. Ordinary citizens have begun to hold the nation, and its military, accountable.

    For more information about the Kings Bay Plowshares 7, click here.

  • Why Is There So Little Popular Protest Against Today’s Threats of Nuclear War?

    This article was originally published by LA Progressive.

    In recent weeks, the people of the world have been treated to yet another display of the kind of nuclear insanity that has broken out periodically ever since 1945 and the dawn of the nuclear era.

    On April 11, Donald Trump, irked by North Korea’s continued tests of nuclear weapons and missiles, tweeted that “North Korea is looking for trouble.” If China does not “help,” then “we will solve the problem without them.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un responded by announcing that, in the event of a U.S. military attack, his country would not scruple at launching a nuclear strike at U.S. forces. In turn, Trump declared: “We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. We have the best military people on earth.”

    During the following days, the governments of both nuclear-armed nations escalated their threats. Dispatched to South Korea, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence declared that “the era of strategic patience is over,” and warned: “All options are on the table.” Not to be outdone, North Korea’s deputy representative to the United Nations told a press conference that “thermonuclear war may break out at any moment.” Any missile or nuclear strike by the United States would be responded to “in kind.” Several days later, the North Korean government warned of a “super-mighty preemptive strike” that would reduce U.S. military forces in South Korea and on the U.S. mainland “to ashes.” The United States and its allies, said the official statement, “should not mess with us.”

    Curiously, this North Korean statement echoed the Trump promise during his presidential campaign that he would build a U.S. military machine “so big, powerful, and strong that no one will mess with us.” The fact that both Trump and Kim are being “messed with” despite their possession of very powerful armed forces, including nuclear weapons, seems to have eluded both men, who continue their deadly game of nuclear threat and bluster.

    And what is the response of the public to these two erratic government leaders behaving in this reckless fashion and threatening war, including nuclear war? It is remarkably subdued. People read about the situation in newspapers or watch it on the television news, while comedians joke about the madness of it all. Oh, yes, peace and disarmament organizations condemn the escalating military confrontation and outline reasonable diplomatic alternatives. But such organizations are unable to mobilize the vast numbers of people around the world necessary to shake some sense into these overwrought government officials.

    The situation was very different in the 1980s, when organizations like the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign (in the United States), the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (in Britain), and similar groups around the world were able to engage millions of people in protest against the nuclear recklessness of the U.S. and Soviet governments―protest that played a key role in curbing the nuclear arms race and preventing nuclear war.

    So why is there so little public protest today?

    One factor is certainly the public’s preoccupation with other important issues, among them climate change, immigration, terrorism, criminal justice, civil liberties, and economic inequality.

    Another appears to be a sense of fatalism. Many people believe that Kim and Trump are too irrational to respond to reason and too autocratic to give way to public pressure.

    Yet another factor is the belief of Americans and Europeans that their countries are safe from a North Korean attack. Yes, many people will die in a new Korean War, especially one fought with nuclear weapons, but they will be “only” Koreans.

    In addition, many people credit the absence of nuclear war since 1945 to nuclear deterrence. Thus, they assume that nuclear-armed nations will not fight a nuclear war among themselves.

    Finally―and perhaps most significantly―people are reluctant to think about nuclear war. After all, it means death and destruction at an unbearable level of horror. Therefore, it’s much easier to simply forget about it.

    Of course, even if these factors explain the public’s passivity in the face of a looming nuclear catastrophe, they do not justify it. After all, people can concern themselves with more than one issue at a time, public officials are often more malleable than assumed, accepting the mass slaughter of Koreans is unconscionable, and if nuclear deterrence really worked, the U.S. government would be far less worried about other nations (including North Korea) developing nuclear weapons. Also, problems―including the problem posed by nuclear weapons―do not simply disappear when people ignore them.

    It would be a terrible thing if it takes a disastrous nuclear war between the United States and North Korea to convince people that nuclear war is simply unacceptable. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should already have convinced us of that.

    Dr. Lawrence Wittner (http://www.lawrenceswittner.com) is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. He is the author of Confronting the Bomb (Stanford University Press).

  • The Demonstrations in Mexico: Human Rivers that Feed the Ocean of Democracy

    Vaya aqui para la version espanola.

    With a firm pace, due to the conviction of their cause, the crowd fills the streets of the great Mexican metropolis, Mexico City that is the capital of the country. Their faces reflect pain, despair, anguish, but at the same time hope that their voices will be heard at last!  They are demanding the return of 43 students kidnapped more than 40 days ago. Many are parents and families of these young, soon to be teachers that on the night of September 26, 2014, disappeared by a coordinated and orderly police action taken by the office of the Mayor of the city of Iguala, Guerrero. This city is the cradle of the Mexican flag and the Plan of Iguala, of February 24, 1824, that consolidated the independence of Mexico. It is located about 100 miles from the famous tourist port of Acapulco and a similar distance from the capital of the nation.

    In a report read on 8 November, the Attorney General, Jesus Murillo Karam, says that the students may already be dead, killed by criminal groups. Their bodies were cremated and dumped in bags in a river. But at the same time he cannot guarantee the identity of these human remains. The terrible uncertainty is hurting deeply the families of these young people, and they refuse to accept these statements until the Government has secured the identification of the remains.

    This is not an unheard of event, but a sequel repeated for decades in the history of modern Mexico.  During the last 25 years this kind of terror and injustice has prevailed in the country climbing to impressive numbers.  From the time of the presidency of Felipe Calderon (2006-2012) up to the second year of the current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, more than 100,000 people have died violently and those that have disappeared reach more than 30,000.

    This figure may be higher because many do not complain due to the terror and the complicity of the authorities. These numbers are worthy of revolutions and even international wars, but not of a nation that prides itself on being a democratic regime emerging into the world arena.

    Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said that the situation of human rights in Mexico is critical. “The rule in Mexico is impunity and Iguala’s case is extremely serious, but it is a symptom of a deeper crisis that drags Mexico in human rights,” complained José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director at HRW.

    Protests not only crowd the wide avenues and squares of the former Aztec capital; in most Mexican cities and towns citizens have come to express their anger and dissatisfaction with the way the municipal, state and federal authorities have responded to the violence and corruption. Insecurity permeates everywhere and everything.  All this continues despite the orchestrated governmental PR campaigns that have invested large sums of money for months projecting the image of the Mexican Moment, the leap of Mexico to conquer worldwide markets.

    Just last March, the TIME magazine international cover showed the young Mexican president, calling him “The Savior of Mexico”.  This caused controversy and criticism in Mexico and many voices accused TIME of having sold the cover and the very favorable article that accompanied it.  Nine months later, the same magazine in its October issue highlighted in a headline: “The apparent slaughter of dozens of students exposed corruption in the heart of Mexico”. This is a drastic change in its editorial.

    The major television networks in the United States have not reported the massive marches of the past two months. For some strange reason, ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX still have kept an ominous silence.  CNN has published some minor stories and the exception has been The New York Times, Washington Post, The New Yorker, USA Today and a couple of notes in Time. AP, Reuters and other news agencies have reported the news. European newspapers including The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais, published major reports. The European Parliament issued a statement regarding the disappearances and growing violence in Mexico and made “recommendations to the Mexican government”.  In Germany, many voices were raised demanding that the government of Angela Merkel review the treaty for business with Mexico to be signed in December and the suspension of arms sales to Mexico.

    Internationally renowned figures have joined their voices in protest demanding an immediate answer to the disappearance of the young students and to put an end to violence and insecurity in Mexico, as well as respect for freedom of expression.  The murders and disappearances of journalists and advocates for social and environmental causes in Mexico continue to occur every other day, making the country a dangerous place to exercise those freedoms.

    During the march of November 5, 2014, in the city of Mexico, Jody Williams, the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, said, “The crisis in Mexico is not only humanitarian but political and economic. It shows in a very painful way, the political corruption”.   She reported that the organization, Nobel Women Initiative, created by the women Nobel Laureates of Peace, of which she is a member, would send a letter to President Enrique Peña and international organizations requesting the urgent solution to these problems.

    Among the many slogans heard in these democratic protests, one stands out which reflects one of the big problems that Mexico has faced throughout its history, a secular apathy and indifference due mainly to corruption and the lack of an efficient judicial system. “We are not afraid to demonstrate, we only fear that people will continue keeping silent.”

    We at NAPF join these protests and raise our voice.  We hope the Mexican Government will hear the cries of its citizens and of many other countries calling for a peaceful and effective solution to the serious problems facing the Mexican nation.

    Rubén D. Arvizu is Director for Latin America of Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.  Ambassador  Global Cities Covenant on Climate  and  Director to Latin America for Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Futures Society.  Tweet @RubenD.Arvizu

    For more information on the situation in Mexico, we recommend reading these articles.

    http://fusion.net/story/25683/the-call-for-mexicos-president-to-resign-is-growing-louder/

    http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/crisis-mexico-forty-three-missing-students-spark-revolution

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/03/mexico-president-pena-nieto-reputation-founders-failure-find-43-students

    http://aristeguinoticias.com/0711/mexico/investigaciones-del-caso-ayotzinapa-apuntan-al-homicidio-de-un-amplio-grupo-de-personas-murillo/

    http://noticias.univision.com/video/541627/2014-11-06/edicion-nocturna/videos/padre-de-ayotzi-le-sugirio-renunciar-a-pena?cmpid=Tweet:video

    http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=386781

  • The Nun Behind Bars in Brooklyn

    You could call it a homecoming of sorts, but without the welcome home party. After growing up in the shadow of Columbia University in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights, serving the Catholic Church as a biology teacher in Africa for more than 40 years, and a peace activist in Nevada, 84-year-old Sister Megan Rice has landed back in New York City. She’s at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. It’s Sunset Park, but without the grass and trees.

    Transform Now Plowshares

     

    According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Sister Megan in all probability would have served her 35-month prison sentence at Connecticut ‘s Danbury Federal Prison. But female inmates are no longer being housed in that institution. So, Danbury’s loss is Brooklyn’s gain. Sister Megan is one of 78 low security female inmates known as “cadres”. They’re not awaiting trial or transfer. They’ve been convicted and, it appears, will serve their sentences at MDC. Although the prison system classifies this kindly, grandmotherly nun as “low security”, prosecutors described her as a danger to the community during her recent Knoxville trial, and won a conviction for sabotage, which the law defines as a “federal crime of terrorism”.

    In July 2012, Sister Megan, along with two fellow peace activists, carried a Bible, candles, bread and bolt cutters into the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Y-12 processes and stores America’s highly enriched uranium, the material terrorists could use to make a dirty bomb. The facility has enough highly enriched uranium to make 10,000 nuclear bombs. Using bolt cutters the trio sliced through four chain link fences, reaching all the way to the outside walls of the building where the bomb making material is stored, before they were accosted by a single security guard. The guard took one look at Sister Megan, Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed and knew immediately they were peace protesters… and it wasn’t just because they offered him bread, instead of brandishing weapons.

    The security breach was a huge embarrassment to the federal government and sent shock waves around the world. After all, other nations send their vulnerable nuclear materials to be stored at Y-12. Several Congressional hearings examined the incident during which a number of lawmakers said America owed a debt of gratitude to Sister Megan for highlighting security flaws at Y-12 that needed to be addressed, and urgently. Nonetheless, the federal government came down hard on the three protesters charging that they had interfered with the national defense. During their trial Y-12’s federal manager, a prosecution witness, said the three damaged the facility’s credibility as the nation’s Fort Knox of uranium.

