One World, Many Peaces

Dissenting Against the Nobel Peace Prize Committee

So the Nobel Peace Prize Committee members have a thing for dissenters like laureates Liu Xiaobo (2010), Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), Lech Walesa (1983), Andrei Sakharov (1975) and Carl von Ossietzky (1935), eh? Here's some dissent against them: Your recent award choices do more harm than good as far as furthering peace is concerned, your membership should be revoked immediately, and you should be replaced by people who can carry out their legal duties adequately, at least. Here’s why.

To be clear, I am not dissenting against the Nobel Peace Prize itself, though its domination of the global popular imagination when it comes to peace is debilitating, nor am I downplaying the dissenters they have honored, who though icons limit social change as such. What I am saying is that its members and all those worldwide who look up to  their choices (to say nothing of the nominators, who in-breed bad decisions as former laureates) would do well to take an extra-large dose of their own medicine when it comes to dissent. There are two main reasons why I am calling for the impeachment of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

First, they have betrayed the legally-binding intent of Alfred Nobel (inventor of dynamite and an arms manufacturer) in his will and testatment, which created the Nobel Peace Prize, and so should be class-action sued by his heirs and estate, not to mention honest fans of the award worldwide and rejected (worthy) awardees. Second, they have and continue to ill-advisedly reinforce peace work as the amorphous enterprise it already is in the minds of most people globally, to its severe detriment. Then there's China's reaction to this year's laureate, but I will leave that for last.

“The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows... one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” That's what Mr. Nobel wanted done with his money, what the Nobel Peace Prize Committee is legally bound to do because it's his will, and what they have not been doing in their recent choices.

Mr. Nobel's definition of peace is as limited as it was for most members of his class, culture and historical moment. It is equally unfortunate that this definition still dominates how peace is thought about and acted upon worldwide, in large part thanks to the Nobel Peace Prize itself. But in trying to expand this definition, Nobel Peace Prize Committee members have not only negligently not carried out their legal duties, they have confused and confounded what peace means beyond Nobel's narrow-minded definition without ever explicitly tying their choices to it. Might as well give Heinz the Chemistry Prize for inventing ketchup.

Take just two recent examples of the Nobel Peace Prize being wrongly awarded. One is to Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) for their environmental work, the other to Muhammad Yunus for his microlending work. In the case of Gore, he should have received one of the science Prizes; in the case of Yunus, the Economics Prize; in the case of neither the Peace Prize. Why? Not because their transformational work isn't important and doesn't contribute to peace, but simply because neither of them meet the criteria that Alfred Nobel set for the Nobel Peace Prize, which the Committee's and commentators' attempts to rationalize the choices in itself makes clear.

The same self-evidently goes for this year's laureate, Liu Xiaobo (who should have received the Literature Prize, not that this year's choice of Mario Vargas Llosa wasn't fully worthy), which brings me to my response to China's response. Political statements poor Nobel Peace Prize laureates make, just think back to last year's disastrous choice of Barack Obama, who has since carried out the largest weapons deal in U.S. history and stationed some 100,000 troops in Afghanistan in an imperial war now entering it's tenth year. Oh, and certinaly no one in the world did more for peace according to Nobel's terms before he won the Prize, as even President Obama himself less sarcastically admitted.

And instead of giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a dissenter against these international travesties, which would at least have had some vague relation to Nobel's dying wishes and bring them into a light from which they are systematically hidden, the Committee members give it to a dissenter against a dometic travesty that is already globally acknowledged, effectively covering the tracks of (or at best creating a distraction tactic away from) their choice of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is our early century's biggest warmonger after his predecessor.

Unfortunately for eligible laureates, Obama's America generally doesn't yet throw dissenters in jail like China does, so they don't become living martyrs easily glorified by lazy ga-ga journalists and activists abroad; rather, Obama's officials just raid such dissenters' houses, and prevent them from steering terrorists towards peace. China's response was appropriately furious, if also for reasons we like Liu Xiaobo should all dissent to in our own backyards, and not expect a Nobel Peace Prize because doing so is called thinking.

