Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: terrorism

  • September 11 Remembrance Event at Moorpark College, CA

    Introduction

    Thank you very much for inviting me to share some thoughts with you today, the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks of one year ago.

    Last September 11 I was scheduled to facilitate a nonviolence training for activists in Orange County. It was a strange day, preparing for teaching peace to a group of people trying to make sense of what happened earlier in the day. I taught my morning nonviolence class in Ventura to high school students, and then continued as planned with the nonviolence workshop. It was healing and purposeful that a group of thirty people could gather together to focus on peaceful dialogue in the midst of such an extraordinarily disturbing day.

    Today my thoughts are with my two very good friends, Ryan and Amber Amundson as they grieve over the loss of someone very special to them. Amber and Ryan are in their mid-twenties; Amber’s husband Craig, Ryan’s brother, was killed in the attack on the Pentagon last year. Last fall Amber told me of the creativity her two children inspired in her and of the support from her family to grieve in the most healthy way she could. She told me that it would be unconscionable for her to disrespect the memory of her husband by teaching her children that revenge and retribution suffice as acceptable responses for the terrorist attacks. Instead, she has chosen a peaceful path.

    I received an email from Ryan yesterday replying to one I’d sent of prayers and thoughts during this difficult time. He and Amber participated in a Walk for Peace from Washington, DC to New York last November. They were pioneers of the phrase “Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War” just like other family members who lost loved ones on September 11, they did not want the memory of Craig to be used as justification for more war making.

    In fact, they have been at the helm of a new organization, September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group whose main message is one of peacemaking and reconciliation. In late September, Kelly Campbell, another relative of Craig Amundson will be speaking here in Ventura County.

    My thoughts are also with the families of the undocumented workers who lost their lives a year ago today and whose families are ineligible for reparations because their employers did not report them as employees.

    Aftermath of September 11

    In the year after the terrorist attacks, our country and indeed the world have seen many important changes some for the better, some for the worse. I think that there are some important questions to answer in looking at like who we are, how we see others, and how others see us.

    The following points outline a bit about who we are post-September 11:

    According to the American Psychological Association, reported post-traumatic stress disorder cases among young children have increased greatly, signifying that the attacks have left significant impressions.

    Hate crimes against people of color, especially those appearing to be of Arab or Middle Eastern descent, have increased greatly as reported by the Council on American Islamic Relations.

    The American Civil Liberties Union reports the attempts at eroding some of the freedoms and rights upheld in the US Constitution which have been met with resistance by courageous Judges throughout the country.

    The United States unilaterally backed out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June to the dismay of the international community, including the other partner to the treaty, Russia.

    Our government did not ratify in July the International Criminal Court which would help to bring to justice human rights abusers under an International tribunal including those who perpetrated the crimes against humanity on September 11.

    Attorney General John Ashcraft unilaterally restricted access to information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) last October.

    Nuclear reactors continue to be left as sitting ducks to future terrorist attacks despite agencies within our own government who have repeatedly warned about their vulnerability. In recent attempts at verifying their security, the nuclear power plants have contracted individuals contracted to attempt to infiltrate them. They have been successful on most occasions and even have been able to toss uranium components over security fences using lacrosse sticks.

    Finally, TIPS, a combined “America’s Most Wanted” and FBI scheme, has been birthed a plan to recruit 1 in 24 Americans as citizen spies giving leads to authorities on susptected terrorist activities inside the United States.

    So, in addressing the first question, “Who are we?” it seems like we are a wounded, fearful nation still recovering from a significant blow to our confidence and to our hearts one year ago. American people are good people I see evidence for that in my classroom every day. I see it in the random acts of kindness that people have become more prone to doing in the last year.

    However, I am afraid that our country is on a dangerous path of punitive, rather than restorative, justice in holding the architects of terror accountable. How can we deal with our enemies without emulating their tactics?

    What Would King Do?

    In the classes I teach on nonviolence and peacemaking, we study the lives and words of peacemakers throughout history to gain a new perspective on how we can deal with the various conflicts we encounter personally, locally and globally. In addressing the second question of how we view others, Martin Luther King, Jr. provides some timeless wisdom.

    Dr. King wrote a Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam which still rings true today.

    When he was writing, communism was the enemy. Today it is terrorism. I have replaced his word ‘communism’ with ‘terrorism’ in the following text to demonstrate the relevance of his words for us today:

    “This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against terrorism. War is not the answer. Terrorism will never be defeated by the use of nuclear weapons. We must not engage in negative anti-terrorism, but rather in a positive trust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against terrorism is to take offensive action on behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity, and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seeds of terrorism grow and develop.”

    Powerful words. We see the seeds of hate sown in poverty, insecurity, injustice and disparity of wealth. Generations of children in third world countries growing up in severe deprivation are potential terrorists if we take these words to heart. We must re-evaluate our priorities, our attitude toward corporate responsibility and our reliance on foreign oil if we are to prevent future terrorist attacks.

    Dr. King continues on to say in the essay against participation in the Vietnam War in perhaps his harshest criticism of US foreign policy: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” This admonition means that when we decrease funding for education, for social services, welfare and children, we are sowing seeds of hate in our own country as well. One-fourth of children in the United States live in poverty while our military budget soars out of control topping out at nearly $437 billion dollars.

    Dr. King has some gentler advice as well, though. In the essay entitled Loving Your Enemies, Dr. King outlines the reasons why we should pursue peacemaking rather than war making. He wrote,” Hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Hate scars the soul and distorts the personality. Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity.”

    So where has our war on terror led us? We have not caught Osama bin Laden, we have pursued an unrelenting military campaign against the people of Afghanistan, stranding millions of people throughout last winter in desperate conditions, and even having the audacity in July to mistakenly bomb a wedding party, killing dozens. We euphemize our lingo about the tools of war making to desensitize ourselves from the true effects of weapons.

    These are not endearing actions that the US has undertaken.

    We have called our war on terror perhaps the worst misnomer: a pursuit of justice. We are not talking about true justice, though. We are talking about a vengeful, hateful justice seeking retribution rather than reconciliation. Lanzo del Vasto, peacemaker extraordinaire, writes about how true justice lapses into false when we believe we have the right to render evil for evil and call the evil rendered good and just.

    Again, powerful words. We must carefully examine what our actions purvey about our values.

    In our war on terror, we have failed to recognize that the United States sponsors a terrorist training camp on our soil. November is a hallowed month for something called the School of the Americas, a military training school located at Ft. Benning, GA. In the wake of September 11, British journalist George Monbiot wrote a scalding report about the incongruence of our policies, stating candidly that terrorist training takes place here in the United States.

    The School of the Americas moved from Central America to Georgia in the early 1980’s. At this school, Latin American soldiers are trained in paramilitary combat, in counterinsurgency in being the military arm of the multinational corporations who enforce poverty and the structural adjustment programs laid down by the World Bank and the IMF. One November, some Jesuit priests in Central America, their housekeeper and her daughter were slaughtered by soldiers trained at the SOA. Two of the assassins who killed Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador were trained at the school as well.

    George Monbiot said poignantly that in the United States, the war on terror must start at home by closing the School of the Americas. Ventura County has a special role to play in this effort. Congressman Elton Gallegly has never voted to close the SOA. Every year as the vote is taken in Congress, the margin by which the bill fails gets smaller and smaller we are nearing the goal. We must work with Gallegly to convince him to vote on HR 1810 to close the SOA.

    How do others see us?

    I believe that we can answer the third question of “How do others see us” by examining our lust for war against Iraq.

    There are a few policy points on Iraq which I would like to address with here because the rhetoric has evolved so speedily in the war on terror.

    Let me begin by saying that Saddam Hussein is a brute and a bully and has ruled Iraq for more than 20 years, holding hostage a population of 23 million Iraqis who did not elect him. He has used chemical warfare against his own people. And he has demonstrated aggression in the Middle East in recent years.

    These facts, however, should not obscure other relevant components of why we should not unilaterally depose the infamous leader of the Ba’ath Party in a US-led war on Iraq.

    First and foremost, there is no link between Iraq and al Qaeda or any of the people associated with the egregious crimes of September 11.

    There is unquestionable hesitation and outright disapproval from the international community with respect to any new war with Iraq.

    And on that point, I’d like to say that the first Gulf War never ended. Just this past Thursday, the largest air assault in four years took place over southern Iraq, with US and British forces using more than 100 aircraft to mount an attack. Iraq has been getting bombed nearly every week since the 42-day Gulf War was declared over.

    And the economic sanctions are a form of warfare as well, killing more than 5,000 children under the age of 5 every month. One in eight children in Iraq never reach their first birthday. Prior to the Gulf War, the UN deemed Iraq an emerging first-world nation. It had eradicated all childhood diseases, provided free healthcare to the entire population and education up through university studies was completely free.

    So back to lack of international support. Europe does not support war on Iraq. Every Arab nation has made statements condemning an escalation of war against Iraq, including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Few Middle Eastern countries want us to use their land, water or air space to fight this proposed war. And every Middle Eastern country sees an eminent intensification of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict should the United States decide to preemptively attack Iraq.

    Tomorrow, President Bush will make his case before the United Nations General Assembly. He has yet to offer credible evidence that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction capable of harming the US. The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that Iraq has not accessed any nuclear material to use in making weapons of mass destruction.

    Many people wonder about the weapons inspections. The most credible source on this issue is Scott Ritter, former UNSCOM weapons inspector for eight years. He was in charge of making certain that Iraq was in compliance with the UN disarmament resolution. He has stated time and time again that UNSCOM was extraordinarily effective in destroying all of Iraq’s weapons capabilities.

    Unfortunately, in 1998, the United Nations withdrew their weapons inspection team in anticipation of the December bombing which the US and UK led. They were not kicked out by Iraq, as is often reported.

    So what do we do about Iraq?

    The first thing that we do is acknowledge the face of human suffering in Iraq. Iraq is a country. Iraq is not Saddam Hussein. More than 23 million people live there, each with a story about how they have been affected by the sanctions and the Gulf War.

    We cannot ignore the real pain that has been virtually unreported for the past twelve years in Iraq. The sanctions, administered by the United Nations, essentially mean that Iraq has no tangible revenue. All of their oil sales go through the Sanctions Committee 661 they sell their oil through the UN and must petition for items to import. Many items are routinely denied: blood bags, x-ray film, and even a shipment of 1 million pencils were denied because they contain graphite which could be used in making weapons of mass destruction.

    People in America are suffering as well especially today as we remember the tragedy which happened a year ago. But we will not lessen our pain by inflicting pain on others we will only create more hurt, more loss, more sadness.