    The three activists never intended to expose security failings at Y-12, instead their protest action was designed to draw attention to the multi-trillion dollar nuclear weapons industry which, they say, is siphoning off tax payer dollars from real needs like healthcare, education, housing and jobs. The U.S. spends more on nuclear weapons than all the other countries of the world combined and four times more than Russia. Over the next 10 years additional spending is planned as the nation ramps up to modernize its entire nuclear arsenal: submarines, missiles and bombers, at a cost the Congressional Budget Office estimates to be $355 billion. The activists are members of Plowshares an international movement opposed to nuclear weapons, whose mission is the conversion of resources from weapons of mass destruction to that which is life giving and can benefit humanity.

    Since her conviction last year Sister Megan has spent time in a number of prisons in Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and now New York. She told me she ministers to the women by listening to their stories and sharing in the emotional pain. “Clearly these are the most vulnerable people in society. They are those who cannot find the jobs. The jobs are not being created, and many of them, because of that, fall into the drug industry just to survive, to buy diapers for their children. As we know the military budgets are eating up everything and have for so long,” says Sister Megan.

    Besides comforting the women trapped in the system… there are the letters. Sister Megan told me during a recent phone call from MDC Brooklyn that she does not have enough time in the day to attend to the flood of letters that are sent to her. Since she can’t respond to each one individually, she’s enlisted a circle of six friends (one jokingly describes herself as Sr. Megan’s secretary) to disseminate her response letters. Recently this circle sent out 120 letters.

    The letters are a window into her sincere spirit amid the realities of prison life:

    “I could never fully describe the kindness with which a guardian angel guard (male) walked me through “intake” in about 15 minutes, while I ate my baloney and cheese sandwich (brown bread! turkey baloney!) the first meal of the day for me except for two apples given to me by my sister passenger ‘Tiffany’ on the way from Newburgh to Brooklyn.”

    “It’s good to be 84 and the next young thing only about 70, if that! The United Nations is represented among a large population from Brooklyn, Queens, and up-state New York towns-Watertown, Ithaca, and Plattsburg-well represented with one loner from Florence, AZ.”

    From behind bars she continues to follow events in the outside world. And, ever the teacher, in her letters she counsels her supportive community on how best to keep moving forward on the issue closest to her heart:

    “And in the what can we be doing now? category, we can begin by signing the petition at www.nuclearzero.org in support of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which has filed suit in the International Court of Justice and U.S. Federal District Court against the nine nuclear- armed nations for failure to comply with their obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and customary international law to pursue negotiations for the world wide elimination of nuclear weapons.”

    From 1946 to 1968, the Marshall Islands acted as a testing ground for America’s nuclear weapons program. The U.S. detonated 67 atomic bombs during that time period which is the equivalent of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for 12 years. Castle Bravo, the largest nuclear bomb ever tested by the U.S., was 1,000 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb. Having experienced firsthand the horrible consequences of nuclear weapons, the small island nation has petitioned the World Court for an injunction to require the nuclear armed states to meet their disarmament obligations as laid out in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and under international law. The lawsuit is supported by a number of Nobel Laureates including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams. A global petition is being circulated on line for people to sign in support of the lawsuit.

    Regarding the lawsuit Sister Megan told me, “It’s marvelous news, a David and Goliath story. I really want to be able to sign something… .or if you could sign it for me?”

    Helen Young is producing the documentary “Nuclear Insecurity” on nuclear disarmament activists, including Sister Megan, and the policy experts on the frontlines of the global movement to abolish nuclear weapons.

  • Interview on Civil Resistance at Vandenberg Air Force Base

    David Krieger, Fr. Louis Vitale, Daniel Ellsberg after their arrest at VandenbergRICK WAYMAN: What made you decide after 30 years of working as President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation to get arrested protesting this missile launch?


    DAVID KRIEGER: I felt it was necessary. The leaders in charge of our nuclear policies aren’t reacting swiftly enough and with serious determination to end the intolerable threat posed by these weapons of mass annihilation, and so more is needed from citizens. This is an action I took as a citizen, which I hope says to the members of the NAPF and to the public that more is needed – that words are not sufficient. We must speak with our actions as well.


    It’s far past time that we stop accepting nuclear weapons as part of our national security strategy. Nuclear weapons do not make us more secure. They undermine the security of their possessors, and the security of innocent people throughout the world. What we know now from scientific studies is that the use of a few hundred thermonuclear weapons on cities would lead to putting smoke into the stratosphere that would block a significant percentage of sunlight from reaching the earth for 10 years or more. This would lead to crop failures and mass starvation that could result in the extinction of the human species and most other complex forms of life. How could anyone who cares about the future and cares about their children and grandchildren be indifferent to that?


    RICK WAYMAN: How did you feel when you were approaching the green line and in the act of being arrested?


    DAVID KRIEGER: I felt really good to be a part of a community of individuals willing to take risks to end the insanity of nuclear testing, nuclear threats and the ever-present danger of nuclear weapons use by accident or design. I also felt good to be taking this action with my wife and my good friend Daniel Ellsberg. Also Fr. Louis Vitale, who has set a great example as a religious and moral leader by being arrested hundreds of times for this cause; and Cindy Sheehan, a spirited woman whose son died in the Iraq War.


    RICK WAYMAN: How were you treated during your time in detention?


    DAVID KRIEGER: The young soldiers were like automatons – they were carrying out their orders to put handcuffs on us, search us and detain us, but they appeared to be ordered not to engage in conversation with us. For the most part, the soldiers were respectful, but the orders from their leaders left a lot to be desired; for example, after processing us, they dropped us off at 4:00 a.m. in an empty shopping center four or five miles from VAFB where our cars were located. This struck me as unnecessary harassment.


