Monday
Jan032005
Manmade Disasters
Monday, January 3, 2005 at 3:00AM
By Ellen Ratner
The year 2005 began under an umbrella of grief. A tsunami, in the blink of an eye, wiped out the lives and livelihoods of tens upon tens of thousands of victims. The death toll is already over 141,000 and expected to rise.
This disaster has unearthed unprecedented generosity. The United Nations reports that over $2 billion have been pledged for relief aid. This is the largest amount of aid pledged in the organization's history. People all over the world are signing onto the Internet to give to private organizations. The Red Cross took in $64 million dollars worth of donations over the weekend. Military airlift, muscle and medical relief has arrived in the tsunami-stricken area from all over the world.
I am heartened by the outpouring of generosity, but I cannot help but question why it is that we so generously rush to assist the victims of a natural disaster and ensure that their plight is aired around the clock, but we seem helpless or hapless to the plight of the victims of the manmade disasters of conflict.
The year 2004 had many more victims of manmade conflict than natural disasters. Over 2 million people have been driven from their homes in Sudan. The death toll was predicted to rise to 300,000 as the year ended. The United Nations describes the situation in Sudan as the "worst humanitarian crisis in history."
The U.S. Congress passed a bill in December to give Sudan $300 million in aid, but the money has not been appropriated. There is no military commitment to Sudan in this bill. This should not surprise us since the United States (under President Clinton) has a track record of being too late and too little to stop genocide. Over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 1994 while we stood on the sidelines and watched.
Meanwhile, we must take responsibility for the death resulting from our own doing. Iraq war causalities mount daily. The U.S. military death toll is over 1,300. The Iraqi civilian death toll is estimated to be any number from 15,000 to 100,000, depending on the reporting agency.
The cost of the Iraq war is close to $148 billion and projected to cost at least $40 billion a year for the foreseeable future. This number represents an enormous opportunity cost in what good we could do for our nation and the nations of the world. As President Eisenhower reminded the nation in 1953, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
I am told that the United States is a "Christian nation." I am not sure what this means. I thought Christ taught to do good to those who harm you, turn the other cheek, reconcile yourself to your brother – that whatever you do the least of these you do unto me; that blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God. I appreciate the generosity of the good people who opened their wallets to help heal tsunami's wounds, but I am saddened that these same people are unwilling to open their wallets or even their mouths to help the victims of conflict.
We are also blind to pain of those who have suffered on the periphery of conflict. We have lost interest, or perhaps never had interest in the plight of those tortured at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base. It is as though we think these fellow human beings are not worthy of our sympathy because they are Muslim and could be terrorists. It rarely gets reported that several of these men we tortured were found later to be completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Our blind spot to suffering caused by human hands is inexcusable.
I am often told that conflict is inevitable and that I am wasting my time to even mention it. As I begin the new year, I am reminded of a passage in one of the readings during Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. A man is standing on the street corner begging his fellow men to change their destructive ways. Another man stops him to ask, "Why do you stand here and protest? You will change nothing." And the man says, "I stand here so that I am not changed."
The year 2005 began under an umbrella of grief. A tsunami, in the blink of an eye, wiped out the lives and livelihoods of tens upon tens of thousands of victims. The death toll is already over 141,000 and expected to rise.
This disaster has unearthed unprecedented generosity. The United Nations reports that over $2 billion have been pledged for relief aid. This is the largest amount of aid pledged in the organization's history. People all over the world are signing onto the Internet to give to private organizations. The Red Cross took in $64 million dollars worth of donations over the weekend. Military airlift, muscle and medical relief has arrived in the tsunami-stricken area from all over the world.
I am heartened by the outpouring of generosity, but I cannot help but question why it is that we so generously rush to assist the victims of a natural disaster and ensure that their plight is aired around the clock, but we seem helpless or hapless to the plight of the victims of the manmade disasters of conflict.
The year 2004 had many more victims of manmade conflict than natural disasters. Over 2 million people have been driven from their homes in Sudan. The death toll was predicted to rise to 300,000 as the year ended. The United Nations describes the situation in Sudan as the "worst humanitarian crisis in history."
The U.S. Congress passed a bill in December to give Sudan $300 million in aid, but the money has not been appropriated. There is no military commitment to Sudan in this bill. This should not surprise us since the United States (under President Clinton) has a track record of being too late and too little to stop genocide. Over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 1994 while we stood on the sidelines and watched.
Meanwhile, we must take responsibility for the death resulting from our own doing. Iraq war causalities mount daily. The U.S. military death toll is over 1,300. The Iraqi civilian death toll is estimated to be any number from 15,000 to 100,000, depending on the reporting agency.
The cost of the Iraq war is close to $148 billion and projected to cost at least $40 billion a year for the foreseeable future. This number represents an enormous opportunity cost in what good we could do for our nation and the nations of the world. As President Eisenhower reminded the nation in 1953, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
I am told that the United States is a "Christian nation." I am not sure what this means. I thought Christ taught to do good to those who harm you, turn the other cheek, reconcile yourself to your brother – that whatever you do the least of these you do unto me; that blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the sons of God. I appreciate the generosity of the good people who opened their wallets to help heal tsunami's wounds, but I am saddened that these same people are unwilling to open their wallets or even their mouths to help the victims of conflict.
We are also blind to pain of those who have suffered on the periphery of conflict. We have lost interest, or perhaps never had interest in the plight of those tortured at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base. It is as though we think these fellow human beings are not worthy of our sympathy because they are Muslim and could be terrorists. It rarely gets reported that several of these men we tortured were found later to be completely innocent of any wrongdoing. Our blind spot to suffering caused by human hands is inexcusable.
I am often told that conflict is inevitable and that I am wasting my time to even mention it. As I begin the new year, I am reminded of a passage in one of the readings during Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. A man is standing on the street corner begging his fellow men to change their destructive ways. Another man stops him to ask, "Why do you stand here and protest? You will change nothing." And the man says, "I stand here so that I am not changed."
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