    There are a few things that surprised me about visiting Iraq nearly every person I met there believes in the good of the American people. They know that if we only knew of their pain, that we would do more to help them. But if we believe, as is reported in the mass media, that “they all hate us” then it makes it okay for us to hate them too, and even kill them first. But the catch is that they don’t all hate us.

    Arabs are magnanimous, beautiful, generous people. The hospitality I was granted there was beyond any I could have ever imagined.

    But still recognizing the human face of Iraqis is not enough. We must realize that an entire people cannot be deemed evil. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote that “the line between good and evil runs through every human heart.” If we seek to eradicate evil, we are in essence killing a bit of ourselves. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, says that the value of human dignity is that we are worth more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. These are powerful statements about humanity and forgiveness which are crucial to remember in times of inexplicable grief.

    They are powerful statements because they demonstrate faith in nonviolence.

    Many people wonder about what to do about Saddam Hussein, though.

    Iraq needs regime change, but that change must not happen through war. In a movement of sustained democratization, the Iraqi people should decide for themselves free from international pressure, who they want governing them. And the weapons inspectors must resume their important job and be allowed to thoroughly, efficiently and respectfully carry out their tasks.

    And this can be done nonviolently.

    Embracing nonviolence does not mean that you are a doormat. It does not mean that you are weak.

    Authors Jack DuVall and Peter Ackerman, who wrote “A Force More Powerful” which became a six-part documentary on nonviolent change, believe that Saddam Hussein can be toppled through nonviolent measures, as were Pinochet and Milosevic. They write in this month’s issue of Sojourner Magazine, “Strategic nonviolent action is not about being nice to your oppressor, much less having to rely on his niceness. It’s about dissolving the foundations of his power and forcing him out. It is possible in Iraq.”

    Why do we not see nonviolent change as legitimate, though? Why is it not considered a viable option? Perhaps because history is presented and written by the winners, and because war making is so profitable. Alfie Kohn wrote “while it is indisputable that wars have been fought, the fact that they seem to dominate our history may say more about how history is presented that about what actually happened.”

    Teaching Peace

    This leads me into my final point. The most proactive thing we can do as a country to combat hatred and intolerance is to teach peace. Every class should be a peace class. It should be a blend of nonviolent processes and content information. I teach a class in three high schools here called “Solutions to Violence” and it attempts to give students tangible tools for resolving conflicts as well as cluing them in to the fact that community service is expected of them, and it is rewarding. They must ask the difficult questions of how they can best use their talents to serve the world, their neighbors, their brothers and sisters in humanity.

    It is not a difficult class to teach. We read the literature of peace and discuss it. We examine our own hearts, minds and actions. We see how our actions affect others and how everything in life is interconnected; nothing exists in a void.

    Peace education is essential in an age of terrorism. We must learn to resolve our conflicts through nonviolent means. The purpose of education is to produce critically thinking, empathetic and other-serving individuals. We will keep encountering the same problems time and time again until we re-examine how history is presented, how education is carried out until we reinsert the nonviolent figures in our textbooks who have been systematically written out.

    We must teach our students to act based on their conscience. They must have the faith of children in all of humanity, seeing that we are all brothers and sisters. They must see the necessity of caring for nature as she supports all life on earth.

    Peace education makes room for healing and for compassion, so needed in our time.

    The nonviolence class here at Moorpark College must continue! It is crucial that we not let peace education be a casualty of the war on terrorism.

    I am reminded of the June Jordan quote: “We are the people we’ve been waiting for.” We must not delegate individual moral responsibility to another; our conscience is the most precious quality unique to human beings.

    Not only today on September 11, but every day it is up to us to be a voice for the voiceless, to show compassion and to go the extra mile and stretch our hearts to love just a little bit more.
    *Leah C. Wells serves as the Peace Education Coordinator for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara, CA.

  • Looking Back at September 11th

    Looking Back at September 11th

    As we approach the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, it is worth reflecting on how little has been accomplished and how much has been lost in the past year. We have demonstrated that our military machine is powerful and can smash poor countries farther back into the stone age, but we are not capable of finding Osama bin Laden, nor of putting an end to terrorism. We have demonstrated that civil liberties can be curtailed in the effort to combat terrorism, but our airports seem no safer today than they were on the day of the terrorist attacks.

    We have an administration committed to perpetual war, an administration busy seeking new targets for attack. We have a new doctrine of “pre-emption,” one that the Bush administration is pushing to engage in “regime change” in Iraq, with little regard for the consequences. In the past year, the Bush administration has become even more disdainful of international law than it was previously. The administration seeks cooperation only on its own terms, and primarily for our wars on terrorism, on drugs and on the Bush-designated “axis of evil.” When it comes to arms control and disarmament, sustainable development and environmental protection, and support for human rights, the Bush administration is AWOL.

    Some wonder how September 11 may be remembered in American history. I think it is likely to be remembered, at least shorter term, as the day that Americans were forced to face their own vulnerability, the same vulnerability that most of the world experiences daily. It may also be remembered as the day that opened the door to Orwell’s 1984 becoming the American reality the day that the Bush administration assumed the role of Big Brother. September 11 may be remembered as the day that initiated a headlong thrust towards trading our civil liberties for vague promises of security, and the day we received in return only the prospects of a permanent state of war.

    Longer term, how posterity will remember September 11 will depend entirely on our ongoing response to it. If we continue attempting only to seek out terrorists to pound with our military force, the events of September 11 will mark a turning to ultimate disaster, to the undermining of global security and the security of the American people. September 11 brought out an immense display of American nationalism and flag-waving, and the anniversary of the attacks will undoubtedly bring out more of the same. This hyper-nationalism and its militaristic manifestations are dangerous reflections of our national insecurity.

    Following September 11, the world was at first tremendously sympathetic to America for our loss, but that sympathy has by now mostly been replaced by apprehension and anger. The administration’s reliance on military force, its undermining of international law in treaty after treaty, and its failure to provide leadership toward a more peaceful and equitable world have demonstrated arrogance and disrespect for the world’s people. If the United States does not change its policies and use its enormous power to build a more equitable world, there are likely to be more tragedies like September 11 in our future.

    If, on the other hand, the events of September 11 were to result in Americans realizing the need for our leadership to achieve a new cooperative global order, rooted in international law, to solve the vast array of critical problems in our world such as poverty, environmental devastation, human rights abuses and the threat of weapons of mass destruction then these terrorist attacks will be remembered as a terrible but critical wake-up.

    Judging from our approach to date, there are few signs that America has awakened to the need for this kind of positive leadership. We have not yet begun to explore diplomatic and cooperative paths to change, nor the deeper question of why the attacks occurred. Rather, we have become more isolationist and unilateralist, more focused on ourselves to the exclusion of the rest of the world.

    The “regime change” that is needed most in the world is not by war in Iraq, but by peaceful means in the United States. This regime change, by means of the ballot, would bring far more security to the American people and the people of the world than toppling Saddam.

    The American people are challenged as never before to bring an end to terrorism by supporting policies fulfilling the promises of democracy and dignity for all in our troubled world. This will require not only regime changes, but also sea changes in our thinking and actions. It must begin with ordinary citizens having the courage to speak out clearly, forcefully and repeatedly about the dangerous militaristic and authoritarian direction that our country is taking under the Bush administration.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • The President’s Other Two Wars

    The President’s Other Two Wars

    During his first year in office, George W. Bush has engaged in three wars. His war against terrorism is widely known and discussed. His resolve to fight against evildoers with America’s military might is said to have defined his presidency.

    The president’s other two wars have received far less attention, but they may end up defining his presidency even more than his war against terrorism. These are his war against international law and his war against the international control of armaments.

    In the war against international law, the president has shown remarkable boldness in his disdain for the remainder of the international community. He has pulled out of the Kyoto Accords on Global Warming, perhaps the most critical environmental treaty of our time. He has also demonstrated his contempt for the creation of an International Criminal Court that would hold individuals accountable for the types of serious international crimes that were prosecuted by the United States at Nuremberg following World War II.

    The president’s war against the international control of armaments, however, has been his most successful undertaking. In one area of arms control after another, he has demonstrated that he plans to chart the course of US unilateralism when it comes to decisions on controlling armaments.

    He has made clear that he does not intend to resubmit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) to the Senate for ratification. When the CTBT came up at the 2001 United Nations General Assembly, the US was the only country to vote against carrying over an item supporting the treaty to the next session of the General Assembly.

    The president has also requested studies from the Pentagon on the possible resumption of nuclear testing. When the parties to the CTBT met last November to discuss ways to bring the Treaty into force more rapidly, the US did not even bother to show up and participate.

    Mr. Bush has opposed signing the International Treaty to Ban Landmines, despite the solid international support to ban these weapons that go on killing civilians long after the soldiers have left a war zone. At a UN conference on small arms, the US blocked key provisions to stem the illegal traffic in small arms, those most used in combat. The US also torpedoed a six-year effort to create a Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention that would allow for verification procedures including on-site inspections.

    The president’s boldest act, however, in his war against the international control of armaments was his announcement that the US is withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Despite Russian opposition to taking this step, the president gave his notice of withdrawal on December 13, 2001, starting the six months running for withdrawal under the provisions of the treaty. Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty will give the US the ability to test weapons for use in outer space, leading to their deployment in outer space and the undermining of the Outer Space Treaty as well.

    In his November 2001 Crawford Summit with Russian President Putin, Mr. Bush announced his intention to lower the size of the US strategic nuclear arsenal to some 1,700 to 2,200 nuclear weapons over a ten year period. This unilateral action did not even go as far as President Putin had been offering for over a year (reductions to 1,500 strategic weapons or possibly lower). The president’s plan will keep overkill the principal US nuclear strategy for at least the next decade. Further, since it has been unilaterally initiated, it will be subject to unilateral reversal by Mr. Bush himself or a successor to the presidency.

    In taking these steps, Mr. Bush has also demonstrated his contempt for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in which the US has promised to pursue good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. The International Court of Justice has interpreted this phrase to mean complete nuclear disarmament in all its aspects.

    As recently as May 2000, the parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty promised to preserve and strengthen the ABM Treaty “as the cornerstone of strategic stability and as a basis for further reductions of strategic offensive weapons.” At the same time, the US joined the other parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in promising an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” The president’s actions have helped convince our allies and treaty partners that US promises are worth very little, but perhaps this is to be expected when a president is engaged in war on so many fronts.
    *David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Militarism and Arms Races: Terrorist Attacks and Nuclear Policies

    The events of 11 September have had a shattering impact on problems of world security and world order. They have also brought into sharp focus our views about nuclear weapons, the topic of this paper.

