International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Bulletin 19 - Terror, Counterterror and Nuclear Disarmament

Abolition 2000 Report Card for the Year 2001

Feed The Wolf: A Rough Guide To Global Security

Janet Bloomfield , Pamela S. Meidell

"It is in the shelter of each other that the people live." - Irish proverb

We mourn the terrible losses of September 11, 2001, and call for new ways to assure the safety and security of all life

Introduction

in which we set forth the world's terrible track record on nuclear abolition and seek a fresh approach

Even before the horrific and tragic events of September 11, the way we look at the issue of nuclear abolition had changed utterly. Every year since 1995, we have issued a Report Card grading the world on its progress toward nuclear abolition. The world has not been getting very good grades. In fact, it has been failing. In 2000, we issued a five-year review card entitled, Must Try Harder. But in the past year, the world has not tried harder to create a nuclear-free world. So, in May 2001, the Global Council of Abolition 2000 invited Paul Rogers^[1] to help us think together about what we face in this new century. In his keynote speech to us, he said:

"Western strategies for controlling a polarized and environmentally constrained world do not take into account the fundamental vulnerabilities of modern urban-industrial states to asymmetric warfare... Attempting to keep the lid on - 'liddism' - without addressing the core reasons for dissent will not work... It is reasonable to conclude that the coming years represent a period of fundamental challenge and potential transformation. The early decades of the twenty-first century could be an era in which deep divisions in the world community lead to instability and violence that will transcend boundaries and affect rich and poor alike. They could also be an era of substantial progress in developing a more socially just and environmentally sustainable world order." [emphasis added]

His words framed our discussions and inspired us to approach our work of nuclear abolition in a new way. We set forth this new direction in the Saffron Walden Declaration:

"The Abolition 2000 Global Council, meeting in Saffron Walden England, with participants from Australia, Belgium, Egypt, France, Japan, Romania, Russia, Sweden, the UK, and the USA, reaffirms the Abolition 2000 Statement, which calls for a world free of the nuclear threat, and the Moorea Declaration, which acknowledges the abuses of colonialism and the suffering of indigenous peoples caused by the production and testing of nuclear weapons. We remember the hibakusha - the atomic bomb survivors - and call on the nations of the world to heed their urgent plea: "Before the last of us leaves this world, nuclear weapons must be abolished forever."

We recognize that Abolition 2000 now faces a new world context because of the continuing modernization of nuclear weapons, the US drive to weaponize and nuclearize space, and the increasing burden on the world's resources that this immoral and illegal quest for global domination creates. The western nuclear weapons states and their allies believe they can put a "lid" on the rising tide of discontent at the economic inequity and lack of social justice among the vast majority of the earth's people in order to maintain their access to world resources and their unsustainable levels of consumption. We assert that this dangerous and destabilizing paradigm cannot endure.

We call instead for a new security framework that will serve all humanity, based on respect for international law and Treaties, conflict prevention and cooperation through the United Nations. We call for immediate negotiations to abolish nuclear weapons, ban the means of their delivery, and keep space for peace. We envisage a world that is free of nuclear weapons, free of the resultant environmental contamination, and free of social and economic injustice. We affirm our belief that this new framework is more than practical and ethical. It is imperative for our planet's future."

After September 11, very few of us feel safe. Whatever illusion of safety we may have enjoyed shattered that morning. But let's remember that it was an illusion. Even with the receding of the Cold War, the nuclear "sword of Damocles" hung suspended over our collective heads, with only the thickness of the thread varying through the years. If anything, the end of the Cold War has shown us that the nuclear sword hangs over one global society of many cultures, one global village.

Feed the wolf

in which we tell a story and show how it relates to us today

Long ago, in a perilous time of great change, in an Italian forest outside a village called Gubbio, lived a fierce and terrible wolf. This wolf terrorized the citizens of the village; he ate their chickens, consumed their sheep, and chased their children. Sometimes the wolf even ate a child. The people of Gubbio lived in fear, never went anywhere alone, and always carried weapons to protect themselves when they left the village. They tried everything to get the wolf to stop: they caged the chickens, penned the sheep, and locked their children in their homes. Still, the wolf struck. Eventually, they became so fearful, no one ever left the village. The people heard that in a neighboring town of Assisi lived a man who could speak, and better still, understand, the language of animals. In desperation, they sent for him, and begged him to come to their village and talk to the wolf. When Saint Francis heard their story, he had great compassion for the people, and agreed to come to Gubbio.

