On New Year’s Day the Virginian-Pilot published a report describing a series of raunchy, amateur videos made by and starring the ship’s then executive and current commanding officer, Captain Owen Honors, for the stated purposes of boosting crew morale.  The paper’s report, written by Corrine Reilly, describes the videos as a near weekly feature, broadcast throughout the ship, entitled “XO Movie Night,” the content of which was unapologetically obscene and insensitive to any who might object.  To wit, in one episode, Honors tells his viewers, “This evening, all of you bleeding hearts… why don’t just go ahead and hug yourself for the next 20 minutes or so, because there’s a really good chance you’re going to be offended.”

As a result of Captain Honors’ actions, the U.S. Navy has a mess on its hands.  The Enterprise, on the cusp of a new deployment, will require a change of command and an investigation into the incident, which took place during the ship’s 2006-2007 deployment overseas in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Yet, as foolishly blatant as Captain Honors’ actions were, they are indicative of the military’s tolerance for sexual misconduct – provided that misconduct is heterosexual in nature.

This is why I have found objections to DADT on grounds that it will disrupt military readiness to be laughable.  Any fears that sexual misconduct will suddenly become a problem ignore the fact that such has been happening – even encouraged – in armies since Enkidu first strapped on a sandal.  During my own time in the Navy I observed that “private” showings of pornographic films were commonplace in both enlisted work spaces and officers’ ready rooms, where aircrew received their mission briefings, any time the ship was underway.  Slide presentations (this was in the days before PowerPoint) were regularly peppered with photos of nude women, with the stated intent of keeping the audience’s attention.  And, of course, it wasn’t long before the topic of conversation in any gathering of soldiers or sailors turned to past or future sexual exploits (whether real or fictitious), usually offered in rude detail.

None of this type of behavior would be tolerated in a corporate setting, where the specter of litigation over charges of sexual harassment hangs like a Damoclean sword.  Yet, even two decades removed from the Navy’s 1991 Tailhook scandal, it remains a deeply ingrained part of military culture.

So the question before the U.S. armed forces isn’t one of integrating homosexual men and women into our fighting forces, but of fostering a military culture in which men and women of widely varying backgrounds can function to the best of their ability without concern that their moral sensibilities will be assaulted.  Sexual misconduct of any sort – homosexual or heterosexual – should not be tolerated in the American armed services of the 21st Century.

The issue of whether to allow the building of a mosque on this hallowed ground remains fraught with emotion and politics.  Should we reach out, tolerate, and preach peace, or should we honor our fallen by excluding physical entry of a religion practiced by so many, only a handful of whom are terrorists?

Some of us are trying to assess the feelings of mere mortals, for sheer curiosity and to help us answer these questions and more. Last week, ABC News/Washington Post released a poll

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_09072010.html

undertaken on September 2 to explore and ascertain the moods and opinions of Americans over a vast array of issues.  Of particular interest here are those that relate to national security and tolerance.

This September, 37% have a “favorable opinion of Islam”, 49% have an unfavorable opinion, and 13% have no opinion. Since January of 2002, the percentage of people who think “mainstream Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims” more than doubled, rising from 14% to 31%, while those who consider it to be a “peaceful religion” fell from 57% to 54%, and those without an opinion more than halved, moving from 29% to 14%.

There follow three questions about whether those polled have “at least some feelings of prejudice” in matters both religious and racial.  The first, about Muslims, begins “If you honestly assessed yourself”; the next two, about Jews and race, begin “Compare to: If you honestly assessed yourself.” This September, 26% answered “yes” and 71% “no” to whether or not they felt some prejudice against Muslims.  In the summer of 2000, a mere 6% admitted to prejudice against Jews, with a whopping 93% acknowledging none.  In January of 2009, when our first black president took office, 35% said they are at least somewhat prejudicial against race in their outlooks, while 64% said they possessed no such feelings.

These data, of course, are suggestive only.  The years unfortunately don’t match up.  And how many of us can really be honest with ourselves, much less with pollsters?  Nonetheless, feelings of prejudice and safety are intimately and inversely linked, and to the issue of national security, the survey then advances.

The percentage of Americans who feel our country is safer from terrorist attacks now than it was before the twin towers fell has itself fallen from 67% when the question was first asked in September of 2003 to a new low of 48%.  Why?  It’s hard to say.  Perhaps because we now question the affordability of defense in the midst of high unemployment and deficits.  The consequences of fear may be more straightforward.  And scary.

Fear not only sells products and makes news.  It also erodes and even destroys tolerance, and with it support for some of the values that make our country the moral, innovative, optimistic, energetic and productive nation.  The nation that has been a world leader in a wide spectrum of ways is now losing confidence in itself.

We can’t even decide whether to use the term “war” in our fight against terrorism.  We used to wage war against the governments and people associated with nations and physical boundaries.  Now we have a highly mobile enemy with no enduring nationality.  And while we started to chase down al Qaeda, today we hear more about the Taliban in Afganistan and Pakistan.

Freedom is a second-class citizen when feelings of safety fall below a certain level.  Enemies who attack from afar can destroy from within.  At least the request for “honest assessment” acknowledges that today there is widespread shame leading to hypocrisy in many elements of prejudice.

Greg Mortensen’s work in building schools for children – particularly for girls – in Pakistan and Afghanistan has inspired military leaders to consult him and made the awkwardly written Three Cups of Tea a best seller and assigned reading throughout high schools and colleges.  He believes that, while weapons may be the start of defense, education is the key to lasting peace.  Helping with health and schooling builds friendship and creates productive alternatives to warfare.  It creates a vested interest in peace.

