The people now drastically need a positive vision of a better world
ISLAMABAD: The United States, considering itself the champion of humanitarian rights and values, has committed multiple violations against humanity for ages and always preferred the use of force against any state’s territorial integrity in order to sway dominance. Dropping nuclear bombs on Japan, storming Afghanistan to fight the terrorism and invading Iraq by creating a discourse of weapons of mass destruction reveal the catastrophic violations.
The US has failed to protect human rights, exterminate the terrorism, eradicate poverty and ignorance, halt violence against women and promote peace and harmony in the world. It has rather become an intervening state. For ages, it has been intervening in the internal affairs of various states, particularly the Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan allegedly fostering a rhetoric to protect humanity from violence. Had America focused on eliminating poverty and ignorance from the world, a visible prosperity would have been witnessed all over the world.
According to a recent report from Brown University, the US has spent nearly $5 trillion on the war in the Middle East since 2001. The expense is greater than the combined GDP of 31 Latin American and Caribbean countries. With that hefty money, poverty and hunger could have been eradicated from Ethiopia, Somalia and other crippling African states. The US’s haemorrhaging war on terrorism in Afghanistan has also not rendered productive results; rather, it has escalated tensions in the region. The people now drastically need a positive vision of a better world. The US must lead the fight against poverty, ignorance and repression with the same determination and commitment of resources as the war on terrorism.
Asfand Bhutto
Published in The Express Tribune, December 31st, 2016.
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