The Progressive Response
Volume 6, Number 40
December 20, 2002
The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) as part of its Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) project. FPIF, a "Think Tank Without Walls," is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." FPIF is joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at www.fpif.org, or email <feedback@fpif.org> to share your thoughts with us.
Tom Barry, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) www.irc-online.org and codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be contacted at <tom@irc-online.org>.
Editor: Tom Barry (IRC)
Table of Contents
I. Updates and Out-Takes
OUR FATEFUL CHOICE: GLOBAL LEADER OR COP?
LOOKING INTERNALLY: POLLS AND REAL LIFE
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)
TRADE IS A WOMEN'S ISSUE
By Bama Athreya, International Labor Rights Fund
TALKING TURKEY ABOUT IRAQ
By Jim Lobe
II. Outside the U.S.
NATO'S "TRANSFORMATION" AND ASIA
By Ninan Koshy
III. Letters and Comments
I. Updates and Out-Takes
OUR FATEFUL CHOICE: GLOBAL LEADER OR COP?
(Editor's Note: At Foreign Policy In Focus, we believe that U.S. foreign and military policy is taking a radical turn to the right. For readers of the Progressive Response, that's not new. Over the past several months, we have defined part of the role of our "think tank without walls linked to citizen-based agendas" as providing timely, informed, historically based analysis of the character of this radical new foreign and military policy doctrine. But we believe that this is not in itself a sufficient response. We need to do what we can to alert all Americans--not just progressives who have long been concerned about U.S. international affairs. More importantly, we need to engage the majority of Americans who are worried about the rush to war does not serve to protect this country's security and guarantee its well-being but undermine our welfare and national security.
As part of this conversation with Americans, we need to raise questions about how we can decrease our vulnerability and increase our good standing in the global community. We need to say with conviction and with persuasion that there is an alternative. We need to encourage Americans to raise their own voices about the fateful choice that is now being made. FPIF is determined to play a role in highlighting the voices of this country's majority who because of their ethics, morality, and humanitarianism insist that an alternative foreign and military would better serve our interests.
I encourage readers to read the new FPIF document, "Fateful Choice: Global Leader or Global Cop?", and decide whether its descriptions of current policies and its prescriptions for an alternative policy approach reflect their own observations and values. If not, I ask that you tell us why not by sending your comments to <feedback@fpif.org> or by simply filling out the feedback form on our website. If this statement does echo your own opinions, please let us know by endorsing it either as an individual or an organization through the official endorsement page at http://www.presentdanger.org/form-choice.html. We will be taking this statement to the media, to policymakers, and to large constituencies across the country--letting the Bush administration know that there is a chorus of voices demanding that the U.S. act more like a responsible leader than a self-appointed gendarme.
The directors, staff, and advisory committee members of Foreign Policy In Focus drafted and signed this statement. "Rather than spurning multilateralism," states the Fateful Choice document, "U.S. leaders should dedicate themselves to reforming and reinvigorating the processes and structures of international problem solving. As a world power with national interests around the globe, the United States has the greatest stake in building international institutions, fostering international cooperation, and instituting the international rule of law."
In conclusion, the FPIF staff and advisers state: "We are compelled--both by our consciences and our hopes for future generations--to call for a new foreign policy that successfully meets the new challenges that threaten global security, peace, and development. Threats to our common security need multilateral responses. Not in our name can the U.S. government ignore world opinion, reject international treaties, adopt first-strike prerogatives, and put power before reason. We stand behind a foreign and military policy that uses U.S. power responsibly--one that wins respect at home and abroad through its commitment to global partnerships and prudent international leadership. It is precisely such a policy that will best ensure America's own well-being and protect our own security."
FPIF Advisory Committee members who have included their own voices for an alternative foreign and military policy include such noted experts as Michael Klare, Robert Borosage, Hilary French, William Hartung, Salih Booker, John Cavanagh, Coletta Youngers, William Goodfellow, and Kristin Dawkins.
