Desmond Tutu: on "Leadership and Morality"

The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.

Instead of recognising that the world we lived in, with increasingly sophisticated communications, transportation and weapons systems necessitated sophisticated leadership that would bring the global family together, the then-leaders of the US and UK fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge of a precipice where we now stand – with the spectre of Syria and Iran before us.

If leaders may lie, then who should tell the truth? Days before George W Bush and Tony Blair ordered the invasion of Iraq, I called the White House and spoke to Condoleezza Rice, who was then national security adviser, to urge that United Nations weapons inspectors be given more time to confirm or deny the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Should they be able to confirm finding such weapons, I argued, dismantling the threat would have the support of virtually the entire world. Ms Rice demurred, saying there was too much risk and the president would not postpone any longer.

On what grounds do we decide that Robert Mugabe should go the International Criminal Court, Tony Blair should join the international speakers' circuit, bin Laden should be assassinated, but Iraq should be invaded, not because it possesses weapons of mass destruction, as Mr Bush's chief supporter, Mr Blair, confessed last week, but in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein?

The cost of the decision to rid Iraq of its by-all-accounts despotic and murderous leader has been staggering, beginning in Iraq itself. Last year, an average of 6.5 people died there each day in suicide attacks and vehicle bombs, according to the Iraqi Body Count project. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003 and millions have been displaced. By the end of last year, nearly 4,500 American soldiers had been killed and more than 32,000 wounded.

On these grounds alone, in a consistent world, those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague.

But even greater costs have been exacted beyond the killing fields, in the hardened hearts and minds of members of the human family across the world.

Has the potential for terrorist attacks decreased? To what extent have we succeeded in bringing the so-called Muslim and Judeo-Christian worlds closer together, in sowing the seeds of understanding and hope?

Leadership and morality are indivisible. Good leaders are the custodians of morality. The question is not whether Saddam Hussein was good or bad or how many of his people he massacred. The point is that Mr Bush and Mr Blair should not have allowed themselves to stoop to his immoral level.

If it is acceptable for leaders to take drastic action on the basis of a lie, without an acknowledgement or an apology when they are found out, what should we teach our children?

My appeal to Mr Blair is not to talk about leadership, but to demonstrate it. You are a member of our family, God's family. You are made for goodness, for honesty, for morality, for love; so are our brothers and sisters in Iraq, in the US, in Syria, in Israel and Iran.

I did not deem it appropriate to have this discussion at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit in Johannesburg last week. As the date drew nearer, I felt an increasingly profound sense of discomfort about attending a summit on "leadership" with Mr Blair. I extend my humblest and sincerest apologies to Discovery, the summit organisers, the speakers and delegates for the lateness of my decision not to attend.

Just say No to NATO in Scotland

(A message from Angie Zelter of Trident Plougshares, on behalf of the No to NATO in Scotland campaign)

In response to the SNP leadership proposing a change in their long held opposition to NATO membership at their party conference in October TP in Scotland held an emergency meeting a fortnight ago. Last Wednesday we facilitated the launch of a No To NATO in Scotland Coalition. At a well attended meeting we agreed a campaign plan including the gist of a unified statement and we now have a live website where people can sign up to say that they support this.

Angie Zelter is the "O' in "NO"

Please spread this far and wide. We need both people from Scotland and people from all around the world so that the SNP grassroots can see that changing to a policy of NATO membership is not as popular as their leaders (and The Scotsman newspaper!) are constantly telling them.

Its a good opportunity to raise awareness about what NATO does and that its a nuclear alliance as this is a very hot issue at the moment.

http://notonatoscotland.org.uk/

and for those that do Facebook https://www.facebook.com/NotoNatoScotland

Trident Ploughshares

WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT TO END VIOLENCE GATHERS MOMENTUM

Editor's Note:  Since Robert Burrowes wrote the following update about the People's Charter to Create a Nonviolent World, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire signed the Charter and the Charter received its first signatories in New Zealand, Romania and Thailand as well.  The Charter now has signatories in 39 countries (and organisationalendorsements).

