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Achieving World Peace
by Ed O’Rourke
June 6, 2006
Vaclav Havel says that to achieve the
seemingly impossible you must first be
unafraid to dream the seemingly impossible.
For some, peace is but a dream. However,
world peace can be achieved in incremental
steps breaking the endless cycle of war and
terrorism.
The first step is recognition of the limits
of military power and a willingness to make
serious efforts in pursuing non-war
strategies to achieve national and world
security. A look at the U.S. efforts for
regime change in Iraq is enough to see the
limits of military power. The firepower of
the world’s mightiest military is unable to
achieve its goals of bringing stability to a
troubled country.
Human rights organizations could list
several dozen brutal dictatorships that
deserve regime change, among them, North
Korea, Burma, China, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia,
Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Cuba
and Swaziland. The difficulty is that there
are not enough soldiers from the “good”
countries to accomplish regime change by
military means, much less enough resources
to rebuild societies under occupation.
Our military establishment cannot deal with
the terrorists. If the United States had
twice as many aircraft carriers, tanks,
ships or soldiers as we actually had in
2001, the terrorists would have struck
anyway. US efforts to kill, capture or
neutralize terrorists have had some
success. However, informed sources estimate
that there are two or three times the number
of terrorists now as compared to September
2001. Our tactics have encouraged terrorist
recruitment.
Furthermore, military power is useless in
dealing with challenges to man’s existence
on earth. Global warming is bringing crop
failures, rising ocean levels, floods and
droughts. This suffering and distortion of
life on earth caused by famines, floods and
droughts are less dramatic but more
insidious than any thing that terrorists
have been able to achieve. The lesson is
that all the bombs and bullets in the world
are useless to deal with problems that
threaten our existence – population
explosion, disease, poverty, ignorance, and
environmental deterioration.
If military might is useless to solve our
root problems, non-war strategies must be
employed and war-making activities must
end.
General Douglas MacArthur advocated the
abolition of war. The following are
quotations from his address to the U.S.
Congress on April 19, 1951:
“I know war
as few other men now living know it, and
nothing to me is more revolting. I have long
advocated its complete abolition, as its
very destructiveness on both friend and foe
has rendered it useless as a means of
settling international disputes.”….
"Military alliances, balances of power,
leagues of nations, all in turn failed,
leaving the only path to be by way of the
crucible of war. The utter destructiveness
of war now blocks out this alternative. We
have had our last chance. If we will not
devise some greater and more equitable
system, our Armageddon will be at our door.
The problem basically is theological and
involves a spiritual recrudescence, an
improvement of human character that will
synchronize with our almost matchless
advances in science, art, literature, and
all material and cultural developments of
the past two thousand years. It must be of
the spirit if we are to save the flesh."
Pope John Paul II came close to advocating
the abolition of war in his 1991 encyclical
Centesimus Annus (The Hundredth Year), “
While it is true that since 1945 weapons
have been silent on the European continent,
it must be remembered that true peace is
never simply the result of military victory,
but rather implies both the removal of the
causes of war and genuine reconciliation
between people. For many years there has
been in Europe and the world a situation of
non-war rather than genuine peace.” … “An
insane arms race swallowed the resources
needed for the development of national
economies and for the assistance to the
less-developed nations.”
As a teenager in the early 1960s, I heard of
pacifism but never met a pacifist or read
anything written by one. This seemed like a
noble but naive idea. How could the Allies
beat the Axis powers or contain the Soviet
Union by abolishing the armed forces? Then,
in college years, I read about the concept
of graduated unilateral disarmament in which
the United States could reduce military
spending or the number of nuclear warheads
by a significant but not critical amount.
The State Department would inform the
Kremlin that if the Soviet Union were to
perform similar measures, then the U.S.
would consider future reductions. Leading
by example would be faster than tedious
negotiations.
I believe that present and future conflicts
between nations must be dealt with by
commerce, diplomacy, science, technology,
education, international law and human
investment.
An old saying is that you cannot have peace
as long as you have injustice. Our
Declaration of Independence was a response
to British injustice symbolized by George
III. Colonists in the 18th
century took certain truths to be
self-evident just as people in the 21st
century rebel against injustice: the
Declaration of Independence has been a
justification for independence movements
ever since it was written. It can be moral
to use violence to change the established
order. However, different persons may
interpret the violence as fight for freedom
or a terrorist act.
