What do you think of this advice from a senior
U.S. military officer and statesman about how the people of the United
States should deal with a part of the world torn by war, poverty, disease,
and hunger:
"...it is of vast importance that our
people reach some general understanding of what the complications really
are,rather than react from a passion or a prejudice or an emotion of
the moment....It is virtually impossible at this distance merely by
reading, or listening, or even seeing photographs or motion pictures,
to grasp at all the real significance of the situation. And yet the
whole world of the future hangs on a proper judgment."
The speaker was General George C. Marshall,
outlining the Marshall Plan in an address at Harvard University on June
5, 1947.
Surveying the wrecked economies of Europe, Marshall
noted the "possibilities of disturbances arising as a result of
the desperation of the people concerned." He said that there could
be "no political stability and no assured peace" without economic
security, and that U.S. policy was "directed not against any country
or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos."
The
moral and political challenge America faces
As President Bush and his advisors review
the results of the initial bombing campaign, they might also consider
the relevance of Marshall's strategy to the moral and political problems
America now confronts. Of course we should find the people responsible
for the deaths of September 11 and bring them to justice, and work with
other nations to root out other terrorist networks. But we must do so
in a way that does not result in the deaths of even more innocent people,
deaths that would only deepen the cycle of anger and rage that led to
September 11.
What is largely missing from the
administration's rhetoric is recognition of the scale of the underlying
problems that have to be addressed, regardless of how successful we
may be in the short run in tracking down the perpetrators of the September
11th terrorist assaults.
As Marshall's words so plainly suggest,
finding the terrorists should be part of a much more ambitious campaign,
one in which the rich countries approach the appalling inequities of
the world with the same boldness and determination that the United States
brought to bear in Europe under the Marshall Plan.
The global
problems we must address
We don't really need to spend another dime
on "intelligence" to recognize the conditions that leave whole
countries in a state of despair and misery. Some 1.2 billion people
worldwide struggle to survive on $1 day or less. 1.2 billion people
lack access to safe drinking water and 2.9 billion have inadequate access
to sanitation.
About 150 million children are malnourished,
and more than 10 million children under 5 will die in 2001 alone. At
least 150 million people are unemployed and 900 million are "underemployed"
- contending with inadequate incomes despite long hours of backbreaking
work.
Globalization has raised expectations, even as
modern communications make the rising inequality between a rich, powerful,
and imposing West and the rest of the world visible to all. Poverty
and deprivation do not automatically translate into hatred. But people
whose hopes have worn thin, whose aspirations have been thwarted, and
whose discontent is rising, are far more likely to succumb to the siren
song of extremism. This is particularly true for the swelling ranks
of young people whose prospects for the future are bleak. Some 34 percent
of the developing world's population is under 15 years of age.
Instead
of an additional $100 billion on military action, we could do this....
The United States and the other industrial
nations should launch a global "Marshall Plan" to provide
everyone on earth with a decent standard of living. We can already hear
the cries of people claiming that such a global plan would "cost
too much." But let's look at the numbers.
The cost of our initial response
has soared into the tens of billions of dollars, on top of an already
large proposed defense budget of $342.7 billion. For
the sake of comparison, let's assume that the United States will spend
an additional $100 billion on military
actions in the next 12 months. What could we buy if we matched this
$100 billion military expenditure dollar-for-dollar with spending on
programs to alleviate human suffering?
A 1998 report by the United Nations
Development Programme estimated the annual cost to achieve universal
access to a number of basic social services in all developing countries:
- $9 billion would provide water
and sanitation for all;
- $12 billion would cover reproductive health for all women;
- $13 billion would give every person on Earth basic health and nutrition;
and
- $6 billion would provide basic education for all.
These sums are substantial, but
they are still only a fraction of the tens of billions of dollars we
are already spending. And these social and health expenditures pale
in comparison with what is being spent on the military by all nations
- some $780 billion each year.
The sad irony about the rich
There is a sad irony in watching
the Bush Administration's strenuous efforts to build an international
coalition. There is no such muscular effort underway, in the United
States, or in any of the other rich nations, to build a coalition to
eradicate hunger, to immunize all children, to provide clean water,
to eradicate infectious disease, to provide adequate jobs, to combat
illiteracy, or to build decent housing.
The cost of failing to advance human
security and to eliminate the fertile ground upon which terrorism thrives
is already escalating. Since September 11, we know that sophisticated
weapons offer little protection against those who are out to seek vengeance,
at any cost, for real and perceived wrongs.
Unless our priorities change, the
threat is certain to keep rising in coming years.
By choosing to mobilize adequate
resources to address human suffering around the world, President Bush
has a unique opportunity to seize the terrible moment of September 11
and earn a truly exalted place in human history.
But first, we must all understand
that in the end, weapons alone cannot buy us a lasting peace in a world
of extreme inequality, injustice, and deprivation for billions of our
fellow human beings.
This article also available at
the Worldwatch website
http://www.worldwatch.org
Dick Bell is Vice President for Communications
at the Worldwatch Institute and can be reached at
dbell@worldwatch.org
Michael Renner is a Senior Researcher at the
Worldwatch Institute and TFF associate. He can be reached at mrenner@peconic.net
For further information, please contact Niki
Clark, 202-452-1992 x 517, nclark@worldwatch.org
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