Chip’s journey

Today, I saw the monument to Aristide Briand on the Quai d’Orsay in Paris, where on August 27, 1928, fifteen nations signed the Pact of Paris, or Kellogg-Briand Pact, renouncing war. Briand won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926, just five years before Jane Addams did.

There’s a story that he

attended a dinner in Geneva where the guests were given menu cards on which was printed a cartoon depicting the statesmen of the world smashing a statue of Mars while Briand, alone, talked to the god of war trying to convince him to commit suicide. The cartoon caught not only Briand’s main objective in public life - the elimination of war in international relations - but also his method: his penchant for personal diplomacy, his renowned persuasiveness, and his habit of attacking the heart of a problem rather than its symbols or symptoms

(see his bio on the Nobel Prize site ).

The first article of the Kellogg-Briand pact states: “The High Contracting Parties solemly declare in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another.” Should the US now formally renounce its signing of the pact or just pretend that what it’s doing in Afghanistan and Iraq isn’t war?

Has the US abandoned its role as moral leader in the world today? At a time when many people and countries actually look to the US as a model, we seem to have chosen the low road on many issues.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has closely monitored foreign aid for years. They use the ratio of “official development assistance” to “gross national income” as a way to account for the different sizes of economies (for example, Iceland vs United Kingdom). They also distinguish between developing countries, such as Indonesia, whose GDP is almost as high as Austria’s, but can’t be expected to contribute nearly as much given its huge population and less developed economy.

Among developed countries, the average ratio is .41, that is, about four tenths of one percent of gross national income. Around 1980 the UN set seven tenths as a goal, but Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden are still the only countries to meet the target. Three other countries have given firm dates: Belgium by 2010; Ireland by 2007; and France by 2012. Norway is the most generous, at .92. There’s a wide range, with the US at the very bottom, .14. The US has made no pledge to reach the UN target, and as far as I can see, barely acknowledges it exists.

This is all on top of the facts that much aid is pledged but never delivered, 2/3 of US aid goes to just Egypt and Israel, much of the aid is tied to military needs or with strings to US companies, more money flows from poor to rich nations than the other way around, and first world trade subsidies dwarf even the seven tenths target.

I used to think that the US made up in private donations for what it failed to do officially. But the evidence I’ve seen says we do even worse in the private sector. Norwegians, for example, give at five times the rate Americans do.

Now, President Bush’s Millennium Challenge Account (MCA) proposal, actually works against sustainable development. it abandons the idea of helping people learn how to fish. Instead, it holds out fish to starving people in return for their compliance with US strategic and financial interests.