World peace can be achieved if there is
serious attention to the root cause of
conflict and terrorism. A second Marshall
Plan for the world’s poor will be far more
effective than airport security and
anti-terrorism measures in reducing the
number of desperate people who do desperate
things. The first Marshall Plan helped
restore participating countries’ economic
output to prewar levels by 1951. A second
Marshall Plan will take more time and
resources to raise the standard of living of
the world’s poor. More than two billion
people live on less than $2 per day. A
long-term effort to build societies, which
provide access to jobs, housing, food,
health, services and education with
environmentally friendly guidelines will be
a major step to achieving world peace.
The rich countries will carry out a second
Marshall Plan for a variety of motives, just
as they do with the current foreign aid.
Humanitarian or religious feelings combined
with national interests have been the
driving forces. In addition, some U.S.
efforts were made to limit Soviet
expansion. With all the aid provided since
1945, we have a good idea of what works and
what does not.
There are many
things that people need which we take for
granted: cleaning drinking water,
sufficient food, physical security, health
care and education. Fully fund and train
the government employees of Third World
countries. Build up the institutions of
public administration, education, police,
the courts, regulatory agencies and health
care. Do this for 10 years. How anyone
thinks that they are getting a bargain by
giving low wages to the police is beyond
me. The police enhance their income by
bribery and extortion. A systematic
program of career training and decent pay
would ease the lives of Third World
citizens.
The new foreign aid must be different than
past foreign aid. John Perkins in his book,
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,
described his foreign aid consulting as a
successful effort to encourage countries to
build projects way beyond their needs, for
example building oversized power plants.
Since countries could not pay the loans from
the project’s earnings, they were forced
into debt peonage and became more compliant
with demands of American diplomats.
William Easterly in his book, The White
Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts To
Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So
Little Good, attributes foreign aid’s
failure to incompetence rather than greed or
willful misconduct. Aid agencies have
operated from a top-down one size fits all
approach that is reminiscent of Gosplan, the
old Soviet Union’s planning ministry.
Administrators of the second Marshall Plan
will continually monitor projects for
effectiveness and lack of corruption. The
people being helped must approve the
projects from inception to completion.
European based groups have been establishing
detailed proposal for a second Marshall
Plan. Refer to:
www.globalmarshallplan.org and
www.clubofbudapest.org. In his new
book, The End of Poverty: Economic
Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey
Sachs’ calls for funding of the Millennium
Development Goals that all 191 United
Nations member states unanimously agreed to
do in 2002.
The first Marshall
Plan cost $12.4 billion over four years.
This would be about $75 billion in today’s
dollars. Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Gordon Brown, projects an additional $50
billion per year from the rich countries for
the second Marshall Plan that would provide
universal primary education, ensure
environmental sustainability, provide access
to safe drinking water and reduce extreme
poverty. Since Americans spend more each
year on garbage bags than 90 of the world’s
210 countries spend on everything, this is
something that we can afford.
A Tobin Tax on foreign currency exchange
transactions could raise $150 billion per
year for the second Marshall Plan and other
poverty reducing programs. Named after
James Tobin, a Noble Prize winner in
economics, such a tax would reduce
speculation on currency fluctuations and
reduce the power that financial markets have
over national governments to determine
fiscal and monetary policies. Currently
about $1 trillion is traded daily. Only
about 5% is related to generating goods and
services. The rest is fueled by speculation
on exchange rate fluctuations and
international rate differentials.
The Oxfam organization (www.oxfamamerica.org)
and others seek to end poverty and injustice
by eliminating tariffs and trade barriers
for agricultural products from the poor
countries. The United States, for example,
subsidizes American cotton growers and,
thereby, lowering the world market price.
African nations like Burkina Faso cannot
offer their cotton to the world market. A
complete elimination of subsidies, tariffs
and informal trade barriers would bring the
poor countries an extra $350 billion per
year, much more than any aid program will
match.
It will take both approaches, a Second
Marshall Plan with a Tobin tax and trade
barrier elimination, to bring prosperity to
the world poor. Since the International
Monetary Fund has a record of burying the
poor in more international debt and the
World Bank has been serving corporate
interest rather than the public good, I
recommend starting entirely new
institutions, probably a new United Nations
agency, to administer the second Marshall
Plan.
Former Secretary of Defense, Robert S.
McNamara, in the May-June 2005 issue of
Foreign Policy, urged the United States to
“…move promptly toward the elimination – or
near elimination of all nuclear weapons.”
