April 2, 1999

There's no question Milosevic is "the Butcher of the Balkans." He
"convinced Serbs that economic success is a zero-sum game and that
they can only gain at the expense of others. He precipitated the breakup of
Yugoslavia's federation, destroying at the least a common market
that would have boosted everyone's prosperity."(Christian Science Monitor
editorial, 3/22/99) His favorite uncle and Orthodox priest father and school
teacher mother each committed suicide when he was in his 20s. He spawned
nationalist ferver which led to the disastrous civil war and ethnic
cleansing. It is easy to want him disposed as he continues his
barbaric activities.
It's important to recognize our own barbaric example setting
activities also. The US is the chief sales agent for conventional arms,
doubling over the past decade to 52 percent. We sell billions of dollars of
weapons to dictators, human rights violators, and other regimes the State Dept.
deems undemocratic or repressive. In 1995, $7 billion was spent on export
subsidies to boost profits for armsmakers. Throughout our history
we have armed and trained repressive regimes that are supportive of US
businesses. Guatemala's recent truth commission revealed that the Army was
responsible for the majority of the 200,000 deaths and disappearances during
that country's civil war. Pakistan's terrorists grew, in part, out of
Western support for guerrillas fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in
the 1980s. Turkey received billions in military aid and repeatedly has
been accused of human rights violations by the State Dept. Nixon & the
CIA supported Pinochet. We supplied the training and weapons for
Indonesia as they killed 200,000 East Timorese. Our policies towards China,
Cuba, Mexico & the Chiapas, Iraq, Iran, Africa, etc. are clearly not guided by
policies aimed towards encouraging the health and prosperity of average
citizens, much less the neediest. We practically ignore the persistance of
slavery in Sudan, child prostitution in Thailand, and the suffering of
indigeneous people everywhere.
Each year the world spends $780 billion on militaries. The US and
Europe
spend $12 billion on perfumes, $17 billion on pet food. The amount
of money needed each year (in addition to current expenditures) to provide
water and sanitation for all people in developing nations is $9 billion, for
basic education: $6 billion, for reproductive health care: $12 billion.
Across the world racial intolerance is growing. The latest demographic data shows that the US is becoming less integrated.

We are becoming more separated by wealth and developmental patterns. The US has a more
uneven distribution of income than any other industrial nation, with the
richest 20 percent having 50% of total income, and the bottom 20 percent of
housholds getting less than 4% of total income (Census Bureau). We are not
setting a good example for the rest of the world in our domestic or
international policies. Recently four NY police officers were indicted for
shooting an unarmed African immigrant over 40 times. In Colorado arguments were
heard in the courthouse over whether concealed weapons could be carried in
schools. Greed, paranoia, ignorance and apathy seem to be our
choices of conduct. Compassionate solutions are rare and ignored. Going into
the Balkans, the Middle East and elsewhere to "fix" situations with a
long history of disorders is like trying to fix a bleeding ulcer with an
asprin. A fundamental rethinking of the purpose of government in both
domestic and foreign relations is overdue. Currently, it seems, special
interests define policy choices, not the mandate of the Constitution to "form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
prosperity."
In 1796 George Washington in his Farewell Address wrote:
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace
and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can
it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a
free, enlightened, and, at no distant period a great nation, to give to
mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by
an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course
of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any
temporary advantages that might be lost by a steady adherence to it?...The
nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual
fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its
affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its
duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another, disposes
each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of
umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling
occasions of dispute occur."
Each of us sets an examble in our daily existence. In 1966, J.
William Fulbright wrote: "For all their worldwide influence, our aid and our
diplomacy are only the shadow of America; the real America - and
the real American indluence - are something else. They are the way our
people live, our tastes and games, our products and preferences, the way we treat
each other, the way we govern ourselves, the ideas about man and man's
relations with other men that took root and flowered in the American soil."

Return to Home Page - Return to Index