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| Paschim |
Posted
on 28-Oct-02 08:25 PM
The director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University speaks out in the latest issue of The Economist.
"Weapons of Mass Salvation"
by Jeffrey D. Sachs
IF GEORGE BUSH spent more time and money on mobilising Weapons of Mass Salvation (WMS) in addition to combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), we might actually get somewhere in making this planet a safer and more hospitable home. WMD can kill millions and their spread to dangerous hands needs to be opposed resolutely. WMS, in contrast, are the arsenal of life-saving vaccines, medicines and health interventions, emergency food aid and farming technologies that could avert literally millions of deaths each year in the wars against epidemic disease, drought and famine. Yet while the Bush administration is prepared to spend $100 billion to rid Iraq of WMD, it has been unwilling to spend more than 0.2% of that sum ($200m) this year on the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The great leaders of the second world war alliance, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, understood the twin sides of destruction and salvation. Their war aims were not only to defeat fascism, but to create a world of shared prosperity. Roosevelt talked not only about Freedom from Fear but also Freedom from Want. One of the reasons why the Bush administration is losing the battle for the world's hearts and minds is precisely that it fights only the war on terror, while turning a cold and steely eye away from the millions dying of hunger and disease. When is the last time anybody heard Vice-President Dick Cheney even feign a word of concern for the world's poor?
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1403544
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| SimpleGal |
Posted
on 28-Oct-02 08:57 PM
While teaching a course on Peace Psychology last Spring, I came to know that the US spends over $400 billion on the military---and an exorbitant percentage of it on WMD. What was more appalling still was knowing that a *negligible* fraction of it is enough to provide the Rest of the world with better education, health care, better water supplies, city/town services and so forth. Yet, even that miniscule amount rarely gets channeled into the proper areas of development. And higher in this hierarchy is the fact that this information is conspicously unavailable to the masses.
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| krishna |
Posted
on 28-Oct-02 08:58 PM
I am as concerned as you are about this Paschim....
Something has to be done in order to come out of this prolonged conflict or it will take away millions of innocent lives when its remnant...
I believe the time has come for the Mankind to step back and "KNOW THYSELF"...
Krishna, the concerned one..
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| krishna |
Posted
on 28-Oct-02 08:59 PM
I am as concerned as you are about this Paschim....
Something has to be done in order to come out of this prolonged conflict or it will take away millions of innocent lives when its remnant...
I believe the time has come for the Mankind to step back and "KNOW THYSELF"...
Krishna, the concerned one..
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