When he arrived at the village gates, the whole town came to meet him. He turned to go into the forest, and all the people stayed inside the gates and watched him go. When the wolf saw him coming, he rushed forward to devour him. But Saint Francis raised his hand and spoke to him, calling him "Brother Wolf." The wolf was so surprised to hear a man speak to him in language he could understand that he shrank back to listen.

According to tradition, then Saint Francis said to him: "Brother Wolf, you have done great harm in these parts, and committed great crimes, ravaging and slaying God's creatures without His leave. Not only have you killed and eaten beasts but have dared to kill and devour human beings. For these things you deserve to hang as a robber and vile murderer: all the people cry out in complaint against you, and the whole district hates you. I have only one thing to ask you, Brother Wolf. Why have you committed these terrible crimes?"

The wolf looked up at Saint Francis and simply said, "I was hungry."

Then Saint Francis said, "Brother Wolf, I wish to make peace between you and the townsfolk. If you agree not to eat their chickens, or their sheep, or their children anymore, they will forgive you, and not hunt you anymore. Do you agree?"

At these words, "by the movement of his body, tail and eyes, and by bowing his head," the wolf showed that he accepted Saint Francis's proposal, and was willing to observe it. Then, the wolf asked, "But what will I eat?" Then Saint Francis said: "Brother Wolf, since you are ready to make this peace and keep it, the people of Gubbio will feed you for as long as you live, and you will not go hungry any more. Do you promise not to hurt human or beast ever again?" Saint Francis held out his hand to receive the wolf 's promise, and the wolf raised his paw and placed it gently in Saint Francis's hand, giving proof of his good faith.

Together, the wolf and Saint Francis walked back into the village. The people were amazed and stood back to let them pass. "Listen, my friends, "said Saint Francis, "Brother Wolf, who stands here before you, has promised to make peace with you, and never to hurt you if you promise to feed him every day. Will you promise?" And of course they did. From that day, the wolf and the people lived happily together in Gubbio. The people fed the wolf, and the wolf never harmed anyone. The children could play again and everyone slept peacefully at night.^[2]

The global village

in which the village of Gubbio expands to become the place where we all live, and we ask: who is the fierce and terrible wolf today?

For a moment, let us look at our world as if it were a village.^[3] Perhaps it will help us to understand the forces that are at play more easily than trying to grasp the totality of an entire planet...

If this village had a population of 1000 people it would include: 584 Asians, 124 Africans, 95 Central, East and West Europeans, 84 Latin Americans, 55 former Soviets (including for the moment Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians and other national groups), 52 North Americans, six Australians and Aotearoa/New Zealanders. They would not all speak the same language; in fact 165 people speak Mandarin, 86 English, 83 Hindi/Urdu, 64 Spanish, 58 Russian, 37 Arabic. These languages account for the mother tongues of only half the villagers. The other half speak (in descending order of frequency) Bengali, Portuguese, Indonesian, Japanese, German, French and 200 other languages. In this village of 1,000 people, there are 329 Christians, 178 Muslims, 167 "non-religious," l32 Hindus, 60 Buddhists, 45 atheists, three Jews, 86 all other religions. In the village of 1,000 people, with all their different languages and beliefs, there are: five soldiers, seven teachers, one doctor, and three refugees driven from home by war or drought. The village has a total budget each year, public and private, of over $3 million. Of the total $3 million: $181,000 goes to weapons and warfare, $159,000 for education, $l32, 000 for health care. If the income were distributed evenly, each person would receive $3,000. In fact, in this 1,000-person community, 200 people receive 75 percent of the income; another 200 receive only two percent of the income.

Other statistics about the village include: one-third (330) of the 1,000 people in the global village are children; only 60 are over the age of 65. Half the children are immunized against preventable infectious diseases, such as measles and polio. Just under half of the married women in the village have access to and use modern contraceptives. This year, 28 babies will be born. Ten people will die, three of them for lack of food, one from cancer; two of the deaths will be babies born within the year. One person of the 1,000 is infected with the HIV virus; that person most likely has not yet developed a full-blown case of AIDS. With the 28 births and 10 deaths, the population of the village next year will be 1,018. Only 70 people of the 1,000 own an automobile (although some of the 70 own more than one automobile). About one-third have access to clean, safe drinking water. Of the 670 adults in the village, half are illiterate, 480 live in substandard housing, 300 suffer from malnutrition, and less than ten have a college education. The villagers have 20 computers between them. Most of these are using the English language and owned by the members of the group that has access to over 75% of the village's wealth.

