A letter to Richard G. Lugar, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
by David Keppel davidkeppel@earthlink.net, - a writer and activist, living in Indiana

 

"We must commit ourselves to global cooperation..."

Hon. Richard G. Lugar
1180 Market Tower
10 West Market Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Dear Senator Lugar:

It was a privilege to hear your Commencement address at Indiana University. I would also like to express my appreciation for Chip SindersÍs kindness in meeting with Bret Davis and me. We admire your receptivity to constituent concern, and we are grateful for the efforts of Chip, Lesley, and Ken to listen to diverse opinions.

In your address, you wisely told graduates that they should be engaged in the world but need not always support the governmentÍs current policies. We hope you feel that Bloomington Peace Action CoalitionÍs flyer (of which Chip took a copy) was in the spirit you suggest. We wanted to fuse respect for you, consideration of graduates, and urgent concern about what we believe is a dangerous national intoxication with war.

Your Framework

I was struck that you chose internationalism as your paradigm. Particularly encouraging was your quote from Wendell Wilkie, who explicitly rejected not only isolationism but also imperialism. Here you offer a refreshing contrast to the current tendency in Washington and among some foreign policy intellectuals. Too many people (including the neo-conservative Straussians in and around the Administration, and even some ñliberalsî such as Michael Ignatieff) today openly celebrate American imperialism. They even claim it can spread democracy.

The new imperialists forget that empire is based on domination, not true consent. It offers at best Potemkin village democracy to the provinces. And in an interdependent world, empire threatens American democracy as well. Caligula may have said, ñLet them hate me, provided they fear me,î but in a vulnerable technological society, Americans too live in fear and are tempted to forfeit our essential civil liberties. The PATRIOT Act, PATRIOT II, and Senator RobertsÍs proposal to allow the CIA and Pentagon to spy inside the United States, illustrate the risk to our freedom.

You are thus right to reject empire. Of course, just what internationalism means today is a subject that requires exploration.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

But first permit me to turn to the main subject of your address: weapons of mass destruction. Here I again welcome your emphasis Æ in contrast to the current AdministrationÍs Æ on weapons, rather than on so-called rogues. As you recognize, the United States cannot prevent a September 11th, this time with weapons of mass destruction, by going on a global assassination campaign directed at suspected terrorists or by invading an ever-growing list of ñrogueî states. There are simply too many possible terrorists (with new recruits incited by our wars) and too many sources of weapons (most outside ñrogueî states).

It is therefore the weapons we must eliminate Æ and eliminate them comprehensively and globally. Here you are constructively extending the Nunn-Lugar Initiative to a global campaign. (Indeed we should try to avoid a nuclear Japan or Taiwan as much as a nuclear Iran or Libya. They might not directly threaten us, but the effect on regional stability would be dire.) You also wisely say that a cooperative model of eliminating weapons is far better than war.

But two conditions you have not mentioned are essential to the modelÍs success. First, it must be truly comprehensive Æ with no exemptions. The United StatesÍs demand that others forswear nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons will have no global legitimacy unless we do too Æ and act on this basis. Yet the Bush Administration warped the Moscow Treaty so we would not have to destroy a single nuclear warhead. The Pentagon plans a new generation of ñusableî nuclear weapons, and it crafts doctrines (such as the Nuclear Posture Review and the National Security Strategy) to legitimize them. Our development of genetically altered pathogens in effect creates new offensive biological weapons (alibis notwithstanding). ñNon-lethalsî such as fentanyl and ketamine Æ which are far from non-lethal -- undermine the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Many in the Bush Administration see no contradiction in this double standard. Some of them are fundamentalists for whom anything America does is, by definition, good. Others (including the Straussians) are infatuated with power. It should come as no surprise that much of the world finds these arguments repugnant. Those who feel powerless to stop us politically or economically will simply seek weapons of their own Æ made with whatever crude means they can afford.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty depends on an essential bargain. Non-nuclear states agree to forgo nuclear weapons because the nuclear powers commit themselves to work to abolish their own arsenals. Such an effort is not only necessary but also possible. It should begin with a US renunciation of first strike weapons and doctrines. As you know, during the Cold War, the US claimed it needed ñflexible responseî because otherwise Soviet tanks could overrun Western Europe. There is no excuse for first use weapons or doctrines today. The idea of retaliating against biological weapons with a nuclear strike will only perpetuate both sets of weapons globally. Nor is there an excuse for our pursuit of genetically altered pathogens. Instead, we must show our commitment to the Biological Weapons Convention by supporting its verification protocol, which the Administration scuttle

In the Middle East, we will not persuade Islamic states to abandon their nascent nuclear programs or their more developed work in biological and chemical weapons while we pretend not to see IsraelÍs advanced arsenals in all three areas. Security Council Resolution 687 called for making the entire Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction.