Photo Credit: Rankingranqueen

Finish Ratifying the START Treaty Already

 "October 1st marks 18 years since the U.S. Senate approved President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START. It also marks the 300th day since that treaty expired, cutting off U.S. weapons inspectors' access to Russian nuclear sites. Conservatives in the Senate are now blocking the restart of Reagan's inspections." So begins a recent article by Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, which invests in peace and security around the globe. The irony is not lost to anyone.

The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee were to vote in mid-September on whether to send the new START Treaty to the Senate floor for ratification. The START Treaty passed that test, to Obama's approval, but it most likely won't be thought of until after the consequential mid-term elections in November, if then at all. The treaty would cut US and Russian deployed strategic nuclear warheads by about one-third, to 1,550 each.

Since the original START Treaty expired, on-site monitoring of Russia's nuclear weapons and facilities was suspended, to say nothing of those of the U.S. Now that it's open knowledge that Russia is giving Iran nuclear materials, you would think that the U.S. Congress would show a bit more urgency and concern.  In addition to removing hundreds of warheads from US and Russian nuclear arsenals and renewing and enhancing verification protocols, "New START" would also help improve cooperation to prevent nuclear terrorism, a vital international security priority.

Will the U.S. Congress suddenly realize what is at stake in ratifying the START Treaty and permit a floor vote? Kevin Martin, the leader of Peace Action, says "the New START is a modest step forward toward the realization the President Obama's goal (and ours!) of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.  It's a step that should be taken without further delay so the administration can begin work on the steps that must follow." It is that, but it is also a dangerous election-year gamble which no politician, especially conservative ones, can afford to lose.

So doing nothing makes sense for them and them only, even if it puts domestic and global security at risk. Please continue to contact U.S. Senators and ask them to support the New Start Treaty.  Call 202-224-3121, or write your Senators at: US Senate, Washington DC 20510; or email them at Senate.gov. Your vote this November can make a world of difference.   

Win $1000 in this Peace Writing Contest (And Make A Difference, Too)

Friends of the Arc (FOTA) is a nonprofit advocacy organization that believes that the Arc, developed by the RAND Corporation (a problematic sponsor, on which more below) and Suisman Urban Design, has the potential according to them "to ensure a viable Palestinian state and a Middle East that knows sustainable peace, prosperity, and security."

FOTA has announced a $1,000 prize for the best essay by a college or graduate student, in the form of a policy brief to President Barack Obama, on the topic of the usefulness of RAND Corporation’s Arc concept for the current Middle East peace negotiations.

According to RAND's website: "Palestine’s crumbling infrastructure presents a major challenge for a new Palestinian state. Yet it also provides an opportunity to plan for sustainable development and to avoid the environmental cost and economic inefficiencies of haphazard, unregulated urban development that might otherwise result from the need to accommodate a rapidly growing population. The Arc, RAND’s concept for developing the physical infrastructure of a Palestinian state, provides such a plan." More information about the Arc is available here.

Submissions should respond to the following prompt:

With the resumption of direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, many observers doubt that more purely political discussions will finally produce a comprehensive peace settlement; they suggest that some paradigm-changing idea is needed to break the deadlock. You have been asked to brief President Obama about the Arc project. Prepare a policy brief making the case that the Arc plan is just such a compelling idea, and that with U.S. support, it could help negotiators achieve a breakthrough for peace.

Submissions are due October 8, 2010, at 6 pm ET and should be no more than 1,000 words in length. Before crafting their submissions, participants should view the 30-minute Arc video and other resources at www.friendsofthearc.org. College and graduate students from any country are eligible to apply.

One World, Many Peaces deems it necessary to point out the RAND has close ties to the military, that the Arc project is being developed without the express consent of the Palestinian people, and that it is all-too remeniscent of the Soviet-style infrastructure development projects that brought so much of post-colonial Africa and Eastern Europe close to ruin. These could be topics for consideration for the peace writing contest.

