The price of peace cannot be paid with nuclear warheads
on the one hand and increasing global poverty on the other

By Dr. Phoebe Godfrey

Speaking against the Vietnam War in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King said, "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today [is] my own government. For the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent."
Sadly, as we commemorate Dr. King’s birthday once again, these same words are perhaps more true today than they were then, if the measure of violence is counted in both the number of dollars being spent on our military and the number of dollars not being spent on improving our society and the quality of life of all our members. Violence is not just an action. It is also an action not taken, a voice not expressed, a life not saved. With a war against Iraq still looming on the horizon, how many of us are ready to follow in Dr. King’s conviction, realizing that we, too, cannot be silent? This is not because we support Saddam Hussein or that we are Anti-American, but because we again recognize the truth of Dr. King’s words when he said, "One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means. How much longer must we play at deadly war games before we heed the plaintive pleas of the unnumbered dead and maimed of past wars."
In other words, the price of peace cannot be paid with nuclear warheads on the one hand and increasing global poverty on the other. The only way to achieve peace is by peacefully striving for social justice.
President Bush’s military budget for 2003 is slated at about $396 billion, about the same amount UN Secretary General Kofi Annan projected would be required to reduce world poverty in half over the next 13 years and twice what the entire European Union spends. Bringing the issue closer to home, we need to ask not only what the effects of such spending will be on our nation’s social structure and security, but also against which group of trembling masses will these billions of dollars in military power ultimately be used?
In answer to the first question, it does not take too much insight to realize that those to lose in terms of direct social spending are those deemed dispensable. By this I mean the poor, the young, the indefensible, etc., because their voices do not register on the political screen. Yet this is not the whole picture, because as much as some would like to think that private security and gated communities separate them from those same undesirables, we are all in this society together, and if our public spending decreases we all lose, if only in our belief in our affirmation of equality. While billions are being spent on homeland securities, nationally and internationally we are creating social inequalities that alone threaten global security, even if war does not sprout from such spending and consequently spread. And regardless of inflated military spending, thousands can still be killed merely with a plan, a conviction, and a few box cutters, just as thousands can be killed because of military spending. It would seem therefore that military spending does not guarantee peace, although it does guarantee profits. Bombs drop and stocks go up. Regimes are overthrown and the spoils of oil are fair game for the winners and their supporters -- "sign up now; pledge your allegiance and you are assured your share when (if) the ships come in triumphantly" -- such are the ploys of war.
In fact, our administration has already been working with the Iraqi National Congress, a dissident group, to lead the new regime in Baghdad. They are awarding oil drilling rights in Iraq only to those companies whose countries promise to assist in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Not surprisingly, these are mostly US oil companies that have the capital to buy political influence in Washington and to use it in lobbying for war, a war that will greatly benefit these same companies, their share holders, and of course their politicians. But little of this behind-the-scenes maneuvering makes it into the public eye. For example, a recent article in Fortune questioned the cost of war with Iraq. The whole issue was reduced to a comparison of gas prices, measuring out the few cents per gallon we will save if all goes well and how many more we will have to spend if it does not. This was their analysis‚ of the costs. No mention was made of the profits to be made or the price to be paid in terms of the larger social picture, let alone the cost in potential American and/or Iraqi lives.
In answer to the second question, it must be remembered that as it stands, our military power exceeds that of any country in the world. In addition, America alone holds supreme economic and political power, and yet we seem to be finding it necessary to pick fights with those far below us on any of these levels. Defense is one thing, offense is something else entirely. But our economic system requires that production takes place, that commodities are sold, bought, and wasted so that they may be replaced with more. Thus, a military industrial complex such that we have developed since WW II must use the weapons that it makes by engaging in war. The only thing open to debate is who we deem instrumental enough to be our enemy. And this is where the line gets blurry. Will we again engage in a comic one-man man hunt? Or will we turn our wrath against a nation of impoverished and oppressed people, who have over the last ten years as a result of international sanctions seen about 5,000 to 6,000 children die per month? Or will we take on the infamous axis of evil, noting that in the case of Iraq most of their chemical weapons were sold by us during the 1980s?
Regardless, we as citizens must not fall into the trap of demonizing a nation of 22 million, most of whom are no doubt as interested in the safety and welfare of themselves and their loved ones as we are. Aired recently on the BBC were images of Iraqi children praying for peace, fearing no doubt that some of that $396 billion military budget is aimed directly at their homes, schools, play grounds, and ultimately at them. Where are these same empathetic images on our nightly news stations? Where are the faces of those of us who on both sides fear that playing this deadly war game will not be quick and painless‚ but rather that its costs will be great and that it will be us, citizens of both America and Iraq, who will be the ones to pay? To be blunt, they are being censored, since they would throw doubt on the desired blind following of Bush’s political maneuvers.
But we do not want to be blind, nor do we want to be silent.
To honor the legacy of Dr. King thousands throughout the nation on January 18, 19, and 20 showed their faces and air their voices in opposition to this imprudent, immoral, and globally destabilizing war. These are people who, young and old, Republican and Democrat, all understand that to build a better world we must invest in people not profits, build schools not bombs, teach tolerance not racism, and most of all, that we must make our elected officials accountable to what we want, not what they need to increase their power. If we were really interested in national, and therefore international, security, wouldn’t we be better off investing in global development and other humane ways of reducing violence instead of being the "greatest purveyors" of it?
Anyone interested in adding their face and voice to those opposed to the war in Iraq is invited to contact the Alliance for Peace and Justice at peacelaredo@yahoo.com.
Also, for more information on the war, go to www.notinourname.net.

(Dr. Phoebe Godfrey is a professor of Sociology at Texas A&M International University.)