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Kashif Zulfiqar
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vishu sibal | Nov 6th, 2003
vishu sibal | Nov 6th, 2003
If only a tiny fraction of social spending reaches the needy, at least it is doing some good, instead of defense spending that often literally ends up in smoke. "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."
Who said this? No, it wasn't a pacifist like Gandhi or Martin Luther King. It was General Dwight David Eisenhower, the supreme commander of all allied forces in Europe during the most momentous war that the world has ever seen - World War II - and later the President of the United States. I don't usually start a column with a remark from someone else but I could not have found a more appropriate quote from a more authoritative source to warn the people and leaders of South Asia of the human cost of the arms race. If a general and a leader of a prosperous country like the United States could realize that spending on weapons steals money from the hungry and the needy, why can't the generals and leaders of two not-so-prosperous countries like India and Pakistan?
I recently spotted an article in the New York Times that depressed me to no end. It stated that India was the second-biggest importer of arms in the world in recent years and was expected to become the biggest importer in the coming decade. Indian defense spending has been rapidly increasing in the recent past. An arms import is just one component of this increase. The elaborate nuclear strategic policy, for instance, that India has envisioned for deploying its nuclear weapons (with a land, sea and air-based triad) will, if implemented, gobble up untold millions of rupees in the coming years.
All told, the New York Times article estimates that India will spend at least $100 billion on defense in the coming decade. 100 billion dollars (4,800 billion Indian rupees)! How many children could be fed in that amount, how many sick people given relief, how many schools built, how many wells dug? At whose expense will all this spending on armaments be? The poor and the destitute of India. And who will be major beneficiaries of all the arms purchases? Weapon manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, salivate at the prospect.
I can hear the counterarguments: As Indian hawk K. Subrahmanyam wrote into a well known Indian paper few years ago, a nation, like a family, has to feed and clothe itself but it also has to defend itself against its enemies. And, critics may ask, what about the corruption that ensures that only a tiny fraction of spending on social needs reaches the indigent?
vishu sibal | Nov 6th, 2003
I am sorry to say this but yes, in most cases when it comes to war weapons are more important than humans. We humans want peace, and in my eyes we don't deserve it. That is because we humans started wars in the first place and now we want peace?! I don't think so. In most peoples eyes to gain peace we must throw down our weapons, that is no how we will get peace now, I mean we might have gained peace by doing that after WW2( world war 2) but now to gain peace we must fight for it. Even if we do gain peace, there will always be someone who causes more fighting. So we must kill them off. "That is not the way to get peace", says an army general," but it will make the people happy". That is the way the army thinks. (In my opinion). In some rare cases, humans are born with enough intelligence to stop the fighting, but then someone somewhere will take advantage of this moment and wage a war on an unexpecting country, which you might have guessed will lead to more fighting. As it says in this article it is true that a family has to feed itself clothe itself, so why can't a nation fight for itself. It si time we stop depending on other places. The quote "Blood can only be washed with blood" is true when you really think about it.
vishu sibal | Nov 6th, 2003
I am sorry to say this but yes, in most cases when it comes to war weapons are more important than humans. We humans want peace, and in my eyes we don't deserve it. That is because we humans started wars in the first place and now we want peace?! I don't think so. In most peoples eyes to gain peace we must throw down our weapons, that is no how we will get peace now, I mean we might have gained peace by doing that after WW2( world war 2) but now to gain peace we must fight for it. Even if we do gain peace, there will always be someone who causes more fighting. So we must kill them off. "That is not the way to get peace", says an army general," but it will make the people happy". That is the way the army thinks. (In my opinion). In some rare cases, humans are born with enough intelligence to stop the fighting, but then someone somewhere will take advantage of this moment and wage a war on an unexpecting country, which you might have guessed will lead to more fighting. As it says in this article it is true that a family has to feed itself clothe itself, so why can't a nation fight for itself. It si time we stop depending on other places. The quote "Blood can only be washed with blood" is true when you really think about it.
vishu sibal | Nov 6th, 2003
I am sorry to say this but yes, in most cases when it comes to war weapons are more important than humans. We humans want peace, and in my eyes we don't deserve it. That is because we humans started wars in the first place and now we want peace?! I don't think so. In most peoples eyes to gain peace we must throw down our weapons, that is no how we will get peace now, I mean we might have gained peace by doing that after WW2( world war 2) but now to gain peace we must fight for it. Even if we do gain peace, there will always be someone who causes more fighting. So we must kill them off. "That is not the way to get peace", says an army general," but it will make the people happy". That is the way the army thinks. (In my opinion). In some rare cases, humans are born with enough intelligence to stop the fighting, but then someone somewhere will take advantage of this moment and wage a war on an unexpecting country, which you might have guessed will lead to more fighting. As it says in this article it is true that a family has to feed itself clothe itself, so why can't a nation fight for itself. It si time we stop depending on other places. The quote "blood can only be washed with blood" is true when you really think about it.
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