Benjie Oliveros | War and health

Benjie Oliveros | War and health

When I began thinking about this topic and doing my research, I realized that I should be discussing not only about war and health but, more importantly, on the war against the people’s right and access to health.

The two wars against the people’s right and access to health occurred simultaneously during the last decade of the previous century: the war of globalization and the war against “terrorist states,” “rogue states,” “the axis of evil,” and eventually the war on terror. The war on terror did not begin with the World Trade Center attacks in September 11, 2001. If began after the change in the political landscape in Eastern Europe and the USSR and the conception of the Defense Policy Guidelines in 1992 by then Defense Sec. Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, and the 2000 policy paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses – Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century” of the conservative think tank Project for a New American Century, which, by the way, is comprised of the very same group of people: Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, I. Lewis Libby, and Donald Rumsfeld, who became the Defense secretary of Bush Jr.

The change in political landscape in the Eastern bloc during the latter part of the 1980s provided both an opportunity and a challenge to the US. The communist bogey no longer exists while at the same time, it provided the US with the opportunity to use its political and military dominance to push for its own economic interests and agenda. Thus, even as there was no longer any serious challenge to its hegemony, it refused to downscale its military spending. It even increased it by creating a hype about a supposed new specter: Islamic fundamentalism. That is why even before the September 2011 attacks, the US, in its defense policy paper “Rebuilding America’s Defense – Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New Century,” was already able to underline the principles that would shape its global “defense” policy. The 9-11 attacks merely gave the US the perfect excuse to launch its war on terror.

What were these principles guiding US defense policy and global positioning?

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;

• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;

• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;

• we need to accept responsibility for America’s unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles

Those countries that were included in the list of “terrorist,” “rogue,” or “evil,” states are those that “stridently oppose US presence and influence in their regions” and those that oppose “economic freedom” or the “free market ideology” of globalization.

Globalization, as we experienced it during the last two decades is about “downplaying government intervention” in the economy, of controlling budget deficits, and deep cuts in government social spending. It is, according to economist Joseph Stiglitz, about “austerity packages and privatization.” And among the most hit by these measures are the budgets for health and education. And the countries that refuse these measures, as well as US power projections run the risk of being targets of the US war on terror..... MORE

Source:  Bulatlat.com

URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/09/24/benjie-oliveros-war-and-health/