Dear Friends and Supporters of Article 9,  

Season's Greetings!

We are pleased to send you some information about the Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War's recent activities and related developments.

By David Krieger *   

This article was originally published on November 23, 2011 by Truthout.

The Occupy Movement is demonstrating its durability and perseverance. Like a Japanese Daruma doll, each time it is knocked off balance it serenely pops back up. The movement has been seeking justice for the 99 percent, and justice is an essential element of peace.

For decades, our country has been in permanent preparation for war, spending over half of the total annual discretionary funds that Congress allocates on "defense," our euphemism for war. World military expenditures exceed $1.5 trillion annually, and the US spends more than half of this amount, more than the rest of the world combined.

The US has been engaged in wars around the globe from Korea to Vietnam to El Salvador to Nicaragua to Serbia to Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya. In all of these wars, many in the one percent reap financial gains. Many large corporations, such as Halliburton, formerly led by Dick Cheney, are the beneficiaries of lucrative government contracts that support war, while it is mainly the poor who are enlisted to fight, kill and die in our wars. War is a surefire way of transferring wealth up the social ladder.

It is time to wake up to being used as tools in warfare while others profit. War is not an effective or reasonable way to settle disputes. It uses up resources and destroys human lives. In war, people are expendable. Civilians all too easily become "collateral damage." In the Nuclear Age, civilization itself could become collateral damage.

As President Eisenhower pointed out in 1953, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." How little our politicians have responded to the deep concern of this former military leader.

War is costly not only in dollars, but on our national psyche. We slaughtered innocent men, women and children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then celebrated our prowess. We went to war in Vietnam based on lies, killing millions of Vietnamese and dropping Napalm and Agent Orange on them, while they struggled for their freedom and independence. Ultimately, after the death of more than 58,000 Americans, we withdrew in defeat, declaring victory. We seemingly learned little that is meaningful from the experience, as we continue to send our soldiers to fight and die in far-off lands, and still based on lies. Enough is enough.

How do we occupy peace? First, we change our modes of thinking and stop basing our self-worth as a nation on our military prowess. Second, we bring our troops home from exploitative foreign wars. Third, we seek peaceful solutions to conflicts. Fourth, we make our priority justice, and peace will follow. Fifth, we work to end deaths due to starvation and preventable diseases rather than inflicting deaths by high altitude bombing and drone attacks. Sixth, we take the lead in abolishing nuclear weapons so no other cities or countries will suffer the fate of the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Seventh, we reallocate our resources to health, education and ending poverty rather than continuing to gorge the military beast until it is too fat to move.

War is a place of fear and fear is a place of borders. Fear requires us to dehumanize our enemies and, in the process, to dehumanize ourselves. Borders should not provide a justification for dehumanization. That is a trick of militarists, who are in need of enemies, real or imagined, to make the war system work for them. But there is another way to deal with enemies, and that is to turn them into friends by our actions.

We need to stop fearing each other and treat each other with kindness. Consideration for the 99 percent does not stop at a country's border. We are all humans together and we need each other to be fully human. We need to embrace our common humanity. In the Nuclear Age, war is far too dangerous, having the potential to end civilization and most life on the planet. Peace is an imperative. We need to find a way to occupy peace, which begins in our hearts and must expand to encompass the world.  

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

Picture credit: cisc1970 

On November 13, 2011, Costa Rican Attorney at Law and peace activist Roberto Zamora filed a legal complaint against the Costa Rican government's decision to resume sending police to receive training at the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC) in Georgia, USA.

In a lawsuit before the Supreme Court, Zamora challenges the government for failing to comply with a declaration made in 2007 by then Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Laureate Oscar Arias, in which he announced his country would stop sending police forces to the SOA/WHINSEC in light of the well-known SOA's human rights violations record.

The case argues that under international law, the 2007 presidential declaration constitutes a unilateral obligation that is binding for the Government of Costa Rica, and thus makes the the sending of police forces to SOA unconstitutional.

In March 2011, Wikileaks revealed that Security Minister Fernando Berrocal and then President Oscar Arias bent to the pressure brought to bear by the US Embassy in San Jose, and agreed to renew the sending of police forces to the SOA.