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Many people are concerned about wars being fought in various parts of the world. Others are motivated by images of poverty and starvation locally or in distant parts of the world. Increasing numbers of people are inclined to take action in response to the ongoing climate catastrophe. And for some people, the issue that concerns them is violence against women, or refugees, or nuclear power, or species extinctions, or the occupation of Palestine or Tibet, or …

The list of issues is endless. And yet, something connects them all. They are all manifestations of human violence. But human violence, in itself, is not an issue about which groups campaign. That is, until now.

On 11 November 2011, a new movement to end human violence was launched around the world. Simultaneous launches took place in Australia, Malaysia, the Philippines and the USA. This worldwide movement, which invites individuals and organisations to sign a pledge to work to end human violence in all of its manifestations, has already attracted individual signatories in 36 countries and organisational endorsements in 13 countries.

'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' was conceived and launched by three Australians - Anita McKone, Anahata Giri and myself - based on several decades of research and nonviolent action. Tired of all of the violence we have experienced, witnessed and resisted throughout our lives, we decided to prepare and launch the Nonviolence Charter worldwide.

So what is unique about 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World'? The Nonviolence Charter is an attempt to put the focus on human violence as the pre-eminent problem faced by our species, to truthfully identify all of the major manifestations of this violence, and to identify ways to tackle all of these manifestations of violence in a systematic and strategic manner. It is an attempt to put the focus on the fundamental cause – the violence we adults inflict on children – and to stress the importance of dealing with that cause. (See 'Why Violence?' http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence) It is an attempt to focus on what you and I – that is, ordinary people – can do to end human violence and the

Nonviolence Charter invites us to pledge to make that effort. And it is an attempt to provide a focal point around which we can mobilise with a sense of shared commitment with people from all over the world.

Launching the People's Charter in Seattle in November, 2011

In essence then, one aim of the Nonviolence Charter is to give every individual and organisation on planet Earth the chance to deeply consider where they stand on the fundamental issue of human violence. Will you publicly declare your commitment to work to end human violence? Or are you going to leave it to others?

And what, precisely, do you want to do? And with whom? The Charter includes suggestions for action in a wide variety of areas; for example, by inviting people to participate in 'The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth' - http://tinyurl.com/flametree - which is a simple yet comprehensive strategy for individuals and organisations to deal with the full range of environmental problems. It also provides an opportunity to identify and contact others, both locally and internationally, with whom we can work in locally relevant ways, whatever our preferred focus for action. In that sense, each participating individual and organization becomes part of a worldwide community working to end human violence for all time.

Since being initiated, the Nonviolence Charter has attracted considerable support from people in many countries and some of these have notable records of achievement for peace and justice already. Professor Chandra Muzaffar, Helen Ng and Nurul Haida Dzulkifli are key figures at the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) based in Malaysia, Dr Tess Ramiro heads Aksyon para sa Kapayapaan at Katarungan – Center for Active Non-Violence at the Pius XII Catholic Centre in the Philippines, and Tom Shea and Leonard Eiger have lengthy records as effective nonviolent activists, organisers and networkers at the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action in the USA. Other signatories include Nobel Peace Prize nominees such as nonviolent activists Kathy Kelly (USA), Father John Dear (USA) and Angie Zelter (UK); prominent community leaders such as Ade Adenekan of the Pan-African Reconciliation Centre in Nigeria; the prominent human rights lawyer and consultant, Salma Yusuf, in Sri Lanka; religious figures such as Rev. Brian Burch of Canada and Rev. Nathaniel W. Pierce of the USA; as well as professors including Glenn D. Paige, founder of the Center for Global Nonkilling in the USA; Dietrich Fischer, Academic Director of the World Peace Academy in Switzerland; Raafat Misak, professor of desert geomorphology and head of the Kuwait Campaign to Ban Landmines in Kuwait; Mazin Qumsiyeh, Chairperson of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochment between People in Palestine; and Marc Pilisuk, professor emeritus at the University of California and a member of the Program on Violence, War, and their Alternatives with Psychologists for Social Responsibility in the USA.

How long will this worldwide campaign take?  It will undoubtedly take many years: ending human violence is no easy task. But the alternative – to tolerate human violence until we precipitate our own extinction – is, surely, unthinkable.