The entire document is available at the Present Danger website: http://www.presentdanger.org/choice.html
Comments and critiques of the FPIF statement, "Our Fateful Choice: Global Leader or Global Cop?--Voices for an Alternative U.S. Foreign and Military Policy" will be posted on a discussion board at www.presentdanger.org )
LOOKING INTERNALLY: POLLS AND REAL LIFE
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)
(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF commentary, at: http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2002/0212polls.html .)
In the small Persian Gulf state of Qatar, the U.S. Central Command has just completed a week-long computer simulation called "Internal Look." The exercise, designed to test command, control, and communication links, has been dubbed by some as a dry run for an invasion of Iraq early next year.
Meanwhile, civilian Pentagon and State Department officials are traversing the world trying to drum up support for a possible war with Iraq. Other than Britain and Australia, no country has embraced Washington's call to arms. One major reason for this hesitancy, one that the Bush administration seems intent on ignoring, is that ordinary men and women in other countries are openly opposed to the U.S. policy. Inconveniently for the Bush foreign policy team, this opposition is having an effect on many governments, even in quasi- and non-democratic nations.
That such unfavorable attitudes are real rather than media speculation was amply demonstrated by a massive poll (38,000 individuals) conducted in 44 countries by the prestigious Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. A follow-up survey in France, Germany, Turkey (all NATO allies), and Russia found "huge majorities" opposed to employing military power to remove Saddam Hussein, while in Britain the public was evenly split on the issue. The French (75%), Germans (54%), and Russians (76%) linked the U.S. position on using force to a desire to control Iraq's oil. Turks (83%) oppose letting the U.S. use bases in their country to launch attacks on Iraq.
It's not hard to understand why others, even close allies, express suspicion about U.S. motives and actions. South Korea presents a classic case. Nearly 50 years after the end of the Korean War, the U.S. still has 37,000 troops in the South and occupies a 630 acre base in the middle of the capital, Seoul. U.S. forces are responsible for polluting soil and water resources near their bases (e.g., the July 2000 dumping of toxic waste into the Han River, the source of drinking water for some 10 million Koreans in Seoul). Low-flying jet aircraft create sonic booms, disturbing residential areas. Soldiers commit crimes against Koreans but are largely immune from Korean courts under the Status of Forces Agreement. Most recently, Koreans were incensed when a U.S. military court exonerated two U.S. soldiers whose armored vehicle crushed two South Korean girls on their way to a birthday party last June.
The overall message to the United States from recent surveys in the region: let the two Koreas work out their peninsula's problems internally. Which might not be bad advice to take to heart. Instead of trying to run the world, perhaps the Bush administration should concentrate on remedying some of America's internal problems. One place to start is with another finding of the Pew survey: "Fully 15% of Americans say there have been times in the past year they have been unable to afford food--the highest proportion in any advanced economy."
(Daniel Smith <dan@fcnl.org>, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, is senior fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends (Quaker) Committee on National Legislation.)
TRADE IS A WOMEN'S ISSUE
By Bama Athreya, International Labor Rights Fund
(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF policy brief, at: http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol7/v7n15femtrade.html .)
From coffee to computers, women workers provide the labor that creates the goods that appear in the world's supermarkets and department stores. Women workers are good for trade, but is trade good for women workers? U.S. and global trade rules have a long way to go before they will provide women with the protections needed to ensure even basic and decent workplaces.
In fifty years of global trade negotiations, some things have changed. At least women's issues have finally made it onto the trade and diplomatic agenda. As a result of the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing, the Clinton administration established an Interagency Task Force on Women, with a separate high-level working group on Women in the Global Economy.
On August 6, 2002, the GSP program was renewed by Congress until December 31, 2006. During the legislative process on GSP renewal and the broader Trade Promotion Authority for the president (TPA, popularly known as Fast Track), an amendment in the Senate added nondiscrimination to the list of required worker rights. Unfortunately, that amendment was removed when reconciling the House and Senate versions of the bill, leaving the GSP--and all subsequent trade legislation--without antidiscrimination protection. Such a clause would simply bring the GSP into full conformity with core worker rights as defined by the ILO.
