Your Most Trusted Source of Foreign
News and Views About the United States
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Your Most Trusted Source of Foreign
News and Views About the United States
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By Hassan Al-Haifi (commonsense@yemen.net.ye)
August 20, 2005
As the world shrinks, natural resources dwindle and the demand for them grows, one would expect the nations of the world to take serious note. The most important consideration on the minds of world leaders should be an all-out effort to avoid hostility and belligerence, especially when it could lead to armed conflict between nations.
Prior to the dawn of the Third Millennium, the global community saw many significant developments that reflected a genuine desire to enhance global cohesion. Many summits were held during the 1990s to set priorities for the international community collectively and individual states domestically. There were hopes that finally, the world was serious about finding common ground and overcoming the problems that had accumulated over the decades of the Cold War. Many of the explosive social problems that could become threats to world peace were at least brought out at these conferences, and goals were set with deadlines to address them.
We are now five years into the Millennium, and regrettably the momentum and hopes created by the Nineties seem to have petered out, along with the hopes of billions of the world’s people. A stark aura of evil has somehow managed to push those hopes aside, as new priorities were forced upon us like a tornado. The War on Terror took over the international stage as the only concern garnering attention. All other concerns were either shelved or left to individual States to deal with. Developing States were left without effective monitoring mechanisms or methods of follow-up, and with little access to the resources needed to overcome problems that had at least been given due recognition in the 1990s.
Yes, terrorism is a serious issue and there is no justification for innocent human beings anywhere in this planet to fall victim to deadly attacks by sadistic mobs, people nurtured by an ugly culture of death, blood and a total disregard for the sanctity of life. However, should the world be completely diverted from the other determinants of world peace? Must humankind direct all of its attention to what is likely a symptom of other more widespread social problems?
This narrow vision will neither win the War on Terror, nor does it demonstrate that the global community is serious about the welfare of all. Furthermore, four years of dealing with the problem of terror from a purely a military and security perspective - and governing international relations with such an outlook - has proven ineffective. There are serious problems in the world, perhaps not as dramatic or sensational as terror, that cause thousands and even millions of casualties per year.
For example, the world is threatened with catastrophe due to environmental degradation from man-made pollutants. Many of the world’s cities are subject to serious “pollution storms,” when wind brings large volumes of polluted air into major population centers. This renders it almost impossible for humans to function, with some suffering illness and even death.
Serious climactic changes are being seen as the protective ozone layer is gradually eaten away by toxic gases and the burning of fuel. The devastating effects of a fragile ozone layer should not be ignored, because ozone depletion knows nothing of national boundaries and military or economic power, nor does the War on Terror have any bearing on these effects.
So shall the world continue with this misguided global agenda dictated by military and economic might, overseen by proponents of narrow interests that have shown no concern for the welfare of mankind as a whole?
The result of this is that even more seeds
of terror have been planted and more fertile ground has been made available
for terrorism to unleash its unquenchable thirst for blood. The horrific daily
scenes in
The rightwing neo-con establishment in
the
These are not conspiracy theories, nor
are they plucked out of thin air. This is clearly discernible based on the
documents of seminars, conferences and meetings held by the partners of this
alliance over the last three decades. For the past five years, the
If the belligerency that led to the invasion of
The forces that accommodated an invasion
of
