The Paradox Of Terror And Hunger
By Wanda Fish
12 June, 2003
The War Against Terror is motivated by human security. This war, declared as a result of the terrorist attacks on US soil on September 11, 2001, has now embroiled every major nation in a “war” where every alleged “terrorist” is the enemy and every nation (US excluded) accused of harboring weapons of mass destruction can be legitimately invaded. This war has become a high priority around the globe and within the United Nations.
The War Against Hunger has been another UN priority for decades. One month after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the United Nations released its long awaited report on Poverty and Development. “Billions of people across the globe live in squalid conditions of hunger, disease, and desperation. This pandemic poverty represents the world’s most pernicious and deadly scourge.”
While both wars have been widely reported in the media, the paradox of the relationship between these wars has been ignored. Yet, neither war can be “won” unless we understand that relationship.
It is a simple case of cause and effect, of action and reaction. Compare these two scenarios:
1.3 billion people have no access to clean water; 3 billion (nearly half the entire world's population) have no access to sanitation. These people could afford better if there were a minimum wage.
Six percent of the world’s population owns 60% of the total wealth of the world. The remaining 94% are in debt, either personally or through their government, to the wealthy six percent.
With nearly half of the world’s population struggling to live on two dollars or less a day, the violent reaction from those who are oppressed and poor is understandable. Maslow’s Hierarchy teaches us that until as individuals we will do anything to meet our basic needs in terms of food, shelter and safety from predators. Yet, we wonder what drives someone to suicidal acts of terrorism when the majority of our global population is struggling to survive, while the wealthy few plan more wars that will further impoverish the poor. Those nations who lead the “war on terror” are creating more terrorists by their exploitation and occupation of weaker nations. This is the paradox of terror and hunger.
The world watched incredulously on September 11 as two commercial airliners, allegedly “hijacked” by Islamic fanatics wielding box-cutters, slammed into the twin towers that symbolized the wealth held by six percent of the world’s population. A few days later, President Bush made an impassioned plea to the American people and the “free” world to “stand resolute in this war against terrorism” and to “trust in God” and to “go shopping”. A few weeks later, he invaded and conquered Afghanistan – a country already in ruins from a decade of war between the Soviets and the “mujahadeen”…thousands of fanatical rebels who were trained by the CIA to perform acts of guerilla warfare and terrorism against the Soviet occupation. The objective was to prevent the Soviet Union from gaining access to the vast oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea. Eighteen months after the 9-11 attacks, the United States, opposed by the majority of civilian populations throughout the world, led a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. The war that was never sanctioned by the United Nations was short but destructive – within weeks every government building and facility had been destroyed except the Ministry for Oil. In both invasions, the war against terrorism justified the objective, despite the fact that neither war resulted in the capture of Osama Bin Laden, the discovery of weapons of mass destruction, or even proof that either country was definitely linked to the alleged “terrorist” attacks of 9-11.
Yet the media reporting these events continued to give the Coalition of the Willing the benefit of the doubt. Those who have dubbed the trio of United States, Britain and Australia, the “Coalition of the Killing” have no doubt.
The invasion of Afghanistan ended with the capture of nearly 1,000 “Taliban” men and boys who were bound, blindfolded, shackled, drugged, and kidnapped by the American military. They were designated by the American Government as “illegal combatants”, and were therefore not accorded the rights of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. To this day, The Bush Government illegally imprisons nearly six hundred prisoners from various nationalities at Guantanamo Bay, an American military base in Cuba, a base that was never approved or wanted by the Cubans. Virtually no significant intelligence has been delivered by the imprisonment, torture and interrogation of these men and boys. The one common denominator of these prisoners is that they are all Muslim and they were all in Afghanistan, helping the Afghans to defend their country and their religion. These Muslims remain as captors within a unique system of “non-justice” created by the neo-conservative Hawks who run Washington. A few weeks ago, the media reported that the United States may turn Guantanamo Bay into a death camp, where prisoners will be summarily executed after “trial” by a military tribunal.
The scenario could have been scripted from a scene in Germany five decades earlier. Hitler used the 1933 burning of the Reichstag (Parliament) building by a deranged Dutchman to declare a “war on terrorism,” and establish his legitimacy as a leader (even though he hadn’t won a majority in the previous election).
“You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history,” he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. Sound familiar? “This fire,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, “is the beginning.” He used the occasion – “a sign from God,” he called it – to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their “evil” deeds in their religion.
Two weeks later, the first prison for terrorists was built in Oranianberg, holding the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the nation’s flag was everywhere, even printed in newspapers suitable for display.
This also has a familiar ring – today American flags adorn private homes, businesses, cars, even bananas. The sale of patriotic emblems has become big business since 9-11. Those who do not publicly pay tribute to the red, white and blue are viewed with suspicion. And now the Patriot Act empowers the fanatical patriots to accuse those who question events of being “traitors” or possibly even “terrorists”.
Returning to our memory of Germany last century, four weeks after the terrorist attack, Hitler had pushed through legislation, in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it, that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people’s homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
Today we have the Patriot Act in the United States, described by opponents as the final proof that “we are living in a police state with a fascist regime that not only imprisons its own citizens, but claims the right to imprison any national suspected of terrorism”. Similar legislation has been introduced in both Britain and Australia. The result has been racial profiling of Muslims whose homes have been invaded and searched by secret police agencies.