It would also highlight the problems of vulnerable women workers in developing countries and provide a remediation process through the GSP complaints mechanism. Trade pacts that do not reference the GSP language, such as the Andean Trade Preferences Act and the TPA, would still require a separate amendment to include nondiscrimination in their definition of worker rights.
Alarmingly, new agreements currently being considered do not meet even the inadequate standards set by the GSP program, and it appears that despite growing pressure from civil society both in the U.S. and its trading partners, the Bush administration is even less responsive to the needs of women workers than was the Clinton administration. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has emphasized that its current negotiating priorities will be the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and the Southern Africa Free Trade and Development Agreement (SAFTDA). These new agreements will reference not the GSP language but rather the TPA legislation.
The TPA language simply requires that trading nations uphold their own labor laws, though these laws are often inadequate and poorly enforced.
The TPA does provide some proactive language regarding U.S. assistance to trading partners to enable them to improve compliance with basic ILO standards, and the proposed South Africa regional agreement intriguingly suggests that development issues will be linked with trade negotiations. U.S. negotiators should: (1) bring labor rights, broadly defined to include necessary protections for women workers, to the table when discussing the new agreements with Latin American and southern African nations, (2) insist on GSP-like conditionality, linking access to U.S. markets with improved labor rights protections and enforcement, and (3) enable governments to meet the labor requirements through generous development assistance.
There is also a need to expand the thinking of policymakers regarding an adequate basket of labor rights protections. In 1998, the ILO, chief arbiter of international worker rights, identified a small handful of core labor rights. Although providing minimum labor standards, including an obligation to prohibit employment discrimination, this bundle does not sufficiently address the multitude of problems faced by women in the work force. Advocates should consider the ILO core labor rights a bare minimum and seek acceptance of a much broader set of issues as part of any social clause discussion. The ILO has neither defined nor incorporated into its conventions a definition of sexual harassment; this should be an immediate goal of advocates worldwide.
Finally, the U.S. government should ratify and become party to the sole international instrument that does offer any sort of guidance related to the rights of working women: the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Fully 170 countries, approximately 90% of the United Nations membership, have ratified this convention, including even Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Signed by President Carter in 1979, CEDAW languishes to this day in Congress, where the Senate has repeatedly refused even to allow a vote on the convention. During 2002, the Democratic leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee moved to bring CEDAW ratification to the full Senate, but a hostile executive branch lobbied hard against the move. Now that Republicans are once again in control of the Senate, there is little immediate prospect for progress on CEDAW ratification.
(Bama Athreya <bama.athreya@ilrf.org> is the deputy director for the International Labor Rights Fund, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit advocacy organization.)
TALKING TURKEY ABOUT IRAQ
By Jim Lobe
(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF Global Affairs commentary, at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0212turkey.html .)
The new Turkish government, led by the moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party, finds itself almost quite literally between Iraq and a hard place.
On the one hand, more than eight out of ten Turks are opposed to Turkey's cooperation with the United States in an invasion of Iraq, according to a recent poll released last week by Pew Research Center for People and the Press. On the other hand, the war plans of the Bush administration, which insists it favors democracy in Turkey and constantly extols it as a model for the Arab world, call for invading Iraq from bases in Turkey.
That's why the White House invited Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Washington. He is the leader of Turkey's new ruling party, whose reputation for incorruptibility and responsiveness to public opinion swept it into power in last month's elections. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a neoconservative hawk obsessed with overthrowing Saddam Hussein, delivered the invitation to Erdogan. To win the Turkish leader's support for U.S. war plans, Wolfowitz promised lavish sums of new economic aid, diplomatic support, and the construction of permanent new military facilities in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast. Wolfowitz has led the administration's campaign to persuade the rest of the world, particularly the Middle East, that Washington should now be seen as a liberator, not as an invader, of the region.
Erdogan is indeed in a difficult spot. He can accept the extraordinary inducements Bush will undoubtedly offer him. Or he can reject Bush's blandishments, risking the wrath not only of Washington, but also of those redoubtable "senior generals," and assure his fellow Turks that they have finally elected someone who takes them seriously.