He rated the current U.S. nuclear weapons
policy as “immoral, illegal militarily
unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous.”
Nuclear weapons lend themselves to
accidental launch and accidental war. When
there is an alert suggesting the United
States may be the victim of a nuclear
strike, the commander of the US Strategic
Air Command, the Secretary of Defense and
the President have 20 minutes to decide to
ride out the apparent attack and launch a
retaliatory strike later or to launch an
immediate strike. There have been false
alarms over the history of the Cold War.
The United States can become a model for the
rest of the world by elimination or near
elimination of nuclear weapons. Other
nations like Iran and North Korea are
wondering why it is that other countries
have nuclear weapons for whatever reason and
they may not. Some motives are legitimate
protection, whether the regime is legitimate
or not. The United States would have
proceeded differently in Iraq if Saddam
Hussein had a number of nuclear weapons. If
you have them, you are not going to be
easily pushed around. One lesson that other
countries have learned since the latest Iraq
war is to develop weapons quickly and
quietly.
Countries develop nuclear weapons for a
mixture of motives other than self defense.
A nation may want to show the world that it
has technologically arrived. Its scientists
may want to show off their expertise. One
task of peacemakers is design reward
structures for countries who do not have
nuclear weapons.
At a minimum, the United States should take
all nuclear weapons off “hair trigger”
readiness.
Other measures will help. The United States
could start a one-year moratorium on weapons
research. There would be no research and
development expenditures for computers,
aircraft, tanks, bullets, radar, star wars
or anything else. None. Existing weapons
could be upgraded. There would be no new
weapons contracts issued during the
moratorium. During the moratorium, the
Defense Department would be authorized to
pay contractors for work on social or
environmental projects that have nothing to
do with war. The defense contractors’
companies would be intact at the end of the
one-year moratorium. The U.S. would extend
this moratorium if a significant number of
countries have to start a moratorium too.
Since the United States spends about as much
for defense as the rest of the world
combined and has the most advanced weapons
technology, there is little risk to such a
moratorium. About $62 billion a year for
research and development could be invested
at least temporarily to peace making
activities.
The world’s armed forces could start
disaster relief training for their own and
other countries. For example, US armed
forces could have performed wonders for the
Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami victims.
Learning the logistics of bringing food,
medical service and temporary shelter to
flood, earthquake, tornado or hurricane
victims is training for logistics when there
is actual combat. Rebuilding roads,
communications systems and electrical power
is what soldiers do. Learning the language
and culture of countries will be beneficial
to maintain or restore peace. Logistics
experience gained on disaster relief
missions will serve well for the real
thing. Had not US armed forces been
deployed in Iraq,
By international agreement, there could be a
sales or transaction tax on international
arms sales. The tax may start at 2 % and
slowly rise to 50% of the arms value. The
revenue would go to an international
development fund.
Each country has a war department although
it may be called something else, as the
Defense Department in the United States. It
is time that every country establishes a
peace department. US Congress House
Resolution 3760 and Senate Bill 1756
envision proactive work in disarmament,
Peace Academy graduates trained in
nonmilitary conflict resolution, development
of policies addressing domestic violence,
promotion of racial and ethnic tolerance,
and other such tasks. The Peace Department
would contact militant dissident groups to
resolve conflict. For example, there is no
government agency charged with investigating
the concerns of the white separatists.
Local, state and federal law enforcement
monitor and sometimes infiltrate these
groups. Most of the work comes after a
confrontation. Conflict resolution can help
channel frustrations through the legal and
political processes.
The sad fact is that war and preparation for
war are activities with powerful
constituencies. Defense contractors have
many well-paid lobbyists that make powerful
arguments for new weapons systems, more
sophisticated equipment along with the more
mundane supplies of food, clothing and
transportation. Peace advocates are almost
always fighting after the fact. Oppose the
latest war, reduce defense spending and
advocate humanitarian programs. Peace
activists are almost always reacting to
events, whether it was the Gulf of Tonkin
resolution or the decision to invade Iraq in
2003. A peace department will enable strong
constituencies dedicated to reducing
conflict.
There is a wide spread feeling that war is
part of human nature and efforts to
eliminate war are well meaning but
unrealistic. In fact, it is governments
that organize wars and induce citizens to
sacrifice blood and treasure to accomplish
goals of self preservation or conquest. The
hardest part of infantry training is not the
rigor and hardship but leading people to
kill someone else. After the Second World
War was over, the US Army discovered that
only 25% of the combat soldiers shot their
rifles to kill. Learning from this, the
Army changed their training enough to make
the shooting percentage higher in the Korean
War.