History has a way of rewriting itself.  Remember Charlie Wilson’s War and the praise this rogue congressman from Texas got for arming the mujahideen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan?  Some say that the result was to keep the Soviet Union mired and overextended in Afghanistan, thereby contributing to its collapse and the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Well, most of the aid was supplied to Islamist hardliner Gulbuddin Hekmatyar now a senior Taliban leader and key supporter of al-Qaeda.  How do we feel about that now that we may be mired in that mountainous, poor and savage place, making little if any progress in our vaguely articulated ambitions and ever more worried about the expense in lives and dollars?

George W. Bush’s most lasting contribution to world peace may be his quick and ample response to the tsunami in 2004.  He also had the marketing sense to head the help with the celebrity of former presidents and formal rivals George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Why, with these insights, have we not responded more quickly, more substantially, and more publicly to the national crisis in Pakistan, the natural disaster that has flooded more than 20% of the country and displaced 20 million people? The US government’s commitment of $200 million in relief efforts is the largest of any other international donor so far, and American aid groups have raised another  $11 million to help.  Generous?  Very.  But within a mere two weeks after the earthquake in Haiti, Americans  had raised $560 million to help our island neighbors.

The Haitian crisis focused on children and was supported by numerous celebrities.  Why has a similar outreach not been attempted for the Pakistani?  The corruption of their government should be no more off-putting that that in the Haitian government.  Are we exhausted by international crises and domestic debt, deficits and recession?  Or are we consciously or unconsciously prejudiced against Muslims?  Whatever the reason(s), we are squandering the opportunity to do good – helping children avoid death through starvation and illness and, through their gratitude, helping us build lasting peace, national and international security.

We owe it to the victims of 9/11, their families, and ourselves to explore this humane course of action.  The war on terror will not be won with military means alone. The American culture of generosity, compassion and freedom has been called “soft power”, but it is also the most enduring and compelling force we possess.  Americans are accustomed to considering ourselves a young country, but we’re pretty old now.  Let’s grow up and use the wisdom of our ages.   “Soft” in today’s world is strong.  Exporting generosity and compassion is the surest way to building lasting peace.

Just four days later, Cleveland industrialist Cyrus Eaton responded with an offer to host such a conference.  Here, in full, is his letter:

July 13, 1955
TransAtlantic
Air Mail

My Lord:

Your brilliant statement on nuclear warfare has made a dramatic world-wide impact.

As a trustee of The University of Chicago, I take great pride in your one-time association with that institution, and I have long felt a special interest in your many brilliant achievements. I have read all of your fascinating books again and again.

Could I help toward the realization of your proposal by anonymously financing a meeting of the scientists in your group at Pugwash, Nova Scotia? I have dedicated a comfortably equipped residence there by the sea to scholarly groups.

Julian Huxley is coming from England to join a small company of American and Canadian scholars at Pugwash during the first part of August. If the location appeals to you, it is at your disposal any time from August 20th on. I should, of course, want to be host to you, and your fellow-scientists not only during your stay at Pugwash, but on your journey to Pugwash and return.

If you feel that some other place might be more convenient, I should still be happy to be of assistance. I suggest Pugwash because I believe you could more readily focus the attention of the world, on the problems you wish to stress by meeting in such a relatively remote and quiet community than by choosing one of the great metropolises where the gathering would be but one of a number of events competing for public notice.

With all good wishes,

Cyrus Eaton

There is no question that many other places would have been “more convenient”, on several levels. Eaton’s invitation was audacious.  Here was one of the last and biggest of the “Robber Barons” offering, at the height of the Cold War, to host physicists from behind the Iron Curtain and elsewhere across the globe.  And where? In a small and remote fishing village in Nova Scotia.  Transportation alone would be daunting, never mind political obstacles and translation issues.  Acceptance was not immediate.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru also endorsed the idea of a congress, offering India as its venue, but his plans were derailed by the outbreak of the Suez Crisis.  In stepped Aristotle Onassis with an offer to finance a meeting in Monaco.  It was rejected forthwith and firmly.  Eaton and Nova Scotia carried the day, and many months and years more.

The first Pugwash Peace Conference was held in July, 1957, with twenty-three scientists attending the first conference.  Seven hailed from the United States; three each from the Japan, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom; two from Canada; and one each from Australia, Austria, China, France and Poland.  In addition to a handful of translators, there was also one lawyer from the US.  And, of course, Mr. Eaton. One of the translators was suspected of being from the KGB; perhaps that was Vladimir Pavlichenko, who was regularly accused of twisting and inserting meanings in moving from one language to several others.

All of the scientists were brave to participate.  In the United States, for example, they could lose their grants and appointments by comporting with The Enemy.  In communist countries they could also lose their lives.

The courage of Chou Pei-Yuan is particularly notable.  To get to Pugwash, he had to endure an appallingly circuitous series of flights, changing planes in the Soviet Union, Sweden, and the United Kingdom before finally landing in Canada on his way from China.  Ten years later, back in China during the Cultural Revolution, he continued to speak for the truth.  “Aren’t you afraid?” he’d be asked.  “No, why should I be afraid?” this man of complete integrity would reply. He felt armored by honesty.

Cyrus Eaton was also unafraid – or perhaps he felt his mission was worth the danger.  So tempestuous were the times that he was simultaneously reviled as a “capitalist pig” and a “commie lover” in the United States.

