Defense vs. Democracy: Czech Anti-Radar Protest Gains Ground
by Laray Polk
Following a year of protests and coalition building at home and abroad in opposition to the proposed U.S. radar base in the Czech Republic, activists Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar launched a hunger strike.

 

The hunger strike that began in Prague on May 13 and ended three weeks later, has touched off series of actions that are gaining national and worldwide support.

Within the Czech Republic, a chain hunger strike has been ongoing with new volunteers signing up weekly. As of the present, two hundred and nineteen people from around the world have signed on to a 24-hour hunger strike to take place on June 22.1 In addition to the strike, an online petition has collected 121,283 signatures. 2
The U.S. radar slated for the Czech Republic is one part of a two-part proposal that involves interceptor missiles installed in a neighboring country. Poland has been the chosen location for the missiles though negotiations have recently broken down between the U.S. and Polish governments. AFP reports that “Moscow has threatened to point its missiles at Poland should it agree to host the US installation.” 3
Both parts of the operation, the radar and interceptor missiles, would entail permanent bases and the stationing of U.S. troops at those sites. The radar and interceptor missiles taken together, hypothetically would function as “defensive missile shield,” and presumably would work against ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) launched from “rogue” states (i.e. Iran) against non-rogue states (i.e. U.S.). A modified interceptor missile employed the U.S. in February 2008 proven to be effective in shooting down a satellite that had gone wobbly but offensive application in tandem with radar remains unproved. 4
The Czech Republic center-right government reached agreement with the U.S. over the proposed radar base yet 70% of Czech citizens stand opposed to the plan. Parliament is currently in an upheaval over the issue. Politicians within parliament chambers seem to be in sync with their constituents yet the plan moves forward among upper echelon politicians in both countries. The activists’ request for a public referendum on the issue has been quashed.
Právo reported that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to Prague on June 10 to sign two Czech-U.S. treaties on the installation of the radar base (the main radar treaty and the SOFA treaty that will govern U.S. troops stationed at the base). Once the treaties are signed they must be ratified by the Parliament and signed by the president, currently Vaclav Klaus, to come into effect. Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg commented recently that under present conditions in the Parliament: "I am not sure if we will succeed. Definitely the majority of the population is against it.”
Defensetech announced three months ago that the Pentagon has granted a $400 million contract to Raytheon to move the X-band radar currently in the Marshall Islands to the Czech Republic. The report contains a quote by a Missile Defense Agency spokesperson as anticipating the deal to be closed "within weeks."
Raytheon has received $5 million of the funds. The full amount is contingent on the two treaties being ratified by the Czech Parliament. If that occurs, U.S. Congress will in turn, release the remaining approved funding. Boeing received a comparable contract for the planned interceptor site. 5

Ne Základnám (No Bases Initiative)

The issue at hand is quite complicated and yet it can be pared down to one fundamental question: Do people in a democracy have the right to an opinion on what makes them safe or unsafe? Defense vs. Democracy: This is the question at the heart of Tamas’ and Bednar’s actions. Along with the No Bases Initiative (Ne Základnám), they are determined in pursuing a meaningful and actionable answer from those who govern, and their actions are finding resonance with people worldwide.

Defense vs. Democracy

Do matters of defense lay outside the purview of citizens in a democracy, or for that matter, any designated country? Do more weapons, installations and bases--whether on the ground, submerged in oceans, or orbiting in the upper atmosphere, make the world safer or merely more cluttered with measures more likely to result in the anticipated? Steadfast proliferation of such measures, while touted as increasing the safety of particular groups of humans over others, increases the probability of error beyond the stated claims of what that measure is for or against. An interceptor missile can easily become a first-strike missile. This is more than a matter of semantics or which device has been deployed first: accidents happen, systems fail, and intentions change over time.
In Lisa Peattie’s essay, “Normalizing the unthinkable,” the case is made that “the continuation of weapons production and military planning can be explained without recourse to any argument involving national interest.” 6 If this is possible than ordinary citizens can stake a claim in the decision-making process of weapons production and military planning wherever one may reside.
Challenging the military-industrial complex as a culture, a political mindset, and an institution that logically cannot make the world safer in the long-run, is not a new idea. Bertrand Russell believed that such challenges initiated by the citizenry is the only assured path to humankind’s survival.
Russell wrote the following words prior to the first sit-down demonstration by the Committee of 100 at the Defense Ministry in Whitehall, London: “There is a very widespread feeling that however bad their policies may be, there is nothing that private people can do about it. This is a complete mistake. If all those who disapprove of government policy were to join massive demonstrations of civil disobedience they could render government folly impossible and compel the so-called statesmen to acquiesce in measures that would make human survival possible. Such a vast movement, inspired by outraged public opinion is possible, perhaps it is imminent. If you join it you will be doing something important to preserve your family, compatriots and the world.” 7