We asked the contest's organizers how they resolve the paradox with the close military ties and this "peace" project, here is what they had to say:

"The RAND Corporation certainly has its origins in conducting studies and R&D (R&D is the origin of the name RAND) for the US Air Force.  These days, it remains a publicly funded think tank for conducting studies and performing R&D.  But, now its funding is much more diversified with over half of its funding going to topics such as health, education and development.  The Arc study was actually privately financed by philanthropists interested in how development strategies could spur peace, prosperity and security in the Middle East.  RAND, which brought on world renowned designer Doug Suisman through his urban design firm Suisman Urban Design, conducted the study to answer the questions posed by the sponsors – just as they do any other study.  RAND only conducted a study.  By charter, RAND cannot and does not advocate or implement.  As such, RAND is not “helping negotiators achieve a breakthrough for peace”.  But Friends of the Arc, which is a worldwide network of individuals who see the power of the Arc concept in inspiring peace, prosperity and security in the Middle East, is working to advocate the Arc as something that could help negotiators to a breakthrough for peace."

The winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize and will be featured on our website. FOTA reserves the right to post all essays on its website and to send one or more to President Obama. For all competition details, please visit www.friendsofthearc.org/essaycontest

A Turning Point in China-U.S. Relations, But Too Late?

Below the global mainstream media radar, an urgent meeting between Chinese and U.S. officials recently took place in Beijing. The topics discussed amongst the senior officials included the now obstinately standard currency and trade disputes on both sides, but also and more importantly the underlying military tensions and arms race between the two countries. This was, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, a get-to-know-you meeting, though inasmuch it can be considered a turning point in early 21st-century China-U.S. relations. But has it come too late?

"The key point of the talks is not to make significant agreements, but to improve understanding of each other's stance. If tensions can be reduced to some degree and confidence increased, that is an achievement," said Shi Yinhong, an expert on the U.S. at Renmin University in Beijing. He emphasized that U.S.-China relations are troubled, but the worst seems to be over and both sides are headed toward reconciliation. Many in the international relations field would consider this outlook overly optimistic and especially premature, given the preliminary nature of the discussions.

What's most troubling is that they are still preliminary. It has been obvious for decades that China is the rising global superpower along with India, yet relations between the two are strained, as are those with the declining superpower, the U.S. China becoming the world's second largest economy, beating Japan, was a wake up call, but only because almost everyone was sleeping. Chinese state media has criticized U.S.-South Korea military exercises in the Yellow Sea and U.S. claims about South China Sea territory, in addition to U.S. arms sales to Chinese rival Taiwan and an Obama meeting with Chinese nemesis the Dalai Lama. For it's part, China's increases in military spending dwarf that of others globally.

There can be no doubt that the peace and prosperity of the world in the 21st century depends on open communications channels and cooperation between China and the U.S., and as a step in that direction this meeting is indeed a turning point. Even if it is too early to determine their outcomes, it has come both too late and at last. "Continuing to develop a positive and comprehensive China-U.S. relationship contributes to our two countries' major interests in peace, security and development," China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said. We couldn't agree more.

Mutiny at the Highest Levels of U.S. Military: General Petraeus

Commander-in-Chief, the title and responsibilities accorded to the President, don't matter for the once again new military commander of the Afghanistan War, in a munity that is punishable by death according to U.S. military law. In two separate addresses recently, General Petraeus said that only he will decide when to withdraw from Afghanistan, flying in the face of the already too distant withdrawal start date set by the President upon election, and that he won't carry out his delegated duties of running the military operations there as a "graceful exit" from the country, even if the Secretary of Defense says otherwise.

Putting himself at striking odds with both his bosses, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and President Obama (not to mention their bosses too, us), General Petraeus apparently thinks he's calling the shots, even if the U.S. Constitution says differently. This is nothing short of a mutinous military takeover of wartime chains of command punishable by death according to the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Article 94. And it makes General Petraeus the number one obstacle to the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and a highly dangerous one at that considering the tens of thousands of troops and sophistacated weaponry he now has under his direct command.