    Whatever the underlying causes, the situation is that we have been confronted by a group of religious fanatics, who are trying to disrupt the way of life of many people by violent action and with complete disregard for the sanctity of human life. We have become engaged in a struggle between rationality and fanaticism, a struggle which the rational world must not lose. At the same time, however, it has created an opportunity for a fresh, more constructive approach to the long-standing issues of controlling and abolishing weapons of mass destruction; this opportunity, too, must not be lost.

    Prior to 11 September, things were going badly. Not only has no progress been made on these issues, but in several respects we have been moving backwards, to a greater polarization of the world and a growing threat of new arms races. This has been especially evident in the US determination to pursue – with almost religious fervour, and certainly with more cash – the missile defence programme, even though it would mean the abrogation of the ABM Treaty and, very likely, a consequent build-up of nuclear arsenals by some countries. Furthermore, this pursuit would inevitably have unfolded a new dimension in warfare: the weaponization of space, with unpredictable deleterious consequences.

    In other areas too, retrograde steps by the USA have been evident. Thus, on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, instead of its ratification by the Senate, we have heard calls, by politicians and scientists, for the resumption of nuclear tests of weapons of improved performance. On nuclear policy in general, despite the unanimous, unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to proceed to the elimination of nuclear weapons, the USA has persisted in the policy of extended deterrence, a policy that implies the first use of nuclear weapons.

    The efforts to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention, by adopting a Protocol on the enforcement of the Convention, have come to nothing as a result of the US government’s sudden announcement that it would not sign the Protocol.

    These and other negative steps (such as the withdrawal from the Kyoto agreement on safeguarding the environment, or the rejection of the Land Mines Treaty) stemmed largely from the unilateralist policy that has been pursued by the USA, a policy that seems to base its adherence (or non-adherence) to international treaties solely on the criterion of whether they are of direct benefit to the United States. Self-interest appears to have become the prime consideration in US policy, without regard to the interests of the rest of the world.

    The events of 11 September blew sky high the illusion of safety through unilateralist policies. They have demonstrated that in this interdependent world of ours “No Man is an Island”. They have confirmed, what many critics of the missile defence programme have been pointing out for decades, that national defence systems, even if they were 100 per cent effective technically, would not guarantee the safety of the US population against a determined attack by a group of terrorists, who are ready to sacrifice their own lives in the pursuit of their cause.

    The terrible tragedy would be somewhat alleviated if, as a consequence, a new approach to world security problems emerged; if it brought the realization that national security must be viewed in terms of global security; if it resulted in a new attitude in foreign relations of all nations.

    Positive effects of the new approach by the US Government are already being seen in the changed attitude towards Russia and China, and in the remarkable formation of a coalition, comprising a high proportion of the world population. Whether this coalition will survive beyond the current crisis will depend largely on the way the crisis is solved, but it is in the vital interest of all those who strive for peace and justice in the world to make it permanent.

    One important step towards this would be the acknowledgement of the vital role of the United Nations as the chief instrument for keeping peace in the world. We have to strengthen the peacekeeping and peace-enforcing operation facilities of the UN, through its Security Council, and give the UN Secretary-General a greater role in dealing with conflicts.

    But it is on the nuclear issue that it is of paramount importance to utilize the good relations that now exist between the United States and Russia to make progress, both in reducing the immediate danger and on long-term aspects.

    Action needs to be taken to prevent more fearful attempts by the terrorists. They clearly have huge resources at their disposal. This makes it quite likely that they could get hold of, and use, weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons. Of particular concern, however, is the use of nuclear weapons, because this could result in casualties a hundred times greater than resulted from the attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

    Osama Bin Laden has reportedly claimed to have nuclear weapons; such claims should not be dismissed lightly. It is quite realistic to envisage a terrorist group acquiring and detonating a nuclear device based on highly-enriched uranium. In Russia alone there is enough of that material to make more than 20,000 nuclear weapons. With the considerable financial resources it has at its disposal, it might not be too difficult for al-Queda to buy enough material to make several bombs; it would also be relatively easy to smuggle it into the USA or UK. The detonation by the gun method – the method employed in the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 – would not require a great deal of technological skill.

    Apart from the obvious action to strengthen the security of the nuclear weapons in the arsenals, steps need to be taken to reduce the availability of weapon-grade materials. In particular, the long-standing arrangements by which the United States was to purchase large quantities of highly-enriched uranium and to render it harmless by dilution with natural uranium, should be resumed and freed from commercial considerations.

    With regard to long-term policies, the events of 11 September have demonstrated the irrelevance of the whole concept of nuclear deterrence in relation to terrorist attacks. What would be our response if a nuclear device were detonated in a city, with the loss of several hundred thousand lives? Would nuclear weapons be used in retaliation? If so, against whom? Surely, we would not resort to the deliberate killing of innocent people, even if we knew the country from which the assault originated. Little can be done if Bin Laden’s claim is true, but in the long run, a nuclear catastrophe can be prevented only if there are no nuclear weapons and no weapon-grade material readily available in the world. This means proceeding with the policy already approved by nearly all nations (including the five overt nuclear weapon states), who signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, (NPT), namely, the abolition of all nuclear weapons. Two steps towards this objective can be started forthwith.

    The first is a treaty of no-first-use of these weapons. All nuclear-weapon states, official and de facto, should sign a treaty by which they undertake not to be the first to use nuclear weapons. The importance of such a treaty is that, once agreed to, it will open the way for the total elimination of these weapons, leading to a convention, similar to those on chemical and biological weapons.

    The main task would then be the establishment of an effective safeguard regime to ensure that no violation of the convention takes place. The study of the ways to achieve such a regime is the second measure on which work should start now.

    In addition to this, and perhaps of greater importance, we have to change our attitude towards problems of world security, by putting morality and respect for the law as the dominant elements in international relations, in place of threats and coercion.

    The terrorist attack of 11 September is correctly viewed as an act of lawlessness, and a crime against humanity. Irrespective of whether or not we agree with the tactics adopted by the coalition, the action against Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda should be seen primarily as a pursuit of justice and respect for civilized norms of life. But the members of the coalition would be entitled to such pursuit only if they themselves do, and are seen to respect the rule of law, especially in international relations. Thus, the role of the International Court of Justice should be recognized by all nations. Similarly, the opposition of the USA to the establishment of the International Criminal Court should end, and action taken towards its speedy setting up.

    The same applies to international treaties. They are the basis for order in the world; there would be general anarchy unless their signatories abide by them. There must be an end to the present hypocrisy in nuclear policies, by which the nuclear weapon states are formally committed to nuclear disarmament, yet maintain the policy of extended deterrence which, in practice, means the retention of nuclear arsenals in perpetuity. As the Canberra Commission pointed out, the nuclear weapon states insist that nuclear weapons provide unique security benefits, yet reserve to themselves the right to own them. Surely, the time has come for the implementation of Article Vl of the NPT without further equivocation and procrastination.

    Finally, there is the vital need to stress the moral aspect of the use of weapons of mass destruction. The current notions of nuclear deterrence are unacceptable on moral grounds. The whole concept of nuclear deterrence is based on the belief that the threat of responding to aggression with nuclear weapons is real, that these weapons would be used against an act of aggression perpetrated even with non-nuclear weapons. To make this threat convincing, George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, and the other leaders, would have to show that they are the kind of personalities that would not hesitate to push the button and unleash an instrument of wholesale destruction, harming not only the aggressor but – mainly – innocent people. By acquiescing in this policy, not only the leaders but each of us figuratively keeps our finger on the button; each of us is taking part in a gamble in which the survival of human civilization is at stake. We rest the security of the world on a balance of terror. In the long run, this is bound to erode the ethical basis of civilization. We are seeing this already, in the increase of violence in many walks of life.

    We all crave a world of peace, a world of equity. We all want to nurture in the young generation the “culture of peace”. But how can we talk about a culture of peace if that peace is predicated on the existence of weapons of mass destruction? How can we persuade the young generation to cast aside the culture of violence when they know that it is on the threat of violence that we rely for security?

    In the aftermath of the terrorists’ attack, the leaders of the United States and Russia have agreed to reduce their nuclear arsenals. This is welcome as a step in the right direction, but it does not change the fundamental problem: the nuclear powers still rely on their nuclear weapons as a deterrent. And as long as the great powers base world security on the threat of violence, other states and terrorist groups will be encouraged to use violence to achieve their aims.

    Surely the people of the world will not accept such policies, or any policy that implies the continued existence of nuclear weapons. Numerous public opinion polls have shown general abhorrence of such weapons, and a strong desire to get rid of them. Year after year, the UN General Assembly passes, by huge majorities, resolutions calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The threat posed by terrorist groups adds urgency to these calls.

    The so-called “realists” will scoff at the notion of morality playing any role in the problems of world security. They recognize only the rule of force: “How many divisions does the Pope have?” they ask, insisting on the retention of nuclear weapons to keep the peace. But nuclear weapons are of no use against terrorists and it is they who seem to be the major threat to peace in the world. If the events of 11 September will have contributed to a change of attitude in the directions described above, then the loss of the thousands of lives would not have been in vain.

  • Open Letter from an American to the World: HELP!

    The Bush Administration is blundering into a global conflagration. There is currently no force within the U.S. likely to stop it. It is up to the rest of the world, and especially America’s friends and allies — both governments and their citizens — to constrain its rush to disaster.

    The Bush administration was warned by its European and Arab allies and its friends around the world to avoid:

    A long bombing campaign with significant civilian casualties in Afghanistan. –Seizure of Kabul by the Northern Alliance. Bombing Afghanistan during Ramadan. Failure to reestablish the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Each of these warnings was ignored. And the emerging result of these and similar Bush Administration policies is a vast global destabilization that is acquiring a momentum going far beyond the responses to September 11. As The New York Times reports, “new battlegrounds” have opened up “from the Palestinian territories to Kashmir.”

    Whether or not the war in Afghanistan was justified, the issue is no longer about destroying Al Qaeda, or removing the repressive Taliban regime, or even whether the U.S. will attack Iraq.

    The issue is now an emerging world crisis provoked by a superpower administration that is acting without rational consideration of the effects of its actions. The number of additional civil and international wars it may stir up is simply incalculable — and certainly is not being rationally calculated by the Bush administration.

    This represents a new stage in testing what it means to be the world’s only superpower. As a German official put it in The New York Times, in the past Washington determined its national interest in shaping international rules, behavior, and institutions.

