Rethinking the definition of “crime” – Winslow Myers

Another anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear disaster passes and the number of survivors is dwindling. Are we any closer to the end of the nuclear age? No, we are not. The risk that these weapons will be used against civilians again is greater than ever.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller gave a speech in 2011 in which he claimed that organized crime was international, fluid, and involved billions of dollars. Presumably these were the people Mueller was talking about, people who, even if they are powerful enough to evade justice, are still subject to the laws that apply in at least some countries.

They just haven't been caught – yet.

But what about the types of crimes that are not subject to the law because they ultimately enforce the law, crimes that are seamlessly woven into the established way we conduct our affairs and represent a critical responsibility of government officials?

First and foremost are the nuclear weapons of the nine nuclear powers. We abhor and condemn the Jewish Holocaust, but these countries all have far more weapons than they need, not only to commit a Holocaust in less than an hour, but also to destroy the ecosystem for decades through radioactive floods and radioactive fallout.

If that's not a crime, what is?

Mainstream thinking assumes that we must keep the weapons on high alert at all times so that no one else dares use similar weapons against us. But the possibility of misinterpretation or mutual paranoia makes it almost inevitable that they will be used. Preventing a crime with a crime does not work.

We must try to resolve the painful paradox we have lived with since 1945: the ultimate weapon of the military establishment, which we passively support with our taxes and honor with our parades and holidays, is always just minutes away from committing the worst crime in history.

Many peace activists have repeated it ad nauseam: It is time to stop thinking that rape and bombing of innocent civilians are war crimes and start thinking that war itself is a crime.

What needs to change for this to happen? Our way of thinking.

In the Middle East, the impulse for revenge, more suited to schoolyard fights, is mingling with the need to maintain or restore deterrence. All of them – Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. – are experiencing the utter impracticability of this mingling of deterrence and revenge as they move ever closer to a regional war that is the exact opposite of what their citizens want. The irreconcilable hatred of Israeli President Netanyahu and Hamas leader Sinwar for each other, which leads nowhere, is perfect proof that war as a means of achieving anything other than mutual devastation is outdated.

But the same conflation of deterrence and vengeance is at play at the nuclear level. When, or rather if, nuclear deterrence breaks down, the whole system is carefully designed to exact a terrible and senseless vengeance. A launch on warning is vengeance and deterrence rolled into one. To call it insane would be an understatement. But if I try to withhold part of my taxes in protest, my government simply seizes my bank account and the machine continues smoothly toward Armageddon.

What we have left is the power of the people, the power of the vote, the power of peaceful protest and the power of education to change people's minds and ultimately institutions.

The impulse to ban war (this happened in the 1920s with the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which is still nominally in force) may seem idealistic and futile. But as the possibility of further use of nuclear weapons against civilians increases in crisis areas such as Ukraine, every human effort is worth figuring out how to make international enforcement of all wars a reality.

We have to try because the alternative is unthinkable.

Winslow Myers, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is the author of Living Beyond War: A Citizen's Guide and a member of the Advisory Board of the War Prevention Initiative.