Joseph Rotblat had the guts to follow his ethical imperatives and leave the Manhattan Project when he realized the magnitudes of its ambitions and learned that its stated raison d’etre, to counter Germany’s nuclear developments, was based on fears, not facts.  As a polyglot born and educated in Poland before moving to the UK, he also had the nerves and knowledge to speak out when Pavlichenko distorted the record.

More on these gentlemen in a later post.

The atmosphere was strained the first day in Pugwash.  But then the scientists began to relax and work together.  Eaton had chosen well when he set up “The Thinkers’ Lodge” on pristine shore and inlet.  The place was simple, with no buzz of events, no crowding, no external noise other than wind and the susurration of the sea. It was a place to listen.

Eaton also chose well when he asked Anne Kinder Jones to be his hostess.  This brave young woman, bound to a wheelchair since polio in her early twenties, had an observant eye,  an inquiring mind and a rapier-like wit.  In Pugwash, she told the participants, there was nothing to do but “ think or swim”.  This quip went over well in English, she observed, but lost something in translation.

Trust was not just built by serious and seated conversations.  It also grew through humor, over drinks, on walks and in fiercely competitive battles on the croquet field.  Some of the best work was made possible by the play.

Until now, other heroes of the first of the Pugwash Peace Conferences have been unsung.  They are the young women and men of Pugwash who also contributed to the ambiance of care, comfort and serenity through their quiet jobs as waitresses, maids and chauffeurs and by putting up guests in their homes.  Some times they also put on plays and entertained with square dances.

“History” is well named.  It is so often “his story”.  As of last week, oral histories of “her story” have begun to be part of the Pugwash peace record.  I feel proud and privileged to be part of this development, and shall share more as  summer progresses.

How ’bout punching someone who accosted his wife or significant other?

Is modern “rugged individualism ” all talk and no action?

In a 90s melee on the Geraldo Rivera show, both he and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) chairman Roy Innis gave skin heads healthy doses of Brown and Black power in response to being assaulted.

While peaceful, I practice the Divine right of self-defense. Servants and cowards offer themselves as doormats for life’s endless supply of would-be bullies.  As an experienced citizen who patrols, I often ask myself, how personally ” rugged ” are today’s multi-media proponents of rugged individualism for the rest of us?

Right-wing arm-chair generals fascinate me since invariably the older group are the ones who got draft deferments during Vietnam, and those of more recent vintage never seem to leave cushy talking-head duty for real-world derring do.

Bounty hunting, high-risk security, street-fight interventions as a real-life superhero (RLSH) movement member, and simply being a Southern Black male leave a wealth of combative experiences.

While assessing these would-be champions of American virtue, I see very little risk taking that would equal even the (low) threat potential faced during childhood days as an elementary school safety patrol.

Talking tough on TV or the radio isn’t the same as face time with opponents. While liberals are even more tame, conservative talkers promote themselves as world-class advocates of toughness but I see sparse evidence of it.

Can anyone honestly see Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck wading into a fight? Watching them waddle or ease toward the nearest exit seems more likely.

Paper tigers growling self-reliance and grit while appearing to be neither show how much smoke and mirrors powers popular conservatism.

America isn’t getting any easier to navigate and this side of the aisle needs men people know will stand up to evil in their midst, instead of just talking about it on air.

Thinning pockets and frayed patience create negative scenarios beyond the reach of talking points.

As a citizen my role is to maintain safety wherever I can until relieved by others. Refusing to do so guarantees others potential injury or unabated intimidation.

Police officers can’t beam down Star-Trek style whenever we need them.

Far-right war horse G. Gordon Liddy doesn’t fall in the paper-tiger category. Guardian Angels founder and host Curtis Sliwa is another notable exception. Ollie North too.

These exceptions aside, many of today’s conservative talk-show hosts should save the tough-guy stuff until they practice some rugged individualism out on the streets first.

That’s where the real war over traditional values is being fought!

The paper tigers of conservatism risk being declawed by opponents whose rhetoric is brutally honest, accent on the word “brutally. ”

Liberal-bashing is fun until the basher comes for you, then it’s time to put the microphone down and your fists up.

That’s where America seems headed in my opinion: discarding debate for fisticuffs as tempers flare past restraint.

NADRA ENZI AKA CAPT. BLACK promotes crime prevention and self-development.

I was privileged to attend that conference, which was organized around the themes of “peace education”, “women and peace”, and “nuclear disarmament” and took place in Halifax and Pugwash.  My summer columns will be a series of comments and reflections on what I heard and learned in Canada. The focus of the first is the Russell-Einstein Manifesto.

Philosopher and Mathematician Bertrand Russell won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.”  Here’s a sample.

For countless ages the sun rose and set, the moon waxed and waned, the stars shone in the night, but it was only with the coming of Man that these things were understood.  In the great world of astronomy and in the little world of the atom, Man has unveiled secrets which might have been thought undiscoverable.  In art and literature and religion, some men have shown a sublimity of feeling which makes the species worth preserving.  Is all this to end in trivial horror because so few are able to think of Man rather than of this or that group of men?  Is our race so destitute of wisdom, so incapable of impartial love, so blind even to the simplest dictates of self-preservation that the last proof of its silly cleverness is to be the extermination of all life on our planet?  I cannot believe that this is to be the end.  I would have men forget their quarrels for a moment and reflect that if they will allow themselves to survive, there is every reason to expect triumphs of the future to exceed immeasurably the triumphs of the past.