According to the cable, Ministry Berrocal established a system by which he requested Arias to revoke his decision and grant permission to resume sending police forces to SAO/WHINSEC but Arias deliberately did not reply. Interpreting Arias' silence as a tacit approval under the "positive silence" rules, Berrocal proceeded in a way that protected the image of Nobel Peace Laureate Arias, as he did not have to make a public announcement. Zamora, however, claims that such action is not only fraudulent (a written and explicit authorization is requested to overturn a legally binding decision by the state), but also both contrary to the law and contrary to the binding principle of good faith.

The lawyer also argues that any relation to a school like SOA/WHINSEC, which trains people in tactics contrary to peace, democracy and human rights, is incompatible with Costa Rica's constitutional frameworks. Furthermore, sending police to a school that belongs to the US military is in violation of Article 12 of the Costa Rican constitution which abolishes the army and establishes a civil conservation of public order and security, and "as such, it must be declared unconstitutional", claims the case.

Zamora is known for his legal achievements towards upholding Costa Rica's peace constitution. In 2004 he was instrumental in the Costa Rican Supreme Court's decision to invalidate the country's joining of the "Coalition of the willing" in the invasion of Iraq, and to declare that based on the Right to Peace and International Law, Costa Rica could not support wars in any ways. In 2008 he also successfully brought the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional the fabrication of weapons of war in Costa Rica, including uranium weapons, and to recognize the existence of the right to peace. He recently challenged the legality of CAFTA's weapons provision, disputed the Congress' authority to allow foreign troops to patrol Costa Rican waters, and brought the Administrative Law Court of Costa Rica to nullify a decree authorizing the country's police to use military weapons.

Read the full unconstitutionality action against the decision to resume sending police to the School of the Americas (WHINSEC) in Fort Benning, Georgia, USA here.

To read more about the campaign to close the US Army School of the Americas, visit SOA Watch here. 

For more information about Roberto Zamora's work to defend the Costa Rican Peace Constitution, visit his website, Peace as a Human Right here.  

On October 21-22, the "Peace in Asia and the Pacific Conference - Alternatives to Asia-Pacific Militarization" was held at the American University in Washington, DC.

Initiated by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the event was a response to the perception that the US peace movement needed to understand the increasing and increasingly dangerous militarization of the Asia, at a time when the Pentagon has undergone a shift in focus in its military planning and spending towards the Asia-Pacific region and is keen to increase its presence and reassert its role as a Pacific power.

Indeed, with US operations in Afghanistan drawing down and troops leaving Iraq, the US Department of Defense has made its intention clear that it intend to strengthen the US military relationships in Asia-Pacific and reposition its forces in the region. "The United States views the Asia-Pacific region as a top priority," recently stated Pentagon Press Secretary George Little.

With the participation of organizations such as Peace Action, United for Justice and Peace, American University's Nuclear Studies Institute, Historians Against the War, the Koran Policy Institute, the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, the Network to Close U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa, and Nodutol, the conference not only discussed Asia-Pacific security issues, but also presented a variety of ongoing campaigns challenging Asia-Pacific militarization and working to create a more peaceful and secure region.

Panelists and participants included engaged scholars and activists from the US, China, South Korea, the Philippines, Japan who addressed issues, such as past and present US foreign and military policies toward Asia Pacific, US-Chinese relations, the evolving role of Chinese diplomacy, the Korean crisis and the Six Party Talks, the US-Japan military alliance and Article 9 of Japan's Constitution, the impact of these issues on peace and stability in the region, and more.

Special attention was given, through workshops, on ongoing campaigns such as Cutting military spending to meet human needs and Campaigning Against Military Bases (which featured the ongoing struggles in Jeju Island and Okinawa), as well as for Nuclear Weapons Abolition.

Participants described the conference as "eye-opening", "engaging" and making participants "want to learn more..."

For more information about the Peace in Asia and the Pacific Conference - Alternatives to Asia-Pacific Militarization, including the participants' list, speeches and presentations, and a conference report, visit AFSC's website here.  

Thank you for your interest in and support for the Global Article 9 Campaign to Abolish War.

The Article 9 Team