04 March 2002
Achilles' Heel In Terror War, by Senator Patrick Leahy
(Op-Ed column from The Washington Times 03/04/02) (840)
(This byliner by Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, who is chairman of
the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Foreign
Operations, first appeared in The Washington Times on March 04, 2002
and is in the public domain.)
Achilles' Heel In Terror War
By Patrick Leahy
Our perceptions of the world changed on September 11, but you would
not have noticed it in President Bush's newly released foreign aid
budget proposal.
The president's solution to the terrorist threat is to return to
deficit spending and shift billions of dollars from domestic needs to
the Defense Department and homeland security. While the Congress will
debate the details and merits of these huge increases in the months
ahead, we should also pay attention to what is missing from the
president's priorities.
Glaringly absent is what many of his own advisers, as well as members
of Congress and experienced former national security officials, have
publicly urged -- a major increase in resources to improve the pitiful
living conditions of more than a third of the world's people.
Less than 1 percent of the U.S. federal budget is for foreign
assistance, with much of that going to military aid to two Middle East
allies, Israel and Egypt, and to programs that help us sell American
goods abroad. In per capita terms, most other industrialized nations
long ago surpassed the minimal foreign aid effort mustered by the
wealthiest nation the world has ever known.
Some say the American people do not want to send aid overseas. In
fact, the public consistently supports increases to combat poverty.
They understand the consequences of billions of people living in
squalor, with no education, scavenging for food or, if lucky enough to
have jobs, toiling under miserable conditions for a dollar or two a
day.
These people -- who have no access to safe water, sanitation or health
care, whose children often die in infancy, who have no hope of
anything better in their lifetimes -- are easy prey for those who sow
seeds of hatred and terror.
For years we have acted as if these conditions are of no consequence
to our security, even as the world's population has outpaced the
ability of many governments to provide the basic necessities of life.
September 11 should have changed our thinking forever.
In submitting his budget, the president himself promised to "defeat
the terrorists by building an enduring prosperity that promises more
opportunity and better lives for all the world's people." We had hoped
to see those words reflected as a true national priority, in actual
dollars, but his proposed $48 billion military increase, in a single
year, is 10 times the amount we spend to combat poverty worldwide.
For the world's poorest 2 billion children, including in predominantly
Muslim countries where free religious schools are often a breeding
ground for fanaticism, the president's budget provides $150 million
for education. We spend 6 times that amount on education for Vermont's
101,000 students. The president's budget provides $1.3 billion for
health care for the world's poorest 3 billion people, barely half the
amount we spend on health care for Vermont's 600,000 residents.
We struggle to find a few more millions to alleviate the suffering in
refugee camps, which are fertile grounds for terrorist recruits. We
argue about another $5 million or $10 million for micro loans to help
the world's poorest families start businesses. We rob Peter to pay
Paul for a few more millions to vaccinate against measles, which kills
900,000 children each year. We debate, year after year, funding for
family planning and reproductive health, which is below what it was
six years ago.
The less than one-half of 1 percent of the president's budget for
these vital programs is the Achilles' heel of the campaign against
terrorism. Just as wiping out illegal narcotics traffickers in one
place opens the door for others to fuel the demand for drugs, a
campaign against anti-American fanaticism will not be won by silencing
its voices in Afghanistan or anywhere else. Unless we also do much
more to target the causes of hatred, new voices will emerge, like a
virus, fed by the misery of people who have nothing to lose.
There is still time to construct an effective, balanced strategy
against terrorism. The Congress, with its power of the purse, should
ensure that a fraction of the proposed budget increase goes to combat
poverty. Five billion would be an absolute minimum as a start. That is
twice what we currently devote to the world's poor, and it would be
money well spent to provide the opportunity and hope that are
antidotes to the hate and despair upon which terrorism thrives.
(Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, is chairman of the U.S. Senate
Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Foreign Operations.)
(end text)
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