The land area of the village is under extreme pressure. The village has six acres of land per person, 6,000 acres in all, of which 700 acres are cropland, 1,400 acres pasture, 1,900 acres woodland, 2,000 acres desert, tundra, pavement and other wasteland. The woodland is declining rapidly; the wasteland is increasing. The other land categories are roughly stable. Added to all this, the village has enough explosive power in nuclear weapons to blow itself to smithereens many times over. Plus a huge inventory of conventional explosives, with all manner of delivery systems, plus hundreds of small arms, plus the possibility of the use of chemical and biological agents that are available to those with the will to do so.

Is it any wonder that the villagers feel deeply insecure? That the minority who have access to most of the wealth and resources are seen as a threat by the majority? That the minority feels threatened by the majority and unsure of what may happen in the village in the future? History would suggest that this village was on the brink of a violent and bloody revolution. But perhaps if this village really did exist (and doesn't it?), the villagers would be close enough to each other's lives and experiences to realize that none of them can have a safe future if the community continues in its old ways. No one can be safe unless they are all safe. Perhaps they would begin to see another way forward. Perhaps they would see the value and necessity of recognizing their common humanity and their interdependence. Perhaps they would see that to be truly safe, they need to "feed the wolf " rather than take up arms against each other.

Unleashing the nonviolence of the strong

in which the citizens of the global village "feed the wolf " so that everyone feels safe and can sleep in peace at night, i.e. we are all Saint Francis, we are all the people of Gubbio, we are all the wolf

In the aftermath of September 11, the leaders of our world have assembled a vast and powerful coalition of governments to combat terrorism. To balance it, this coalition of nation states requires an equally powerful coalition of citizens of the global community. Governments only serve at the consent of the governed. As we learned from Mahatma Gandhi in the middle of the last century, the governments have power in direct proportion to the cooperation of the people. As we cooperate in the creation of the policies of our respective governments, so we cooperate across boundaries to create the conditions that will keep our governments accountable and our democracies alive.

Gandhi often asserted that, in their struggle for independence, the Indian people practiced the nonviolence of the weak. They did not have any other weapons to use. But what would happen when strong people, with arsenals of many weapons, practised nonviolence? What does the nonviolence of the strong look like? Gandhi caught a glimpse of it in an unlikely place: the Northwest Frontier Province of British India. There, Gandhi found a surprising ally in a Muslim leader named Abdul Ghaffar Khan. He was a Pathan^[4] , a people of the Hindu Kush, whose territory includes the notorious Khyber Pass, gateway to South Asia, and covers land on both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border. We've heard a lot about this area lately. Ancestors of the Pathans stopped Alexander the Great, and greatgrandfathers of Pathans alive today defeated the strongest, best-equipped garrisons of the British Empire. So renowned was their ruthless skill as warriors that when Britain sent in those garrisons at the turn of the century, the Pathans slaughtered all but one man, sparing him only so that he could tell the story of this massacre to the world. One who heard that story was Winston Churchill, who reported it as a young war correspondent from "the colonies." "No people are more fierce, more brutal, more without regard for human life." The Pathans live by a strict code of honor, which includes courage, hospitality, and revenge. They know the lineages of revenge in their families, stretching back for generations.

Into this setting came a khan, a chief, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Pathan himself, who appealed to his compatriots' code of honor to inspire a warriorship of protection of life instead of revenge. How did he do this? After hearing of Gandhi, and travelling to India to learn from him, Khan returned to the Pathans and inspired them to organize themselves into disciplined ranks they themselves called "Servants of God." At one time, over 100,000 Pathans carried out massive educational efforts and campaigns in what we would today call sustainable development. From the current border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan came history's first nonviolent army. Can you believe it? It would be as if someone today said that the Taliban had become nonviolent, in submission to God and the teachings of Islam, and were setting about the peaceful and determined restoration of their society and their land. Just as we would probably not believe it, the British at the time did not. They were ruthless in their determination to destroy the Pathans. In contrast, when Gandhi heard about the organizing efforts of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, he insisted on coming to visit him to see the "Servants of God" for himself. In 1938, when he stood on the railway station to say goodbye to them after a long visit, he turned to Khan and said, "What I have seen here is the beginning of the nonviolence of the strong." They were people skillful in the use of violent force who turned from it and chose the practice of truth-force, nonviolence.^[5]