With this kind of thinking, feeling and writing, Russell persuaded premier scientist Albert Einstein to work with him, endorse a manifesto, and sign a resolution to end world war.  Unfortunately, Einstein died before the publicity began.  Adding his authority to a call for peace may have been the genius’s last public action, just as this was his last private letter:

Dear Bertrand Russell,

Thank you for your letter of April 5. I am gladly willing to sign your excellent statement. I also agree with your choice of the prospective signers.

With kind regards, A. Einstein

A few months earlier, on December 23, 1954, Russell’s “Man’s Perils” had been broadcast to an audience of between six and seven million.  In many ways, this was a prelude to the manifesto.  Understanding the value and mechanics of PR, in the summer of 1955 Russell simply announced that he had something important to say and invited representatives from the press, radio and TV from around the world to come and hear it.  They did. The largest room in London’s Caxton Hall was filled to capacity.

Here is what they heard, and what we can never hear too much or too often.

In the tragic situation which confronts humanity, we feel that scientists should assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction, and to discuss a resolution in the spirit of the appended draft.

We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism.

Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.

We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.

We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?

The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with nuclear bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old, and that, while one A-bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one H-bomb could obliterate the largest cities, such as London, New York, and Moscow.

No doubt in an H-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York, and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially since the Bikini test, that nuclear bombs can gradually spread destruction over a very much wider area than had been supposed.

It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radio-active particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish. No one knows how widely such lethal radio-active particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.

Many warnings have been uttered by eminent men of science and by authorities in military strategy. None of them will say that the worst results are certain. What they do say is that these results are possible, and no one can be sure that they will not be realized. We have not yet found that the views of experts on this question depend in any degree upon their politics or prejudices. They depend only, so far as our researches have revealed, upon the extent of the particular expert’s knowledge. We have found that the men who know most are the most gloomy.

Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.

The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term “mankind” feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity. They can scarcely bring themselves to grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly. And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited.

This hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use H-bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture H-bombs as soon as war broke out, for, if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious.

Although an agreement to renounce nuclear weapons as part of a general reduction of armaments would not afford an ultimate solution, it would serve certain important purposes. First, any agreement between East and West is to the good in so far as it tends to diminish tension. Second, the abolition of thermo-nuclear weapons, if each side believed that the other had carried it out sincerely, would lessen the fear of a sudden attack in the style of Pearl Harbour, which at present keeps both sides in a state of nervous apprehension. We should, therefore, welcome such an agreement though only as a first step.

Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

Resolution:

WE invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:

“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”

Max Born

Percy W. Bridgman

Albert Einstein

Leopold Infeld

Frederic Joliot-Curie

Herman J. Muller

Linus Pauling

Cecil F. Powell

Joseph Rotblat

Bertrand Russell

Hideki Yukawa

In the early 21^st Century, the warnings of nuclear holocaust ring even truer as weapons have become more powerful and more widespread.  They should also ring louder and be expanded to include other global threats like environmental, economic and financial disruption.  As John Donne said, “No man is an island.”  All of these issues affect all of us –as a species, not just as individuals.  The approaches to handling them should there be as international as possible.

And while it’s tempting to dismiss the fears of scientists by denigrating them as  men (and women) who don’t understand politics and power, and are hopelessly naive,  we must bear in mind that the ten who signed the resolution were brilliant polymaths.  No politician today knows as much about nuclear physics and the long-term consequences of  radiation as well as the immediate destruction applied physics can wreak.  War fought across the globe with nuclear weapons wouldn’t destroy the planet.  But it could very well wipe out humankind.  Roaches might be the sole survivors.

Symbolism abounds in the circumstances surrounding the plutonium bomb’s implosion.  At 5:30 am, its light overwhelmed the natural dawn and ushered in the manufactured Dawn of the Nuclear Age. The site was named “Jornado del Muerento” or “Journey of Death”, and Robert Oppenheimer named the test “Trinity”.  “Why I chose the name,” he later said, “is not clear, but I know what thoughts were in my mind. There is a poem of John Donne, written just before his death, which I know and love. From it a quotation: ‘As west and east/ In all flat maps (and I am one) are one, / So death doth touch the Resurrection’.” Oppenheimer continued, “That still does not make a Trinity, but in another, better known devotional poem Donne opens, ‘Batter my heart, three person’d God’.”  Oppenheimer was just one of many “pure scientists” who began to rue the implications and probable applications of their discoveries.  No doubt he was also familiar with Donne’s best known lines:  “No man is an island.”

July is a big month in the history of war and peace.  Our national holiday is not the 16^th or the 9^th, but the 4^th, America’s Independence Day.  We should acknowledge and try to celebrate global dependence as well.  We need to remember our humanity.  Thomas Jefferson was able to do so.  Even as he was declaring separation from England, he chose to observe, rather wistfully,”We might have been a free and great people together.”  It’s a shame that other Founding Fathers chose to delete these lines and with them a broader and more cooperative way of thinking about life. “[N]ever send to know for whom the bell tolls” –  it tolls for all of us.

The doctrine that reserved America’s right to respond to a conventional attack with nuclear weapons is a product of the Cold War.  President Eisenhower, in his famous speech warning about the dangers of a rising American “military-industrial complex,” worried that an arms race with the Soviet Union would militarize American society.    Under Eisenhower’s leadership, the United States opted to develop less costly nuclear weapons rather than trying to keep pace with the Soviet Union’s massive conventional weapons build-up.   If thousands of Soviet tanks ever crossed into West Germany, America claimed to be ready to nuke Moscow.  As the horrors of nuclear war became more widely considered, the credibility of this threat weakened.  Would the United States really risk the destruction of Washington, New York, and Chicago to save Berlin, Rome and Brussels?  Today, unlike the 1950s, the United States is predominant in conventional military forces.  It was high time to overturn this old, disproportionate and not-especially realistic policy and show a more peaceful American face to the world.