Woodrow Wilson had to use massive propaganda
and put dissenters in jail to carry out US
participation in the First World War.
Hollywood and the media put a brave face on
all wars. Until the Vietnam War, magazine
readers only saw dead soldiers that were
intact and fully clothed. It looked like
the soldiers were asleep.
Our military recruiters go to poor
neighborhoods to entice recruits with offers
of training, education, benefits and
adventure. There is no mention of killing
or being killed. To be sure, every society
has its share of psychopaths but there is no
universal killer instinct. The armed forces
of the world have to manufacture one.
Peace activists now have specific goals
outlined here: 1) a second Marshall Plan,
2) a one year moratorium on weapons
research, 3) training our armed forces for
disaster relief, 4) a transactions tax on
international arms sales, 5) elimination of
trade barriers for agricultural products
from poor countries, 6) elimination or near
elimination of nuclear weapons and, 7) a
Peace Department.
Truth is the first casualty in war. To this
day, there is no conclusive evidence on what
caused the explosion on the USS Maine that
triggered the Spanish-American War.
President Lyndon Johnson lied about the
circumstances that lead to the Gulf of
Tonkin resolution that escalated US
involvement in Vietnam. In 1968,
congressional hearings disclosed that the
Maddox and the Turner Joy were in North
Vietnamese territorial waters when they were
attacked. Now official reports show that
Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction nor
gave any support to al-Queda. In our
society, the Congress and the media must ask
unpopular questions before the troops are
engaged. For the Vietnam War and the Second
Iraq War, the Congress and the media have
failed. After weapons inspector David Kay
issued his report, the Houston Chronicle
asked why the protesters got it right and
the $30 billion a year intelligence
community got it wrong.
Talking and acting tough still gets votes.
Wrap the American flag around you and you
get even more. Bullies use shock and awe
while real leaders do great things. The
American people must elect leaders who can
improve the human condition.
Mankind must break the cycle that makes war
inevitable.
History has demonstrated that such a change
is possible. The American abolitionist
movement in the 19th century, the
U.S. civil rights movement and the
solidarity movements in Eastern Europe
started with few people but grew to bring
about the social and political changes that
they sought. The peace movement can be a
similar force for change.
Other institutions have fallen by the
wayside – monarchy, slavery, selfdom,
judicial torture, human sacrifice, Jim Crow
laws, imperialist empires and Soviet
communism. Each of the institutions was an
integral and normal part of society. The
fall of the Berlin Wall was the most
dramatic example of an institution’s
demise. In each case, there came a time
when the effort to maintain them surpassed
benefits achieved. The economic systems
could not satisfy the citizens’ aspirations
or behavior that seemed routine became
questionable or even barbaric.
In each case, there were few, if any, who
predicted what would happen. Few forecasted
the success of the civil rights movement in
the United States or the Solidarity
movements in Europe. The US intelligence
services did not publicly report of the
deterioration of the Soviet Army, even
though the German news magazine Der Spiegel
covered these developments on a regular
basis. Futurists, pundits and our
intelligence services are as much in the
dark as everyone else.
Our culture must change from accepting war
as an acceptable instrument to solve our
conflicts. As a grade school child in the
1950s, I read World War II comic books and
saw numerous movies such as Guadalcanal
Diary. The people who have defended our
country have made great sacrifices. It is
time to honor conscious objectors and
peacemakers who suffered economic
deprivation, beatings, jail and execution.
The only feature length movie about a
peacemaker was one about Gandhi. Now is
time to look for new visions.
After the fall of France, Winston Churchill
announced that when Allied victory came, the
world would be able to walk in broad sunlit
uplands. A song in the 1960s by Tommy James
and the Shondells gave a wider picture of
world peace in “Crystal Blue Persuasion”.
Other artists through plays, poetry, song,
dance, literature and movies will evoke more
profound powerful visions that are necessary
to engage the human spirit to end the
vicious cycle of unending death and
destruction.
Give peace a chance.
Ed O’Rourke is a
certified public accountant in Houston,
Texas USA specializing in environmental
costing. He received a master’s degree in
Latin American Studies from the University
of Texas at Austin.
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Ed O'Rourke
3227 South Braeswood Blvd
Houston, Texas 77025-2502
USA
713-664-4343
eorourke@pdq.net
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