    “Now Washington seems to want to pursue its national interest in a more narrowly defined way, doing what it wants and forcing others to adapt.”

    The Bush Administration has a list of dozens of countries for possible intervention, and it is presently debating who’s next. “Pentagon officials have openly agitated to finish off Mr. [Saddam] Hussein…. Recently an American delegation from the State Department was in northern Iraq, discussing activities in that part of Iraq with Kurdish leaders… [S]ome administration officials say that Pakistan may be where the next phase of the war must unfold.”

    Somalia, the Sudan, the Philippines — the shopping list goes on and on.

    The Bush administration’s global destabilization is not limited to the war on terrorism. U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty is initiating a new nuclear arms race.

    Joseph Biden, Jr., the chairman of the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, cites widely reported U.S. intelligence community conclusions that “pulling out of ABM would prompt the Chinese to increase their nuclear arsenal tenfold, beyond the modernization they are doing anyway…. And when they build up, so will the Indians, and when the Indians do, so will the Pakistanis. And for what? A system no one is convinced will work.”

    It is an illusion to believe that the U.S. is in any way in control of events. Consider the mid-East peace process. Just as Bush and Powell were rolling out a major peace initiative, the combination of war parties in Israel and Palestine sabotaged it completely.

    The U.S. then tilted wildly toward the very forces in Israel that had sabotaged the U.S. initiative. The attack on the Indian parliament — believed by our new friend India to have been organized with the connivance of our old friend Pakistan — threatens to provoke a war that the U.S. will now be in the middle of.

    The U.S. justification for its attack on Afghanistan as “harboring terrorists” has already been echoed almost word for word by India, Israel, Russia, and China for their own purposes. The use of the “right of self-defense” as a justification for a unilateral decision to attack any country one accuses of harboring terrorists provides a pretext that any national leader can now use to make war against anyone it chooses in complete disregard of international law.

    Internal constraints?

    There is something that peoples and governments around the world need to understand: There are currently no effective internal constraints on what the Bush Administration can or will do. Because of popular response to the September 11 attacks, the Administration feels –correctly, at least for a time — that it can do anything without having to fear dissent or opposition.

    It withdrew from the AMB treaty with barely a ripple of public questioning. Its endorsement of Sharon’s attacks on the Palestinian Authority wins overwhelming Congressional support. Open advocacy of a military attack and occupation of Iraq causes no stir.

    The peace movement that has challenged Bush administration policies may become a significant restraint in the future, but it isn’t now.

    Nor is there any effective institutional constraint. The U.S. Congress has almost unanimously given the Administration a blank check to conduct any military operations it chooses.

    Practical concerns of senior military officers at the Pentagon are apparently ignored by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his ubiquitous supporters. Secretary of State Colin Powell, looked to by many as a source of reason and restraint, has been unable to make the Administration heed any of the warnings listed above. It is hard to detect any indication of a business or foreign policy “Establishment” putting any constraints on the unleashing of US power.

    Most serious of all is a lack of constraint based on rational evaluation of long-term consequences. As an “exuberant senior aide” put it recently, the Bush administration is “on a roll”; its “biggest concern” is “how to make maximum use of the military as well as the diplomatic momentum he has built up abroad and the political capital he has accumulated at home.”

    As an article in The Guardian entitled “Washington hawks get power boost: Rumsfeld is winning the debate” puts it, “For the time being, at least, there is little in Washington to stop Mr. Rumsfeld chasing America’s foes all the way to Baghdad.”

    A time for friends to help friends

    The U.S. in the Cold War era at least purported to be protecting its allies. But today, as the U.S. projects its power unilaterally, it friends and allies are the ones most likely to feel the blowback from destabilization in the form of terrorism, refugees, recession, and war.

    It is up to governments and civil society outside the U.S. to put constraints on what it does — both for their own sake and for America’s.

    In the Suez Crisis of 1956, the armies of Britain, France, and Israel invaded Egypt and began advancing on the Suez Canal. The U.S. under President Eisenhower intervened — not to support the invaders but to restrain them. It is time for the world to return the favor. For example:

    * A “coalition” in which the U.S. Goliath cuts a separate deal with each “coalition partner” is a formula for U.S. dictation. U.S. coalition partners must insist that the U.S. spell out its intentions for open world discussion before they agree to provide any support.

    * U.S. coalition partners with few exceptions oppose U.S. attacks on Iraq, Somalia, the Sudan, or anywhere else. Yet it is no secret that planning for such attacks is under way in Washington. Coalition partners must move from private grumbling to a concerted public united front against such actions.

    * The U.N. can serve as an arena for challenging and providing alternatives to superpower supremacy. At the least, the U.S. can be forced to isolate itself by vetoing resolutions that run counter to its unilateralism.

    (The Security Council recently voted 12 to 1, with Britain and Norway abstaining, for a resolution calling for international monitors in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The U.S. vetoed the resolution — thereby isolating itself from many of its own “coalition partners.”)

    Strong, unified, public endorsement of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s campaign against an attack on Iraq would have a big impact in the U.S. at this point.

    * It has been widely reported in the U.S. that foreign critics of the war in Afghanistan have now concluded that they were wrong because the war was short and because it freed Afghans, especially women, from the tyranny of the Taliban.

    This is being used in Washington to argue that popular opinion abroad need not be regarded as an impediment to further U.S. attacks elsewhere. Washington needs to hear a clear message that that is not the case.

    * There are concrete ways in which people and governments can begin putting the brakes on Washington. The refusal of European countries to extradite suspects who may be subject to military tribunals or the death penalty provides an excellent example.

    This is going to be a long struggle, not just about one policy, but about a basic historical tendency of the world’s only superpower. It is sad but true that the rest of the world may not have enough leverage in the short run to stop the U.S. from attacking whomever it chooses to target next. But it is time to begin laying the groundwork for a long-term strategy of containment.

    Such international pressure can serve as a deterrent to the craziest actions the Bush administration is considering. For example, press reports suggest that opposition from Russia, Europe, and Arab countries may be leading Bush’s advisors at least to delay an attack on Iraq on the grounds that “there is insufficient international backing.”

    If U.S. friends and coalition partners toll the alarm bell, it will begin to evoke different responses in Congress, the Pentagon, corporate elites, and the American public as well, especially as the untoward consequences of the Bush administration juggernaut become apparent.

    Without an outside wake-up call, these forces are currently prepared to plunge into the abyss in an empty-minded trance.

    Restraining the Bush Administration is anything but anti-American. It is the best thing America’s friends can do for us right now. We have a slogan here: “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.”

    PLEASE: America’s friends need to take the car keys away until this power-drunk superpower sobers up.

    *Jeremy Brecher is an historian and the author of twelve books, including GLOBALIZATION FROM BELOW, and producer of the video documentary GLOBAL VILLAGE OR GLOBAL PILLAGE? (website: www.villageorpillage.org) Anyone is welcome to forward or reprint this piece.

  • Hope in the Face of Darkness

    Hope in the Face of Darkness

    I am very happy to be here with you. I want to thank the organizers of this conference and the members of the Youth Peace Conference.

    I feel a great sense of hopefulness in this room, coming from your hearts. I know you have accomplished great things in the past and I know of your commitment to continue to meet the challenges that confront humanity.

    I hold your president, Daisaku Ikeda, in the highest regard, and consider him to be one of the true world citizens and peace leaders of our time. It was my great privilege last year to present him with our Foundation’s World Citizen Award. It was also my privilege to engage in a dialogue with him, which was published this year on August 6th under the title, Choose Hope.

    In our dialogue we discussed the route to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons and a world at peace. We also looked at the role of education, literature and poetry in shaping our lives. There was nothing we agreed upon more strongly than the importance of hope and of youth in shaping our common future. We share the belief that it is indeed possible to shape a peaceful future, and that youth must help lead the way.

    The title for this talk was chosen in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Those attacks were meticulously planned. They were attacks against symbols of US economic and military power, but they were far more than symbolic. They took some 3,000 to 4,000 innocent lives. The intentional taking of innocent lives is a mark of darkness on our planet.

    Each life is a miracle. Each of us is a miracle. We cannot explain by logic or experience where we come from before birth or where we go after death. We have no way to comprehend the mystery of life or the mystery of our universe. We can only appreciate that we exist on this Earth at this time in this vast and expanding universe, and try to use our precious lives for good purposes.

    As shocking as terrorism may be, it is far from our only problem or even our major problem. We still live in a world in which some 30,000 children die daily from starvation and preventable diseases.

    We live in a world in which the richest 20 percent control 80 percent of the resources. Some 450 billionaires have combined incomes equal to over half of the world’s population. While some on our planet live in lavish abundance with every material advantage imaginable, others live in abject poverty, lacking even the basic resources needed to survive.

    The world spends some $750 billion annually on military forces and weapons, while for a fraction of this amount everyone on the planet could have clean water, adequate food, health care, education, shelter and clothing.

    There are some 30 to 40 wars going on at any given time. Injustice, disparity and old and new hatreds give rise to these wars. The vast majority of the casualties are civilians. In these wars, some 300,000 child soldiers participate. These wars destroy the environment, the infrastructure in already poor countries, and produce new masses of refugees.

    In many parts of the world, people suffer from massive human rights abuses. These abuses fall most heavily on women and children.

    As a species, but particularly in the developed world, we are using up the resources of our planet at a prodigious rate. In doing so, we are robbing future generations of their ability to share in the use of these resources.

    We are also polluting our land, air and water – our most precious resources that we need for survival – with chemical, biological and radiological poisons.

    If all of this were not enough, we have developed and deployed tens of thousands of nuclear weapons capable of destroying humanity and most of life. Many people think that this problem has ended, but it has not. There are still more than 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world and some 4,500 of them are on hair-trigger alert.

    We have reached a point where all of us should be concerned and responsive. Things could grow still worse, however. Nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the hands of terrorists would multiply the dangers. Instead of buildings being destroyed, nuclear weapons could cause the destruction of whole cities. Imagine the damage that could be done if terrorists had nuclear weapons. This danger cannot be dismissed.

    Humanity can no longer afford or tolerate the damage that hatred can cause. Nor can humanity afford or tolerate the suffering and premature death that has been the lot of the poor.

    Far too many people on this Earth live in despair and hopelessness. These are afflictions of the soul that go beyond physical pain.

    Others, who should know better, live in selfishness, ignorance and apathy. In many ways, these are even crueler afflictions of the soul. They are symptoms of the disease of selfishness of the Roman Emperor Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned.

    It is not always easy to have hope in the face of darkness, but it is necessary. If we give up hope for bringing about change, we give away our power and diminish the possibilities for change.