To be precise, Article 94 of the UCMJ states that any person "with intent to usurp or override lawful military authority, refuses, in concert with any other person, to obey orders or otherwise do his duty or creates any violence or disturbance is guilty of mutiny… shall be punished by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct." If what Petraeus said and is doing accordingly don't fit this definition, nothing does or will. We are not advocating that he should be killed, but he should be removed from his post immediately and court-marshaled to the same military tribunals as Guantanamo inmates still are if the U.S. military is to maintain any semblance of legitimacy domestically or globally. And the story only starts there, with the the withdrawal from Afghanistan in the balance.

In an interview that aired last week on NBC's Meet the Press, Petraeus had the gall to say that: "Oil spot is a term in counterinsurgency literature that denotes a peaceful area, a secure area. What you're always trying to do is extend that, push that out." This is more than a doublespeak message at the highest levels of the U.S. military which everyone should be able to identify and decode for themselves by now, it is an outright duplicitous public relations campaign to dupe the American people into continued, complacent support of the war in Afghanistan.  This, despite the fact that Afghan, U.N., U.K. and even certain high-ranking U.S. officials have made it clear that the only viable solution is a political one, not military.

Now for the bad news. According to the same article in the UCMJ, if we don't do anything to stop this mutiny, we are as much to blame as Petraeus himself. Any person who "fails to do his utmost to prevent and suppress a mutiny or sedition being committed in his presence, or fails to take all reasonable means to inform his superior commissioned officer or commanding officer of a mutiny or sedition which he knows or has reason to believe is taking place, is guilty of a failure to suppress or report a mutiny or sedition." We need to stop this military takeover of our political processes before it's too late, and you can start by signing the petition to pressure the President to withdraw responsibly from Afghanistan, legally by Congress passing binding legislation to do just that.  

If the U.S. military doesn't follow it's own rules, we cannot expect it to follow any others either.

Photo credit: Hector Alejandro

Faster Exit Strategy for Afghan War Wanted by U.K., Not U.S. Yet

You'd think top U.S. military and government officials were playing a demented kind of bingo reading the headlines about possible timelines for withdrawing from Afghanistan: 2012, 2014, 2017. We lose!

The British, still  America's closest ally in the war even if ties between the countries are strained, are going about it quite differently. That the new U.K. Premier who is leading the push for a faster withdrawal strategy, David Cameron, is a Conservative globalizes the startling fact that people on his side of the fence, so to speak, are becoming more anti-war than liberals.

Cameron's inspiring comments need to be contextualized in order to be properly understood, and there are two immediate frames of references. First is the largest-ever peace conference about Afghanistan that took place this week, hardly reported on by mainstream U.S. media, which is for this writer so unbelievable that it can only be true. Second is Cameron's meeting with President Obama, which received a much higher profile both within the U.S. and abroad than the 60-nation Afghan peace conference.

Speaking to the BBC, Cameron said: "No timetable can be chiselled in stone but we are absolutely determined - given how long we have been in Afghanistan, given that we are six months into an 18-month military strategy, embarking on a new political strategy - that we must be out in a combat role by 2015." Words like that coming out of Obama's mouth could be called "flip flopping," but that doesn't mean I and those like me worldwide who want peace would not welcome them and action upon them. The U.S. government is obstinately refusing to set firm (let alone faster) withdrawal dates, trying the trust of Americans.

The bad news is that still means four more years of war in Afghanistan, at least. The good news, as Daniel J. Gerstle of Change.org recently reported, what "war" means during that period is likely to continue to change dramatically, from killing to training others to kill, and hopefully soon to keeping the peace that will emerge under Afghan President Hamid Karzai's diligent and tireless efforts.

But the key part of Cameron's statement is his emphasis on a switch from military to political approaches to ending the war, or parallel at least, which Karzai and the U.N. Counter-Terrorism Chief have also been pushing for months. There's an old anti-war saying that goes "fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity." With this switch to political from military action fully consummated, it could change to "war during peace talks is like adultery in chastity."

'If I Had a Trillion Dollars' Video Contest Seeks Better Uses for Current U.S. War Funding

By September 30, 2010, taxpayers in the United States will have paid $1 trillion (most of it borrowed from other countries, like China) for total Iraq and Afghanistan war spending since 2001, not including possible supplemental funding attached to the Afghanistan “surge” authorized by the Obama Administration.

