The US Might Try Responding With Peace

The article ``US Grapples With How to Respond to New World Scene,'' Dec. 6, should not have asked ``... what role should the United States military be prepared to fill?'' It should have asked what role should the US play in the new world scene and how should the military fit within that role? The same issue described how 250,000 Czechs had stopped at Wenceslas Square after work for polite, patient, and purposeful demonstration and then had gone home to dinner. That represents the real power in the new world scene. If the US would make the emphasis of its international effort a polite, patient, purposeful push for peace instead of military posture, we would see a tremendous response from people around the world. Thomas E. Wulling Saint Paul, Minn.

This article provides a sure way to lose the peace. The cold war is rapidly ending and the US must quickly develop policies which meet the present realities. The four basic requirements for meeting the challenge for the new world are: 1) assuring that the democratic reforms don't miscarry into a fascist dictatorship which utilizes the profit system for its authoritarian ends or degenerate into nationalistic civil wars; 2) the economy, with a high degree of dependency on military production and research, must be shifted to peacetime production with little disruption; 3) the third world, often driven by the profit motive, must achieve a high degree of social/economic justice and equality; 4) the unification of Germany will not be a military threat, but the economic power it will generate with an axis uniting northern Asia's resources with western Russia and the 1992 Common Market will create an economic superpower. Winning the peace, something the US is not adept at, will require more than simply readjusting the military. It will require all the nation's talent and resourcefulness. Paul Bonnifield Yampa, Colo.

The AID Loans Dispute In his column ``Bigger Bang for Loan Bucks,'' Dec. 4, Rushworth Kidder calls attention to the controversy caused by the Results Education Fund report. The report criticizes the Agency for International Development's implementation of a micro-enterprise earmark and has spurred a congressional request for a General Accounting Office investigation. AID responds unfairly in saying that tiny loans for the poor take bang away from the bucks invested in larger, wage-earner projects. These strategies should complement rather than compete against one another. Micro-enterprise lending claims to be no more of a total solution to poverty than education, health care, or any other vital component of development at the community level. AID owes micro-enterprise a fair change in the spirit of small loans to the neediest as Congress intended. The agency needs to conduct business in a less politicized fashion and open its doors to fledgling community-based efforts, particularly in nations where these opportunities have been historically denied. Congress and this taxpayer expect no less. Carol M. Petersen Chicago

The Monitor has had two recent articles on recycling newsprint. The first article even told what percentage of the newsprint used by some major newspapers is recycled. One could not help but notice that the articles did not mention the Monitor. It would interest your readers to know what percentage of the newsprint you use is from recycled newspaper. As your newspaper stated: ``Every ton that is recycled saves 19 trees.'' Harold Murdock Chapel Hill, N.C.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
QR Code to The US Might Try Responding With Peace
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/1990/0102/ed02.html
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe