What's to Be Done?
by Severyn T. Bruyn

We have to watch a Middle East TV station or subscribe to a foreign newspaper to comprehend how we "blew off the limbs of women and the scalps of Iraqi children." This grim story is not in the New York Times and not on US television. So, the first thing I think about for action in the short term is to talk with political leaders about a public media system that goes beyond the power of business and government. We need to establish a global media system under UN auspices that is run professionally by civil society associations. The United States is fast becoming a world empire, a world state. And its media system is not letting the public know about it.

Here is more on what I think should be done to stop US imperialism and stop WWIII from happening. First, we should tell congressional leaders to talk in public about international law and a New World governing system. We should ask them to form a weekly or monthly lunch group in Washington to talk about strengthening the United Nations with a new financial foundation.

Second, we should ask political leaders to talk about a permanent multilateral Peace Force established under UN auspices. A UN Peacekeeping Force has been a success in Cyprus and East Timor and in 1964, to prevent fighting between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. A permanent Peace Force should be prepared to act on future crises, replacing the need for the US to be the world’s police force.

Third, we should ask political leaders to support international courts that are professionally established with judges from all nations. Fourth, we should destroy weapons of mass destruction with strong UN inspection teams. We should share this peacekeeping cost with a multilateral UN defense system that includes all nations. A system of mutual defense will do more than allow us to reduce military expenditures. It will stimulate the economy.

Why? This is critical.

Nations in the rest of the world are cutting their military spending while the United States is adding billions to the military budget. The proposed military budget for fiscal 2003 is $379 billion, an increase of $48 billion over fiscal year 2002. This increase of $48 billion is larger than that the annual military budget of any other country in the world. The U.S. is shouldering the burden for the military security for nations around the world. We need to share that burden by establishing a stronger United Nations.

How can a strong UN be supported without costing the US government a dime? The UN could develop revenues from deep-seabed mining, require multinational licensing fees, create a one-cent levy on international mail, apply satellite communication fees, obtain money from ocean and atmospheric pollution penalties, tax international arms sales, charge royalties for use of the global commons like the open seas, apply the Tobin tax -- proposed by the Nobel prize-winning economist James Tobin -- on excessive speculation on cross-country currency speculation.

International law has been developing based on treaties, such as the Law of the Seas and the Tokyo Convention agreement on the environment. The UN General Assembly established an International Law Commission in 1947 to promote "the progressive development of international law and its codification." The US opposed these agreements and the International Criminal Court (ICC)

So, in a new administration, we should ask that all nuclear powers 1) renounce the first use of nuclear weapons; 2) end the development, testing, and production of nuclear warheads; 3) seek agreement on the mutual and verified destruction of nuclear weapons; 4) ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; 5) locate and reduce fissile material worldwide and negotiate a ban on its production.

The Bush administration rejected the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which prevents arms races -- rejected an international agreement to track the global trade in small arms --rejected a protocol to the Biological Weapons Treaty, to make it more verifiable -- rejected the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty -- rejected the Kyoto treaty on reducing carbon emissions to reverse the global warming trend -- rejected an international convention to ban child soldiers -- rejected the Start III Treaty with Russia to codify and verify planned deep cuts in nuclear arms -- rejected the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Now the next administration must support all these treaties.

The US Senate refused to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child -- the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). -- the Landmines Ban and the Ottawa Treaty -- the Law of the Sea. Now the next administration in Congress should support of these treaties.