Speech by Bill Durston at El Dorado Democrats Scholarship Award Luncheon March 25, 2006

By Bill Durston

The United Democrats of El Dorado County sponsored a scholarship essay contest for High School students, who were asked to write an essay on the topic of how countries can resolve conflicts without resorting to war. Bill was asked to be the keynote speaker at the awards luncheon. Bill's speech, which includes excerpts from the students' speeches, summarizes his views on the essay topic.

I'm going to begin by warning you that Fred is nervous about what I'm going to say. He told me what the hot button issues are. If I offend anyone, it's not Fred's fault. I don't think I can stand here in good conscience and talk to you about war and peace, though, without touching on some hot button issues.

Whenever I read the news today, I'm reminded of the statement by Woody Allen, "More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." Unfortunately, there may be some truth in this statement.

Historians and archaeologists tell us that since the year 3600 BC, there have been only about 300 years in recorded history when humans weren't engaged in war. Approximately 1 billion people have been killed in war since the earliest human records. Before last 500 years, limitations in technology provided a safeguard of sorts in how much harm human beings could inflict upon one another. Over the past 500 years, though, the same technological innovations that have in some ways made life easier for us have also made it easier to wage war and to inflict more harm on one another. Both the number of wars and the number of deaths in war have risen sharply over the past 500 years, and the rate of war-related deaths is accelerating. About 2 million people died in war in the 16h century, about 7 million in the 18th century, about 20 million in the 19th century, and over 100 million in the 20th century. And we're certainly off to a bad start in the 21st century. Another alarming trend is the rising number of civilians killed in war over the past century. It's estimated that civilians accounted for 14% of the deaths in WWI, 67% of the deaths in WWII, and 90% of the war-related deaths in the last decade of the 20th century.

Add to these depressing statistics the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons. In 1970, recognizing that the existence of nuclear weapons threatens the existence of our species, 178 countries, including all the nuclear superpowers, signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Under this treaty, countries without nuclear weapons agreed not to acquire them, and in return, the nuclear superpowers, including the U.S., the Soviet Union, China, Britain, and France, agreed to work toward nuclear disarmament. Today, Pakistan, India, Korea, and Israel have acquired nuclear weapons, thousands of nuclear warheads in the former Soviet Union remain unaccounted for, and the other countries that had nuclear weapons at the time of the original NPT treaty retain vast nuclear arsenals. In the United States, the Bush Administration is pushing for the development of "more usable" nuclear weapons, and President Bush just made an agreement with India to allow that country to expand its nuclear arsenal.

The world came very close to nuclear war during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. We came very close to nuclear war again in 1995 in a little know incident in which the launch of a Norwegian weather satellite was mistaken for an incoming intercontinental ballistic missile by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Premier Boris Yeltsin was awakened from sleep and came within minutes of activating a nuclear counter-attack against the United States before the booster rocket for the weather satellite veered away from Moscow.

The stated commitment of the United States to develop a missile defense system and to reserve the right to launch pre-emptive war forces other countries with nuclear weapons to keep them on hair trigger alert, increasing the risk of accidental nuclear war.

The U.S. nuclear policy has relied in the past on the principle of deterrence - the idea that no rational enemy would attack us with nuclear weapons because even if the U.S. were destroyed, our nuclear submarine fleet would destroy the attacking country. Today, the concept of nuclear deterrence has become obsolete. There are innumerable terrorists around the world who would have no hesitation in blowing themselves up if they were able to detonate a nuclear warhead within the United States.

With all that I've just told you, Woody Allen's predictions of hopelessness and despair on the one hand and total extinction on the other don't seem very unrealistic, or for that matter, very funny. But thankfully, the El Dorado Democratic Club put on its essay contest, and we have the essays of Katerina Ford, Domir Omic, Melissa Jones, and Alanna Keenan to help show us the path to world peace.

Katerina writes of the importance of the role of the United Nations in mediating conflicts between nations. We all know that the U.N. has its shortcomings, and in his essay, Domir points out the failure of the U.N. to stop the genocide committed in Rawanda. We must remember, though, that the effectiveness of the U.N. depends upon the cooperation of its member nations. In this regard, I believe that it is both tragic and ironic that the present government of the United States, the country that worked harder than any other to ensure the formation of the U.N. at the end of World War II, is now the government that is working harder than any other to undermine the U.N.'s authority.