We have heard in recent weeks that, often, the first casualty of war is truth. But are we at "war?" Is truth a casualty of the struggle in which we find ourselves? We assert that it is not. Indeed, we believe it is the very essence of that struggle. Prior to this "war" on terrorism, massive campaigns of truth were taking place in cities around the world: Seattle, Washington, Ottawa, Gothenburg, Genoa. The strong of the world, the people of the Northern Hemisphere, were taking up the practice of nonviolence in campaigns of noncooperation with globalization and greed. Gandhi called it satyagraha, literally, "truth-force." Sometimes he called it "soul-force." Always it involves speaking truth to the powers that be. But who are the "powers that be" in the shifting world in which we now find ourselves? Nation states? Multinational corporations? Networks of terrorists, like Al Qaeda? Armies and navies? Networks of citizens? Any entities with access to weapons of mass destruction, which threaten to use them?

What if, instead of preparing for and using military force, we prepared for and used truth-force? What if we prepared for the massive redistribution of wealth and power that would equalize the global north and the global south? What would that mean? Locally, regionally, nationally, globally? Would that enable us to "feed the wolf?"

"This is a moment to seize. The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us." - Tony Blair, British Prime Minister, October 2, 2001

The horrific events of September 11 awakened America, and the whole overdeveloped world, through pain and suffering, to the knowledge of our common humanity, our common heart. Whether it is the heart of darkness or the heart of compassion is up to us.

"For it is important that awake people be awake
Or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep...
The signals that we give - yes, no, or maybe - should be clear;
The darkness around us is deep."
- William Stafford

The eleven points of the Abolition Statement, and the Moorea Declaration, are clear. Now is the time to push for complete nuclear abolition, not just because it is sane, or legal, or moral, or economical, or practical (though it is all of these things). But most importantly, because it will make us all safer, more secure.

The Report Card, abbreviated

in which we issue yet another failing grade to the world, and reissue the call for what we really want

This year, with the exception of a few bright lights, progress toward a nuclearfree world was virtually nonexistent. In many cases, the world slipped dangerously backwards. We list below the 11 points of the original Abolition Statement, written in 1995 in a cloud of hope at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference; and extracts from the Moorea Declaration, adopted in 1997 in the home islands of the Maohi people of Polynesia. In past Report Cards,^[6] we have included a report for each item, followed by a numeric grade on a scale of 1-10 points, for a possible total of 120 points. Thus, each Report Card offered a brief assessment of progress in the past year in the implementation of the 11 points, and compliance with the letter and spirit of the Moorea Declaration. This year, the grade on every point is zero. We sketch below the broad-brush strokes of darkness, with glimmers of light where we find them. Although the vision is dimming, we take heart in the words of poet, Theodore Roethke: "In a dark time, the eye begins to see."

1.    Initiate immediately and conclude negotiations on a nuclear weapons abolition convention that requires the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement.

Although the draft convention^[7] was adopted as a UN discussion document in 1997 and last year, the nuclear weapons countries recommitted themselves to the "unequivocal undertaking" of implementing Article 6^[8] of the Nonproliferation Treaty, clearly no one intends to complete this urgent task. Too bad for the world. The window of opportunity has now narrowed to a crack, and we need to rethink our approach.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

2.    Immediately make an unconditional pledge not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons.

After the September 11 attacks, NATO, for the first time in its history, invoked Article 5 of it's founding charter (which states that an attack against any member is considered as an attack against them all, and allows the exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense),^[9] and dutifully informed the United Nations.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

3.    Rapidly complete a truly comprehensive test ban treaty with a zero threshold and with the stated purpose of precluding nuclear weapons development by all states.

In a Faustian bargain if ever there was one, the United States suggested it would not object to China resuming underground nuclear testing if China would not object to US withdrawal of the 1972 Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty. Meanwhile, in Nevada, the US increased readiness to resume fullscale, underground nuclear testing itself. Subcritical nuclear tests continued throughout the year at various test sites around the planet, including one at the Nevada Test Site on September 26, 2001.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

4.    Cease to produce and deploy new and additional nuclear weapons systems, and commence to withdraw and disable deployed nuclear weapons systems.

