Kofi Annan – Engaging Peace

In its Criminal Complaint against accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev, the FBI charged him with “unlawfully using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction (namely, an improvised explosive device).” That is, the FBI labeled the pressure cooker device that killed two people and injured more than 200 others a WMD.

Boston Marathon bombing site. Photo by Aaron Tang used under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Glen Greenwald, in the Guardian, wrote a powerful essay entitled “Why is Boston ‘terrorism’ but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine?” Reminder:

In Aurora, 12 people were killed and 58 others wounded with multiple weapons, including a semiautomatic rifle.
In Sandy Hook, 20 school children and six adults were murdered with a semiautomatic assault rifle.
In Tuscon, six people were killed and 14 (including Gabrielle Giffords) were wounded by a semiautomatic pistol.
In Columbine, 12 students and one teacher were killed and 24 others were injured by several weapons, including a semiautomatic pistol.

So, here’s another question: When can a weapon or weapon system be called a weapon of mass destruction? Choose one or more of the following answers:

When it falls into the category of nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) weapons.
When its sale and use does not profit the weapons industry.
When it can result in as many fatalities over time as nuclear weapons systems.
When it serves the purposes of the military-industrial-corporate media complex.

Let’s consider these possibilities in relation to the Tsarnaev brothers’ pressure cooker devices.

The most common definition of WMD has been NBC weapons. Pressure cooker bombs do not fall into this category.
The pressure cooker bomb does not profit the weapons industry, although semiautomatic weapons do.
Since World War II, pressure cooker bombs have accounted for a miniscule portion of fatalities. In contrast, as reported (opens in PDF) by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, “small arms” have killed as many people as all other weapons combined.
You decide: in what ways can frequent use of the term “weapons of mass destruction” play into the hands of the military-industrial corporate media complex that Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned our country to beware?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

This blog has featured a Mother’s Day for Peace, describing the roots of the current flowers-and-candy-for-Mom day in the work of Julia Ward Howe.

A nod towards initiating a Father’s Day of Peace was made in 2007 in a brief video from Brave New Foundation. The video provided a poignant reminder that fathers around the world love their children and want to see them survive, but little seems to have been done since then to promote a Father’s Day of Peace. Why not?

It’s time for fathers to link themselves to peace, not war.

Role models are available for men of peace: Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Liu Xiabo, Muhammed Yunis, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Elie Wiezel, Desmond Tutu, Lech Walesa, and thousands of other less well-known men. Maybe your own dad is among them.

Perhaps Veterans for Peace (VFP) could take up this banner. Their goal is to “change public opinion in the U.S. from an unsustainable culture of militarism and commercialism to one of peace, democracy, and sustainability.” They have over 100 chapters in the United States, funded in part through a grant from Howard Zinn. One of their participating groups is the Smedley Butler chapter in Boston, MA, which provided active support for Occupy Boston in 2011.

Learn more about VFP’s mission through this video, then write to them and ask them to add the promotion of a Father’s Day of Peace to their projects.

No dad needs another necktie on Father’s Day. What he needs is a path that offers his children the best opportunity for growing to maturity in a world of peace.

Promote a Father’s Day for Peace.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

When to call it a weapon of mass destruction (WMD)?

Why not a Father’s Day for Peace?