    Hope must be a conscious choice. There are always reasons for giving up and retreating into selfishness, ignorance and apathy. If you want hope, you must choose it. It will not necessarily choose you. The way to choose hope is by your actions to achieve a better world.

    There are important reasons, though, to have hope.

    The most important reason for me is the power of the human spirit. The human spirit is amazing. It is capable of achieving sublime beauty and overcoming tremendous obstacles. All greatness – in art, music, literature, science, engineering and peace – is a triumph of the human spirit. But the greatest triumph of the human spirit comes from choosing a compassionate goal and persisting in overcoming obstacles to achieve this goal. All worthy goals require persistence to achieve. They will not happen overnight.

    We should celebrate the spirit of the hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings. They are fighting for a better world, a world in which nuclear weapons will never again be used. They have been proposed to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. I would strongly support their nomination for this recognition and high honor.

    Miyoko Matsubara was a young girl when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She has had a dozen or more surgeries and has suffered from breast cancer, but her spirit is indomitable. She learned English and has traveled throughout the United States and Europe to tell her story to young people in the hope that they will understand nuclear dangers and not suffer her fate. When I think of Miyoko, I think of her humble but determined spirit. She is a woman who has suffered and who bows deeply.

    Sadako Sasaki was two years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. When she was 12 years old she suffered from leukemia as a result of her exposure to radiation, and was hospitalized. She folded paper cranes with the wish of being healthy again. She folded some two-thirds of the 1000 paper cranes that she hoped would make her wish come true. On one of these cranes she wrote, “I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.”

    After Sadako died, her classmates finished folding the cranes. Today Sadako’s statue stands in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The base of the statue is always covered in thick layers of folded cranes that have been placed there by children from throughout Japan and from throughout the world. Children all over the world know of Sadako’s story and her courage.

    Nelson Mandela fought for the rights of his people and an end to apartheid in South Africa. The government of South Africa put him in prison, where he remained for 27 years. Despite his imprisonment, he was able to maintain his spirit and his hope. When he was finally released from prison, he became the first black president of his country. Instead of seeking vengeance, he presided over a peaceful transition of power in South Africa, appointing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to offer pardons to all who confessed their misdeeds during the period of apartheid.

    The first two presidents of Soka Gakkai went to prison rather than fight as soldiers in a war they thought was wrong. I admire their spirits. Mr. Makiguchi died in prison, and Mr. Toda came out to re-build this organization dedicated to applying Buddhist principles to social action. Mr. Toda left a lasting legacy to Soka Gakkai when he called nuclear weapons an “absolute evil,” and called upon the youth of Soka Gakkai to join in ending this evil.

    You responded magnificently to this challenge when you gathered more than 13 million signatures on the Abolition 2000 International Petition calling for ending the nuclear threat, signing a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons and reallocating resources from nuclear weapons to meeting human needs. This petition was presented to the United Nations, but much more needs to be done.

    There are so many people whose lives reflect the best of the human spirit. Another is Hafsat Abiola, who was one of our Foundation’s honorees for our 2001 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award. Hafsat’s father was the first democratically elected president of Nigeria, but he was not able to serve even one day because he was imprisoned by the military. When Hafsat’s mother fought for democracy in her country and for her husband’s release from prison, she was assassinated. On the day before Hafsat’s father was to be released from prison, he, too, was killed.

    Despite the pain of losing her parents, Hafsat is without bitterness or rancor. After graduating from Harvard University, she started an organization named for her mother, the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND). Hafsat works for democracy and for the rights of women and children throughout Africa.

    One other example of the power of the human spirit is found in Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Mairead was a young woman working as a secretary in Northern Ireland when disaster struck her family. Mairead’s sister and her sister’s three young children were hit by an out of control car when British forces shot an IRA getaway driver. Two of the children died and the pain was so great that Mairead’s sister later committed suicide.

    Mairead debated what she should do. She considered taking up arms against the British, but she instead choose the course of non-violence. Mairead and another woman, Betty Williams, organized peace gatherings in Northern Ireland. They brought together hundreds of thousands of ordinary people calling for peace. The important thing for you to note is that Mairead herself was a very ordinary person, who became extraordinary because of her choices that reflected courage, compassion and commitment. Today she is the most active of the Nobel Peace Laureates, and often brings them together to speak and act on important peace issues.

    A second reason for hope is that even improbable change does occur. Changes that no expert could predict sometimes occur with incredible speed. Relationships change and new possibilities for peace open up, such as occurred in US-China relations in the early 1970s. The Cold War ended after more than four decades of tension and conflict between East and West. This was symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall, which opened the way for a reunited Germany. Pieces of that wall with their graffiti are now souvenirs sold to tourists. I have such a small piece of the wall in my office. It reminds me that great barriers can come down.

    Nelson Mandela went from being a prisoner of a repressive government to becoming president of South Africa. Similar stories mark the lives of Lech Walesa of Poland and Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic. These changes are not predictable, and are usually the result of efforts that have been taking place over a long period of time by committed individuals, generally outside the glare of the media spotlight.

    A third reason for hope is the Power of One. Individuals can and do make a difference in our world. The second person our Foundation honored with our 2001 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award was Craig Kielburger. Craig is 18 years old, but he is already an old hand at social change. What changed Craig’s life was reading about a 12-year-old Pakistani boy, Iqbal Masih, when Craig was himself only 12 years old. Iqbal had been sold into bonded labor as a carpet weaver and had been virtually a slave, chained to his carpet loom for 14 to 16 hours a day. Somehow he had been able to get free, and began speaking out against child labor. Iqbal was given the Reebok Human Rights Award, but when he returned to Pakistan he was murdered by the “Carpet mafia.”

    Craig thought about Iqbal being the same age as he was. When Craig went to school that day, he told his friends about Iqbal and insisted that they do something to further the cause of children’s rights for which Iqbal had been fighting. That was the beginning of a new organization, Free the Children, founded by Craig Kielburger at the age of 12.

    Today, six years later, Craig’s organization has grown to over 100,000 members. It is the largest organization of children helping children in the world. They have been responsible for freeing thousands of children from bonded labor, and they have built hundreds of schools in places where children were previously not able to obtain a basic education. Craig travels throughout the world to learn and to inspire young people to get involved and make a difference.

    Let me review. Three important reasons to have hope are: the power of the human spirit; the fact that improbable change does occur; and the Power of One. The most important reason, though, is that hope is needed to change the world, and you cannot leave this job to others. Your hope and your help are needed.

    The greatest enemies of change are selfishness, apathy and ignorance. These are the enemies of hope. I urge you to resist these at all costs.

    Selfishness is a narrow way to live. It is about what you have, not what you do. Rich lives are not about the money we accumulate, but about the ways in which we interconnect and help others. The antidote to selfishness is compassion, built upon helping others.

    Apathy is about not caring about others. It is a lack of interest and a failure to engage in trying to make a difference. The antidote to apathy is caring and commitment.

    Ignorance in the midst of information is also about not caring – not caring enough to find out about the problems that confront us. I recently visited Sadako Peace Garden, the small garden that we created in Santa Barbara on the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Each year on August 6th we hold a commemoration at the garden for all who died and suffered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    It is a very beautiful natural garden. It has many wonderful trees, but there is one immense and dramatic eucalyptus tree at one end of the garden that is called the Tree of Faith. The garden also has large rocks in which cranes have been carved.

    In that garden, people sometimes leave folded paper cranes and short messages hanging from the oak trees. On the day I visited, I found this message: “There are many things here I do not know, the knowing of which could change everything.” What a powerful message. The antidote to ignorance is knowledge.

    We must be seekers of knowledge, not for its own sake but to better understand our world so that we can engage in it and break our bonds of selfishness with a compassionate response to life. I don’t think this is asking too much of ourselves or each other. It is the essence of being human.

    Don’t be constrained by national boundaries. Recognize the essential equality and dignity of every person on the planet. This is the basic starting point of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

    Don’t expect to change the world overnight. Change seldom occurs that way. Trees grow from seeds. They all begin small, and some grow large. Sometimes they become magnificent. Often they need care and nurturing. Most of what we do to achieve a better world will require patience and persistence.

    I encourage you to plant seeds of peace by your engagement in issues of social justice, by your efforts to create a more decent world in which everyone can live with dignity.

    I have with me a seed from the Tree of Faith in Sadako Peace Garden. It has within it all that is necessary to become a great magnificent tree, just as you have within you all that is needed to become a great human being and a leader for peace.

    I want to conclude by asking you to take three specific actions.

    First, take the pledge of Earth Citizenship: “I pledge allegiance to the Earth and to its varied life forms; one World, indivisible, with liberty, justice and dignity for all.” That is the world we need to create. I also want to encourage you to study two very important documents, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Earth Charter. Please be an active and responsible citizen of our planet. Nothing less will do.

    Second, help to build schools in areas of great need. We have joined with Free the Children to raise funds to build schools in post-conflict areas, such as Chiapas, Mexico and Sierra Leone in Africa. For between $5,000 and $10,000 dollars a school can be built and a teacher provided for students who would otherwise not get a primary education. Free the Children has already built over 100 of these schools in poor countries. This is one of the best ways I can think of to make a difference in our world.

    Third, make a commitment to work for a nuclear weapons free future. Recognize the essential truth that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist. Choose life and a human future. In the past you helped gather 13 million signatures on the Abolition 2000 International Petition. Today I’d like to ask you to do even more.

    Work to make your school, your community, your nation and our world nuclear weapons free zones.

    Organize letter writing and petition campaigns to the media and to government leaders.

    Promote the idea of a Nobel Peace Prize for the hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring global attention to their cry of “Never Again!”

    Use the sunflower as the symbol of achieving a nuclear weapons-free world.

    I urge you also to join us in also gathering support for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity, and sending it to leaders of your country and other countries throughout the world. The Appeal, which has already been signed by some of the great peace leaders of our time, asks the leaders of the nuclear weapons states to take five critical actions for the benefit of all humanity. These are:

    – De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles. – Reaffirm commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. – Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement. – Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states. – Reallocate resources from the tens of billions of dollars currently being spent for maintaining nuclear arsenals to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world. – Not one of these critical actions was even addressed by Presidents Bush and Putin at their summit in Crawford, Texas in November. Their pledge to unilaterally reduce their arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons to between 2,200 and 1,700 over a ten-year period is inadequate and represents their desire to continue to rely upon their nuclear arsenals. We must ask that these leaders take up again the issue of nuclear disarmament in a far more serious way when they meet again in Moscow next March. If they do not, they and we will face the risk that terrorists will be able to purchase, steal or develop nuclear weapons and destroy our cities.

