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The Pentagon boasts that the sun never sets on its military but conventional War has its consequences: child soldiers, refugees and internally displaced children, the child victims gender-based violence that war breeds, the threat of landmines, the disruption of food supplies, healthcare and education, as well as the spread of malnutrition, not to mention ... Discovers Nandita Saikia
"The Pentagon boasts that the sun never sets on its military. That is a deplorable truth. The forces of the world's mightiest superpower stretch from pole to pole, from east to west and west to east," as Bob Aldridge, the author of 'First Strike� The Pentagon's Strategy for Nuclear War' and 'Nuclear Empire', commented in the introduction to the latter book. Most of us have been hearing about little in the news recently apart from reports about the War in Iraq. Our E-mail Inboxes often contain at least half a dozen mails from various organisations telling us about various peace initiatives like the recent peace march in London, or else reminding us that, "The US administers a nuclear empire which is global in scope. The protection of that empire rests in the US military..."
To a number of people here in India who receive E-mails from friends in the West asking whether George W Bush's plans affect everyday living, the whole issue seems slightly ridiculous. Post September 11 sympathy for the US of A is dying down fast and it seems to be becoming apparent that extreme actions are not the sole domain of Islamic fundamentalists.
And amongst the most vulnerable in a wartime situation are children. In recent years, the imposition of economic sanctions has been increasingly seen as a viable and less damaging alternative to conventional warfare but at the end of the day, it isn't military and political leaders who suffer due to the sanctions but the most unprotected sections of society, usually the poor and the young. For example, studies from Cuba, Haiti and Iraq following the imposition of sanctions each showed a rapid rise in the proportion of children who were malnourished. "In Haiti after 1991, for example, one study indicated that the price of staple foods increased fivefold and the proportion of malnourished children increased from 5 to 23 per cent," says Richard Garfield in "The Impact of Economic Sanctions on the Health of Women and Children", New York, Columbia University.
But conventional War has its consequences that many would say are even more excruciating: child soldiers, refugees and internally displaced children, the child victims gender-based violence that war breeds, in addition to the threat of landmines, the disruption of food supplies, healthcare and education, as well as the spread of malnutrition, not to mention the sheer psychosocial impact of violence on children. And as such, the question we're left with is what on Earth does anyone hope to achieve by waging or supporting a war of any kind without fully exploring all the other non-violent alternatives such as weapons inspections, especially since even non-violent alternatives such as the imposition of economic sanctions are in no way Childs play?
The UN says, "Children may become so familiar with mines that they forget they are lethal weapons. In northern Iraq, children have been known to use mines as wheels for toy trucks, and in Cambodia children have been seen playing "boules" with B40 anti-personnel mines, even beginning their own collections of landmines." It isn't the environment any of us would ever want our children to grow up in. Certain administrations might have us think differently, but we don't have the right to inflict such an environment on anyone else's children either. Maybe we should be looking more closely at Zero Conflict - A Technology of World Peace instead.
Copyright 2003 By Nandita Saikia
E-mail:
nandita_saikia@rediffmail.com or nanditasaikia@indiatimes.com
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Nandita Saikia
Nandita Saikia has had two books published: one on Business Communication and the other on Human Rights. She has has contributed to a number of publications on a wide range of subjects although her primary interests are domestic violence and choice inhibition.
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