"The essence of what we believe in--we in the United States--is that people should be free to determine their own future," Wolfowitz told a group of Turkish journalists last July. Neoconservatives like Wolfowitz have been big fans of Turkey both for its long-standing status as a loyal front-line state in NATO and for its past cooperation with Washington's policy toward Iraq. They have also lauded Turkey for its military alliance with Israel, which was actually midwifed by Wolfowitz's deputy, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle--both of whom have worked as lobbyists for Ankara.
"Turkey is proof that democracy can work for Muslims," said Wolfowitz last summer. Whether the new political leadership in Turkey decides to ignore public opinion and ally itself with the U.S. hawks will be a sign of just how democratic Turkey really is.
(Jim Lobe <jlobe@starpower.net> is a political analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)
We thank those of our readers who have responded with donations to make the PR possible. In the past three weeks we have raised $3,570 toward meeting our annual budget for the Progressive Response of $23,500. We have nearly 9,500 PR subscribers, and our readership is rapidly growing inside and outside the United States. For those of you who can afford it, please consider helping us cover our annual budget as part of your own progressive response.
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II. Outside the U.S.
(Editor's Note: FPIF's "Outside the U.S." component aims to bring non-U.S. voices into the U.S. policy debate and to foster dialog between Northern and Southern actors in global affairs issues. Please visit our Outside the U.S. page for other non-U.S. perspectives on global affairs and for information about submissions at: http://www.fpif.org/outside/index.html. If you're interested in submitting commentaries for our use, please send your solicitation to John Gershman at <john@irc-online.org>.)
NATO'S "TRANSFORMATION" AND ASIA
By Ninan Koshy
(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a FPIF "Outside the U.S." commentary, at: http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0212nato.html .)
NATO's first summit in Eastern Europe was held in the same city where the Warsaw Pact was buried. "Prague, once the victim of the Warsaw Pact, became the city where the Warsaw Pact met its end as an instrument of the cold war," Czech President Vaclav Havel proudly claimed in 1991.
"The international community is likely to face bad weather and it is necessary to build a certain security ark on the model of the Biblical Noah's ark," Secretary General Lord Robertson stated in October in Brussels. Allowing the entry of new species into NATO's ark was the easy bit at the Summit. Seven more nations were saved from the impending flood. But Prague could not give any clear direction or sense of purpose to the alliance.
Since the end of the cold war NATO has been a military alliance groping for a cause, an army in search of an enemy. When the Soviet Union collapsed NATO lost its raison d'être. When it met for the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1999 it reinvented itself with a "new strategic concept," ascribing to itself the right to intervene militarily in any part of the world. The alliance in search of an enemy appeared to find one on September 11, 2001. For the first time it invoked Article V of its Charter and enthusiastically supported America's War on Terror. But America, driving fast along a unilateralist path, had little use for NATO in its war against Afghanistan. Still the Secretary General claimed after the Prague summit, "A transformed and modernized NATO is at the very heart of the free world's response to terrorists and their backers, the failed states in which they flourish, and proliferating weapons of mass destruction."
The War on Terror is a war in and on Asia. It was started with a high-tech war against Afghanistan in Central Asia. Two war fronts in West Asia were officially incorporated into the War on Terror. One was against the Palestinian nation by the Israeli Prime Minister Sharon anticipating and receiving full support from Washington. The other was against Iraq, marking a new stage in the continuing military and political campaign to topple Saddam Hussein. As the war against Afghanistan entered its third month, the Bush administration moved to open up what was officially called the "second front"--South East Asia. The "axis of evil" included another Asian state, North Korea. The U.S. made a major shift in geographic emphasis toward Asia generally, and within this a dramatic expansion of military presence and engagement in Central, South, and South East Asia.
It was only natural that at the summit after agreeing to expand their alliance deep into the former Soviet bloc, NATO leaders reached out to the Central Asian nations whose assistance was vital in the U.S.-led war against Afghanistan. One senior alliance diplomat called the countries of Central Asia and the Caucuses " NATO's next frontier."
