NATO and Nobel, a Tale of Two Chicagos

By Jonathan Granoff, Reader Supported News

31 May 12

ATO's Heads of State and Government met in Chicago on May 20 and 21. A few weeks earlier, April 23-25, the Nobel Peace Laureates gathered there for their annual summit. A city that could carry the messages of both of these gathering was aptly described by Carl Sandburg when he called Chicago "the City of the Big Shoulders."

The NATO leaders provided no new approaches to security and essentially reaffirmed military commitments arising from the Cold War, including the continued presence of 180 tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. The stated reason for these weapons is to be the "supreme guarantee of the security" of the NATO member states. Such a nuclear deterrence theory approach could become contagious. If the most expensive and powerful military alliance in human history needs nuclear weapons for their collective security, then why would weapons of mass destruction not be of benefit to others in more dangerous neighborhoods? The Nobel Peace Laureates provided a different approach. One can only imagine how much more successful the NATO gathering would have been had its members attended April's summit.

Sessions of the Nobel Peace Laureates were broadcast in thousands of schools and the laureates even went to local high schools to share their inspiring experiences. The summit theme, largely focused on the next generation, was "Speak Up, Speak Out, For Freedom and Rights."

Former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa and Willem de Klerk discussed how the practical and the good can converge successfully in practice and create powerful social change. Thousand of students were moved by the passionate moral insights of the Dalai Lama and Jody Williams and the courage of Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights activist attorney, as well as the work of organizations which represent millions of people the world over committed to peace and non-violence: International Peace Bureau, American Friends Service Committee, International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, PUGWASH Conferences, International Campaign to Ban Landmines, United Nations/Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Médecins Sans Frontières, United Nations Children's Fund, The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, International Labour Organization.

The summits were created by Gorbachev and the then-mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, who hosted the first few summits. This dynamic yearly gathering has since moved to other cities, each with a particular theme. The last summit was in Hiroshima, where the Peace Prize winners called for practical steps toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. Before that they gathered in Berlin, calling for breaking down the walls of poverty and prejudice, and in Paris, where human rights in all its dimensions was highlighted. This year was hosted by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former White House Chief of Staff and current leader of Chicago. Speakers included President Obama, via video, and former President Bill Clinton, who shared his thoughts on human unity on the opening evening event. The principal theme this year was to honor the activism of youth and the spirit of public engagement, so very much at the heart of American democracy. Kerry Kennedy, the late Sen. Robert Kennedy's daughter, helped to bring in thousands of young participants, demonstrating that the Kennedy spirit of public service remains very much alive.

The Charter for a World Without Violence, adopted at one of the Laureates' previous summits, and circulated in Chicago, begins stating: "Violence is a preventable disease." In fact, Chrysler has now launched an advertising campaign to advance the Charter. Can peace sell cars? Maybe. Should we be snide when capitalism and celebrity promote goodness? Take a look for yourself and decide.

Cynicism, injustice, arrogance, and ignorance are the precursors of violence and the presentations were consistent in proposing remedies for these ailments. This was no time for apathy. Every speaker had demonstrated in their life work courage, optimism, faith, conviction, and success -- proof that individuals with moral courage can change the world for the better.

President Walesa's call, on behalf of all the laureates, for the release of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo, imprisoned for exercising his human right to free speech resonated deeply with participating laureates and organizations, many whom as activists have similarly taken courageous stands, spoken truth to power and faced oppression.

The laureates demonstrated their belief in individual initiative in giving their Peace Award to Sean Penn for his work in rebuilding Haiti. We urge you to read his acceptance speech.

As members of the summit's drafting group we had the privilege of working closely with the laureates and want to share how moved we were by their authenticity, humility, and profound passion to make a world a place where justice and peace are prominent, not only in the affairs of states but also in everyday life.

Here are a few examples: The Dalai Lama and President Carter emphasized the irreducible value of good qualities such as love, compassion, justice, and humility in our personal lives and in the actions of governments. Muhammad Yunus, the creator of the micro credit Grameen Bank, explained how we could put poverty in a museum. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change highlighted how we simply must come to greater levels of human cooperation and responsibility to prevent our energy consumption patterns from irreversibly harming the planet's climate. President Gorbachev warned of the dangers of militaristic approaches to security and urged greater progress on the elimination of nuclear weapons and general arms reduction. Jody Williams, a leader in the campaign to abolish land mines, emphasized how every person with a commitment to serve the common good could make an enormous difference.