    RICK WAYMAN: Do you know what penalties you’re facing?


    DAVID KRIEGER: No. All I know is that they have charged us with entering military property and they told us we will be notified as to when we are to appear in federal court.


    RICK WAYMAN: Do you intend to plead guilty or not guilty?


    DAVID KRIEGER: My plan at this time is to plead not guilty by reason of necessity. I walked toward the base along with the others to try and stop a far greater crime, the reliance upon and potential use of weapons that can destroy cities, and potentially cause the extinction of complex life on the planet. With nuclear weapons we can do to ourselves what a meteor hitting the earth did to the dinosaurs. I hope that increasing numbers of people in the US and around the world will awaken to the necessity to speak out and act for nuclear weapons abolition.

  • Public Mobilization for a Nuclear-Free World

    This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.

    One of the ironies of the current international situation is that, although some government leaders now talk of building a nuclear weapons-free world, there has been limited public mobilization around that goal — at least compared to the action-packed 1980s.

    However, global public opinion is strikingly antinuclear. In December 2008, an opinion poll conducted of more than 19,000 respondents in 21 nations found that, in 20 countries, large majorities — ranging from 62 to 93 percent — favored an international agreement for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Even in Pakistan, the one holdout nation, 46 percent (a plurality) would support such an agreement. Among respondents in the nuclear powers, there was strong support for nuclear abolition. This included 62 percent of the respondents in India, 67 percent in Israel, 69 percent in Russia, 77 percent in the United States, 81 percent in Britain, 83 percent in China and 87 percent in France.   

    But public resistance to the bomb is not as strong as these poll figures seem to suggest.

    Supporting the Bomb

    For starters, a portion of society agrees with their governments that they’re safer when they are militarily powerful. Some people, of course, are simply militarists, who look approvingly upon weapons and war. Others genuinely believe in “peace through strength,” an idea championed by government officials, who play upon this theme.

    Furthermore, popular resistance to nuclear weapons tends to wane when progress toward addressing nuclear dangers occurs. For example, the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 not only halted most contamination of the Earth’s atmosphere by nuclear tests, but also convinced many people that the great powers were on the road to halting their nuclear arms race. As a result, the nuclear disarmament movement declined. A similar phenomenon occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the United States and the Soviet Union signed the INF Treaty. U.S.-Soviet nuclear confrontation eased and the Cold War came to an end. Although public protest against nuclear weapons didn’t disappear, it certainly dwindled.

    Indeed, today, the public in many nations seems complacent about the menace of nuclear weapons. While opposition to nuclear weapons is widespread, it does not run deep. For example, those people who said in late 2008 that they “strongly” favored a treaty to abolish nuclear weapons constituted only 20 percent of respondents in Pakistan, 31 percent in India, 38 percent in Russia, 39 percent in the United States, and 42 percent in Israel — although, admittedly, majorities (ranging from 55 to 60 percent) took this position in Britain, France, and China. Another sign support for a nuclear-free world is weaker than implied by its favorability ratings is that an April 2010 poll among Americans found that, although a large majority said they favored nuclear abolition, 87 percent considered this goal unrealistic.

    Yet another sign of the shallowness of popular support is that, despite widespread peace and disarmament movement efforts to mobilize supporters of nuclear abolition around the U.N.’s nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference this past May, the level of public protest fell far short of the antinuclear outpourings of the 1980s. Indeed, even with the encouragement of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the organizing efforts of numerous peace groups, the best turnout the worldwide nuclear abolition movement could manage was some 15,000 antinuclear demonstrators on May 2.

    That the nuclear disarmament issue does not have the same salience today as in earlier periods can be attributed, in part, to people feeling less directly threatened by nuclear weapons preparations and nuclear war. After all, the present U.S.-Russian nuclear confrontation seems far less dangerous than the U.S.-Soviet nuclear confrontation of the past. Today, nuclear war seems more likely to erupt in South Asia, between India and Pakistan. People living far from these nations find it easy to ignore this dangerous scenario.

    Lack of Information

    The public is also very poorly informed about what is happening with respect to nuclear weapons. Although the mass media devoted enormous air time and column space to Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons capability, they have devoted scant resources to educate the public on the nuclear weapons that do exist and on the dangers they pose to human survival. A 2010 survey of people from their teens through thirties in eight countries found that large majorities didn’t know that Russia, China, Britain, France and other nations possessed nuclear weapons. In fact, only 59 percent of American respondents knew that their own country possessed nuclear weapons. Among British respondents, just 43 percent knew that Britain maintained a nuclear arsenal.

    Public ignorance of nuclear issues occurs largely thanks to the commercial mass media’s focus on trivia and sensationalism. This emphasis on lightweight entertainment often reflects the interests of the media’s corporate owners and sponsors, who do their best to avoid fanning the flames of public discontent — or at least discontent with corporate and military elites. But the public is complicit with the blackout on nuclear matters, for many people prefer to avoid thinking about nuclear weapons and nuclear war.

    Thus, although there is widespread opposition to nuclear weapons, it lacks intensity and the global publics are ill-informed about nuclear dangers and nuclear disarmament.

    Lessons for Peace and Disarmament Groups

    The first is that nuclear disarmament and nuclear abolition have majority public support. Second, this support must be strengthened if progress is to be made toward a nuclear-free world.

