The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
As committed Christian peace activists and members of Pax Christi, the international Catholic peace movement founded in 1945, we congratulate you on your receipt of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. We know from your April 5 speech in Prague, your December 10 speech in Oslo, and the deliberative process you followed in deciding on a strategy for Afghanistan that you have wrestled with difficult questions of war and peace during your first year as Commander-in-Chief. We strongly support your goal of reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons; and we agree that “true security will never come from an endless race for ever-more destructive weapons – true security will come for those who reject them,” as you said on December 1 at West Point.
We further appreciate the way that you and your advisors have taken counsel with the leaders of peace organizations and faith communities over the past year, including our colleagues Marie Dennis of Pax Christi International and Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Dave Robinson of Pax Christi USA, and Jean Stokan of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. We hope this dialogue will continue, and we specifically invite you and your staff to meet with representatives of these organizations and communities early in this new year to discuss other steps that can be taken to advance the cause of peace.
In Oslo, you quoted from John F. Kennedy’s June 1963 commencement address at American University, in which he emphasized that “[p]eace need not be impractical, and war need not be inevitable.” Unfortunately, you took the opposite position in your speech, stating that war “is sometimes necessary,” even if “war at some level is an expression of human folly.” You indicated that “war is justified . . . if it is waged as a last resort or in self-defense; if the force used is proportional; and if, whenever possible, civilians are spared from violence.” Yet you acknowledged that, “[i]n today’s wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sown, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, children scarred.” Such has been the case with our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which do not meet the just-war criteria you cited.
To our mind, your Oslo speech and your decision for military escalation in Afghanistan fell far short of the direction and vision provided by Martin Luther King, Jr., who called wars “poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows,” and Nelson Mandela, who came to power in a nonviolent regime change. You cited both of these Nobel laureates with respect in your speech.
Nor did your Afghanistan decision reflect the best thinking of your most thoughtful predecessors in office. President Eisenhower warned us in 1961 about the military-industrial complex, which has grown beyond his imaginings in the ensuing years. And President Kennedy in his 1963 speech called for Americans to reexamine our attitudes toward issues of war and peace. As one who faced real and perceived threats to the security of this country, President Kennedy was learning that the path laid out by the military-industrial complex leads only to more violence and less security.
Unless you are able to seed and support an alternative national peace-and-security complex, rooted in justice and economic equality for all people and strong enough to counterbalance the military-industrial complex, we will continue to be caught in the grim cycle of violence countering violence. You know this is an ineffective answer to conflict, which is why your administration embraces a 3-D approach, balancing defense with diplomacy and development.
Although we strongly disagree with your decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, it is not too late to begin replacing war as the main solution to international conflict, whether between nations or with non-state actors. Specifically, you can add a fourth D to your overall strategy: a cabinet-level Department of Peace. You can begin changing our American culture so that we pay more than lip service to peace by creating and funding a Department of Peace with a budget similar to that of other departments. Such a Department can better equip you and future Presidents to provide nonviolent responses to conflicts.
For example, a Department of Peace could have provided you with strong advocates for peaceful conflict resolution during your months of deliberations on a strategy for Afghanistan. By including among your senior advisors people who have studied nonviolence in depth and who are forceful and intelligent proponents of the increasingly sophisticated methods of nonviolent conflict resolution, you would have gained a much wider range of alternatives than appear to have been considered in reaching the decision you announced on December 1.
As Catholics who accept the doctrine of original sin, we agree with you that evil will always exist in the world. However, events of the last 60 years – both in this country, with the civil rights movement led by Dr. King, and in many other countries, including the Philippines and various former Soviet republics – demonstrate that peaceful resistance works better than violence if given the chance.
We strongly believe that if we put anywhere near the resources into preparing for peaceful conflict resolution that we have historically put into preparing for and conducting war, our children will inherit a more peaceful and prosperous world.
The peace movement and university departments of peace studies and conflict resolution have nonviolent alternatives at the ready. Thousands of young people are graduating every year with degrees in conflict resolution, human rights, and international development. We invite you to explore these options with us, just as you explored other options with your military advisors in looking for a resolution to the war in Afghanistan. If you depend on the military-industrial complex for answers, we will get what we’ve always gotten, at staggering costs that hobble your domestic initiatives. If you give peace a chance by employing realistic nonviolent approaches, change can take root and grow.
We should, of course, also be redirecting substantial resources from destructive military ends to constructive economic development programs. As Nicholas Kristof pointed out in a recent editorial, the $1 million that supports one soldier in Afghanistan for one year could build 20 schools there instead.
Afghan citizens and international development workers tell us that tasking soldiers with development and diplomacy missions confuses the populace and makes aid workers’ own work more dangerous. We need to build a nonviolent army that can work around the world to help other countries become economically independent and less prone to violence. We believe that many brave young men and women would be glad to undertake such nonviolent duty in troubled areas of the world if the opportunities were only offered, as at least an equal option to military service. As you said in Oslo, “Our security and leadership does not come solely from the strength of our arms. It derives from our people.”
We will follow up with your Office of Public Engagement and Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships regarding future initiatives.
Sincerely,
Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore
Robert H. Cooke
Chairperson
cc: Paul Monteiro, Joshua DuBois
Additional signatories:
Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore Local Groups:
Pax Christi – Baltimore
Pax Christi – Catholic University of America
Pax Christi – Pentagon Area
Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore Individual Members:
John Benedetto
Nuala Cohen
Phil Cooke
Denise Curry SND
Jim David
Sue David
Francis DeBernardo
Marie Dennis
Sarah Fahy, SNDdeN
Peter J. Fagan
Bruce Friedrich
Christy Gordon
Eileen A. Gould
Emma Grayeb
John P. Hogan
Mary Jo Hogan
Judith Kelly
Susan Kerin
Michelle Melcher Knight
Gail Lambers
Tony Langbehn
John Leary
Mary Liepold
Bill Lowell
Dr. Charles McCarthy
Dr. Eli S. McCarthy
Jack McHale
Nicole Meister
C. William Michaels, Esq.
Michael Miehl
Arthur Milholland, MD
Patricia Miller
Angela Miotto
Ann More
Robert More, Esq.
Luann Mostello, MD
Anne Murphy
Rev. Joseph Nangle, OFM
Mary Narayan, RN
Bro. Jeremiah O’Leary, CFX
Dorothy Paperiello
Jerry Park
Mary Park
Lurline Peeler
Rev. Rocco Puopolo, SX
Anne C. Russell
Jean Sammon
Marilyn Shaw
Alan Smigielski
Frank Spaulding
Jean Stokan
Eugene J. Sullivan
Sr. Barbara Supanich, RSM, MD
Aetna Thompson
David Uhl
Dennis Warner
Scott Wright