Over a year ago China was at the center of diplomatic momentum to increase the clout of the Shanghai Five (now the Shanghai Cooperation organization)--a regional cooperation group comprised of its Central Asian neighbors. The massive presence of U.S. troops in Central Asia has caused a significant shift in the military and power equation in the region, prompting Beijing to approach NATO for a "strategic dialogue" on common threats and an understanding of its role in Central Asia.
Meanwhile Australia is again apparently pushing for an Asia-Pacific alliance, reviving speculation about a "mini-NATO," first mentioned after the July 2001 ministerial meeting between the U.S. and Australia. The suggestion then was to bring the U.S., Australia, Japan, and South Korea together. The U.S. seems not to be averse to the idea, knows that the Philippines will be keen to join such an alliance and probably hopes Indonesia can also be pushed into it.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, in his book The Grand Chessboard, defines the North Atlantic alliance as part of an integrated, comprehensive, and long-term strategy for all of Eurasia in which NATO would eventually reach Asia, where another military alliance would connect Pacific and South East Asia states. The prediction is coming true. It may be useful to recall here that "the forward-looking strategy" for the defense of Western Europe was decided upon by NATO ministers in September 1950 because of the international situation created by the Korean war. The militarization of the containment policy in Europe and the transformation of NATO strategy were the result of the cold war becoming a shooting war in Asia. It is again a war in Asia--the War on Terror--that is transforming NATO.
(Dr. Ninan Koshy <knkoshy@vsnl.com> is a political commentator based in Trivandrum, Kerala, India, author of The War on Terror: Reordering the World (DAGA Press, 2002) and a regular analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)
III. Letters and Comments
The Bush administration is playing a high-stakes game in the Middle East, which has the potential of becoming the worst foreign policy gamble in the history of the United States. What's at stake is our entire way of life. As the administration paints itself into a corner in regards to an attack on Iraq, we must think about the implications of a worst-case scenario unfolding. The debate regarding a worst-case scenario is centered on what might happen in Iraq and the greater Middle East. Included are the possibility of Iraq attacking Israel, an extended campaign and associated civilian and military casualties, what type of government will take over, how the Kurds in the North and Shiites in the South will be controlled, and what effect the reactions of the extremist groups within the neighboring countries will be on the internal politics and regional stability.
What is not often debated or discussed is what the cost may be to the U.S. in terms of retaliation by Al Qaeda on U.S. soil. If the security experts are correct, we are still very vulnerable to a multitude of terrorist threats. For better or worse, we have the Homeland Security Act signed, but we are told that it will be five years until solid plans are implemented. The question that needs to be asked, debated, and answered is if the homeland is vulnerable, what are Al Qaeda's plans? We are in a current war with Al Qaeda and appear to be heading toward a second one with Iraq. The Bush administration would seem to link the two under the umbrella of The War on Terror, however, they are, indeed, mutually exclusive. Since Iraq has no credible, direct link to Al Qaeda, attacking Iraq will likely not deter, in any meaningful way, Al Qaeda from waging war with the United States. Conversely, bringing Al Qaeda to justice will not affect the situation in Iraq. Indeed, Iraq and Al Qaeda have altogether different agendas. Iraq, a U.S. client/ally in the Middle East until the moment it decided not to exit Kuwait, has not waged a war of international terror, but has rather waged a campaign of regional conflict and domestic human rights abuses. Al Qaeda, on the other hand, has waged a war directly on the U.S. and its interests around the globe.
How many U.S. civilian lives are worth an aggressive solution with Iraq? The American public will decide this. And what if the American public demands that the bombing in Iraq stop? What if we lose our campaign to oust Saddam? As they say, let's not go there. The Bush administration is gambling that Al Qaeda is not ready to exploit our security vulnerabilities during a time of war, and it s a big gamble, given the ultimate stakes.