While 57% of the federal budget is spent on the military, 48 out of 50 states face significant deficits, which are projected to increase in 2011. This has triggered deep cuts in funding to already stretched and underfunded programs and initiatives.

The 'If I Had a Trillion Dollars' video project asks young people from across the country what they value. What would you do with $1 trillion – for yourselves, your families and your communities?

For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided for people in the US:

308,396,946 People with Health Care for One Year OR
22,599,968 Public Safety Officers for One year OR
17,944,326 Music and Arts Teachers for One Year OR
161,777,753 Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR
188,536,667 Students receiving Pell Grants of $5,550 OR
8,139,680 Affordable Housing Units OR
461,193,337 Children with Health Care for One Year OR
143,595,239 Head Start Places for One Year OR
17,188,969 Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR
1,083,271,391 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year

Contest rules include:

• Each entry must be produced by young people ages 13-23. Middle and High School aged participants will compete in one group and College aged entrants in another group.
• Each entry must run only 1-3 minutes.
• Each entry must be a reflection or reaction to the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan reaching $1 trillion.
• Each 2G maximum entry must be uploaded to the contest site by July 31, 2010. (Contact mzerkel@afsc.org for info on how to upload).

For full video contest rules, visit the special site set up by the American Friends Service Committee and National Priorities Project.

U.S., Europe Two-Timed by Ukraine: 'Double Accord' Sealed with Russia on Gas Prices and Navy Bases

How is the Ukraine getting away with playing the two main sides in one of the world's major ongoing power struggles? Or is this an early sign of new era of power sharing? As previously reported on One World, Many Peaces and by Antony Adolf on Change.org, the Ukraine remains buddy-buddy with the U.S. largely thanks to missile sites President Obama promised to scrap in his campaign, then went ahead with anyways after taking office. However, what became clear today is that Ukrainian leaders are proving expertly adept at attracting more than one major power into their sphere of influence. A coup de grace?

Viktor Ianoukovitch, President of the Ukraine, and Russian Premier Dmitri Medvedev have just concluded what France's La Presse is calling a "double accord." First, to avoid any more gas shutoffs that kept large parts of Europe in the cold last year, the two countries agreed that gas coming from Russia and passed through Ukraine would be purchased by the Ukraine at a significantly lower rate so that it can make higher profits as the European distributor of Russian gas. Since coming to power, Ianoukovitch has sought closer ties with Russia, and the so-called "blue gold" deal proved to be the surest and most beneficial means to bring the two countries into their closest ties since the Cold War. Europe stands to gain little and will likely pay even more for Russian gas passed through the Ukraine now that this first part of the double accord is signed.

Second-- and the connection is altogether unambiguous-- in return Russia will be allowed to have its naval bases at the port in Sebastopol until 2042. Given that the Ukraine controls 80% of gas entering Europe, Russia understandably wants to keep its near-monopoly safe and sound, and Ukraine seems to be more than happy to outsource this task. But when it came to the U.S. missile shield to be housed on Ukrainian territory, the country's leaders also seemed more than willing to in-source military projects, again for the sake of increases in gross domestic product. Russian vehemently opposed the U.S. missile shield but has remained quiet about its latest development. At the signing of the double accord, Medvedev explicitly stated that the reduction in gas prices was to be understood as a "payment towards the rent for the navy bases." The U.S. is also paying the Ukraine for using its land for military purposes.

On May 9th, 1,400 troops from the Ukraine and Russia combined will mark the 60th anniversary of Russia's victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two. The joint exercise is mostly symbolic, but a highly potent symbolism at that. What is being signified is a rather small country's power to two-time two major world powers (the U.S. and Russia) as well as a whole continent (Europe). Should other equally-situated countries follow suit, major powers as current events will disappear under the weight of deals they rush into and know nothing about until its too late, creating a future in which money can be made off militaries that aren't even one's own.