In a speech at the founding of the U.N. in San Francisco in 1945, President Truman noted that the U.N. charter was not perfect. In particular, the Security Council veto was a problematic compromise, demanded by the Soviet Union, which would not have joined the U.N at all without the veto provision. But as President Truman pointed out in his speech at the founding of the U.N., the U.S. Constitution was also recognized as imperfect, but "it grew and developed and expanded. And upon it there was built a bigger, a better, and a more perfect union." It was hoped and expected by the founders of the U.N. that the U.N. Charter would be a work in progress, just like the U.S. Constitution.

Truman also said at the founding of the U.N., "If we had had this charter a few years ago - and above all, the will to use it - millions now dead would be alive. If we should falter in the future in our will to use it, millions now living will surely die."6 Truman's words accurately predicted the role of the U.N. during the Cuban missile crisis, for many historians believe that the debates at the U.N. during the crisis, as vitriolic as they were, helped avert a nuclear war.

Truman made another prophetic statement in his speech at the founding of the U.N. in 1945. He said, "We all have to recognize - no matter how great our strength - that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please. No one nation...can or should expect any special privilege which harms any other nation. If any nation would keep security for itself, it must be ready and willing to share security with all. That is the price which each nation will have to pay for world peace...And what a reasonable price that is."6

A reasonable price indeed. Think back to the beginning of 2003, when U.N. weapons inspectors were travelling unimpeded throughout Iraq, confirming Iraq's claims that it did not have weapons of mass destruction. And think today of the price that has been paid for the Bush Administration's decision to do just as it pleased and launch a war against Iraq. More than 2,300 U.S. service men and women have been killed, and more than 16,000 wounded. By the best medical estimates, more than 100,000 Iraqi people were killed in just the first 18 months of the war. More than $250 billion have already been spent already by conservative estimates, with other estimates being as high as $1-2 trillion.

This leads us to the "War on terrorism." Alanna makes some important points in her essay about the conflict between the Irish Republican Army and the British in Northern Ireland. The first point is that even though the IRA used terrorist tactics, and terrorism can never be condoned, there was a legitimate grievance at the root of the conflict. The British government had arbitrarily divided Northern Ireland and had stationed British troops there. The second point Alanna makes is that the dispute was finally settled by peaceful negotiations, not by military force. It's too bad that the President Bush didn't talk to Alanna and learn a little more about history before launching his so-called "War on terrorism." If he had, he would have learned that not only in Northern Ireland, but in Sri Lanka, the Basque region of Spain, in Cypress, in the Philippines, in Chechnya, and in Israel, conventional military force has not only been ineffective but counter-productive in combating terrorism.

The Bush Administration has used the September 11 terrorist attacks to justify the biggest military build-up in the history of the world, and accordingly, the largest budget deficit in the history of our country, and to start two wars. The results of the "war on terrorism" so far are predictable. Terrorism has increased worldwide, with attacks in Bali, Spain, England, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, among other countries. Iraq, which had no role in the September 11 terrorist attacks and no relation to Al Qaeda, has been turned into a terrorist breeding and training ground. And in the opinion of most terrorism experts, the U.S. has been made less safe, not more safe. As CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, "Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists."

Remember when I said that 90% of war-related deaths during the last part of the 20th century were in civilians? First hand reports indicate that these same figures are being seen in Afghanistan and Iraq. Given that 90% of the people killed in war are civilians, perhaps we should replace the phrase, "War on terrorism," with "War is terrorism." Certainly, war is not effective in stopping terrorism. War only perpetuates the vicious cycle of violence. History shows that measures that do work in combating terrorism include taking practical measures to safeguard the public, such as enhanced security in public transportation, engaging in time-tested police and detective work in cooperation with the international community, and addressing the root causes of the grievances which fuel terrorism.

Melissa writes in her essay about "superordinate goals" - shared goals that override differences among people and that require their cooperation. I believe that the superordinate goal that is shared by the greatest number of people in the world today is the desire for world peace. President Eisehnower said, "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."