My second concern is with how you propose to carry out this disarmament campaign. In Bloomington, you spoke of ñthe United States and responsible nations.î I hope that does not mean that you would override the United Nations whenever it does not endorse our policies. Do we have a right to call Romania and Bulgaria more responsible than France and Germany, or Spain and Britain more responsible than South Africa and Brazil? Such arbitrariness on our part invites it on othersÍ Æ for example, IndiaÍs and PakistanÍs.

When we bypass the UN, we invite doubt that weapons of mass destruction were the true reason for our action. The Iraq war only deepens these doubts. The Bush Administration overrode not only United Nations Security Council, or the efforts of Blix and El BaradeiÍs inspectors, but also the best estimates of our own intelligence agencies. President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld relied instead on the PentagonÍs Office of Special Plans. Seymour HershÍs important May 12 article in The New Yorker exposes the deceptions and distortions in the case for war.

Equally shocking is the AdministrationÍs postwar petulance towards the UN, including its refusal to support a peacekeeping mission in the Ivory Coast, which suffers from civil war. We appear willing to punish France at cost of African lives. That action casts doubt on our disinterested humanity, as our refusal to readmit Dr. Blix belies our sincerity about the weapons. Instead, of course, the world notes the unsightly contracts to Bechtel and Halliburton and the favored treatment of questionable figures such as Chalabi.

ñOne Worldî in the 21st Century

What would a true commitment to ñOne Worldî mean in the 21st Century? In the first instance, it means recognition of a global consciousness and solidarity among people everywhere. The emergence of this consciousness Æ from Porto Al²gre to Berlin to Bloomington Æ is the most encouraging development of recent years. It is the basis for a global citizensÍ movement, without which even the best government would lack the motivation and the power to meet our real challenges.

In discussing global interdependence, you cited climate change. You rightly said that the actions of a distant country, such as China, affect our own environment. (Actually China has made surprising progress in environmental efficiency.) But the converse also holds. The United StatesÍs far more profligate greenhouse emissions threaten people everywhere and darken the human future. Yet Æ whether from isolationism, imperialism, or the willful ignorance that is fed by narrow interests Æ the Bush Administration claims that the United States has a right to pollute with no regard for othersÍ views or welfare.

Beyond eliminating the glaring double standards lies a more subtle but important problem of defining creative internationalism. It cannot mean simply a crudely ñDarwinianî competition that rapidly destroys the diversity on which it feeds. Consider, for example, the single American action that probably does the most to hurt the worldÍs poor: subsidized agricultural exports. They undersell and destroy small farmers, their customs and crops Æ whose stock of biological and cultural diversity are precious resources in an uncertain world. Landless and destitute, these internal economic exiles swell the ranks of the urban poor Æ or make desperate attempts to enter rich countries.

The deepening economic and social crisis Æ for example, in Latin America Æ will in time pose a security threat to us, as well as a challenge to our humanity. It cannot be resolved through the current prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund, whose doctrines of free trade and fiscal austerity deprive poor country governments of the policy tools to create an environment in which sustainable and fair trade might be possible.

Like a healthy natural ecology with its oceans, mountains, and deserts, a healthy international system must have both stimulating interchange and diversity-protecting buffers. We must therefore encourage not only international trade and cross cultural exchange but also regional and local economic ties, even if these involve temporary inefficiency. We must empower citizens, associations, small businesses and democratic governments in their struggle against unaccountable power, be it a local tyranny, a speculative and unregulated transnational corporation, or empire. We should also be tolerant of political and cultural pluralism. Not all countries or societies see the relation of state and market, or religion and state, as we do. Diversity should not be an excuse for dictatorship, but neither should democracy be a pretext for imposing Anglo-American patterns where they are unwanted.

Meanwhile, we must commit ourselves to global cooperation, not only in disarmament but also in public health Æ the most scandalously neglected of our global needs. Affordable generic drugs are part of the answer: we must allow poor countries to manufacture these for urgent use, without battles over patent protection. Even more important are such basics as safe drinking water (which must be protected from privatization), better sanitation, and support for family planning and sexual health (unburdened by a fundamentalist agenda). SARS is only a small hint of the dangers to come if we neglect this crisis, whose danger far exceeds that of terrorism.

The new millennium began in a dream and quickly became a nightmare. We can still restore its promise Æ that of a future of hope and not of fear. But the gap between the destructive policies in force today, and the politics of hope, has never been greater.

You have distinguished yourself by your engagement in great problems and by your willingness to listen to diverse constituents and to international voices. I hope you will now go further, and challenge the current policy of militarism and arrogance. You would not only be offering a bridge between Washington and the global public; you would also be developing the inherent implications of your own ideas. If ñOne Worldî stands in true contrast to imperialism, then so must its policies.

hope to see you again sometime you are in the state, and send my best wishes for your work in the Foreign Relations Committee.

Respectfully yours,

David Keppel
davidkeppel@earthlink.net

Page created May 29, 2003 by Charlie Jenks