We had the privilege of listening carefully to the collective concerns of these inspiring men and women and helping as best as we could to convey their messages in a statement less than a page long. It did not do justice to many very important themes such as the need to end violence against women, or the need for sustainable livelihoods, or the importance of constitutional governance and the rule of law. But, we believe that the final statement is well worth wide circulation and strongly urge you to share it far and wide, especially amongst young people. We also urge you to follow the Laureates' Appeal and ask the Four Questions.

Final Declaration of the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates:

APPEAL TO THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD

As Nobel Peace Laureates and Laureate organizations we realize that if the commitment to peace and human rights is not passed from one generation to the next our achievements will be short lived. For this reason we applaud the youth the world over who are standing up and speaking out in protest against injustice and inequality and defending the right to peace, social justice and a sustainable future.

We are concerned that old threats to peace are persisting and new ones emerging. We therefore urge young people to organize for peace and learn to prevent and resolve conflicts peacefully. At a time when militarism continues to corrupt the minds of politicians and poison international relations, when a new arms race is unfolding, this must be a key priority. As Nobel Laureate Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war."

Our collective security can no longer focus primarily on the security of states; it must focus on the security of people. Wars and militarism cannot achieve real human security.

Substantial reductions of world military expenditures could eliminate the crushing poverty whereby nearly one third of humanity lives in insufferable conditions. Excessive military expenditures not only represent a theft from those who are hungry but are also an ineffective means of obtaining security.

Equally unacceptable is violence against nature that ruins the environment upon which civilization depends.All the world's religions and peoples share similar basic values, such as peace, compassion, love, justice, service toward others, and the alleviation of suffering. Political leaders must recognize our common humanity through deeds rather than mere words.

We urge young people to question leaders about what they are doing to address the main challenges that face the world today:

What are you doing for the abolition of nuclear arms and other indiscriminate weapons and for reduction of military spending?

What are you doing to bridge the divide between wealth and crushing poverty?

What are you doing to save our planet from environmental disaster?

What are you doing to protect and promote human rights and equality between women and men?

We offer the world's youth our support and our experience as they pursue a better future. We urge them to achieve change through peaceful and moral means. We need your enthusiasm and we want you to join us in our continued quest for peace and justice.

Pavel Palazhchenko is adviser to the President of the Gorbachev Foundation and Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, are Advisers to the Nobel Peace Laureates Secretariat.

Videos of the presentations: http://www.nobelsummitchicago.org/resources/video/

Nobel Peace Laureate Summit Secretariat: http://www.nobelforpeace-summits.org/

The End of the Post-9/11 World

By Charles Pierce, Esquire Magazine

30 May 12

he big story on the front page of The New York Times today about the decision-making process involved in putting together the White House "kill list" - and I'm old enough to remember those romantic days when the only one involved was Gordon Liddy and the only name on the list was Jack Anderson's - is not about the means of killing and the relative merits of killing from afar, or even about what the story refers to as the president's "own deep reserve" about the possibility that he might have to drop a Hellfire or some teenagers. (Let's face facts: If he didn't have a "deep reserve" about this, he'd be a sociopath and, as it is, the available evidence indicates that he seems to overcome his deep reserve fairly readily.) It's really not about what he does. It's about what we tolerate.

Let's get the easiest stuff out of the way first. There is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that allows the president to make private war on individuals. Any historical precedent you can cite is rooted not in that document, but in the steady historical draining of the war powers from the Congress, where the Founders anchored them, to the Executive branch, all the way back to Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates, when Jefferson circumvented the requirements by sending a fleet off to Africa and not telling Congress until it was too late to recall it. What enables this president - any president - to behave in such a manner is custom and tradition, an historical easement granted by the Congress across its clearly defined sovereign territory because Congress has grown too timid to stand up for itself in this area, occasionally passing some fig leaf nonsense that it says amounts to a declaration of war. (Jefferson finally blackjacked one of those out of the Congress.) Except that, under the Constitution, nothing "amounts to" a declaration of war. War is declared or it isn't. You can argue that, in doing what he's doing, the president is acting in accordance with longstanding policy, and even that he's acting in the best interest of the nation, but you cannot argue that he is upholding the Constitution he swore to preserve and protect, because he's not. And no pet lawyer can say that he is.

All the talk about "flexibility" and how the president manages to keep all his options open reminds me of nothing more than all that Neustadt and Graham Allison that we learned in the aftermath of the Kennedy Administration. JFK was big on flexibility and options, too. Sooner or later, that led to body counts, and the new math of the old slaughter. There are echoes of this here....