De-Thinking the Normalized

If citizens were to begin to unravel defense issues for themselves, they might begin to perceive them as political staging, and largely industry-related. Peattie’s essay has at its core, a strong premise that the acquiescence to the ‘tone of planning” for war is a process that “is entirely normal and normalizing.” People can be persuaded to actively participate in all kinds of actions if a particular environment has been normalized. The process of normalization is most often coordinated by experts, and as Peattie writes, “a...central issue for war planners is the separation of planning from execution.”
Has the environment of the X-band radar to be located in the Czech Republic been prepared for normalization? And if so, how? A headline from The Prague Post on April 2 yields one possible answer: “CR-U.S. Scientists solidify relations: Collaboration increases appeal of radar base deal for local leaders.” The leaders in question are Czech scientists who are being incentivized by politicians. As stated in the report: “cooperation [in hosting the radar] would mean more U.S. funding and collaborative resources for local researchers, ultimately raising the Czech Republic’s profile as a world leader in technological development. Focusing on top local research in fields including nanotechnology, IT and cybernetics, local and U.S. scientists are now reviewing Czech research projects to pinpoint viable candidates for collaboration with leading U.S. research institutions.” 8
Merger between the military, industry and research universities is common practice in the U.S. Vannevar Bush, cofounder of Raytheon and director of the Manhattan Project, laid out this matrix decades ago in the 1945 report, “Science: The Endless Frontier.” 9 Bush learned from experience during the Manhattan Project to create an environment that denied scientists an opportunity for ethical input regarding the final application (the atomic bomb); i.e. the probable human consequences of their research and development. Over time, this approach has become commonplace. It is an environment and partnership that encourages scientists and researchers involved in a broad range of inquiry to remain politically disengaged. Continuous federal funding is a strong incentive for remaining willfully distracted from larger social and political concerns; and distraction of the scientific class along these lines has proved advantageous for planners.

Pugwash

The signatories of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of were a group of eleven international scientists whose public proclamation led to the first Pugwash Conference in 1957.10 The annual Pugwash conferences in turn, led to powerful measures regarding the non-proliferation of nuclear and hydrogen weapons. Present day members of Pugwash are actively involved in a wide array of interrelated treaties such as the 1990 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty.
The ongoing strife between Russia and the U.S. concerning the proposed radar base in the Czech Republic and the location of interceptors missiles in close proximity, has been a contributing factor in the Russian Federation’s stated intention to suspend the CFE Treaty. An international appeal made in response to Russia’s announcement, posted on the Pugwash website, states: ”We fear that such a move could not only doom the CFE Treaty, but that it also could prevent the entry into force of the 1999 Adapted CFE Treaty, thus risking a collapse of the entire CFE regime. Such a development would undermine co-operative security in Europe and lead to new dividing lines and confrontation. “11
This last sentence of this statement is not far removed from passages contained in the declaration of the No Bases Initiative online petition: “The NMD project of the United States [National Missile Defense]...has divided Europe, which at the moment is not able to give a united, coherent and nonviolent response to the United States’ aggressive policies. The reaction of Russia and China has created a 'cold war' atmosphere. ”

Conclusion

In personal correspondence from Pugwash’s Washington office, I was reassured that, “Czech Pugwash colleagues have circulated news about this [radar base] via Pugwashforum.” On one hand, this is hopeful, Pugwash members in the Czech Republic are “circulating news” with one another. On the other hand, this issue is not solely the concern of Czech citizens whether they are activists or Pugwashites. This issue encompasses the struggle of a nascent democracy; the state of the E.U. and NATO and their future relationship with the U.S.; a U.S. policy, if pursued, that will continue to escalate tensions with Iran, Russia, and China; breeches in long-standing treaties; enormous and open-ended U.S. military expenditures; the creation of new U.S. bases in Eastern Europe; the endless perpetuation of countermeasures; and the luring of Czech scientists and researchers into an institutionalized system of collaboration and complacency.
Russell envisioned a populace of non-experts and experts alike--a socially progressive citizenry, confronting the continuation of a war culture. What Tamas, Bednar, and the No Bases Initiative has instigated can not be turned around. It remains to be seen if others dare collaborate as concerned world citizens.

“I do not deny that something will be lost in the process of unification, but more will be preserved, and something of great value--namely a sense of security--will be gained. It is to such a consummation that our imagination and our long range political thinking must be directed.” --Bertrand Russell



Notes:

1 Worldwide Hunger Strike petition here

2 No Star Wars petition at www.nonviolence.cz

3 “Poland, US at odds over impact of planned anti-missile shield: Tusk,” AFP, 23 May 2008,

4 Philip Coyle and Victoria Samson, “Missile Defense Malfunction: Why the Proposed U.S. Missile Defenses in Europe Will Not Work,” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 22.1, 23 April 2008,

5 Rebecca Christie, “Exclusive: Raytheon Wins Big Bucks for Missile Radar Move,” Defensetech, 17 April 2008, http://www.defensetech.org/archives/004125.html; see also Pavel Baroch, “Armament Companies seek out US commissions, Aktuálne, 3 March 2008,

6 Lisa Peattie, “Normalizing the unthinkable,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1984, pp. 32-6

7 Bertrand Russell, "Civil Disobedience," New Statesman, 17 February 1961

8 Markéta Hulpachová, “CR-U.S. scientists solidify relations: Collaboration increases appeal of radar base deal for local leaders,” The Prague Post, 2 April 2008,
 Post

9 Vannevar Bush, “Science: The Endless Frontier,” Report to the President, July 1945, http://www.nsf.gov/about/history/vbush1945.htm

10 Russell-Einstein Manifesto, 9 July 1955, http://www.pugwash.org/about/manifesto.htm

11 see international appeal to “Bring the CFE Treaty into Force,” under “Appeals on Preserving the CFE Treaty,” Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, http://www.pugwash.org/



Laray Polk is a multi-media artist and writer who lives in Dallas, Texas. She can be contacted at laraypolk@earthlink.net