14) Conclusion

We have to take a hard look at war at this point in our world. I started this paper with a quote from the late Pope John Paul II about peace not coming to the world until there is equal, fair distribution of the world’s resources – so everyone has enough. Until then, the pope said war will persist.

 

And the late Pope said of war:

 

“Today the scale and horror of modern war – whether nuclear or not – makes it totally unacceptable as a means of settling differences.”

 

It would seem clear from this, that we have to find another tact. And as alluded to earlier in the paper, our administration would primarily focus on building peace by ramping up America’s social justice help around the world.

Historian, and author (“A People’s History of the United States”) Howard Zinn once wrote:

 

“The American people would be proud if their government would become a humanitarian superpower, rather than a military one.”

 

So how does that happen? Simple.

 

Right now foreign aid is 4% of the Federal Budget. Our administration would propose it be, at least, 33% of the Federal Budget. To achieve part of this, we would propose significant cuts to Departments like NASA, the Military…

 

In addition, we would propose higher taxes to help fund Foreign Aid more. This money could then go to (as mentioned above) start to transform military hardware into humanitarian vessels (figuratively and, well, literally).

Let’s take aircraft carriers.

 

There are currently 20 aircraft carriers operating throughout the world. Of the ten nations that possess an aircraft carrier, eight possess only one. The U.S. has: 10. (Another example of our excessive military readiness, expenditure, etc.)

 

Our administration would suggest, say, seven of these aircraft carriers be turned into “humanitarian aid vessels.”

Instead of war planes on the carrier deck, these carriers would have Army trucks and Army all-terrain vehicles (like what are pictured here). And the trucks, for instance, would be deployed to, say, Afghanistan (Iraq, Uganda, the Congo, Haiti…) to help the U.S. Agency for International Development bring food, seeds, small farming implements, and so on… to subsistence farmers.

 

This, in a real sense, would be “…beating swords into plowshares.” As would using these all-terrain vehicles, not just for combat, but rather to help impoverished Third World villagers.

 

In our campaign travels, we came across a couple in Ashtabula, Ohio, whose church raised enough to provide for five jeeps to help priests make it to rural villagers over some rough terrain. In that same vein, these U.S. military vehicles could help get villager’s crops and animals to market, transport equipment for new water wells, get the sick to hospitals in bigger population centers.

 

The applications are virtually endless…