The new treaty with Russia is likewise prudent policy.  It is sensible as a stand-along document, but it is even more important as a restart of a diplomatic process leading to further cooperation between the United States and Russia regarding nuclear weapons and related subjects.  Trust-building measures, reductions in tactical nuclear weapons, cooperative strategic defense and the isolation of Iran are all extremely important objectives that can only be realized through a deepening of diplomatic relationships between the United States and Russia.  The dream of a world free of nuclear weapons is one Barack Obama shares with the late Ronald Reagan.  Continuing in that bipartisan spirit, Secretary of State for President Reagan, George Schulz, and Secretary of Defense for President Clinton, William Perry, writing for the New York Times this week,  conclude that further nuclear weapons reductions are “eminently possible” but contend that “comprehensive discussions are a necessity as we work our way  toward ever more significant nuclear disarmament.”  As the Democratic President Obama leads the nation further down this path, Republicans would be irresponsible not to follow.

Finally, the ongoing conference in Philadelphia, as reported here, is also part of a long-term bipartisan effort to catalog and control the world’s most dangerous nuclear material, and above all, to keep it out of the hands of terrorists.  The conference builds on the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, begun in 1992 and sponsored in the US Senate by the bipartisan team of Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN).  The program was designed to secure nuclear materials in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  As a new Senator Barack Obama is said to have been tutored on proliferation issues by Senator Lugar, the Senate’s Republican senior statesmen on this and most other foreign policy issues.

Much more needs to be done to safeguard the American public, along with people everywhere, from the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.   International diplomacy, led by a United States that is respected in the world, constitutes a vital aspect of our common defense. All Americans should stand united in this effort.

The low grades Adele gave President Obama on domestic policy seem a result of two unfortunate tendencies in the Obama Administration. The first was to hand over leadership on domestic issues to Congressional Democrats, which predictably resulted in legislation enfeebled and corrupted by special interests. The second was a surprising ideological rigidity – surprising because Obama campaigned as someone open to bipartisanship. In contrast, these two malevolent tendencies were either absent or much less pronounced in foreign policy, an area in which the President deserves significantly higher marks. This column will focus on one aspect of foreign policy and national defense: counter-terrorism.

The Bush Administration waged a “war” on terrorism as if world public opinion did not matter, an extremely wrong-headed notion. As with struggles against an insurgencies, winning the contest for hearts and minds is the most crucial battle in the fight against Islamist extremism. Common sense suggests that the more people hate the United States in the Islamic World, the more terrorists the Islamic World will produce. According to Pew Research, in almost every corner of the globe, including and especially in Muslim nations, hatred for the United States reached new highs during the Bush years.

There are those who say that the United States will never be loved in certain parts of the world, but this notion only states the obvious and sets up a false dichotomy. It is not a question of whether America will be loved or hated, but rather one about the proportion of people around the world who will variously love and hate the United States. Will the burning hatred of the United States turn every Muslim village into a terrorist factory, or will relatively few radicals form around isolated hate-filled and charismatic Imams? Will the United States have enough friends in the Muslim world to recruit spies and informants, or will we be reduced to observing from satellites, which are almost useless without human intelligence? Will governments in the Middle East feel free to cooperate with the United States, or will anti-American political pressures make anything but highly secretive and / or superficial cooperation impossible?

In the so-called “war” on terror, these questions matter a great deal. Conservatives attacked Obama for his “apology tour.” While one might quibble with some of the language Obama used as he traveled abroad, the tour was absolutely necessary as part of a campaign to repair the image of the United States. Grades are always relative, and in this most important area of restoring American prestige, the Obama Administration deserves an “A” compared to the previous administration’s “F.”

Conservatives, who smell blood in the water politically, have been attacking Obama as weak on terrorism in light of the failed Christmas Day airline bombing. But as Bush’s Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff admitted on CNN, the “system” that failed was the one built up at enormous expense since 2001 by the Bush Administration. Yes, current Secretary Janet Napolitano neglected to review the “system” and for that the Obama Administration takes some responsibility. But it is absurd to blame Obama for a small failed attack while Bush gets credit for “keeping us safe,” with the worst terrorist attack in American history occurring on his watch. Conservatives need to be reminded that they are supposed to believe in bipartisanship in matters of national security.

Obama is also being faulted for trying terrorists in civilian courts and releasing detainees who find their way back onto the battlefield, but these are both Bush-era practices as well. During the Bush years, no detainee was ever tried in military court. The policy seems to be to try the prisoners that the United States has the evidence to convict, and keep the others locked up. Admittedly, the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is problematic, because instead of showcasing American justice, it may feature American interrogation practices, including torture. Just how this will play out remains uncertain.

Probably President Obama’s biggest mistake in the fight against terrorism was to seek s special prosecutor to investigate the CIA for any illegal instances of torture during the Bush years. The President seems to have permitted partisanship to reverse his wiser initial decision not to risk undermining CIA operations with a perceived witch hunt. Spies and undercover operations are America’s first line of defense against terrorists. Leon Panetta, a politician without a strong background in intelligence or military affairs, was probably a poor choice to head the CIA. America needs a powerful, competent and confident CIA now more than ever. Obama tried to reassure his spy agency with a speech he gave at Langley. It would be more reassuring still if he ordered his Attorney General to call off the dogs.

