The Special Significance of Nuclear Weapons and a little “Just War”

I read all our Peace Studies articles this week while I was getting my hair colored for two hours.  As I read the pieces, especially “The Special Significance of Nuclear Weapons”, I experienced a kind of disconnect.   Occasionally I would glance in the mirror and see the image of an aluminum foiled person looking back at me.  The realization of how detached I was from the reading material made me want to laugh and cry.   How strange to be reading about the  profound destruction caused by nuclear weapons and the possibility of human annihilation while partaking in a vanity ritual.  I felt vulnerable and shallow and in defense joked to myself that at least I would die looking good.  It seemed funny in my mind at the moment, but as I kept on reading, the descriptions of people who had survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki came up.  Here is one account;

“The sight of the soldiers was more dreadful than the dead people…I came upon…    many, burned from the hips up…where the skin had peeled, their flesh was wet and mushy…and they had no faces! Their eyes, noses and mouths had been burned away, and it looked like their ears had melted off.  It was hard to tell from front to back”. (71)

Barash and Webel write about the nature of nuclear weapons, matter changed into energy.  The Einsteinian equation E=mc2, or simply put for a non-scientific mind, huge amounts of energy released called fusion, is the character of nuclear weapons.  The effects of these weapons have been witnessed only on two occasions in history on Hiroshima and Nagasaki perpetrated by the United States.  Nikita Khrushchev said that “following a nuclear war, the survivors would envy the dead”.  (70)  This was reiterated in the accounts of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors.  The psychological trauma to the citizenry was devastating, their spirits broken.  

Barash and Webel write about the technology of nuclear delivery systems, bombers used as launch platforms, ballistic missiles, missiles able to travel at high speeds of delivery, nuclear submarines, functioning on nuclear energy and carrying nuclear missiles, and cruise missiles, pilotless aircraft that travel at the speed of sound and run lower to the ground making them more difficult to detect. The history and application of nuclear technology funnels into the strategic doctrine of deterrence.  It is defined as “the plans that purportedly underlie the accumulation of nuclear weapons, the justifications for their existence, and the expectations as to their use.” (76)  We learn exactly what nuclear weapons are, how they are deployed and what their effects are. The US uses deterrence as its method of defense.  Any country that would attack the US would be mercilessly attacked back.    “The basic premise of deterrence has remained that no country would use nuclear weapons against the other so long as the victim retains the ability to cause unacceptable damage to the attacker.” (77)

Connecting this to Richard Falk’s, “Defining A Just War”, I can use four of the principles of “just war” doctrine, discrimination, proportionality, humanity and necessity to act as a lens to look at deterrence. (136)  The strategic deterrence doctrine is based on retaliation.  If we were to apply the four principals of “just war” than nuclear weapons couldn’t be an option because they can’t fit into any of the “just war” parameters.  The only conclusion is that deterrence is only strategic when it’s based on the principals of keeping human life.

Okay, so I’m trying on new ideas through completely different lenses.  I can see the holes in my thinking and it’s okay, I’ll keep trying.  I like this process, it’s broadening my perspective but it kind of feels like a mental Jane Fonda workout, “no pain no gain”.  I can see how this process of looking helps in my life.  My mother called and I was able to see her point of view for about four minutes. Hallelujah!

Groupthink

 One of the definitions of groupthink as discussed in Irving Janis’ book excerpt is that it is a subtext of nonverbal cues and subtle manipulations, consciously or unconsciously activated within a group.  These subtle messages affect the process of groups in their decision making.  It isn’t always bad news but it is when the decisions are being made with limited, controlled and manipulated information, especially when the decisions involve human lives.   Janis references the book 1984, George Orwell’s big brother story, about Oligarchy and seeds groupthink into the 1984 vocabulary.  This puts the word in a linguistic context and also gives it a connotation of something unjust, : as Janis writes,   “The invidiousness is intentional: groupthink refers to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgment”. (32)

  

Janis continues with six main ideas that he describes as “defects in decision making” (33).  All of them are about how information is resourced within the group.  Some of the problems he talks about are not enough examination of the data or reexamination of it, not getting valid outside opinions, or not taking those opinions seriously, or the members of the group are interested only in the data that supports their views.  His point in discerning these behaviors of information sorting is to examine how decisions are made.  Poor decisions are the results of faulty processes that include many forms of psychological, emotional and intellectual manipulation.  

Groupthink is  “a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking  that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive group,  when members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action” (32).    He uses as an example the Bay of Pigs decision and explains the phenomenally dysfunctional history of the process from inception to action to failure.  He “ranks it among the worst fiascoes ever perpetrated by a responsible government” (34).  Contributing factors to this were that all the major assumptions were wrong.  The whole idea was based on incorrect information and assumptions that the event would go the way they planned.  The Nixon/ Eisenhower, Kennedy/ Johnson administrations made up the scripts and expected that they would be followed, not taking into consideration "other options". Janis asserts that groupthink creates a vacuum, a sense of invulnerability to danger.

