Why an “irony”? Hear what Dwight Eisenhower said to the
American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16, 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. This world in arms is not spending
money alone. It is spending the
sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its
children. This is not a way of
life at all in any true sense.
Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of
iron.” The current figures in the
arms trade point to his own country, the United States, as the Number One
“thief” of the top five arms traders in the world.
The Grimmett Report released (August 24, 2012) says the world spends a thousand billion US dollars annually on arms trade. The period covering 2004-2011 shows the United States capturing 40% of the total in sales, followed by Russia taking 17%. France gets third place with 8%; fourth is United Kingdom, 5%; and fifth place is a tie between Germany and China, getting 4% each.
The Grimmett Report released (August 24, 2012) says the world spends a thousand billion US dollars annually on arms trade. The period covering 2004-2011 shows the United States capturing 40% of the total in sales, followed by Russia taking 17%. France gets third place with 8%; fourth is United Kingdom, 5%; and fifth place is a tie between Germany and China, getting 4% each.
From 2005-2009, the
order in arms exports was: US, 30%; Russia, 23%; Germany, 10%; France, 8% and
UK, 4%, according to a report of the independent Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (SIPRI). It’s
interesting to note, too, that in the same period, the US’ top customers were South Korea, Israel, and
the United Arab Emirates, while Russia’s biggest clients were China and
India. Germany sold mostly to
other European countries such as Turkey and Greece; France’s main clients were
United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Greece; while the bulk of UK’s sales went
to the US. (OhmyGee, what a crazy
merry go round, a contemptible circus!)
If you consider who sells to whom and who buys from whom, and link your
observations to border conflicts and regional wars currently filling up the
news, you can more or less predict who will side with whom when these conflicts
escalate. Indeed, there is truth
in Pope Francis’ words about a third world war that may have already begun—“one
fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction.”
Pope Francis continued, “War is irrational; its only plan is to bring
destruction: it seeks to grow by destroying. Greed, intolerance, the lust for power—these motives
underlie the decision to go to war and they are too often justified by an
ideology… When man thinks only of himself, of his own interests and places himself
in the center, when he permits himself to be captivated by the idols of
dominion and power, when he puts himself in God’s place, then all relationships
are broken and everything is ruined; then the door opens to violence,
indifference, and conflict.”
War dehumanizes man, the Pope said, as to be human means to care for one
another. “But when harmony is
broken… the brother who is to be cared for and loved becomes an adversary to
fight, to kill… we bring about the rebirth of Cain in every act of violence and
in every war… we continue this history of conflict between brothers… We have
perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened
our ideas to justify ourselves. As if it were normal, we continue to sow
destruction, pain, death! Violence and war lead only to death, they speak of
death! Violence and war are the language of death!”
Is there a way out? Is it
possible (as the hippies used to chant) to give peace a chance? True peace, the pope said, is born of
the human heart reconciled with God and with one’s brothers.” To get off from this “spiral of sorrow
and death…” the Pope believes all men and women of goodwill, regardless
of religious affinity or whether or not they profess any religion, must enter
what he calls the silence of the Cross.
“My Christian faith urges me to look to the Cross. There, we can see
God’s reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with
the language of death. In the
silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of
reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue, and peace is spoken.”
The silence of the Cross can make the “noise of weapons cease,” help one
leave behind the self-interest that hardens the heart, overcome the
indifference that makes the heart insensitive towards others. “War always marks the failure of peace,
it is always a defeat for humanity,” Pope Francis said.
True, nobody ever wins a war.
A Pentagon official reportedly explained why the US military censored
graphic footage from the Gulf War:
“If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any
war.” Fact: the US became the
prime supplier to the Middle East after the 1991 Persian Gulf crisis. Do you see a connection?
But now, nearly 25 years and monumental information technology leaps
later, we do see such war footage.
Tortures, beheadings, mass graves, suicide bombings, child soldiers—we
don’t just read about the cruelty of war in history books, we see the graphic
images on our tv screens and computers.
What do we do about it? H.
G. Wells once said, “If we do not end war, war will end us.” And that’s the truth.
