Elders for Peace-Goals

WHAT GOALS FOR AMERICA?

We used to see ourselves as "a city on a hill" – a nation with a government of, by, and for all the people, rich and poor, a model of high-minded responsibility and generosity. Others saw us as a country of hope and opportunity.

Today, around the world, we are seen as a bully, going it alone, contemptuous of former allies, seeking world domination.

After 9/11 we had a great opportunity that we missed – to try to see why it happened.

It was a symptom of a much deeper reality, but we never looked beyond the symptom. We only reacted defensively – striking out at the "bad guys" – to hurt them because they had hurt us.

The attack on us was a symptom of something much deeper. You don’t solve problems by dealing only with symptoms. We’ll never end terrorism by just killing terrorists. Surely we all know that.

Why do they want to hurt us? Why do some feel so strongly about it that they’re willing to kill themselves in the process? Because they’re evil? Or because rightly or wrongly, they have very deep grievances?

What if we had used some of the billions of dollars we’ve spent since 9/11 on war and detention of "suspects" on efforts to make a better world? What if we’d seen ourselves as citizens of the world, not just of the US?

What if we’d worked with the UN, the Arab League, the Organization of American States, and other regional organizations to:

	Provide safe drinking water where it’s not available;
	Eliminate disease-caused blindness;
	Assure free or affordable access to treatment for Aids;
	Restore and guarantee the security of both the Israelis and the Palestinians in the two states established by the UN in 1948;

What if we’d:

	Begun to free ourselves from dependence on oil by developing renewable energy on a large scale; and
	Increased our federal revenues for needed infrastructure at home by terminating the skewed tax cuts for the wealthy and preventing US corporations from escaping US taxes by having off-shore mailboxes?

It would be a very different world!

We’d be proud of our achievements and our country. We’d be admired by others. We’d be facing fewer terrorists instead of more. We’d be on our way to independence from the pollution-causing fossil fuels. We would not have the terrible deficit we have now.

We can’t go back to do it differently. But we can go forward to do it better.

We’d be working at being a helpful colleague in the world with a government interested in protecting and nurturing all of us. And we would still have financial resources far beyond what most of the world can claim.

We would realize that in our interdependent world we must have concern for one another. We would have learned that the moral principles of all the world’s religions are now necessities for survival itself. In 1968 UN Secretary General U Thant said:

"No man can save himself … or his people unless he … identifies

himself with and … works for the whole of mankind."

This is the central truth for us today. We will never be secure as long as we focus only on our own security and advantage.

In 1903, on World Communion Day, Dr. William Sloane Coffin said:

Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism

at the expense of another race …. Let us love our country, but

pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human

life that it supports – one planet, indivisible, with clean air, soil and

water; with liberty, justice and peace for all."

PLATFORM FOR SMART SECURITY

1. Strengthen International Institutions and Support the Rule of Law to Prevent Acts of Terrorism and Future Wars

· Increase support for multilateral diplomacy and international institutions like the United Nations; work collectively to eliminate terrorist networks and resolve international conflicts.

· Increase funding for humanitarian programs, which address the root causes of instability and terrorism, like hunger, illiteracy and unemployment.

· Reject unilateral preemptive war as a means of resolving international conflict; actively support institutions that can bring terrorists to justice, like the International Criminal Court.

2. Reduce the Threat and Stop the Spread of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction

· Demonstrate global leadership by renouncing the first use of nuclear weapons, the development of new nuclear weapons (“mini-nukes), and the testing of nuclear weapons.

· Honor our international commitment to work for the elimination of nuclear weapons, while increasing funding to secure “loose” Russian nuclear weapons and materials so they don’t fall into the hands of terrorists.

· Strengthen US commitment to international treaties like the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention

3. Change Budget Priorities to Reflect SMART Security Needs

· Eliminate military spending on obsolete and unnecessary weapons systems and use those resources to strengthen local “emergency responders” (such as fire, police, and public health departments), as well as for meeting urgent domestic needs like health care, education, jobs, etc.

· Provide adequate peacekeeping and re-development funding in troubled nations like Afghanistan and Iraq to secure long-term peace and stability.

· Provide new investments in renewable and safe energy alternatives, which will reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and the growing threat of global warming.

For more information, visit www.psr.org/smartsecurity