The Nonviolence Charter acknowledges our many differences, including the different issues on which we choose to work. But it also offers us a chance to see the unity of our overarching aim within this diversity. Hence, whatever our differences, we are given the chance to see that ending human violence is our compelling and unifying dream.

Would you like to consider joining the worldwide movement to end human violence? If so, you can read and, if you wish, sign 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World' online at http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com

Robert J. Burrowes flametree@riseup.net

Anita McKone and Robert J. Burrowes

P.O. Box 325

Blackburn

Victoria 3130

Australia

Email: flametree@riseup.net 

Websites: http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com (Charter)

          http://tinyurl.com/flametree  (Flame Tree Project)

          http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence  ('Why Violence?')

          http://anitamckone.wordpress.com  (Songs of Nonviolence)

          http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

NATO is So Yesterday! Whatever happened to the U.N.???

The now infamous NATO Summit 2012 is but a memory, and it is apparent that it is business as usual for NATO moving forward (in a backwards sort of way).  As historian Lawrence Wittner states quite succinctly and eloquently (and with a keen sense of history) in the following article, NATO is a relic of the Cold War.  With the U.S. as the driving force behind it, NATO is driving the world headlong into oblivion - military solutions are not solutions at all for the issues confronting us. 


Wittner reminds us that the United Nations, intended to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace, is the vehicle to prevent wars between nations and provide the platform for constructive dialogue among nations.  Of course the U.N needs some help to live up to its mission, yet abandoning it (as the U.S. has effectively done through withholding financial support and undermining its mission) is done at the world's peril.

We should heed the lessons of history (and listen to historians like Wittner).  Our children's future depends on it.  Read on...

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Should NATO Be Handling World Security?

By Lawrence Wittner, in The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-wittner/should-nato-be-handling-w_b_1531799.html

Posted: 05/21/2012 4:06 pm

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (better known as NATO) is in the news once again thanks to a NATO Summit meeting in Chicago over the weekend of May 19-20 and to large public demonstrations in Chicago against this military pact.

NATO's website defines the alliance's mission as "Peace and Security," and shows two children lying in the grass, accompanied by a bird, a flower and the happy twittering of birds. There is no mention of the fact that NATO is the world's most powerful military pact, or that NATO nations account for 70 percent of the world's annual $1.74 trillion in military spending.

Lawrence Wittner

The organizers of the demonstrations, put together by peace and social justice groups, assailed NATO for bogging the world down in endless war and for diverting vast resources to militarism. According to a spokesperson for one of the protest groups, Peace Action: "It's time to retire NATO and form a new alliance to address unemployment, hunger, and climate change."

NATO was launched in April 1949, at a time when Western leaders feared that the Soviet Union, if left unchecked, would invade Western Europe. The U.S. government played a key role in organizing the alliance, which brought in not only West European nations, but the United States and Canada. Dominated by the United States, NATO had a purely defensive mission -- to safeguard its members from military attack, presumably by the Soviet Union.

That attack never occurred, either because it was deterred by NATO's existence or because the Soviet government had no intention of attacking in the first place. We shall probably never know.
In any case, with the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet Union, it seemed that NATO had outlived its usefulness.

But vast military establishments, like other bureaucracies, rarely just fade away. If the original mission no longer exists, new missions can be found. And so NATO's military might was subsequently employed to bomb Yugoslavia, to conduct counter-insurgency warfare in Afghanistan, and to bomb Libya. Meanwhile, NATO expanded its membership and military facilities to East European nations right along Russia's border, thus creating renewed tension with that major military power and providing it with an incentive to organize a countervailing military pact, perhaps with China.

None of this seems likely to end soon. In the days preceding the Chicago meeting, NATO's new, sweeping role was highlighted by Oana Lungescu, a NATO spokesperson, who announced that the Summit would "discuss the Alliance's overall posture in deterring and defending against the full range of threats in the 21st century, and take stock of NATO's mix of conventional, nuclear, and missile defense forces."

In fairness to NATO planners, it should be noted that, when it comes to global matters, they are operating in a relative vacuum. There are real international security problems, and some entity should certainly be addressing them.