    I would encourage delegations of youth representatives to travel to Washington, Moscow, Tokyo and other key capitals to make the case for ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity. We cannot rely upon the leaders of the nuclear weapons states to solve the problems themselves. They need the help and encouragement of all of us. This is part of our responsibility as citizens of planet Earth.

    If serious progress on nuclear disarmament is not made soon, you will be inheriting the nuclear dangers that are left behind. Time is of the essence and we must approach nuclear disarmament now as if the future of civilization depended upon our success in convincing world leaders to adequately control and eliminate these weapons and the fissile materials needed to create them.

    I hope that I have challenged you, particularly with the actions I have proposed. I have confidence that you will meet the challenge of being an active participant in creating a more just and decent future for humanity, a future you can be proud to pass on to your children and grandchildren.

    I encourage you to choose hope and then never lose hope, even in the face of darkness. Your success in life will be something that only you can judge, but I believe the right criteria for you to use are compassion, commitment and courage. I hope that you will work to achieve a better world, and I know that you can and will make a difference.

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

  • A Terrorist Threat – The Movement of Black Market Nuclear Materials into the United States

    “What is the problem? The breakup of the Soviet Union left nuclear materials scattered throughout the newly independent states and increased the potential for the theft of the those materials, and for organized criminals to enter the nuclear smuggling business. As horrible as the tragedies in Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center were, imagine the destruction that could have resulted had there been a small-scale nuclear device exploded there.”

    — President William Jefferson Clinton

    Overview

    The problem is recognizing that the nuclear threat from terrorists acquiring weapons grade fissile material is greater than all the other threats combined and that it has to be treated independently for the specific set of threats it poses.

    Biological and chemical threats are scalable in their level of threat because they create damage in proportion to the amount of material distributed over a given geographical area. The effects, while deadly, are relatively short term and perishable with proper treatment. Also, they are dependant on effective distribution systems and environmental conditions. They can be used in small amounts in small areas quite easily but use in large areas requires techniques that lend themselves to detection and prevention. If an event occurs, rapid response can mitigate their effects substantially in a relatively short time.

    In comparison, the nuclear threat is that it will cause the greatest damage over a large area from a single point with a small amount of material. A nuclear blast is its own distribution system and its effects are persistent over larger areas for longer periods. Rapid response to an event will offer little in the mitigation of the effects other than defining the areas of destruction and contamination. It will create its own environment for distribution as it expands into the prevailing environment.

    Level of Threat

    Dealing with nuclear terrorism requires an understanding of what the potential threats are, at what level they exist and what their consequences will be. The most formidable characteristics of terrorism are variability and unpredictability. Target selection, time of use, degree of destruction and psychological impact are all open questions.

    Where any nuclear threat is perceived, maximum effort has to be expended to verify its potential and prevent the occurrence of an event. There are no options to this action. However, reaction at this level will require a mobilization of resources in a given area in a very short period of time. Therefore, the overall consequences of a nuclear threat by terrorists have to be evaluated within its probability of occurrence. Multiple threats of nuclear events would quickly paralyze the response systems and produce wide scale vulnerabilities, increasing the probability of a successful terrorist event at some location .

    Specific scenarios of prevention and reaction need to be developed by posing postulates for as many methods of acquisition, assembly and deployment as can be imagined. Unfortunately, it appears that no focused effort in this regard has coalesced. The most discernible appreciation for the nuclear threat seems to be to prepare for an after-the-fact reaction to it.

    Background

    Proliferation in the production of fissile materials in many countries has increased the probability that such materials will fall into the hands of terrorist groups who have the capability for assembling crude nuclear weapons.

    During the Cold War, nuclear materials were highly controlled by the nations that developed them. With the end of the Cold War, the controls have slipped to an unacceptable level; security for nuclear inventories has been dangerously degraded. In fact, there are unknown amounts of fissile material for which there has been no accountability. Locations for these materials are scattered and, for the most part, unknown. Additionally, inventory control at many of the existing storage warehouses for nuclear materials is lacking and security measures are generally unsophisticated and inadequate.

    The major threat these unaccounted for materials present is that they will fall into the hands of terrorist groups whose purpose is to bring about, for their own cause, destruction, distraction from national purpose and general social upheaval. Secondary threats will be the creation of unbridled fear, distrust, economic instability and the sense of a loss of personal security should the possession become known.

    Preventive Measures

    The imperative for detecting and controlling these materials is recognizing that for them to be useful for terrorist purposes the materials must be moved from their points of origin or storage to points of utilization. If a concentrated effort is directed toward identifying potential transfer methodologies and routes of distribution then it might be possible to interdict the materials before they can be transformed into weapons status.

    In the area of import/export accountability there is much work to be done. There are no international standards that can be effectively applied for maintaining control during the transportation of nuclear materials and, even if there were, It would take a prodigious effort to oversee the extremely complex interconnected network of international transportation and commerce. The proliferation of the drug traffic throughout the world presents strong evidence of this fact. Gaps in import/export controls almost insure that distribution of fissile materials will occur undetected.

    Once the material is in the distribution system the unknown factors increase – Where did it go? To whom? And for what purpose? Even when lost it bequeaths a set of hazardous conditions that are unacceptable in normal commerce.

    Yet, movement is a key to interdiction. To be useful, the materials must be sent to a central location for additional processing and assembly. At some point sufficient material must be present to construct a nuclear device. Movement of large quantities of fissile material to a construction site is unlikely because it presents a greater possibility for interdiction than do small quantities. Also, large scale movements present additional hazards to the handling facilities because of the possibilities of radioactive leakage and accidental detection.

    Movement of small quantities of the material, on the other hand, afford a greater probability that the movement will be undetected by conventional means and will be delivered successfully to a destination of choice. Smaller shipments are more likely to remain undetected during transport.

    Established commercial conveyance systems probably will be used where small quantities of fissile material can be shipped using various packaging techniques and routes to a single destination. Because of the increased detection probabilities, quantities of fissile material will not be shipped in a given container to a single destination.

    Some possibilities for moving this type of material are:

    (1) – Superimpose the shipment of small, well-shielded packages on established drug and contraband routes.

    (2) – Ship materials conventionally in well-shielded, small containers through a surreptitious network of widely dispersed handlers.

    (3) – Man carry many small quantities across the mostly porous borders of the United States.

    (4) – Use diversified distribution techniques (routes and conveyances) by requiring multiple way-points and altering the characteristics of external shipping containers at each point.

    (5) – Mix materials and legitimate products for routine deliveries.

    The formidable nature of the tasks required to detect and identify well packaged fissile materials in small quantities renders the likelihood of detection highly questionable.

    The most complex of the above projections is No. 4. Presuming an originating point in Asia, a small package could be shipped with little notice through Cambodia to the island of Palau into Micronesia or the Phillipines, then through the small Kiribati Islands to the Cook Islands, then to Hawaii and then to the mainland USA through Mexico, Canada or directly through an open area of the US borders. There are literally hundreds of such routes that could be set up and utilized. The detection and surveillance of these multiple transfer shipping points would require the participation of hundreds of specialists examining all arriving and departing packages – a near impossible task, thereby essentially insuring a successful delivery for most attempts.

    The virtual impossibility of providing surveillance at the many points of exit in the Far East and the many potential points for entry into the United States makes this an imposing task but nevertheless it has to be undertaken. It is almost a given that, once in the United States, the free and open access to our highway network and relatively unsecured transportation system, make it a simple task to transport dangerous materials throughout the United States without any great fear of interdiction.

    Where nuclear materials are concerned, individuals involved with national security need to become focused on more effective prevention strategies than ever before. This new era of terrorism demands a dramatic shift in thinking with regard to the possibility of a small-scale, but dramatic and destructive, nuclear catastrophe. No longer are they faced with decisions about extensive arrays of military weapons with comprehensive destructive capabilities, but rather, they are faced with the likelihood of attacks by small covert bands of individuals with crude nuclear weapons which can still deliver substantial destructive power.

    New methodologies incorporating sophisticated sensing devices are needed for the tasks of detecting, containing, and eliminating small-scale movements of nuclear material in order to prevent such terrorist events. The face of war is changing from that of a well-equipped soldier in uniform to that of the nondescript member of a dedicated cult whose very nature is to deceive and remaine hidden from view until their targets are most vulnerable and the political climate is confused.

    Conclusion:

    There are no easy solutions or quick fixes.

    “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, as we drift toward unparalleled catastrophes.”

    – Albert Einstein

    A number of experts predicted that some catastrophic event similar to the Oklahoma City bombing disaster would be needed to energize the international community to work in concert to eliminate this problem. It has happened in New York and Washington. The unfortunate fact is that the US government, as well as other governments, and the American people found themselves in situations for which they were not prepared. This has to change.

    The danger is so great, and the threat so immediate, that US policymakers and the public need to recognize that the diversion of fissile materials is as critical and urgent a national security priority as controlling the theft of a complete nuclear weapon. This will require top-level commitment to public education and sufficient resource allocation if, eventually, we are to prevail in this new security challenge.

    One can only hope that a nuclear tragedy will not be necessary for galvanizing world action, and that we will achieve progress toward an international consensus that it is in no one’s interest to allow these materials to be expropriated for terrorist purposes. The need is to concentrate an effort within existing political structures to build a collective regional security, capped by the United Nations, that would promote collaboration among nuclear weapons states to establish methods and records of control over the inventories of fissile materials.

    In examining current efforts on how to stop the illegal distribution of these materials, it is hard to see how any current strategy, no matter how clever the concept or broad the implementation, could do more than raise the level of awareness of the problem. The responsibility is so fragmented among sovereign states and among competing agencies within these sovereignties that viable methods of control are either paralyzed or, for practical purposes, nonexistent. Because of this, problems in managing the inventories of these materials are too diverse and complex to solve in the short term. Consequently, without international cooperation, the United States cannot expect to control the misappropriation of fissile material that is inherent in nuclear proliferation and inappropriate nuclear disarmament methodologies.

    The reality is that a number of states are actively seeking the technology to manufacture nuclear weapons. Their main requirement is getting the materials to do so. Unfortunately, because of some very lax attitudes toward the security of weapons grade nuclear materials during the current disarmament process, the materials already exist in the Black Market. Indifference to this fact seems to be continuing and will contribute to the likelihood that, within the next two-to-three years, there will be a political crisis involving a terrorist group and nuclear materials.