Cause and effect works in a circle – what comes around, goes around. Hitler’s brutal and senseless slaughter of millions of Jews led to the creation of the state of Israel. This was hailed by the world with celebration, and for a few decades Israel enjoyed the support and empathy of the western world. So much so, that the United States over 50 years has devoted nearly 20% of its foreign aid to Israel, a nation that is comparatively wealthy on world statistics. On average over the past five years, the United States has provided $1.2 billion in economic aid and $1.8 million in military aid per annum. While many Israeli citizens would be included in the wealthy six percent we mentioned earlier, this small and aggressive nation has received consistently more support from the United States than African states where AIDs has decimated the population or numerous third world countries where the standard of living is so low that infant mortality is high as 30% and homeless populations live on less than $2 a day.
Israeli assaults on Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza came under heavy attack by international human rights groups. The vision of Israeli tanks rolling over civilians in refugee camps was shocking. The fact that those tanks are subsidized by American foreign aid is even more shocking. The symbolism of the wealthy literally running over the poor was strong enough for the world and the UN to censure Israel and issue resolutions that Sharon must stop the inhumane and lethal attacks on the large, poor civilian population of Palestinian refugees. Despite strong condemnation from the rest of the world, Sharon continued his brutal treatment. What makes this more shocking is that Sharon had been accused of war crimes prior to his leadership ascendancy in Israel. Again, the excuse for waging war on civilians was the threat of terrorism and the escalation of suicide bombings that killed Israeli civilians. Despite this threat, one Israeli soldier with a conscience refused to follow his superior’s order to fire upon a group of unarmed Palestinian boys. Perhaps that soldier understood the paradox of terror and hunger. At no stage has the United States or the United Nations even hinted that military action might be necessary to stop Sharon’s brutal attacks which continue today.
Only months after the slaughter of Palestinian refugees on the Gaza Strip, the United States was leading the charge in the United Nations to disarm Saddam Hussein through military action. The reasons used to justify the pre-emptive attack have since been found to be lies. There are no significant caches of weapons of mass destruction (other than what the United States may have planted by now). Saddam Hussein was neither killed nor captured. However, Baghdad was bombed and virtually every public service and facility was damaged and destroyed. The death toll of Iraqi civilians who were killed or have since died as a result of the “shock and awe” bombing campaign has now exceed 5,000 men, women and children. Lawlessness and chaos ensued, and it soon became clear that the Iraqi people did not welcome the American invasion and destruction of their nation. Terrorist attacks continue to challenge the American military, and once again, the poor people suffer through starvation, disease, lack of shelter, and lack of medicine. Even before their illegal invasion of Iraq, the American Government had been responsible for the deaths of more than 500,000 children who died because of UN imposed sanctions (sanctions pressured and bribed into existence by the American Government) that prevented essential medicines from getting through to the civilian population.
But the war did benefit those who provide the weapons of killing and the reconstruction. Baghdad was still burning when Bechtel, an American corporation, was awarded a $680 million contract for "rebuilding" Iraq. It’s a profitable routine – first the American military goes in and destroys the infrastructure, then U.S. corporations reap the profits.
Despite its profits from war and reconstruction, the United States remains the biggest sole debtor to the UN fund. The United Nations and all its agencies and funds spend about $10 billion each year, or about $1.70 for each of the world's inhabitants. This is a very small sum compared to most government budgets and a fraction of the world's military spending. But for more than ten years, the UN has faced a debilitating financial crisis and has been forced to cut back on important programs in all areas. Many member states have not paid their full dues and have cut their donations to the UN's voluntary funds. At the end of March 2003, members owed the UN $1.182 billion, of which the United States alone owed $ .532 billion (47% in total and 45% of the regular budget).
While United States physically devastates entire nations in their “war on terror”, they are using the War on Hunger to peddle their GM food. A report released by Friends of the Earth last month accused the United States of “using hunger as a political and marketing tool to benefit big agricultural business.” In May 2003 the U.S. Congress passed legislation tying AIDS assistance to acceptance of Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs. At the same time, the U.S. also filed a case at the World Trade Organization against the European Union moratorium on GMOs. Controversy over genetically modified food aid arose in 2000 and grew increasingly in 2002, when several Southern African countries refused GM food aid during a food crisis. African countries were presented with a situation where either they accepted GMOs or many people would die.
Take a moment to think about that….accept our genetically modified food that we want to get rid of, or your people will die. American bribery has now become a black-humor joke with the international press. Two months ago Ari Flescher, the President’s mouthpiece, was literally laughed off the podium at a press conference because he tried to convince the skeptical journalists that “the US Government does not engage in bribing or coercing other nations”.
It might be funny if it weren’t so tragic. The reality is that hundreds of thousands of civilians have been murdered in illegal wars where the rich make more money out of killing and war. Yet, if the money that was spent on war was instead spent on feeding and educating the poor children on our globe, we would win the war against hunger. Even more wonderful, the war on terror would dissolve into oblivion, because terrorists are born out of oppression and hunger.
That is the paradox of terror and hunger.
This article may be freely reproduced in part or whole. Wanda Fish is a freelance journalist who works to awaken the media to the truth of the world in 2003. She can be contacted on [email protected].