BY POLLY MANN
The U.N. has announced that it is short $220 million of the $1.4 billion which was allocated for the starving children of Syria, saying it is the worst crisis it has faced since the start of the war there in 2011. Nearly 6 million children are without food and another 2.5 million in neighboring countries are in the same situation. The United States can easily afford to ameliorate this crisis by transferring $220 million from its allotment to the military and use it to buy food for starving children. Profits from the manufacturing and selling of arms would, no doubt, be reduced. Aren’t the lives of children more important than these sums?
We know that those manufacturers are not ghouls. They, no doubt, have children whom they love. The U.S. General Omar Bradley once wrote: “We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” When a soldier trained to kill reminds us that peace should be our purpose, why can we not reject violence.
