TWO WORLD VIEWS – TWO GOALS. . .

From 2000-2002 two world views and two different goals emerged. The first is still struggling to remain alive, the second continues to generate grave unintended consequences.

The first was offered to the world in 2000 by the United Nations. It is titled: ‘Millennium Development Goals.’ There are eight goals contained in the document:
1. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. To achieve universal primary education
3. To promote gender equality
4. To reduce child mortality
5. To improve maternal health
6. To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. To ensure environmental sustainability
8. To develop a global partnership for development

The second was offered to the world in 2002 by our Administration and is captured in what it called the ‘Project for a New American Century.’ There were/are three primary goals contained in this offer:
1. The war on terrorism
2. The preservation of our economic prosperity and the American way of life
3. The promotion of freedom around the world

On the surface these three goals seem to be clear and important. However, here are three statements contained within the document that continue to contribute to the grave unintended consequences:
• The U.S. national security strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism.
• While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorists.
• Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.

When we attempted to put these into action the majority of nations in the world refused to cooperate. These nations more often than not believed (continue to believe?) that an ultimate goal of the U.S. is the preservation of a ‘privileged American way of life’ rather than spreading prosperity or ‘freedom’ to the rest of the world. Such preservation requires strong forces – military, political and economic.

The U.S. focused her energies on the threat of terrorism, not on its causes. Are we still holding such a focus today?

An unintended consequence of this policy is that today there are more terrorists today. Our allies are more resistant to this policy than ever before. We are, too often, in it alone. The war on terrorism – like the war on drugs – continues to go on and on. For whatever reasons, we focus on the ‘war’ not on eradicating the ‘causes.’

The United Nations ‘Development Goals’ offer all of us a potential solution – and this solution will require a critical mass of nations to join in. The question I hold: When will we choose to join in?’

Martin Luther King, Jr. noted the need for this join effort; he wrote: ‘This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is really a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all humankind.’

For the ‘People of the Book’ (Jews, Christians, Muslims) God provided us an ‘out’ (and a challenge): they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid. . .’ [Mic.4:3-4]