Another factor lowering the Obama Administration’s grade is the lack of sufficient attention to homeland defense, including port, border and industrial security, which represents a continuation of Bush-era negligence. The best defense is a good defense, but the United States remains extremely vulnerable. Homeland defense needs to be reconsidered broadly, thoroughly and urgently.

On offense against terrorism, President Obama has been appropriately aggressive. He has focused American military resources in Afghanistan, where they are most needed. Obama was criticized for delaying the deployment of US forces, but news analysis of Obama’s decision in Afghanistan showed an American President taking a remarkably clear-headed, exhaustive and objective assessment of an enormously complex problem (See this important story: ). One gets the sense that he will approach the failed Flight 253 bombing the same way. Let us hope so.

President Obama’s Grade on Terrorism : B

(To be continued)

Since March of 2009, when the Obama Administration made it known to the Pentagon that Bush Administration language such as “global war on terror” would no longer be used, the Administration has gone to great lengths to be the “anti-Bush” on all matters, especially those involving issues of national security. While credit should be given to the Obama Administration for more troops and more drone attacks in Afghanistan and western Pakistan, the President makes these decisions with great difficulty. President Obama is willing to attack and kill Al Qaeda overseas, but he wants them to have all the rights of U.S. citizens if they are captured in this country. This makes no sense. Is it because of the pressure he is getting from the left wing of his Party? Is it because adoption of Bush Administration policies is repugnant to him? Is it because he would rather be Head-of-State instead of Commander-In-Chief? After all, no matter what you may think of the Bush Administration, it is undeniable that no domestic attacks followed the 9/11 attacks in the remaining seven years of his presidency; and it is possible and even probable that the policies put in place by the Bush Administration and the culture and intensity of the effort to fight the war on terror are what kept us safe.

President Obama has assumed responsibility for the “system failure” that allowed Abdulmutallab to board Northwest flight 253 to Detroit, but he still has given no clear signal that he understands the nature of the threat we face. A lack of leadership on his part in this fight was evident up to and during the Fort Hood massacre and again up to and in the aftermath of the “underpants bomber” attack. The President has filled his plate with massive domestic initiatives and a lot of travel to improve relations with nations around the world. He has been on a crusade of sorts to have all of humanity again love the United States and has relied on his own charisma to achieve this goal. His efforts to set the right tone and commitment as regards the fight with Al Qaeda have been benign at best.

While he took a step in the right direction on Thursday to characterize the threat in a way most Americans believe and understand, we will have to see whether President Obama backs his words with actions. As former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said, “The reality is, whether he likes it or not, we are at war with terrorists. They haven’t forgotten it. And if he recognizes we’re at war with terror, a lot of things follow from that. Are we really going to treat it as a war or is it just rhetoric?”

The Obama administration will need to decide whether they want to prosecute “suspects” after terror attacks (as we did in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center) or whether instead they will harness all resources at our nation’s disposal to uncover these plots before they happen, kill the enemy who would harm us, and “protect and defend” the American people. It is not enough to outlast our terrorist adversaries; they must be stopped and destroyed. This cannot be an exercise in criminal justice. It is a matter of national priority. We face huge challenges at home. We have out-of-control government spending and a weak and fragile economy. But none of that really matters, if we are not safe and protected against those who would do us harm.

While an earlier column for CenterMovement.org indicated that former Vice President Cheney needs to be reminded that seriousness of intent does not pivot on semantics, President Obama needs to know that words alone are not sufficient for the effort required to defend the United States and destroy her enemies. The most important job the President has is that of Commander-in-Chief, to defend and protect both the Constitution and the American people. What the Christmas Day attack shows is that this administration has not addressed this threat with the sufficient urgency and commitment it deserves. Critics of the Administration point out that while there is a level of incompetence in the handling of this terrorist attack (as in DHS Secretary Napolitano saying “the system worked”), there is equal concern that the Administration lacks sufficient comprehension of the threat. As Charles Krauthammer notes, “Obama goes abroad and pledges to cleanse America of its post-9/11 counterterrorist sins. Hence, Guantanamo will close, CIA interrogators will face a special prosecutor, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed will bask in a civilian trial in New York…a trifecta of political correctness and image management.” This is not a serious way to wage war on a group who declared jihad in Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa against the United States. The war was declared not just because we had military bases in Saudi Arabia (which we no longer do) or because of the sanctions against Iraq (which obviously are no longer in place) but because the United States represents “modernity with its individual liberty, social equality (especially for women) and profound tolerance (religious, sexual, philosophical)”, observes Krauthammer. The Obama administration’s desire to fight this battle as a criminal pursuit is fraught with problems. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be “underpants” bomber had reportedly begun to talk about his training and his contacts with Al Qaeda, but stopped once he was “Miranda’ized” by Eric Holder’s Justice Department and “lawyered” up. He now sits in a federal prison facility near Detroit. The United States is not able to extract any further information from him. We do not know whether there are parallel threats underway. The Administration may pat itself on the back and say that our treatment of Abdulmutallab demonstrates how fair and just the American judicial system is, but does anyone really believe that our enemies care?

Our humane treatment of these terrorists on our soil is not going to prevent them from continuing to plot to attack us. Al Qaeda does not care about justice. They don’t care that a law enforcement approach may show America to be “the shining city upon a hill”. If they did, would they have beheaded Daniel Pearl? Would they have shot and hung the contractors on the bridge outside Fallujah, Iraq? Would they continue with attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan that harm not only American military personnel, but also innocent men, women and children? Al Qaeda doesn’t care if America reasserts its moral authority.