    To strengthen public support, these organizations could emphasize the following themes:

    Nuclear weapons are suicidal. Numerous analysts have observed there will be no winners in a nuclear war. A nuclear exchange between nations will kill many millions of people on both sides of the conflict and leave the survivors living in a nuclear wasteland, in which — as Soviet party secretary Nikita Khrushchev once suggested — the living might well envy the dead. Even longtime nuclear enthusiast Ronald Reagan eventually concluded, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

    There are no safe havens from a nuclear war. Even in the event of a small-scale nuclear war — a regional conflict with relatively few nuclear weapons — the results would be catastrophic. A study published in the January 2010 issue of the Scientific American concluded that, should such a war occur between India and Pakistan, the consequences would not be confined to that region. The firestorms generated by the conflict would put massive amounts of smoke into the upper atmosphere and create a nuclear winter around the globe. With the sun blocked, the Earth’s surface would become cold, dark, and dry. Agriculture around the world would collapse, and mass starvation would follow.

    Nuclear weapons possession does not guarantee security. This contention defies the conventional wisdom of national security elites and a portion of the public. Yet consider the case of the United States. It was the first nation to develop atomic bombs, and for some time had a monopoly of them. In response, the Soviet government built atomic bombs. Then the two nations competed in building hydrogen bombs, guided missiles, and missiles with multiple warheads. Meanwhile, seven other nations built nuclear weapons. Each year, all these nations felt less and less secure. And they were less secure, because the more they increased their capacity to threaten others, the more they were threatened in return.

    Concurrently, these nations also found themselves entangled in bloody conventional wars. Their adversaries — the Chinese, the Koreans, the Algerians, the Vietnamese, the Afghans, the Iraqis, and other peoples — were not deterred by the nuclear weapons of their opponents. “Throughout the wide range of our foreign policies,” recalled Dean Rusk, the former U.S. Secretary of State, “I was struck by the irrelevance of nuclear weapons to decision making.”

    Nor do nuclear arsenals protect a country from external terrorist assault. On September 11, 2001, nineteen men staged the largest terrorist attack on the United States in its history. Given that terrorists are not state actors, it is difficult to imagine how nuclear weapons could be used strategically in the “war on terror” as either a deterrent or in military conflict.

    There is a significant possibility of accidental nuclear war. During the Cold War and  subsequent decades, there have been numerous false alarms about an enemy attack. Many of these came close to triggering a nuclear response, which would have had devastating consequences. In addition, emerging nuclear states may not have the same safeguards in place that were developed during the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race, widening the possibilities of an inadvertent nuclear response. Furthermore, nuclear weapons can be exploded accidentally during their maintenance or transportation.

    As long as nuclear weapons exist, there will be a temptation to use them. Warfare has been an ingrained habit for thousands of years, and it’s unlikely this practice will soon be ended. As long as wars exist, governments will be tempted to draw upon nuclear weapons to win them.

    Nuclear weapons emerged in the context of World War II. Not surprisingly, the first country to develop such weapons, the United States, used them to destroy Japanese cities. President Harry Truman later stated, when discussing his authorization of the atomic bombing, “When you have a weapon that will win the war, you’d be foolish if you didn’t use it.” Recalling his conversation with Truman about the bomb, at Potsdam, Winston Churchill wrote, “There was never a moment’s discussion as to whether the atomic bomb should be used.” It was “never even an issue.”

    Of course, nuclear-armed nations have not used nuclear weapons in war since 1945. But this reflects the effectiveness of popular pressure against nuclear war, rather than the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence. Indeed, if nuclear deterrence worked, governments would not be desperately trying to stop nuclear proliferation and deploy missile defense systems. Thus, we cannot assume that, in the context of bitter wars and threats to national survival, nuclear restraint will continue forever. Indeed, we can conclude, the longer nuclear weapons exist, the greater the possibility they will be used in war.

    As long as nuclear weapons exist, terrorists can acquire them. Terrorists cannot build nuclear weapons by themselves. The creation of such weapons requires vast resources, substantial territory and a good deal of scientific knowledge. The only way terrorists will attain a nuclear capability is by obtaining the weapons from the arsenals of the nuclear powers — either by donation, by purchase or by theft. Therefore, a nuclear-free world would end the threat of nuclear terrorism.

    Expanding educational outreach to the public along these lines will not be easy, given corporate control of the mass communications media. Nevertheless, the internet provides new possibilities for grassroots communication. Even within the corporate press, more could be done to encourage letters to the editor and the placement of op-ed pieces. In addition, nuclear disarmament groups could reach broad audiences by working through the very substantial networks of sympathetic organizations, such as religious bodies, unions, environmental groups, and professional associations.

    Intensifying the level of popular mobilization can in turn push reluctant governments further down the road toward a nuclear weapons-free world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that can do so.

  • Amazing Grace and Cindy

    Amazing Grace and Cindy

    There is a wonderful movie, Amazing Grace and Chuck, which came out in 1987. It tells the story of a star Little League pitcher, Chuck, who, along with other youngsters on a field trip visits a missile silo in his home state of Montana. Chuck is an unusually sensitive and decent young person with wisdom beyond his years and the experience makes him aware of the threat to humanity posed by nuclear weapons. Instead of remaining complacent in the face of this threat, like most Americans, Chuck commits himself to doing something about the situation. He decides to give up the most important thing in his life, baseball, in protest of nuclear weapons. He stops pitching for his Little League team until the world is on the path to eliminating these weapons.

    A lot of people in Chuck’s community become upset with him because his protest jeopardizes his team’s chances in the Little League championships. There is considerable pressure on Chuck to conform, get back to his pitching, and just get over it. Chuck is committed, though, and doesn’t capitulate to the pressure. He thinks that nuclear weapons are a real problem, not only because Americans are threatened but also because by their existence tens of million, perhaps hundreds of millions, of innocent people could be annihilated with our nuclear weapons.

    When a small article about Chuck and his protest appears in the national media, a professional basketball star, Amazing Grace, reads about it, and is sympathetic to Chuck and his courageous position. So Amazing Grace decides to join Chuck in Montana, giving up basketball in protest of the threat of US nuclear policies. He announces that he will not be rejoining his team until the problem of nuclear weapons dangers is eliminated and Chuck is willing to go back to pitching. This starts a movement among professional athletes, and pretty soon professional stars from all major sports are showing up in Montana to join Chuck in protest.