Eastern European Peace Prospects Dim after Polish Plane Crash

They say there are more Polish people in Chicago than in Krakow, and whether or not that's true, there was certainly and understandably an overflow of Polish patriotism in the city this past Saturday, after the news of the plane crash. There were Polish flags on every other car in the Polish neighborhoods, and even people of other Eastern European origins expressed genuine condolences, a significant change from the usual ultracompetitive scorns. Unbeknownst to them, the peace prospects of their shared region of descent had changed as drastically as the tragedy had hit.

By now, most of us who have even the least exposure to the media have heard of the devastating "decapitation," as one commentator perhaps too vividly put it, with the top elected, appointed, military, banking, media and other high-level officials all having died. That they were on the way to Russia to commemorate a massacre of their compatriots, to publicly mourn, made the mourning for them somehow even more public for Polish people and those who shared their grief worldwide. What most people were unable or unwilling to acknowledge in their shock is that this was surely either coincidence or conspiracy with nothing in between.

Our point here is that it doesn't matter which, coincidence or conspiracy, it was because the change in Eastern European peace prospects is dramatic in both cases. It was an old plane with bad landing gear (maybe) in bad weather (again, maybe), we heard, with few asking what they were all doing on one plane to begin with, undoubtedly the biggest security blunder in Polish history. Only today were the scary questions raised: Why were they? Who made the arrangements? Why did they, or did they, insist on landing? And so on, as if a total shift in regional security strategy would not be the result, which it most certainly will.

Poland, like the Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, was slated to be part of the U.S. missile shield that President Bush planned, and then President Obama supposedly shelved but then went ahead with it anyways. Russia has, until now, only been grumbling, but the Polish plane crash may very well be a roar meant to scare its former satellites into alignment, as unlikely as the mass assassination would be desperate if true. Now, the pro-U.S. premier is gone. Regardless, the leaders of the opposition party to the fallen right-wing, U.S.-supported prime minister were quick to mark their funeral as a moment of "national unity."

We wish the best for the Polish people globally and government domestically, but instead mark the funeral as a moment of international worry for peace prospects in Eastern Europe as a whole, with the plane crash being a current event in which murder may masquerade as misfortune.

Peace Talks Progress With or Without U.S. as Afghan Insurgents Legitimized

Haven't heard of the Hezb-e-Islami? That's because, until now, they've been playing second fiddle to the Taliban in militant resistance to U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Western media bandwidth for foreign names doesn't allow for more than one or two to pass through. But as of this week they became major players in peace talks lead by Afghan President Karzai aimed at bringing former insurgents into the fold.

Their demands are simple on the surface: get foreign forces out quickly (by this summer to be precise), and rewrite the constiution to reflect actual domestic balances of power based on tribal relations more than federalism in the Euro-American sense. President Karzai isn't the only one listening closely to insurgents either.  United Nations special envoy Kai Eide has just reported that peace talks with the Taliban have been ongoing for a year.

 

What's the problem? None, except that President Obama still have some 70,000 troops on the way in one of the greatest migrations in military history. In fact, of the several news reports of the peace talks with now-legitimized Afghan insurgents (which never happened to their less fortunate Iraqi counterparts), none mentioned any U.S. involvement in them. Not one.

 

The peace talks in Kabul with President Karzai included a five-member Hezb-e-Islami delegation headed by a former Afghan prime minister, Qutbuddin Helal, who is deputy to Mr Hekmatyar - himself another former prime minister.  Three Afghan prime ministers and no U.S. President makes for a lopsided discussion the consequences of which-- however peaceful-- will be seriously curtailed as a result.

 

"I welcome this effort. I hope that this kind of negotiations continues and that we will witness a delegation from the Taliban coming to start negotiations," said one insurgency leader. The Obama administration, and particularly its NATO wingers, seem totally oblivious to this major change of conditions on the ground. It began earlier this year when President Karzai announced he would talk directly with the Taliban, then the U.K. following his lead, and now this.

 

The obliviousness of the Obama administration to peacemaking efforts in Afghanistan is a dangerous current event making the world look forward to a future in which the American military plays a much smaller, and disappearing, role.