    Slow progress has been made in establishing global and regional non proliferation measures. Commensurately, little effort has been expended for controlling the illegal movement of fissile materials. There appears to be a blindness to the fact that, in this imperfect world, while no system can be developed that will stop all the determined terrorists; a high level of effort must be expended for understanding the dimensions of the problem and correcting deficiencies. In some measure, all civilized nations should be prepared to respond as effectively as possible when terrorist threats of any kind occur but, especially, where nuclear materials are concerned.

    During the Cold War, high technology warheads sat atop powerful delivery systems. Targeting was a known factor. The world was at risk of a hair-trigger response but the realization of a mutually assured destruction kept these systems under “reasonable” control. Today, the potential weapon size is speculative and the delivery system in all probability will have feet. The targets are completely unpredictable – they can be anything, anywhere, at any time. No negotiating. No advanced warning. No clues of impending danger. Nothing is rational in the equation.

    Ultimately, there can be no foolproof system short of eliminating all inventories of the materials. However, it is an immediate and critical imperative that all nations work in collaboration to eliminate the spread of fissile materials. Control will require the continuous and simultaneous exercise of multiple measures including international intelligence gathering, international cooperation for conflict resolution, import/export accountability, and selective, proportional coercive measures including the use of force. Eventually, a comprehensive set of measures will have to be developed for the international community that will allow it to exercise the political will to stop and ultimately eliminate the threat of a catastrophe involving terrorist and nuclear materials.

    George Washington said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” Again, it is time to listen to one of our founding fathers.

    *Gene R. Kelly is a human factors engineer who has consulted for government and industry on issues of nuclear security for the past 22 years.

  • The Geopolitics of War

    There are many ways to view the conflict between the United States and Osama bin Laden’s terror network: as a contest between Western liberalism and Eastern fanaticism, as suggested by many pundits in the United States; as a struggle between the defenders and the enemies of authentic Islam, as suggested by many in the Muslim world; and as a predictable backlash against American villainy abroad, as suggested by some on the left. But while useful in assessing some dimensions of the conflict, these cultural and political analyses obscure a fundamental reality: that this war, like most of the wars that preceded it, is firmly rooted in geopolitical competition.

    The geopolitical dimensions of the war are somewhat hard to discern because the initial fighting is taking place in Afghanistan, a place of little intrinsic interest to the United States, and because our principal adversary, bin Laden, has no apparent interest in material concerns. But this is deceptive, because the true center of the conflict is Saudi Arabia, not Afghanistan (or Palestine), and because bin Laden’s ultimate objectives include the imposition of a new Saudi government, which in turn would control the single most valuable geopolitical prize on the face of the earth: Saudi Arabia’s vast oil deposits, representing one-fourth of the world’s known petroleum reserves. To fully appreciate the roots of the current conflict, it is necessary to travel back in time–specifically, to the final years of World War II, when the US government began to formulate plans for the world it would dominate in the postwar era. As the war drew to a close, the State Department was enjoined by President Roosevelt to devise the policies and institutions that would guarantee US security and prosperity in the coming epoch. This entailed the design and formation of the United Nations, the construction of the Bretton Woods world financial institutions and, most significant in the current context, the procurement of adequate oil supplies.

    American strategists considered access to oil to be especially important because it was an essential factor in the Allied victory over the Axis powers. Although the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war, it was oil that fueled the armies that brought Germany and Japan to their knees. Oil powered the vast numbers of ships, tanks and aircraft that endowed Allied forces with a decisive edge over their adversaries, which lacked access to reliable sources of petroleum. It was widely assumed, therefore, that access to large supplies of oil would be critical to US success in any future conflicts.

    Where would this oil come from? During World Wars I and II, the United States was able to obtain sufficient oil for its own and its allies’ needs from deposits in the American Southwest and from Mexico and Venezuela. But most US analysts believed that these supplies would be insufficient to meet American and European requirements in the postwar era. As a result, the State Department initiated an intensive study to identify other sources of petroleum. This effort, led by the department’s economic adviser, Herbert Feis, concluded that only one location could provide the needed petroleum. “In all surveys of the situation,” Feis noted (in a statement quoted by Daniel Yergin in The Prize), “the pencil came to an awed pause at one point and place–the Middle East.”

    To be more specific, Feis and his associates concluded that the world’s most prolific supply of untapped oil was to be found in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But how to get at this oil? At first, the State Department proposed the formation of a government-owned oil firm to acquire concessions in Saudi Arabia and extract the kingdom’s reserves. This plan was considered too unwieldy, however, and instead US officials turned this task over to the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), an alliance of major US oil corporations. But these officials were also worried about the kingdom’s long-term stability, so they concluded that the United States would have to assume responsibility for the defense of Saudi Arabia. In one of the most extraordinary occurrences in modern American history, President Roosevelt met with King Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud, the founder of the modern Saudi regime, on a US warship in the Suez Canal following the February 1945 conference in Yalta. Although details of the meeting have never been made public, it is widely believed that Roosevelt gave the King a promise of US protection in return for privileged American access to Saudi oil–an arrangement that remains in full effect today and constitutes the essential core of the US-Saudi relationship.

    This relationship has provided enormous benefits to both sides. The United States has enjoyed preferred access to Saudi petroleum reserves, obtaining about one-sixth of its crude-oil imports from the kingdom. ARAMCO and its US partners have reaped immense profits from their operations in Saudi Arabia and from the distribution of Saudi oil worldwide. (Although ARAMCO’s Saudi holdings were nationalized by the Saudi government in 1976, the company continues to manage Saudi oil production and to market its petroleum products abroad.) Saudi Arabia also buys about $6-10 billion worth of goods per year from US companies. The Saudi royal family, for its part, has become immensely wealthy and, because of continued US protection, has remained safe from external and internal attack.

    But this extraordinary partnership has also produced a number of unintended consequences, and it is these effects that concern us here. To protect the Saudi regime against its external enemies, the United States has steadily expanded its military presence in the region, eventually deploying thousands of troops in the kingdom. Similarly, to protect the royal family against its internal enemies, US personnel have become deeply involved in the regime’s internal security apparatus. At the same time, the vast and highly conspicuous accumulation of wealth by the royal family has alienated it from the larger Saudi population and led to charges of systemic corruption. In response, the regime has outlawed all forms of political debate in the kingdom (there is no parliament, no free speech, no political party, no right of assembly) and used its US-trained security forces to quash overt expressions of dissent. All these effects have generated covert opposition to the regime and occasional acts of violence–and it is from this undergroundmilieu that Osama bin Laden has drawn his inspiration and many of his top lieutenants.

    The US military presence in Saudi Arabia has steadily increased over the years. Initially, from 1945 to 1972, Washington delegated the primary defense responsibility to Britain, long the dominant power in the region. When Britain withdrew its forces from “East of Suez” in 1971, the United States assumed a more direct role, deploying military advisers in the kingdom and providing Saudi Arabia with a vast arsenal of US weapons. Some of these arms and advisory programs were aimed at external defense, but the Defense Department also played a central role in organizing, equipping, training and managing the Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG), the regime’s internal security force.

    American military involvement in the kingdom reached a new level in 1979, when three things happened: The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the Shah of Iran was overthrown by antigovernment forces and Islamic militants staged a brief rebellion in Mecca. In response, President Jimmy Carter issued a new formulation of US policy: Any move by a hostile power to gain control of the Persian Gulf area would be regarded “as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America” and would be resisted “by any means necessary, including military force.” This statement, now known as the “Carter Doctrine,” has governed US strategy in the gulf ever since. To implement the new doctrine, Carter established the Rapid Deployment Force, a collection of combat forces based in the United States but available for deployment to the Persian Gulf. (The RDF was later folded into the US Central Command, which now conducts all US military operations in the region.) Carter also deployed US warships in the gulf and arranged for the periodic utilization by American forces of military bases in Bahrain, Diego Garcia (a British-controlled island in the Indian Ocean), Oman and Saudi Arabia–all of which were employed during the 1990-91 Gulf War and are again being used today. Believing, moreover, that the Soviet presence in Afghanistan represented a threat to US dominance in the gulf, Carter authorized the initiation of covert operations to undermine the Soviet-backed regime there. (It is important to note that the Saudi regime was deeply involved in this effort, providing much of the funding for the anti-Soviet rebellion and allowing its citizens, including Osama bin Laden, to participate in the war effort as combatants and fundraisers.) And to protect the Saudi royal family, Carter increased US involvement in the kingdom’s internal security operations.

    President Reagan accelerated Carter’s overt military moves and greatly increased covert US support for the anti-Soviet mujahedeen in Afghanistan. (Eventually, some $3 billion worth of arms were given to the mujahedeen.) Reagan also issued an important codicil to the Carter Doctrine: The United States would not allow the Saudi regime to be overthrown by internal dissidents, as occurred in Iran. “We will not permit [Saudi Arabia] to be an Iran,” he told reporters in 1981.

    Then came the Persian Gulf War. When Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, President Bush the elder was principally concerned about the threat to Saudi Arabia, not Kuwait. At a meeting at Camp David on August 4, he determined that the United States must take immediate military action to defend the Saudi kingdom against possible Iraqi attack. To allow for a successful defense of the kingdom, Bush sent his Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, to Riyadh to persuade the royal family to allow the deployment of US ground forces on Saudi soil and the use of Saudi bases for airstrikes against Iraq.

    The subsequent unfolding of Operation Desert Storm does not need to be retold here. What is important to note is that the large US military presence in Saudi Arabia was never fully withdrawn after the end of the fighting in Kuwait. American aircraft continue to fly from bases in Saudi Arabia as part of the enforcement mechanism of the “no-fly zone” over southern Iraq (intended to prevent the Iraqis from using this airspace to attack Shiite rebels in the Basra area or to support a new invasion of Kuwait). American aircraft also participate in the multinational effort to enforce the continuing economic sanctions on Iraq.

    President Clinton further strengthened the US position in the gulf, expanding American basing facilities there and enhancing the ability to rapidly move US-based forces to the region.Clinton also sought to expand US influence in the Caspian Sea basin, an energy-rich area just to the north of the Persian Gulf.

    Many consequences have flowed from all this. The sanctions on Iraq have caused immense suffering for the Iraqi population, while the regular bombing of military facilities produces a mounting toll of Iraqi civilian deaths. Meanwhile, the United States has failed to take any action to curb Israeli violence against the Palestinians. It is these concerns that have prompted many young Muslims to join bin Laden’s forces. Bin Laden himself, however, is most concerned about Saudi Arabia. Ever since the end of the Gulf War, he has focused his efforts on achieving two overarching goals: the expulsion of the American “infidels” from Saudi Arabia (the heart of the Muslim holy land) and the overthrow of the current Saudi regime and its replacement with one more attuned to his fundamentalist Islamic beliefs.