Robert McNamara talks about the Bay of Pigs in the documentary  "The Fog of War" with a long view of what happened.  The first lesson that he tells us that he learned is to “empathize with your enemy”.  His more recent view holds more wisdom now than it did during the actual event. McNamara in 1962 was a main actor in  groupthink during the Kennedy administration and an even bigger one in the invention of the Vietnam War.  The distillation of his part in the decisions of the Bay of Pigs is that  “it was luck that prevented nuclear war” not erroneous thinking. 

I chose to write about this excerpt on groupthink because it was so rich and difficult and pushed me to think, contemplate and write from a less emotional point of view.  It also hit home, maybe a little too closely.  I have been struggling for many years with my own version and aversion to groupthink in my spiritual community.  I shy away from the vocabulary  used  and actually get stomach aches when I hear a lot of it being used.  When I pulled away from my community I felt like a traitor, all my hard work seemed like it dissolved because I lost the witnessing of my chosen community.  It has taken a lot of time to regain my self confidence and work through resentments.  This is difficult to write about. I will have to take some time to reexamine my experience through Janis' model.

  Reading and tasting all these different points of view, from other classes as well,  is beginning to give me a new lens to see through.  Writing about these different viewpoints helps me to discern what my own are, and to examine their origins, effects and validity.   This blog post was an attempt to practice with this new lens.  Is this the beginning of an "open dialogue"?

September 11, 2011 Terrorism

     I would like to start this post with a short excerpt from a book not in this week's readings. It's from It's Up To You, Chapter1, Looking In the Mirror, by Dzigar Kontrul; "We like to see ourselves as strong and in control but we are more like a  fragile eggshell that is easily broken.  This makes us feel deeply vulnerable-and not in a good way. This vulnerable self requires protection, armoring, the gathering of forces, and the construction of walls.  As a result, we become painfully trapped.  We are increasingly fearful of relaxing with things as they are and increasingly uncertain that anything will work out the way we would like"(4).

     I read this shortly after reading Ali Gomaa's piece on the meaning of jihad.  What really struck me was that jihad has many more meanings than just the political use of it as an evil Darth Vaderish enemy trying to squash America.  He educates us to it's internal meaning, that of a personal struggle with armament surrounding the ego, or the struggle to drop the armament that separates Muslim's  from God.  He explains that jihad is "a spiritual exercise of opposing the lower self."(236).  This journey is the greater jihad because it is the journey of a lifetime.

     He mentions another meaning, that of "just cause", which in this case is about self- defense and to prevent aggression. He quotes from the Quran, "Fight in the way of God against those who wage war against you, but so not commit aggression". Islam is a path toward understanding oneself and others.  It's only when the tenets of the religion are taken to an extreme, that it morphs into something different from it's original meaning.
Fundamentalism is a solidification of  beliefs.  This happens in every religion.  If we look at ourselves, the US, we have fundamentalism taking over our political system rampantly.  Look at  Bachman, Perry, Romney, Bush, Palin.

     We have taken jihad and turned it into the world family scapegoat.  We are looking at the symptoms of aggression, and singling out a group and creating the "we'll fix you and then everything will be alright" system.
Gomass teaches us that Muslim extremism is not the fundamental meaning of Islam. As I read each piece, my mind (and heart), kept searching for answers.  How can terrorism, the fear of annihilation, be resolved?  What I kept coming back to was that it can't,  within the same dynamic from which it arose.  Einstein said that  insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Haven't you done this in your life?  I know I struggle with that dynamic daily.    Thich Nhat Hanh , says "Reconciliation is to understand both sides"(227), understanding the suffering of both sides  This is the practice of being able to accommodate contradiction and can and does create a space for a larger geography, and effectively a new dynamic.

     Terrorism targets people, human lives to send a message to the leaders and to create fear. I think it is democracy turned inside out, it is not for and of the people.  We are still in a cold war, compassionless and
inhumane.  So I hope these acts of fear will wake us all up and help us to find better ways to attend to conflict.  I think that ultimately there is no "just war", however, because the  reality is that it exists, we have to take full responsibility for our part.

September 5, 2011 Well, so much is happening. I've been reading articles from PAX 250 all weekend. The articles also dove tail with my Contemporary Ed class. I'm awakening to a world that coexists with my internal life. I want to cry and also fall to the ground in gratitude. I'm having lots of ideas about how to be more active in the community. There is so much information out there and I still feel like I can only do so much. Maybe my capability will increase over time. I've been aware of 9/11 media coverage. It's brought me to understand how important it is to remember history and to remember our own experiences of it through out our lives. I have an idea for 9/11, to create a space for people to come and share their memories of 9/11.  What were they doing that day? Or even the day after? What Q's are important to ask?

September 5, 2011 1:47 PM