This brings us to the question of what we as individuals can do to work for world peace. I believe that events such as this scholarship essay contest are a very important step in stimulating our youth to hope and plan for a better future. To give you an idea of just how important such an event can be, I'll tell you about my own personal experience. When I was in High School, I was in the speech and debate club. This was during the Vietnam war, and we debated the pros and cons of the Vietnam war often. I was fortunate to do well in speech and debate, and in my senior year, I won the state contest in extemporaneous speaking and took second in the nation. In other words, I was hot stuff. But just before I graduated from High School, a local service club sponsored a speech contest on the topic, "Peace is Attainable." I researched this topic at length, and I remember to this day the speech I gave. The thesis of my speech was that if you are going to say that peace is attainable, then you must personally make a commitment to work for peace. My speech went over like a lead balloon. It wasn't what the judges of this very conservative service club wanted to hear, and they awarded the first prize at the contest to a student who said that the way to peace in Vietnam was through the use of increased U.S. military force.

This was in 1967, when there was a military draft, but when students were still able to get college deferments. I had already decided, while I was preparing my "Peace is attainable" speech, that I was going to make a commitment one way or the other, to oppose the war, or I was going to go and see what war was really like. I had been accepted to Stanford University, and it was about this time that the Stanford student body president, David Harris, had gone to jail for refusing to serve in the military after his application for conscientious objector status had been turned down. I didn't have the religious background to qualify as a conscientious objector, so I basically had two choices, go to jail, or go to war. Avoiding the issue by getting a college deferment, was in my opinion, not an option.

Shortly after the "Peace is attainable" speech contest, I joined the Marines. I served in Vietnam with the Marines Third Force Reconnaissance Company, which is the Marine equivalent of the Navy Seals or the Army Special Forces, and I rapidly moved up from field radio operator to reconnaissance patrol leader. We had a saying in the Marines, the difference between a fairy tale and a war story is that a fairy tale begins, "Once upon a time," and a war story begins, "This is no BS." I'm not going to tell you war stories, but they gave me a medal for bravery in combat, and people back home said how courageous and patriotic I was. But I wonder to this day if instead of joining the Marines and fighting in Vietnam, it would have been more noble and courageous to oppose the war, even if it meant going to jail.

John F. Kennedy, who was himself a hero in World War II, wrote to a friend in 1945, "War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today." That distant day that JFK referred to in 1945 still seems very far off today. Last weekend, there was an air show at Mather Field. 100,000 people attended the show, which featured a simulated bombing run by the Blue Angels. Elsewhere in Sacramento last weekend, the movie, "Why we fight," which is a compelling indictment of role of the U.S. military industrial complex in inciting war, opened at the Crest Theater. There were about 30 people in the entire theater during the main showing.

But there are signs of hope. The majority of Americans now are opposed to the war in Iraq, and over 70% of U.S. armed forces in Iraq favor withdrawal of U.S. troops within the year, even though 85% still think Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. Some members of Congress are finally showing the courage to oppose the war and to question the rationale behind Bush's so-called "War on terrorism." This past week, the Sacramento Bee published on its front page a picture of 3 Iraqi children killed by U.S. soldiers in a U.S. attack on a farmhouse. This is the same kind of picture that stirred the American public to demand a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam.

The event here today, with the wonderful turnout and the inspiring essays by the students, is a very hopeful sign. Paul Wellstone, the progressive Democratic Senator from Minnesota who was killed in a tragic plane accident in 2004, said that if we don't work hard for the things we stand for, we must at some point admit that we don't really stand for them after all. I know how hard all of you in the El Dorado Democrats worked to make this scholarship essay contest a success, and how hard the students worked on their essays, and I again congratulate you all for working hard for what you stand for.

I will end with one last thought. Albert Einstein said, "We shall require an entirely new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." I don't think that the new manner of thinking is anything as complicated as the theory of relativity. And the new manner of thinking may not be so new after all. In 1868, after reviewing the history of war in Europe, a small European medical society concluded, "To accept war as inevitable would be a blasphemy against humankind and the Creator and would mean renouncing any idea of progress." I believe that in the 21st century, for the survival of our species, we must evolve to the point that we view war not as inevitable, but as intolerable. I hope that we can all join together to have the courage and vision to stand for this principle, and the strength and fortitude to work toward world peace.

Thank you.