But is NATO the proper entity? After all, NATO is a military pact, dominated by the United States and composed of a relatively small group of self-selecting European and North American nations. The vast majority of the world's countries do not belong to NATO and have no influence upon it.  Who appointed NATO as the representative of the world's people? Why should the public in India, in Brazil, in China, in South Africa, in Argentina, or most other nations identify with the decisions of NATO's military commanders?

The organization that does represent the nations and people of the world is the United Nations. Designed to save the planet from "the scourge of war," the United Nations has a Security Council (on which the United States has permanent membership) that is supposed to handle world security issues. Unlike NATO, whose decisions are often controversial and sometimes questionable, the United Nations almost invariably comes forward with decisions that have broad international support and, furthermore, show considerable wisdom and military restraint.

The problem with UN decisions is not that they are bad ones, but that they are difficult to enforce. And the major reason for the difficulty in enforcement is that the Security Council is hamstrung by a veto that can be exercised by any one nation. Thus, much like the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, which is making the United States less and less governable, the Security Council veto has seriously limited what the world organization is able to do in addressing global security issues.

Thus, if the leaders of NATO nations were really serious about providing children with a world in which they could play in peace among the birds and flowers, they would work to strengthen the United Nations and stop devoting vast resources to questionable wars.

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Lawrence Wittner is Professor of History emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is "Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual" (University of Tennessee Press).

Mr. President: Law or Lawlessness???

Dedicated peace activist Brad Lyttle wrote the following letter to President Obama after hearing the most recent news of his unseemly, active pursuit of targeted killings.  Beyond the direct questions asked here, Brad asks an even deeper and fundamental question of not only Obama, but also of each and every one of us - If we do not stand against this reprehensible practice, what is to become of our collective spirit???  Is this not just one more step toward the abyss?  At what point is there no return?

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June 1, 2012

President Barack Obama
The White Hosue
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama,

The recent article in the New York Times maintaining that you study and approve lists of people that the CIA and other “intelligence” services recommend for assassination, is deeply disturbing. The report reminds me of Lavrenti Beria’s practice of submitting “liquidation” lists to Stalin for his approval and signature. I hope that you are not approving the assassination of anyone. I do not see how such killings, completely outside of, “the rule of law,”can make the world a safer place.

Consider the situation in Chicago. Chicago has had a high violence level this spring. Just last weekend about 20 people were shot. Several died. Suppose that Chicago judges tried to reduce this violence level by studying lists of suspects submitted by the police, and then ordered that certain people be summarily executed. If judges did that, I do not think that what is left of civil society in Chicago would last long. To maintain civil society, it is always necessary to proceed against suspected criminals by means of due process. Everyone accused of a crime should have his or her day in court, the right to counsel, and a public and fair trial. That method of resolving conflicts is one characteristic of a democratic, workable, society.

I believe that you should do everything that you can to create and strengthen international processes for resolving conflicts that at least suggest the rule of law rather than the rule of arbitrary violence. Two days ago, the Special Court of Sierra Leone sentenced Charles Taylor to 50 yeas in prison for crimes against the people of Liberia. That is a step in the right direction. Shouldn’t we try to bring those we regard as terrorists to trial in U.N. sponsored international courts, rather than assassinating or summarily imprisoning them? If the United Nations had just put Taylor in prison for 50 years without giving him his “day in court,” would we be closer to peace and more secure?

The condition of war tends to obliterate all processes of justice. World War II may have begun with national leaders proclaiming limits to their use of violence. Almost all stated their opposition to the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. However, before the war ended, there do not seem to have been any restraints in regard to the use of violence on the part of anyone. Nazi Germany was operating extermination centers like Treblinka and Auschwitz. The U.S. fire bombed Dresden, Tokyo, and other Axis cities, and annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs. The bombings were justified on the grounds that they hastened the end of war, but had dreadful implications for everyone. Thousands of hydrogen bombs are now aimed at cities. No national leader maintains that civilians are illegitimate targets. This is not progress in security and civilization.

The “War on Terror” contains the danger of a similar “progression.” It may have begun with the assumption that we would not torture and assassinate people, but we now find ourselves doing these things. We may kill many of our enemies, but we can’t kill all of them, and what kind of world society results from such activity? It is a society where there is no “law,” only the power to kill that can be used arbitrarily by anyone who has the means. The President of the United States should take the lead in trying to create a world society based on law and justice, not arbitrary violence.