    With so many big-time athletes gathered in support of Chuck, the media has little choice but to pay attention to Chuck’s demands. Before long, Chuck’s simple wisdom has captured the imagination of people across America. He has meetings with the President, and forces the President (Gregory Peck) to implement policies leading to global nuclear disarmament.

    Chuck’s fictional story, one that every American should know about, has a lot in common with the story of Cindy Sheehan. Chuck responded to the dangers of US nuclear policies after becoming aware of them. Cindy responded to the tragedy of her son’s death as a US soldier in Iraq. Both wanted answers from the US President and both aroused interest and concern throughout the country. Chuck got his meeting with the President and the President agreed to new policies. So far, Cindy, who is camped out outside the President’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, has gotten the cold shoulder from Mr. Bush, while he tries to get on with his vacation and fundraising.

    But Cindy has put the eyes of the world on Mr. Bush and his Iraq War policies. Mr. Bush has said that US troops are dying for a “noble cause” in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan wants Mr. Bush to tell her what the “noble cause” is that her son, Casey, died for in Iraq. Cindy’s presence in Crawford reminds her fellow citizens that Mr. Bush and many of his top officials lied to the American people, the US Congress and the world about nuclear weapons in Iraq. Her presence in Crawford reminds her fellow citizens that the President is on another of his long vacations while US soldiers continue to die in Iraq. Her presence in Crawford challenges the President’s veracity, his competence and his compassion. Her presence in Crawford reveals a President lacking in the courage to answer a grieving mother’s questions about what purpose her son died for in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

    Cindy Sheehan’s stand in Crawford is sending a powerful message to the American people, just as Chuck’s fictional protest did. Cindy’s protest is forcing Americans to probe deeper and to not accept the facile responses of the administration in the increasingly deteriorating situation in Iraq. Cindy Sheehan is a true American hero, reminding us of the power of one. She is forcing Americans to wake up and pay attention to a war that is continuing to spill the blood of young Americans, drain our resources, and stretch our military to its limits. She is forcing Americans to face her grief, and that of other soldiers’ relatives, who suspect that there is no nobility in fighting and dying under the false pretenses of this war – a war that appears to many Americans to be for oil and military bases in an oil-rich country rather than for any noble cause.

    Mr. Bush owes Cindy an honest answer to her question, and the rest of America should be standing shoulder to shoulder with Cindy. It is long past time that Mr. Bush and his colleagues be held to account for their policies in Iraq. We should also be demanding that Mr. Bush provide the American people with answers to the questions the fictional Chuck posed to his President in Amazing Grace and Chuck concerning the continuing dangers of US nuclear policies and the obstacles these policies pose to global nuclear disarmament.

    Cindy Sheehan’s courage should help restore our faith in the power of individuals to speak truth to power and make a difference. Her protest is in the best traditions of this country, those of Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez. She has showered us all with her Amazing Grace.

    David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and the author of a recent book of peace poetry, Today Is Not a Good Day for War.

  • Navy Judge Finds War Protest Reasonable

    “I think that the government has successfully proved that any service member has reasonable cause to believe that the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal.” — Lt. Cmdr. Robert Klant, presiding at Pablo Paredes’ court-martial

    In a stunning blow to the Bush administration, a Navy judge gave Petty Officer 3rd Class Pablo Paredes no jail time for refusing orders to board the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard before it left San Diego with 3,000 sailors and Marines bound for the Persian Gulf on December 6th. Lt. Cmdr. Robert Klant found Pablo guilty of missing his ship’s movement by design, but dismissed the charge of unauthorized absence. Although Pablo faced one year in the brig, the judge sentenced him to two months’ restriction and three months of hard labor, and reduced his rank to seaman recruit.

    “This is a huge victory,” said Jeremy Warren, Pablo’s lawyer. “A sailor can show up on a Navy base, refuse in good conscience to board a ship bound for Iraq, and receive no time in jail,” Warren added. Although Pablo is delighted he will not to go jail, he still regrets that he was convicted of a crime. He told the judge at sentencing: “I am guilty of believing this war is illegal. I am guilty of believing war in all forms is immoral and useless, and I am guilty of believing that as a service member I have a duty to refuse to participate in this War because it is illegal.”

    Pablo maintained that transporting Marines to fight in an illegal war, and possibly to commit war crimes, would make him complicit in those crimes. He told the judge, “I believe as a member of the armed forces, beyond having a duty to my chain of command and my President, I have a higher duty to my conscience and to the supreme law of the land. Both of these higher duties dictate that I must not participate in any way, hands-on or indirect, in the current aggression that has been unleashed on Iraq.”

    Pablo said he formed his views about the illegality of the war by reading truthout.org, listening to Democracy Now!, and reading articles by Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Naomi Klein, Stephen Zunes, and Marjorie Cohn, as well as Kofi Annan’s statements that the war is illegal under the UN Charter, and material on the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals.

    I testified at Pablo’s court-martial as a defense expert on the legality of the war in Iraq, and the commission of war crimes by US forces. My testimony corroborated the reasonableness of Pablo’s beliefs. I told the judge that the war violates the United Nations Charter, which forbids the use of force, unless carried out in self-defense or with the approval of the Security Council, neither of which obtained before Bush invaded Iraq. I also said that torture and inhuman treatment, which have been documented in Iraqi prisons, constitute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, and are considered war crimes under the US War Crimes Statute. The United States has ratified both the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, making them part of the supreme law of the land under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

    I noted that the Uniform Code of Military Justice requires that all military personnel obey lawful orders. Article 92 of the UCMJ says, “A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States….” Both the Nuremberg Principles and the Army Field Manual create a duty to disobey unlawful orders. Article 509 of Field Manual 27-10, codifying another Nuremberg Principle, specifies that “following superior orders” is not a defense to the commission of war crimes, unless the accused “did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know that the act ordered was unlawful.”