Al Qaeda has declared war on the United States and on its values. They mean to destroy us. A war on terrorism will be long. It will be difficult. It is the existential struggle of our time. While President Obama may wish the war is over, and may be shocked and angered by the wake-up call his administration received on Christmas day, the facts are right in front of us. Al Qaeda is still at war with us. And the new front on the war on terror is Yemen.

Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano’s first public response to the thwarted Christmas Day terrorist attack on the Amsterdam – Detroit flight was, “The system worked.” Apparently the US Department of Homeland Security has employed numerous intrepid young Dutch filmmakers to defend against terrorist attacks on international flights.

A day later Napolitano changed her message, declaring that the “system did not work in this instance.” Here the Secretary of Homeland Security demonstrates that the learning curve for a flawed political message is 24 hours. By contrast, since 911, the learning curve for safeguarding passenger aircraft is 8 years, 3 months, 14 days and counting.

The Christmas attack follows in the entrails of an incident in October when Northwest Flight 188 overshot its destination, Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport, and air traffic controllers lost contact with the pilot and copilot, who were distracted or sleeping. It was siesta time at the airport control tower too, since controllers waited almost an hour to notify Norad that voice contact with the flight had been lost.

The Christmas Day attack and the lapse in October show that the United States is still unprepared to defend itself against even the most basic and traditional kinds of terrorism. It is almost as if 911 never happened. Are all of the cockpit doors now locked at least? Let us hope so, because otherwise, there is apparently little else in place to deter another 911.

The President tells Americans to remain “vigilant, but confident.” Confident? Based on what? The terrorist’s father had warned the US Embassy in Nigeria about his crazed Islamist son, but the son’s US Visa was not revoked. Abdulmutallab paid for his ticket with $3,000 cash, and had no bags to check for a supposed two-week trip. Meanwhile, Abdulmutallab had made it on to a suspected “terrorist” list, but not a “no-fly” list, as if some terrorists suspects are allowed to fly. Mr. President, none of this inspires confidence.

Our current vulnerability is mostly not President Obama’s fault. His predecessor, George W. Bush, responded to 911 by choosing to invade Iraq instead of taking the vigorous and expensive measures necessary to protect the American population and the nation’s infrastructure. America’s lack of readiness for disaster was abundantly demonstrated during Hurricane Katrina. But if Obama does not prioritize Homeland Security either, he will go down in infamy along with George W. Bush as the Presidents who left the American people undefended after 911. Historians will wonder at our foolishness.

Prior to 911, the possibility of terrorists weaponizing commercial jets was known by the intelligence services. America’s political leadership and bureaucracy simply chose not to take precautions. The same thing is happening all over again, but with even less excuse for negligence, since the image of the collapsing Twin Towers are now and forever etched in every American’s mind. We know our vulnerabilities, Al Qaeda knows our vulnerabilities, and we know they know. But still we fail to follow through and take the necessary steps to defend ourselves.

Pathetic though it obviously is, airline passenger scrutiny has actually been a Department of Homeland Security priority. The cargo, however, that flies on same planes as the frisked passengers, has remained largely uninspected since 911.

A new law requires that all cargo be “screened” by August 2010. “Screening”, here, might mean as little as checking boxes for tampering. More aggressively, explosive-smelling dogs are also being deployed and will be increasingly used in the future. But it is hard to imagine airline cargo being truly secure for a long time to come. Whoever does the screening will not be looking into every box. Freight forwarders and airline employees, not government inspectors, will be responsible for cargo screening, and they are more easily infiltrated by Al Qeada. The system’s weaknesses are likely to be more acute on incoming international flights, where US federal officials will not even have the authority to inspect the inspectors.

Al Qaeda knows that the United States is lax about airline cargo screening, but they are probably not interested in planting just one bomb in a single plane’s cargo hold anymore than they were interested in hijacking only one plane on 911. If they attack us through the air again in a coordinated fashion it will likely come from many bombs planted in cargo. One wave of bombs shipped from diverse locations could bring down numerous planes at once and indefinitely halt the ten thousand tons of freight that travel by air each day, causing severe economic damage, not to mention loss of life. Al Qaeda obviously likes to pick and choose its days of attack, like 9/11 and Christmas, with some flair. Would they be able to resist the obvious choice of the 4th of July weekend for an assault that would have planes bursting in air?

With American ports, water supplies, sensitive industrial plants, damns / levies and borders also still undefended, and weapons of mass destruction perhaps available, Al Qaeda may not bother to attack America through the air again, except by sending its most incompetent followers onto planes to light their shoes and pants on fire. We should have no doubt that Al Qaeda is planning something far more spectacular. Panic is not helpful, but denial will be deadly. Like the pilot and copilot who overflew Minneapolis – St. Paul, our government needs to wake up.

(First in a series of occasional columns on homeland security)

Since the end of the Cold War, climate change and other man-made threats to the planet have diluted the focus on nuclear weapons.  Protestors waving anti-nuclear placards no longer fill the streets, and movies and books far less frequently fan popular fears of nuclear apocalypse.    Only occasionally do news headlines, like the recent ones coming out of Iran, inconveniently blow the mushroom cloud back into the public consciousness. Otherwise, the hysteria of the Cold War has been replaced by complacency.