Sincerely,

Bradford Lyttle
Chicago, IL

Is this any way to run a world: A historian's perspective

Lawrence S. Wittner is professor of history emeritus at SUNY/Albany. His latest book is "Working for Peace and Justice: Memoirs of an Activist Intellectual” (University of Tennessee Press).  Another of his recent books is "Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement"

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The Shame of Nations: A New Record is Set for Spending on War

By Lawrence Wittner, April 23, 2012

On April 17, 2012, as millions of Americans were filing their income tax returns, the highly-respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) released its latest study of world military spending. In case Americans were wondering where most of their tax money -- and the tax money of other nations -- went in the previous year, the answer from SIPRI was clear: to war and preparations for war.

World military spending reached a record $1,738 billion in 2011 -- an increase of $138 billion over the previous year. The United States accounted for 41 percent of that, or $711 billion.

Some news reports have emphasized that, from the standpoint of reducing reliance on armed might, this actually represents progress. After all, the increase in “real” global military spending -- that is, expenditures after corrections for inflation and exchange rates -- was only 0.3 percent. And this contrasts with substantially larger increases in the preceding thirteen years.

But why are military expenditures continuing to increase -- indeed, why aren’t they substantially decreasing -- given the governmental austerity measures of recent years? Amid the economic crisis that began in late 2008 (and which continues to the present day), most governments have been cutting back their spending dramatically on education, health care, housing, parks, and other vital social services. However, there have not been corresponding cuts in their military budgets.

Americans, particularly, might seek to understand why in this context U.S. military spending has not been significantly decreased, instead of being raised by $13 billion -- admittedly a “real dollar” decrease of 1.2 percent, but hardly one commensurate with Washington’s wholesale slashing of social spending. Yes, military expenditures by China and Russia increased in 2011. And in “real” terms, too. But, even so, their military strength hardly rivals that of the United States. Indeed, the United States spent about five times as much as China (the world’s #2 military power) and ten times as much as Russia (the world’s #3 military power) on its military forces during 2011. Furthermore, when U.S. allies like Britain, France, Germany, and Japan are factored in, it is clear that the vast bulk of world military expenditures are made by the United States and its military allies.

This might account for the fact that the government of China, which accounts for only 8.2 percent of world military spending, believes that increasing its outlay on armaments is reasonable and desirable. Apparently, officials of many nations share that competitive feeling.

Unfortunately, the military rivalry among nations -- one that has endured for centuries -- results in a great squandering of national resources. Many nations, in fact, devote most of their available income to funding their armed forces and their weaponry. In the United States, an estimated 58 percent of the U.S. government’s discretionary tax dollars go to war and preparations for war. “Almost every country with a military is on an insane path, spending more and more on missiles, aircraft, and guns,” remarked John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus. “These countries should be confronting the real threats of climate change, hunger, disease, and oppression, not wasting taxpayers’ money on their military.”

Of course, defenders of military expenditures reply that military force actually protects people from war. But does it? If so, how does one explain the fact that the major military powers of the past century -- the United States, Russia, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and China -- have been almost constantly at war during that time? What is the explanation for the fact that the United States -- today’s military giant -- is currently engaged in at least two wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan) and appears to be on the verge of a third (with Iran)? Perhaps the maintenance of a vast military machine does not prevent war but, instead, encourages it.

In short, huge military establishments can be quite counterproductive. Little wonder that they have been condemned repeatedly by great religious and ethical leaders. Even many government officials have decried war and preparations for war -- although usually by nations other than their own.

Thus, the release of the new study by SIPRI should not be a cause for celebration. Rather, it provides an appropriate occasion to contemplate the fact that, this past year, nations spent more money on the military than at any time in human history. Although this situation might still inspire joy in the hearts of government officials, top military officers, and defense contractors, people farther from the levers of military power might well conclude that it’s a hell of a way to run a world.

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Click here to access the SIPRI study of global military spending.

This article originally published by George Mason University's History News Network, http://hnn.us/articles/shame-nations-new-record-set-spending-war