- Perry A. Ruthven <paruthven@hotmail.com>
Re: Ugly American Problems
Great. At a time when I was getting blasted by the options of a right-wing media, your article finally gave me the balance I needed. I knew there had to be others like me who questioned the Bush administrations actions. I am an independent who voted for Gore, Clinton the second time around, and a former GOPer who mistakenly voted for Bush Sr. the first time around. (I let Rush "Limpball" do all of my thinking.) I have now put you on my favorite places. You don't think Mr. Case of AOL, Time/Warner, CNN is going to turn me in to Mr. Ashcroft, do you? As an American citizen, I would hate to be deported. (I've been called un-American for looking at such material.) To be serious, please keep up your questions regarding the actions of this administration. It is the most secret and scary of all the administrations that I have known.
- Dave Auger
Re: Why the U.S. Supports Israel
I am not shocked or surprised about the facts in your report of why the USA supports Israel. But I am so pleased to see it published for the world to know and why we are having serious trouble coming to our land. One fact that hurts me right to the heart is that we preach Freedom, Justice, and Liberty for all, yet we are far from it when it comes to other nations--such as the case of the Palestinian people. How much can they take and for how long are we going to let the Israelis demolish, occupy, and destroy the people of that land? They want freedom, justice, and liberty in their homeland just like everyone else.
- Roger Salah <rks@bigplanet.com>
Israel must not yield an inch of additional territory to the Arabs. This argument is based on the past thirty-year history of the brutal Arab internecine conflicts as well as brutality directed at Israelis, Americans, and other nations around the world. Let's look at the record. Saddam Hussein's genocide against the Kurds is well known. In the 1980s thousands of Kurds were slaughtered. Then there was the brutal Iran-Iraq war where perhaps more than a million Muslims were slaughtered by Muslims. Children were used to sweep the minefields. Next we recall the slaughter of about 20,000 Arabs by their co-religionists at Hamma, Syria. This was directed by Hafez Al Assad. The brutal Christian-Muslim Arab confrontation in the Sabra and Shatilla camps in Lebanon occurred and it has been acceptable to place the blame on Ariel Sharon. This loses credibility since he did not put a gun into the backs of the Christian-Arabs to force them to kill their brothers. Remember, the killing was done by Arabs against one another.
We can next move to "Black September" in Jordan. Arab refugees were massacred by their Jordanian brothers in 1970-71. Jordan showed no mercy toward these fellow Arabs. Was it because the Arab refugees attempted to wrest power by overthrowing the king? The massacred people were those who are now referred to as Palestinians. In truth these Transjordanian Arabs and the Jordanian Arabs are one and the same people. The Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the approaching attack on Saudi Arabia was a continuation of the internecine brutal conflict between the Arab families. Unfortunately the leadership of the Coalition forces did not go far enough to totally neutralize Iraq and complete the task of bringing lasting peace to the area. Remember Israel was no factor in Syrian Hamma, and Iraq-Kurdish genocide, the Iraq-Iran War and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Let us not forget this fact!
In November of 1979 the House of Saud put down a Sunni revolt in the Grand Mosque in Mecca and beheaded most of the survivors. It also exported the revolutionaries to Afghanistan to fight against the Russians. All in all, the evidence of brutality of Arab against Arab should be noted to help us understand Israeli reluctance to be taken in by false promises of renouncing violence. I recall Israeli body parts scattered over local streets thanks to Arab suicide bombers. I recall the benevolent brotherly Saudis in the massacre at the World Trade Center. No, my dear Arab-Muslim friends, I cannot be sold on your protestations of being a nonviolent, peaceful family. Your history tells a difference story, which cannot be rewritten.
- Norman Mann <orthdr@xox.net>
Re: "Buy American" Aid Package
Excellent summary of vital a vital issue. Having spent a number of years in developing countries, especially Kenya, it is hard to forget that the poverty we in the U.S. profess to want to reduce is actually increased by our subsidies to farmers in this country and our insistence on poor countries pushing aside tariffs for our products to enter and swamp their economies. The other side of the coin, of course, is that those in developing countries selling raw materials are usually paid a low world market price. The rich, indeed are getting richer, country by country, as a report released Dec. 3 by the United Nations points out (United Nations Population Fund report, www.unfpa.org)
- Bob Press <bpress@stetson.edu>
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