    I concluded that the Iraq war is illegal. US troops who participate in the war are put in a position to commit war crimes. By boarding that ship and delivering Marines to Iraq – to fight in an illegal war, and possibly to commit war crimes – Pablo would have been complicit in those crimes. Therefore, orders to board that ship were illegal, and Pablo had a duty to disobey them.

    On cross-examination, Navy prosecutor Lt. Jonathan Freeman elicited testimony from me that the US wars in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan also violated the UN Charter, as neither was conducted in self-defense or with the blessing of the Security Council. Upon the conclusion of my testimony, the judge said, “I think that the government has successfully proved that any service member has reasonable cause to believe that the wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq were illegal.”

    The Navy prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Pablo to nine months in the brig, forfeiture of pay and benefits, and a bad conduct discharge. Lt. Brandon Hale argued that Pablo’s conduct was “egregious,” that Pablo could have “slinked away with his privately-held beliefs quietly.” The public nature of Pablo’s protest made it more serious, according to the chief prosecuting officer.

    But Pablo’s lawyer urged the judge not to punish Pablo more harshly for exercising his right of free speech. Pablo refused to board the ship not, as many others, for selfish reasons, but rather as an act of conscience, Warren said.

    “Pablo’s victory is an incredible boon to the anti-war movement,” according to Warren. Since December 6th, Pablo has had a strong support network. Camilo Mejia, a former Army infantryman who spent nine months in the brig at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for refusing to return to Iraq after a military leave, was present throughout Pablo’s court-martial. Tim Goodrich, co-founder of Iraq Veterans against the War, also attended the court-martial. “We have all been to Iraq, and we support anyone who stands in nonviolent opposition,” he said. Fernando Suárez del Solar and Cindy Sheehan, both of whom lost sons in Iraq, came to defend Pablo.

    The night before his sentencing, many spoke at a program in support of Pablo. Mejia thanked Pablo for bringing back the humanity and doubts about the war into people’s hearts. Sheehan, whose son, K.C., died two weeks after he arrived in Iraq, said, “I was told my son was killed in the war on terror. He was killed by George Bush’s war of terror on the world.”

    Aidan Delgado, who received conscientious objector status after spending nine months in Iraq, worked in the battalion headquarters at the Abu Ghraib prison. Confirming the Red Cross’s conclusion that 70 to 90 percent of the prisoners were there by mistake, Delgado said that most were suspected only of petty theft, public drunkenness, forging documents and impersonating officials. “At Abu Ghraib, we shot prisoners for protesting their conditions; four were killed,” Delgado maintained. He has photographs of troops “scooping their brains out.”

    Pablo’s application for conscientious objector status is pending. He has one year of Navy service left. If his C.O. application is granted, he could be released. Or he could receive an administrative discharge. Worst case scenario, he could be sent back to Iraq. But it is unlikely the Navy will choose to go through this again.

  • A Higher Duty

    Iraq war resister Navy sailor Pablo Paredes has been sentenced to three months of hard labor for refusing deployment to the Persian Gulf. He was also demoted from petty officer third class to seaman recruit, the lowest rank in the Navy. His lawyers call it a victory for war resisters around the country.

    Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Paredes to nine months of confinement and a bad conduct discharge.

    Paredes refused to board the USS Bonhomme Richard as it was preparing to sail from San Diego with 2,000 Marines in December. He surrendered to military authorities a few days later and applied for conscientious objector status. The Navy has denied his request but that ruling is being appealed.

    Paredes was convicted in a court-martial on May 11th on a charge of missing his deployment. Prosecutor Lt. Brandon Hale said “He is trying to infect the military with his own philosophy of disobedience.”

    On Thursday, May 12th, before sentencing, Paredes spoke to the court about his decision not to go to Iraq. He said “I feel in my mind and heart that this war is illegal and immoral.”

    The following statement was made by Pablo Paredes during his military court-martial in San Diego, California on May 12, 2005.

    Your Honor, and to all present, I’d like to state first and foremost that it has never been my intent or motivation to create a mockery of the Navy or its judicial system. I do not consider military members adversaries. I consider myself in solidarity with all service members. It is this feeling of solidarity that was at the root of my actions. I don’t pretend to be in a position to lecture anyone on what I perceive as facts concerning our current political state of affairs. I accept that it is very possible that my political perspective on this war could be wrong. I don’t think that rational people can even engage in debate if neither is willing to accept the possibility that their assertions, no matter how researched, can be tainted with inaccuracy and falsehoods. I do believe that accepting this in no way takes away from one’s confidence in their own convictions.

    I am convinced that the current war in Iraq is illegal. I am also convinced that the true causality for it lacked any high ground in the topography of morality. I believe as a member of the Armed Forces, beyond having duty to my Chain of Command and my President, I have a higher duty to my conscience and to the supreme law of the land. Both of these higher duties dictate that I must not participate in any way, hands-on or indirect, in the current aggression that has been unleashed on Iraq. In the past few months I have been continually asked if I regret my decision to refuse to board my ship and to do so publicly. I have spent hour upon hour reflecting on my decision, and I can tell you with every fiber of certitude that I possess that I feel in my heart I did the right thing.

    This does not mean I have no regrets. I regret dearly exposing the families of marines and sailors to my protest. While I do not feel my message was wrong, I know that those families were facing a difficult moment. This moment was made in some ways more difficult by my actions, and this pains me. That day on the pier, I restrained myself from answering the calls of coward and even some harsher variations of the same term. I did so because I knew this wasn’t the time to engage these families in debate. I thought that I became in many ways a forum in which to vent their fears and sadness. And I didn’t want to turn that into a combative situation in which the families were distracted more by our debate than simply empowered by their ability to chastise my actions. All that being said I still feel my actions made some people very unhappy and made others feel that I was taking away from their child’s or their husband’s goodbye, and I regret this.

