“The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war.”
That’s is what United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres exclaimed as he delivered an appeal to warring parties around the world to lay down arms in a global ceasefire.
The United States, which is currently engaged in warring hostilities on nearly every continent of the world, should and must lead the way.
As I’ve mentioned a few times recently, COVID-19 has shown in sharp contrast how badly screwed up our national security priorities are. As the Center for Global Development points out, the Pentagon is “a woefully insufficient, inefficient, and expensive tool to combat a pandemic. What is needed most right now are scientists and medical workers collaborating across countries.”
A global ceasefire would allow scientists, medical workers, and humanitarians to reach populations that are most vulnerable to the threat of COVID-19. The same people most devastated by hostility and wars–women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized, displaced and refugees–are also the most likely to suffer devastating losses to this pandemic.
Additionally, health care systems in war-torn countries have often already reached the point of collapse, as is the case in Yemen with the Saudi-led war there. Given its support and assistance in this brutal war, the U.S. will be directly complicit in any further tragedy there due to COVID-19.
It’s imperative that the U.S. government, through medical workers and scientists, not soldiers and bombs, do everything in its power to fight this pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic represents a huge threat to international peace and security, and its solutions will be humanitarian in nature, not military.
That’s why it’s so important for the U.S. to back the global ceasefire, and finally put an end to its endless wars of choice. Please, sign your name to our call for world leaders to speak out and do everything they can in support of the ceasefire.
We have the resources to fight COVID-19 at an unprecedented level. Yet we’re spending them wrong. Last year, the U.S. spent over $740 billion on the Pentagon, yet just $8 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We each know what is killing the most people, both here in the U.S. and around the world. It’s time to rethink what true security really is, and time to rework our national security priorities. A global ceasefire could create an environment for this critical conversation. All we have to do, is do it.
In peace,
Jon Rainwater
Peace Action