Published on Wednesday, December 3, 2003 by the Miami HeraldJeffrey D. Sachs
President Bush is obsessed with the war on terrorism, especially with the military response to terrorism. This year, the United States will spend around $450 billion for the military, including the costs of the Iraq War, while it will spend no more than $15 billion to overcome global poverty, environmental degradation and disease. How much longer must the world live with Bush's obsession?
Throughout 2003, debate over Iraq dominated international diplomacy and took up almost the entire U.N. agenda. At the same time, Bush's emphasis on a one-dimensional, militarized approach to global problems has fueled instability throughout the Islamic world, leading to increased terrorism in Turkey, North Africa, Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia.
Focusing on terrorism to the exclusion of other issues, and emphasizing a military response to it, will not bring prosperity and peace or even a significant reduction in the number of attacks. While 3,000 people died on U.S. soil on Sept. 11, in Africa 8,000 children die every day from malaria. The United States spends more on Iraq in one day than it does on Africa's preventable and treatable malaria in a year.
World leaders must help guide the world away from this obsessive, failing approach. Ironically, Bush claims that the United Nations does not live up to its word, declaring in London recently ''the credibility of the United Nations depends on a willingness to keep its word and to act when action is required.'' Yet the United States repeatedly violates its own U.N. pledges.
For example, at the International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002, the United States signed the Monterrey Consensus, which includes a promise by rich countries to raise their development assistance toward 0.7 percent of national income. This implies an additional $60 billion per year from U.S. coffers -- about what it spent on Iraq this year. Yet Bush has simply ignored this promise.
Similarly, the United States has failed to act on its promises as a 1992 signatory to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. America also promised -- in the Doha Declaration in 2001 -- to open its markets to the world's poorest countries. Yet at Cancún this summer, it refused to accommodate even struggling African economies.
The list goes on. At the Millennium Assembly in 2000, the United States vowed to pursue reduction of global poverty, with little follow-up. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, the United States committed itself to protect global ecosystems, yet little has been seen or heard from U.S. policymakers on this issue since.
America is not alone in failing to promote the international goals adopted in the United Nations. But as the world's richest, most powerful country, its neglect is devastating. If America really wants to undercut terrorism, it must recognize the interconnectedness of extremism, poverty and environmental degradation.
But the world should not wait for America to come to its senses. Poor countries, especially the democracies of the developing world -- Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico, Ghana the Philippines -- should say, ''We need to act on the issues that concern us, not just on the issues that concern the United States.'' What the world needs most in 2004 is a declaration of independence from American willfulness.
Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
