Letter to Polish PM Tusk from US Academics & Peace Groups

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Thursday March 13, 2008 21:26 by Damien Moran

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Demonstration in Slupsk, Northern Poland, March 29th

Sent Monday, March 10th 2008 by email to Polish Embassy in Washington and Polish Consulate in New York

Co-organised by The Polish Campaign Against Militarism (www.tarcza.org and www.m29.bzzz.net)
Contact for Irish media - Damien Moran: +48607340093 or tarcza@bzzz.net

March 10, 2008

Prime Minister Donald Tusk
The Republic of Poland

Dear Prime Minister Tusk,

We are writing you as individuals and organizations based in the United States committed to human rights and peaceful relations among nations. We have been dismayed by the attempts of both the Polish and Czech governments to negotiate deals with the Bush administration to establish military bases in your countries despite the fact that these bases are opposed by a majority of your own people. The U.S. bases threaten to restart a Cold War between the United States and Russia. They have nothing to do with genuine defense and much to do with an aggressive U.S. military policy.

The proposed bases -- ten interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic --combine to produce a dangerous military escalation. The U.S. government claims that the anti-missile system is aimed against Iran, but there is no credible evidence that a missile threat from Iran today exists. As far as Poland is concerned, in January of this year your own Foreign Affairs Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said publicly, "This is an American, not a Polish project. We feel no threat from Iran.”

The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released in December 2007 undermined any remaining credibility for the claim of a proximate Iranian nuclear threat by stating that Iran had discontinued its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. And far from protecting against such a threat in the future, the anti-missile system and other nuclear escalations will only create even stronger inducements for Iran to seek nuclear weapons.

A radar station in the Czech Republic and ten missile interceptors in Poland don’t constitute an immediate challenge to Russia’s nuclear deterrent, with its thousands of warheads. But there is a clear long-range threat that these U.S. bases will be upgraded. Official U.S. documents bear this out. National Security Presidential Directive 23, signed by President Bush on Dec. 6, 2002, stated that the United States would begin to set up missile defenses in 2004 “as a starting point for fielding improved and expanded missile defenses later.” This presidential directive was preceded in January 2002 by a memorandum from Donald Rumsfeld, at the time Secretary of Defense, directing the Missile Defense Agency to develop defense systems by using whatever technology is “available,” even if the capabilities produced are limited relative to what the system must ultimately be able to do.

Washington’s scheme has already produced an ominous response from Russia, which has threatened to direct its missiles toward Poland and the Czech Republic if the U.S. proceeds with the system. Moscow has also threatened to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and to suspend participation in a treaty limiting the deployment of conventional forces in Europe.

No nation -- including the U.S., Russia, and Iran -- has the moral right to possess nuclear weapons, which by their nature are weapons of vast and indiscriminate mass destruction. The U.S. and other nuclear powers can best reduce the danger of nuclear warfare by taking major steps toward both nuclear and conventional disarmament and refraining from waging or threatening ‘preventive’ war -- not by expanding the nuclear threat. Such steps by the existing nuclear powers would create a political climate that would powerfully discourage new countries from developing their own nuclear weapons.

The only objection your government seems to be raising to the US missile system is that Washington is not offering enough in the way of military modernization for Poland. But the provocative bases are wrong on principle, and we would all be simultaneously safer and more prosperous if both Washington and Warsaw invested in social needs rather than new weaponry.

The democratic movements of 1989 are dishonored by the attempt to integrate the countries of central Europe into the network of more than 700 U.S. military bases around the world. We stand with today’s popular movements in Poland and the Czech Republic that are refusing to cave in to the pressure from the Bush Administration to accept this dangerous anti-missile system. And we welcome their support for our work for a new democratic, just and peaceful U.S. foreign policy.

Signed by:
· Campaign for Peace and Democracy
· Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
· Humanist Movement-U.S.
· Physicians for Social Responsibility/NYC
· Peace Action

Plus the following individuals (affiliations listed for identification only)
1. Anthony Arnove, author and editor, Brooklyn, NY
2. Stanley Aronowitz, Distinguished Prof. of Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center
3. Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies
4. Norman Birnbaum, University Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University Law Center
5. Eileen Boris, Hull Professor of Women's Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara
6. Laura Boylan, MD, Assistant Professor, New York University School of Medicine
7. Jeremy Brecher, author and historian
8. Vinie Burrows, U.N. Representative, Women's s International Democratic Federation
9. Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator, United for Peace and Justice
10. Noam Chomsky, Professor (Retired), MIT
11. Joshua Cohen, Professor, Stanford University; Boston Review
12. Margaret W. Crane
13. Gail Daneker, Activist, St. Paul, MN
14. Marie Dennis, Director, Maryknoll Global Concerns
15. Ariel Dorfman, writer
16. Carolyn Eisenberg, Professor of US Foreign Policy, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
17. Gertrude Ezorsky, Professor Emerita, CUNY; New Politics
18. Richard Falk, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
19. Cathey E. Falvo, MD, MPH, President, Physicians for Social Responsibility/NYC
20. Samuel Farber
21. John Feffer, Co-Director, Foreign Policy in Focus, Institute for Policy Studies
22. Barry Finger
23. Robert Gabrielsky, Atlantic City, NJ
24. Bruce K. Gagnon, Coordinator, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
25. Akbar Ganji, Iranian journalist and human rights activist
26. John D. Gorman, tenants attorney
27. Thomas Harrison, Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy
28. Nader Hashemi, UCLA
29. Judith Hempfling
30. Michael Hirsch, National Political Committee member, Democratic Socialists of America, New York, NY
31. Adam Hochschild, writer
32. Doug Ireland, journalist
33. Joanne Landy, Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy
34. Jesse Lemisch, Emeritus Professor of History, John Jay College, CUNY
35. John Leonard
36. Sue Leonard
37. Staughton Lynd, Historians Against the War
38. Nelson Lichtenstein, Professor, UC Santa Barbara
39. Marvin and Betty Mandell, Co-editors, New Politics
40. Kevin Martin, Executive Director, Peace Action, Silver Spring, MD
41. David McReynolds
42. Timothy Mitchell, Professor of Politics, New York University
43. David Oakford
44. Mary O’Brien, MD, Physician, Columbia University
45. David Ost, Professor of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY
46. Rosemarie Pace, Director, Pax Christi Metro New York
47. Christopher Phelps, Associate Professor, Department of History, The Ohio State University
48. Katha Pollitt, writer
49. Danny Postel, journalist, Chicago
50. Leonard Rodberg, Professor and Chair of Urban Studies, Queens College/CUNY
51. Jennifer Scarlott, Director, International Conservation, Sanctuary Asia
52. Jason Schulman, Editorial Board, New Politics
53. Stephen R. Shalom, Professor of Political Science, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ
54. Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, New York
55. Meredith Tax, writer
56. Lois Weiner, Professor, New Jersey City University, NJ
57. Naomi Weisstein, Professor Emerita of Neuroscience/Psychology, SUNY Buffalo
58. Chris Wells, U.S. Spokesperson for New Humanism
59. Reginald Wilson, Senior Scholar Emeritus, American Council on Education
60. Julia Wrigley, Board Member, Left Forum
61. Howard Zinn, writer

*The letter was circulated to U.S. individuals and groups. However, Adam J. Chmielewski, Professor, University of Wroclaw, Poland received the text and wished to add his name.

Contact: Joanne Landy, Co-Director, Campaign for Peace and Democracy
jlandy@igc.org (212) 666-4001 cell (646) 207-5203