Plans for various-scaled missile defenses (national, regional, theater) continued unabated, throwing the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM Treaty) to the wind and reinforcing the unilateralism of the newly ensconced Bush administration in the US. Trident nuclear submarines continued to prowl the oceans of the world, and the US versions received missile upgrades. In the Asian subcontinent, India and Pakistan continued to develop their nuclear delivery systems, causing deep concern worldwide for the implications in the current crisis, particularly in relation to Pakistan.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

5.    Prohibit the military and commercial production and reprocessing of all weapons-usable radioactive materials.

The transportation and storage of radioactive materials and waste continue to plague all who think about the issue. Still, new US Vice President and Energy Czar, Dick Cheney, announced that nuclear energy would solve the US energy problems. South Carolina Governor, Jim Hodges, ordered state troopers and other safety workers to be trained to block federal shipments of 2,000 drums of plutonium, expected to begin in October. On October 4, 2001 the UK government gave the go-ahead to the £472m Mixed Oxide (MOX) plutonium fuel plant at Sellafield, putting in harm's way, and the way of potential terrorists, shiploads full of nuclear material crisscrossing the globe between Europe and Japan!!

Grade: 0 out of 10.

6.    Subject all weapons-usable radioactive materials and nuclear facilities in all states to international accounting, monitoring, and safeguards, and establish a public international registry of all weapons-usable radioactive materials.

Nothing happening here, but it is more important than ever to know-how much the world has, and where it all is.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

7.    Prohibit nuclear weapons research, design, development, and testing through laboratory experiments including but not limited to non-nuclear hydrodynamic explosions and computer simulations, subject all nuclear weapons laboratories to international monitoring, and close all nuclear test sites.

The technological development for the US domination of space, intertwined with ongoing nuclear weapons research and development, continued apace. Flush with funding higher than Cold War levels, the US nuclear weapons labs continue to research more useable nuclear weapons,^[10] including low yield, earth-penetrating bombs.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

8.    Create additional nuclear-weaponsfree zones such as those established by the treaties of Tlatelolco and Rarotonga.

Aotearoa/New Zealand is still pursuing the idea of extending their nuclear-free areas out to its 200-mile Economic Exclusion Zone. Otherwise, no progress.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

9.    Recognize and declare the illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons, publicly and before the World Court.

The Trident Ploughshares campaign, focussed on the British Trident submarine base in Faslane, Scotland continues to uphold international law by trying to close the base. The necessity of upholding all international law,^[11] and seeing our national actions in that context, becomes more crucial with each passing day. Sadly some of the legal establishment refuses to acknowledge the validity of this approach. In October 1999, three Trident Ploughshares activists were acquitted by Sheriff Margaret Gimblett at Greenock Sheriff Court following a Trident disarmament action. The Lord Advocate referred the case to the Scottish High Court and two weeks of hearings in November and December 2000 included arguments on the legality of British nuclear weapons. Although the judgement, announced in Edinburgh on March 30, 2001, concluded Trident was legal, the campaign continues.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

10.    Establish an international energy agency to promote and support the development of sustainable and environmentally safe energy sources.

Global warming continues, and the nuclear industry continues to promote more nuke plants. In the wake of the California energy pseudo-crisis, the public is waking up and taking renewables seriously with local action and the creation of local utility districts. The over-developed world's dependence on oil for energy becomes more tenuous and more politically fraught, highlighting a renewed necessity for global sustainable energy sources! Citizen groups in the US are calling for a National Sustainable Energy Act.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

11.    Create mechanisms to ensure the participation of citizens and NGOs in planning and monitoring the process of nuclear weapons abolition.

The power of ordinary citizens to hold their governments accountable was never more apparent or urgent. The Trident Ploughshares campaign won the Right Livelihood Award - the "People's Nobel Peace Prize" - as a "model of principled, transparent and non-violent direct action dedicated to rid [ding] the world of nuclear weapons,"^[12] giving hope to us all and inspiring the hundreds of people who continue to take non-violent action at nuclear bases all over Europe and the US. Nonviolent Citizen Inspections of nuclear facilities, using the International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion as grounds for entry, continue at nuclear decision-making and production facilities around the planet. On September 8, in this 20 th anniversary year of their historic occupation of that site, Greenham Common women and friends broke ground at the decommissioned nuclear base for a sculpture garden and fountain, showing that change is possible.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

From the Moorea Declaration

"The anger and tears of colonized peoples arise from the fact that there was no consultation, no consent, no involvement in the decision when their lands, air and waters were taken for the nuclear build-up, from the very start of the nuclear era... Colonized and indigenous peoples have, in the large part, borne the brunt of this nuclear devastation... We reaffirm... that indigenous and colonized peoples must be central... in decisions relating to the nuclear weapons cycle - and especially in the abolition of nuclear weapons in all aspects. The inalienable right to self-determination, sovereignty and independence is crucial in allowing all peoples of the world to join in the common struggle to rid the planet forever of nuclear weapons."