The proliferation of nuclear technology into the hands of messianic Islamists should, in the coming years, push the minute hand on that Doomsday clock closer to midnight than ever before.  Now it is high time to anticipate and plan for any and all eventualities, use every tool available to keep a nuclear weapon from going off, and pray that something works.

A nuclear-armed Iran presents an especially alarming threat because that nation is a theocracy run by religious fanatics.  Iran has a growing missile capacity and, still more worrisome, could put atomic bombs into the hands of its terrorist allies.  The Iranian regime showed so little regard for human life during its war with Iraq in the 1980s that it sent waves of its own children out ahead of Iranian troops to clear enemy mine fields.  Nuclear weapons in the hands of such people is a terrifying prospect, to say the least.

The unhappy truth is that there is little the West can do to prevent a determined Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.  The Obama Administration is right to play all of its diplomatic cards in an attempt to isolate Iran politically and economically.  Biting trade sanctions might add to the pressure currently being applied by a surprisingly large, brave and resilient internal political opposition.  Still, we cannot afford to assume such sanctions will work, or even that they will ever be firmly applied.  While Russia is now possibly prepared to cooperate against Iran, China still seems reluctant.

There is much talk about eventual attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but military strikes are unwise.  As noted recently in the Wall Street Journal, air assaults, whether Israeli or American, seem at best capable of setting back Iran’s nuclear program for only a couple of years, if that.  Then these same targets, perhaps hidden and hardened more, would have to be struck again and again.  Meanwhile, what about North Korea?  Does it too get bombed?  And if another state run by madmen starts building nuclear bombs, does the United States strike yet again?

The doctrine of preemption – established under the George W. Bush Administration and used to justify the invasion of Iraq – is not only unworthy of the United States and the community of democratic nations, it is also impractical and counterproductive.  Perpetual bombardment of Muslim nations in particular will fertilize the ground for crop after crop of future Islamist fanatics.

Even the Israelis, who are explicitly threatened, may also have reservations about attacking Iran, at least for now.  They are uncharacteristically advertising a potential assault on Iranian nuclear targets, which in fact may suggest a diplomatic ploy rather than actual military intention.

For now, the Israeli goal is to get the world serious about putting pressure on Iran.  Down the nuclear road, however, Israel may find it untenable to sit idly by.  Israel has a unique set of strategic and political variables with which to contend, as well as a terrible historical burden.  The Jews will never be led to slaughter again.  Iran misreads their history at its own peril.

But where does all of this leave us?  The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, signed in 1968, was supposed to limit those countries with nuclear weapons to the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Great Britain and France.  Three countries – India, Pakistan and Israel — did not sign the Nonproliferation Treaty, and each is now a nuclear power, although in Israel’s case its nuclear status is undeclared.  North Korea signed the treaty, violated it, and withdrew.  Subjecting proliferators like North Korea and Iran to near-complete economic isolation might keep the Treaty relevant for a time, but already Chavez’s Venezuela has positioned itself as Iran’s emergency economic lifeline, perhaps in return for nuclear technology with which it too can build nuclear weapons.  For more on this dismal prospect, see here.

The spread of nuclear weapons is not surprising.  Throughout the history of the world, no technology has ever failed to proliferate.  If North Korea, about the poorest and most isolated nation on earth, can build nuclear weapons, then any banana republic can, and will.    The world of the future seems to bristle with nuclear weapons.

If diplomacy has any chance of containing the nuclear tide, the great powers of the world must get serious about the threat.  The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty also commits the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain and France to eventually eliminating their own nuclear weapons stockpiles. The moral authority of the United States and its European allies is weakened when they deny other countries the very kinds of weapons that they, themselves, possess, and then take no meaningful steps to fulfill their own ultimate obligation under the Treaty.

Fortunately President Obama is now vocalizing the American desire to rid the world completely of nuclear weapons, in compliance with the Treaty.  In doing so, Obama symbolically joins hands with Ronald Reagan, who at Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986 surprised the world (including his own advisors) when he proposed to Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev the idea abolishing all nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.  Here is an idealistic vision embraced by the left and right, and worthy of vigorous promotion.

In spite of the drama of Reagan’s ultimate nuclear disarmament proposal, the Reykjavik summit is most often remembered for the President’s stubborn refusal to let go of his concept for strategic defense.  Here again, the allegedly simple-minded Reagan was far wiser than all of his critics.  He understood the ultimate horror of nuclear holocaust, so while pursuing an idealistic diplomatic approach, he called upon the scientific prowess of the United States to produce a technologically advanced defense for the American public, something far more reassuring than Mutually Assured Destruction.

Twenty-three years later, Reagan’s strategic vision remains sound: a full -throttle diplomatic and effort to uphold the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty including the banning of all nuclear weapons from the planet, and a muscular research and development program for a multi-layered strategic defense.

As Reagan well understood, the two efforts are mutually re-enforcing.   The more effective America’s strategic defense becomes, the more likely that Russia and China will agree to scrap their own nuclear weapons if the United States does likewise.

To Reagan’s strategic defense, it is also vital to add layered port and border security. America’s political leadership has been shockingly irresponsible in failing to shore up these critical vulnerabilities.

The Doomsday clock still ticks.  In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t three minutes to twelve in 1984. Reagan was far more committed to peace than was generally understood.  But in the coming years, as nuclear The Doomsday clock still ticks.  In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t three minutes to twelve in 1984. Reagan was far more committed to peace than was generally understood.  But in the coming years, as nuclear technology almost invariably proliferates, blackest midnight will once again draw nigh.  We must get ready.