    I also regret the pain and stress I have caused those near and dear to me. I know that my lawyers feel that it is ill advised of me to say these things, and I am aware of that. My lawyers have had a very difficult time with me. They also thought that it was ill advised me for me to plead not guilty. It is this I truly want to explain, both to them and to the court. I realize I did not board the Bonhomme Richard on December 6 and that I left after the ship personnel and Pier Master-at-Arms refused to arrest me. Given these confessions one may find it hard to understand why would anyone admit to the action but not plead guilty to the crime. It is this question that has also been the topic of much reflection for me.

    I never deny my actions nor do I run from their consequences. But pleading guilty is more than admission of action. It is also acceptance that that action was wrong and illegal. These are two things I do not and cannot accept. I feel, even with all the regrets and difficulties that have come as a result of my actions, that they were in fact my duty as a human being and as a service member. I feel in my mind and heart that this war is illegal and immoral. The moral argument is one that courts have little room for and has been articulated in my C.O. application. It is an argument that encompasses all wars as intolerable in my system of morals. The legal argument is quite relevant, although motions filed and approved have discriminated against it to the point it was not allowed into this trial.

    I have long now been an ardent reader of independent media, and, in my opinion, less corrupted forms of media, such as TruthOut.org, Democracy Now!, books from folks like Steven Zunes, and Chalmers Johnson, articles from people like Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein. These folks are very educated in matters of politics and are not on the payroll of any major corporate news programming, such as CNN or FOX News network. They all do what they do for reasons other than money, as they could earn much more if they joined the corporate-controlled ranks. I have come to trust their research and value their convictions in assisting me to form my own. They have all unanimously condemned this war as illegal, as well as made resources available for me to draw my own conclusions, resources like Kofi Annan’s statements on how under the U.N. Charter the Iraq War is illegal, resources like Marjorie Cohn’s countless articles providing numerous sources and reasons why the war is illegal under international, as well as domestic law. I could speak on countless sources and their arguments as to the legality of the war on Iraq quite extensively. But again, I don’t presume to be in a position to lecture anyone here on law. I mean only to provide insight on my actions on December 6.

    I understood before that date very well what the precedent was for service members participating in illegal wars. I read extensively on the arguments and results of Nazi German soldiers, as well as imperial Japanese soldiers, in the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, respectively. In all I read I came to an overwhelming conclusion supported by countless examples that any soldier who knowingly participates in an illegal war can find no haven in the fact that they were following orders, in the eyes of international law.

    Nazi aggression and imperialist Japan are very charged moments of history and simply mentioning them evokes many emotions and reminds of many atrocities. So I want to be very clear that I am in no way comparing our current government to any of the historical counterparts. I am not comparing the leaders or their acts, not their militaries nor their acts. I am only citing the trials because they are the best example of judicial precedent for what a soldier/sailor is expected to do when faced with the decision to participate or refuse to participate in what he perceives is an illegal war.

    I think we would all agree that a service member must not participate in random unprovoked illegitimate violence simply because he is ordered to. What I submit to you and the court is that I am convinced that the current war is exactly that. So, if there’s anything I could be guilty of, it is my beliefs. I am guilty of believing this war is illegal. I’m guilty of believing war in all forms is immoral and useless, and I am guilty of believing that as a service member I have a duty to refuse to participate in this war because it is illegal.

    I do not expect the court to rule on the legality of this war, nor do I expect the court to agree with me. I only wish to express my reasons and convictions surrounding my actions. I acted on my conscience. Whether right or wrong in my convictions I will be at peace knowing I followed my conscience.

  • A Great Olympic Moment

    A Great Olympic Moment

    The Olympics are always magnificent. They bring the world together. The competition of the talented young athletes demonstrates the power, speed, precision and grace of human achievement and, most of all, the beauty of the human spirit. We are reminded that we are one world, and we are capable of coming together to compete peacefully.

    In the Athens Olympics, there was a striking moment that demonstrated the power of the people. It occurred during the men’s gymnastic competition. The great Russian Olympian, Alexi Nemov was performing in the individual competition on the high bar. He performed a magnificent routine, releasing from the bar and flying over it four or five times. When he landed at the end of his routine the excitement in the room was palpable. There was a tremendous ovation.

    Then the judges’ scores came up. They were lower than the crowd in the arena thought was fair, and the people rose to their feet and jeered the scores. Many attempts were made to quiet the crowd in order for the next athlete to compete, but the people would not be silenced. They clearly believed that they had witnessed an injustice, and they were not willing to be silent in the face of this injustice.

    At this point one of the senior officials walked to the judges’ platform and spoke with two judges who had given particularly low scores. Then the scores were adjusted upward and new scores posted in the arena. But the crowd was still not fully satisfied as the scores remained below the crowd’s level of expectation for Nemov’s brilliant performance. The people continued to express their dissatisfaction.

    Then, Nemov stepped out and faced the crowd. With great humility, he gestured to the crowd to stop their protest and they responded. The arena finally quieted enough for the competition to continue.

    Why was this a great moment? Because the people spontaneously arose to protest a perceived injustice. Because the multinational crowd in the arena stood in solidarity with an athlete who they thought had been treated unfairly. Because the people in the arena that day demonstrated that their power was not to be denied. Because they showed the world that they would not be cowed by authorities, in this case the judges, from their own understanding of what is just and fair.

    If only we could learn from this great Olympic moment. People matter. Fairness matters. And there are times when it is necessary for people to raise their voices against those in power if individuals are to be protected and fairness is to be upheld.

    David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.