    Both of these goals put bin Laden in direct conflict with the United States. It is this reality, more than any other, that explains the terrorist strikes on US military personnel and facilities in the Middle East, and key symbols of American power in New York and Washington.

    The current war did not begin on September 11. As far as we can tell, it began in 1993 with the first attack on the World Trade Center. This was succeeded in 1995 with an attack on the SANG headquarters in Riyadh, and in 1996 with the explosion at the Khobar Towers outside of Dhahran. Then followed the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the more recent attack on the USS Cole. All these events, like the World Trade Center/Pentagon assaults, are consistent with a long-term strategy to erode US determination to maintain its alliance with the Saudi regime- and thus, in the final analysis, to destroy the 1945 compact forged by President Roosevelt and King Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud.

    In fighting against these efforts, the United States is acting, in the first instance, to protect itself, its citizens and its military personnel from terrorist violence. At the same time, however, Washington is also shoring up its strategic position in the Persian Gulf. With bin Laden out of the way, Iran suffering from internal political turmoil and Saddam Hussein immobilized by unrelenting American airstrikes, the dominant US position in the gulf will be assured for some time to come. (Washington’s one big worry is that the Saudi monarchy will face increasing internal opposition because of its close association with the United States; it is for this reason that the Bush Administration has not leaned too hard on the regime to permit US forces to use Saudi bases for attacks on Afghanistan and to freeze the funds of Saudi charities linked to Osama bin Laden.)

    For both sides, then, this conflict has important geopolitical dimensions. A Saudi regime controlled by Osama bin Laden could be expected to sever all ties with US oil companies and to adopt new policies regarding the production of oil and the distribution of the country’s oil wealth–moves that would have potentially devastating consequences for the US, and indeed the world, economy. The United States, of course, is fighting to prevent this from happening.

    As the conflict unfolds, we are unlikely to hear any of this from the key figures involved. In seeking to mobilize public support for his campaign against the terrorists, President Bush will never acknowledge that conventional geopolitics plays a role in US policy. Osama bin Laden, for his part, is equally reluctant to speak in such terms. But the fact remains that this war, like the Gulf War before it, derives from a powerful geopolitical contest. It will be very difficult, in the current political environment, to probe too deeply into these matters. Bin Laden and his associates have caused massive injury to the United States, and the prevention of further such attacks is, understandably, the nation’s top priority. When conditions permit, however, a serious review of US policy in the Persian Gulf will be in order. Among the many questions that might legitimately be asked at this point is whether long-term US interests would not best be served by encouraging the democratization of Saudi Arabia. Surely, if more Saudi citizens are permitted to participate in open political dialogue, fewer will be attracted to the violent, anti-American dogma of Osama bin Laden.

  • Walk Softly and Look Ahead in Nuclear South Asia

    Before September 11th, South Asia’s problems were legion: over a billion people, most of them desperately poor; a history of war and violent conflicts; rising religious militancy; hard-line Hindu nationalists in power in India, the army in charge in Pakistan; newly tested nuclear weapons and a get-tough mood. Now, it is also the frontline of the US war against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. South Asia may not be able to take the strain. The US needs to ensure that it does nothing to worsen the many crises in South Asia and that it thinks long-term, not short-term, about its policies in the region.

    The US bombing campaign against Afghanistan in response to the terrible attacks of September 11th has opened wide the door for Pakistan’s Islamist groups, with their history of anti Americanism and strong ties to the Taliban. Hoping to mobilize the widespread public resentment and anger at the hopelessness of everyday life in Pakistan, these groups have taken to the streets to challenge the military government of President Pervez Musharraf and his decision to support the US. The longer the US bombs Afghanistan and the more civilians get killed, the greater the humanitarian and refugee crisis and the more organized and dangerous the Islamists’ challenge.

    There are obvious steps the US should take in the present crisis that would serve also to strengthen the hand of Pakistan’s government against the militants. The US should heed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and suspend its bombing campaign to allow relief supplies to reach the more than seven million Afghans in direst need. Similarly, the US could acknowledge the vital role of the UN and call in Secretary General and new Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kofi Annan, show him the evidence, and ask him to mediate with the Taliban for a hand-over of Osama bin Laden for trial.

    Pakistan is also trapped by its conflict with India. Reflecting the intensity and depth of this battle, India and Pakistan have each sought to take advantage of the situation since September 11th. India immediately offered political and military support to the United States in its conflict with the Taliban and urged it to include Pakistani-supported Islamic militants fighting in Kashmir as targets of the US assault on terrorism. Pakistan, under enormous pressure from the US, eventually decided to turn a liability into an asset and sought to cash in on its location and its leverage over the Taliban.

    Seeing Pakistan win the US over to its side, and with the militants continuing their attacks in Kashmir, India is now trying another, more dangerous gambit. It has threatened to follow the US example and attack militant training camps and bases in Pakistan. In an ominous development, India has ended a 10 month long effective cease-fire and started shelling Pakistani forces across the border that divides Kashmir.

    The US must press Pakistan to end its support for the militants, restrain India from actions that may trigger a South Asian war, and get serious in working with the international community to resolve the half century-old Kashmir dispute. For this effort to be taken seriously, the US must show by word and deed that unilateral military action is not the order of the day.

    A longer-term danger are the nuclear weapons in South Asia. The May 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan put the world on watch. The US and the international community used sanctions to pressure both countries to exercise restraint, and to signal a refusal to accept new nuclear weapons states. But, in its search for support in the region, the Bush administration has let go the already waning US efforts to reverse the nuclearization of South Asia. The US is lifting all its sanctions against India and most if not (yet) all sanctions against Pakistan–and economic and military assistance is being offered to both.

    India and Pakistan may return with renewed vigor to their conventional and nuclear arms race. India seeks US arms to add to its $4 billion arms deal with Russia and $2 billion deal with Israel. Pakistan’s limited funds have stalled its military purchases. With the army in charge, any resources freed by a blanket lifting of sanctions may go to catching up with India. With political and economic pressures eased, both sides may speed deployment of their nuclear warheads. South Asia may escape the frying pan of terrorism only to fall into the nuclear fire.

    Alternatives to Military Aid

    While military aid will make things worse, economic aid can play an important role. There is no doubt South Asia’s poor need support. But this will be near useless if the money is simply handed over to the very governments that have for so long neglected their people. Resources must be directed to where the people are and in ways that they can usefully manage to improve the conditions of their daily lives. The US, the international community, and institutions like the World Bank would do well to heed Mahatma Gandhi’s advice: “recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny?”

    Also long-term is democracy. General Musharraf’s new status as ally in the war against Afghanistan and the man most likely to hold Pakistan together may lead to the lifting of the US sanctions levied after his coup. But, concern about Pakistan’s stability should not translate into abandoning democracy, and Musharraf should not be allowed or encouraged to stay in power. The two previous Pakistani generals who seized power each kept it for the better part of a decade. Civil society withered both times.

    Musharraf should hold to his promise of elections and restoring democracy by next October. Elections may be just what it takes to mobilize the majority of Pakistanis in the battle against radical Islam. Whenever they have been allowed to choose who should govern them in the past, Pakistanis have decisively rejected Islamic political parties. They would do so again now. The small crowds on the streets supporting the Islamist groups are testament to that, but another ten years without democracy may change their minds.

    *Zia Mian researches South Asian security issues with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He has also taught at Princeton, Yale, and Quaid-i-Azam University (Islamabad, Pakistan). He is the co-editor of Out of The Nuclear Shadow, a collection of South Asian writing on nuclear disarmament.

  • A Leading Role for the Security Council

    In the past month, the world has witnessed something previously unknown: a common stand taken by America, Russia, Europe, India, China, Cuba, most of the Islamic world and numerous other regions and countries. Despite many serious differences between them, they united to save civilization.

    It is now the responsibility of the world community to transform the coalition against terrorism into a coalition for a peaceful world order. Let us not, as we did in the 1990’s, miss the chance to build such an order.

    Concepts like solidarity and helping third world countries to fight poverty and backwardness have disappeared from the political vocabulary. But if these concepts are not revived politically, the worst scenarios of a clash of civilizations could become reality.

    I believe the United Nations Security Council should take the lead in fighting terrorism and in dealing with other global problems. All the main issues considered by the United Nations affect mankind’s security. It is time to stop reviling the United Nations and get on with the work of adapting the institution to new tasks.

    Concrete steps should include accelerated nuclear and chemical disarmament and control over the remaining stocks of dangerous substances, including chemical and biological agents. No amount of money is too much for that. I hope the United States will support the verification protocol of the convention banning biological weapons and ratify the treaty to prohibit all nuclear tests ‹ though both steps would reverse the Bush administration’s current positions.

    We should also heed those who have pointed out the negative consequences of globalization for hundreds of millions of people. Globalization cannot be stopped, but it can be made more humane and more balanced for those it affects.

    If the battle against terrorism is limited to military operations, the world could be the loser. But if it becomes an integral part of common efforts to build a more just world order, everyone will win ‹ including those who now do not support American actions or the antiterrorism coalition. Those people, and they are many, should not all be branded as enemies.

    Russia has shown its solidarity with America. President Vladimir Putin immediately sent a telegram to President Bush on Sept. 11 condemning the “inhuman act” of that day. Russia has been sharing information, coordinating positions with the West and with its neighbors, opening its air space, and providing humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people and weapons to the Northern Alliance.

    This has been good policy. But we should bear in mind that both in the Russian establishment and among the people, reaction to it has been mixed. Some people are still prone to old ways of understanding the world and Russia’s place in it. Others sincerely wonder whether the world’s most powerful country should be bombing impoverished Afghanistan. Still others ask: We have supported America in its hour of need, but will it meet us halfway on issues important to us?

    I am sure Russia will be a serious partner in fighting international terrorism. But equally, it is important that its voice be heard in building a new international order. If not, Russians could conclude that they have merely been used.

    Irritants in American-Russian relations ‹ issues like missile defense and the admission of new members to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ‹ will be addressed in due course, but they will be easier to solve once we have moved toward a new global agenda and a deeper partnership between our two countries.

    Finally, it would be wrong to use the battle against terrorism to establish control over countries or regions. This would discredit the coalition and close off the prospect of transforming it into a powerful mechanism for building a peaceful world.

    Turning the coalition against terror into an alliance that works to achieve a just international order would be a lasting memorial to the thousands of victims of the Sept. 11 tragedy.