Marking the 35th anniversary of the first atmospheric nuclear test by France in Polynesia on July 2, 2001, more than 150 Polynesian test site workers organized Moruroa e Tatou (lit., "Moruroa and Us"). Moruroa e Tatou supports the former test site workers and, in particular, assists those concerned about their health and the health of their children. In France, French atomic veterans have united in two associations - one representing Algerian test site veterans, and one representing Polynesian test site veterans. The French Senate has invited these organizations to a conference in January 2002. The homelands of the Maohi people in Polynesia remain a colony of France. In the San Francisco Bay Area, new information was revealed about past activities of the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard Research radiological facilities and their detrimental environmental impact in this predominantly African-American community. In Southern California, Chumash land at Vandenberg Airforce Base is being used for the National Missile Defense testing program, along with Kwajelein atoll in the Marshall Islands.

Grade: 0 out of 10.

Total grade for 2001: 0 out of 120 points

Indigenous peoples continue to echo the words of the song Greenham Women sang twenty years ago:
"Here we sit, here we stand
Here we claim the common land
Nuclear arms shall not command
Bring the message home."

Conclusions

in which we see that political will, which we endlessly invoke, is none other than the hearts and minds of human beings harnessed for various ends

Many times, in these report cards, we have noted the necessity of collective political will in creating the conditions for, and achieving, a nuclear-free world. How is such a determined will shaped? The events of September 11 showed us all the results of a political will, honed in desperate men, in service to destructive ends. We have seen the madrassas, the schools that fostered many of these young men, orphaned by war, and raised in motherless environments, suckled at the breast of violence. But educated with strength of focus that scared the world to death one September morning. As Mohandas K. Gandhi said, "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from indomitable will..." We saw that will in action on September 11, put to a terrible use. But we too can summon such a will, such a determination, and focus it in constructive ways. We can harness it for truth and for peace. All of these terrible events started in the minds and hearts of people, human beings like us. Because they began in our minds and hearts, they can be ended in our minds and hearts. It is in our hands. We must seize this moment and act now to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

If we think the time is too dark or the task too great, let us remember another dark time in recent history when two men took up such a task:

On August 14, 1941, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt met on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, and drafted the Atlantic Charter, the founding document of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's eighth point states:

"... all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, [emphasis added] that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments."

If these two great men could assert such a vision in the darkest days of World War Two, who are we to turn away from the challenge of establishing that "wider and permanent system of general security" they invoked? Who are we to shrink from creating peace with justice, and banishing nuclear weapons, and all weapons of mass destruction, from the face of the earth?

The authors recommend the following resources for helping to think about new challenges of global and local security:

Easwaran, Eknath. Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man to Match His Mountains. (Nilgiri Press, Tomales, CA, 1997).

Johnson, Chalmers. Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. (Henry Holt and Co., New York, 2000).

Rogers, Paul. Losing Control: Global Security in the Twenty-first Century. (Pluto Press, London and Sterling, Virginia, 2000). Also www.plutobooks.com.

Acknowledgements

in which we dedicate our efforts to inspiring colleagues, and thank all those who help us do our work.

This edition of the Abolition 2000 Report Card is dedicated to all who practice truthforce, and the nonviolence of the strong. We especially honor and congratulate the Trident Ploughshares campaign of Britain, winners of this year's Right Livelihood Award, and the newly formed Maohi organization, Moruroa e Tatou.

The Atomic Mirror, P.O. Box 220, Port Hueneme, CA 93044-0220 USA, tel. +1-805-985 5073, info@atomicmirror.org.

Janet Bloomfield is the British Coordinator of the Atomic Mirror and a consultant to the Oxford Research Group in Oxford, England; janet@atomicmirror.org.

Pamela S. Meidell is the Director of the Atomic Mirror and chair of the Disarmament Task Force of the Fellowship of Reconciliation; pamela@atomicmirror.org.