It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent. Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good. "Al Qaeda is an insular, paranoid organization - innocent neighbors don't hitchhike rides in the back of trucks headed for the border with guns and bombs," said one official, who requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.

How about the guy pushing the goat cart up the other side of the road when the trucks with the guns drive by? Is he up to no good or is he just going to work? And how do we count him? Or do we? And, all the same to you, I'd rather not have the "explicit intelligence" that I am innocent produced "posthumously" just because it keeps your bookkeeping clean. What in hell good is it to me then? Am I less dead?

The Times continues:

Aides say Mr. Obama has several reasons for becoming so immersed in lethal counterterrorism operations. A student of writings on war by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, he believes that he should take moral responsibility for such actions. And he knows that bad strikes can tarnish America's image and derail diplomacy. "He realizes this isn't science, this is judgments made off of, most of the time, human intelligence," said Mr. Daley, the former chief of staff. "The president accepts as a fact that a certain amount of screw-ups are going to happen, and to him, that calls for a more judicious process."

In this, the president becomes only the most recent secular power player to find the "just war" doctrine a useful alibi for doing what he wants to do in the first place, while simultaneously salving his conscience. It has been a moral mess since it was first devised, and has been used as alibi for imperial bloodletting going back to the doctrine's formative days, when Tertullian told the emperor not to worry, that the Christians in his army were not pacifists. (Read up some time on the tortured mess the Church made of itself trying to determine if "just war" applied to "just revolution," especially when the religious turmoil of the Reformation spilled bloodily over into peasant revolts and the like.) And, anyway, the president is relying on a theory first devised by a bishop named Augustine from North Africa and codified by a scholar in France named Thomas Aquinas. Whatever happened to all that bellyaching about basing American law on the opinions of damned foreigners, anyway?

Finally, though, the nickel drops:

David Axelrod, the president's closest political adviser, began showing up at the "Terror Tuesday" meetings, his unspeaking presence a visible reminder of what everyone understood: a successful attack would overwhelm the president's other aspirations and achievements.

This has been the new normal since September 11. Everyone knows, but nobody says, that if something happens again, the elite consensus in this country, and the overwhelming consensus of the citizenry, will be to pitch the Bill of Rights out the window and start rounding folks up. And, also, that, if it happens on a Democrat's watch, they'll be carving Dick Cheney's head on Mt. Rushmore by sunset of the second day. Could make it tough in Indiana or North Carolina this fall. And thus do homicidal maniacs overseas come to control the spirit of the democratic process.

And, of course, there is the extrajudicial killing of an American named Anwar al-Awlaki. The decision to do so was reached in the calm, cool deliberation of absolute absurdity:

That record, and Mr. Awlaki's calls for more attacks, presented Mr. Obama with an urgent question: Could he order the targeted killing of an American citizen, in a country with which the United States was not at war, in secret and without the benefit of a trial? The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel prepared a lengthy memo justifying that extraordinary step, asserting that while the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch.

Is it even necessary to point out how preposterous it is to claim that the dead man's Fifth Amendment rights were guaranteed because members of the Executive Branch had long discussions about how and when to kill him? Jesus, just kill the guy. The Bushies may have had manifest contempt for due process, but at least they didn't go out of their way to make a burlesque out of it.

And then, ultimately, after a lot of tightening on the rucksacks and everything, we arrive, finally, at what we've made of ourselves and our nation:

Mr. Obama's record has eroded the political perception that Democrats are weak on national security. No one would have imagined four years ago that his counterterrorism policies would come under far more fierce attack from the American Civil Liberties Union than from Mr. Romney. Aides say that Mr. Obama's choices, though, are not surprising. The president's reliance on strikes, said Mr. Leiter, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, "is far from a lurid fascination with covert action and special forces. It's much more practical. He's the president. He faces a post-Abdulmutallab situation, where he's being told people might attack the United States tomorrow." "You can pass a lot of laws," Mr. Leiter said, "Those laws are not going to get Bin Laden."

Of course not. Laws are weak. Laws are wrong. Laws are as clumsy as flintlocks and Bowie knives. Laws do not help make people dead. (Except in Texas, of course.) Laws are not even good politics any more. They won't get you re-elected. It used to be that we were in a post-9/11 world, and that made anything acceptable. Now, apparently, we are in a post-bombs-in-the-skivvies world, and that's an even more dangerous place.