Re-Posting Great Ideas

March 17, 2007
The Best Idea In The World

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf

I'm so happy to see John Edwards saying this:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards on Thursday outlined his plan to tackle global poverty that calls for educating 23 million children in poor countries and creating a Cabinet-level position to oversee other initiatives.

Seeking to link poverty in other countries to U.S. national security, Edwards argued that militant extremists in nations torn apart by poverty and civil war have replaced government educational systems and are teaching young people to hate the United States.

"When you understand that, it suddenly becomes clear: global poverty is not just a moral issue for the United States -- it is a national security issue for the United States," he said at Saint Anselm College.

"If we tackle it, we have the chance to change a generation of potential extremists and enemies into a generation of friends," Edwards said.

You can read the rest of the address here.

Like the Cold War, our struggle against Islamic extremism isn't going to be won by miring our troops in a sequence of latter-day Vietnams, but by cultural engagement and 21st-century versions of the Marshall Plan. When we win, it'll be by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and teaching those who would otherwise grow up in ignorance. Actions like these are respected in all human cultures, and for every Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, there are tens of thousands of ordinary Muslims who care a lot more about their children's prosperity than about killing Americans. For them to take our side, we have to take theirs.

I hope what we're seeing here is the beginning of a distinctive Democratic approach to the problems posed by radical Islam, with its own grand story about how we're going to win. Being able to promise that you'll lead America to victory is very important in rallying people around your foreign policy, and one of the reasons why perceived Republican advantages on foreign policy lasted as long as they did, even in the face of wanton dishonesty and catastrophic blunders, was that Republicans kept making the promise of victory in Iraq. Democrats had to face up to the truth that Iraq was collapsing into disaster, and they were too conscientious to make any similarly grand and impossible promises. But plans like the one Edwards expresses here credibly promise victory in the larger struggle of which the Iraq War was supposed to be a part. It's how we triumphed over Communism, and it's how we're going to triumph over Islamic extremism too.

The reason I've given this post such a grandiose title is that global poverty is the biggest problem in the world. Serious though they are, our problems with militant Islam pale before the enormous scale of suffering due to malnutrition, preventable disease, and the other consequences of crushing poverty. Getting America to devote some share of its massive resources to this problem as the best means of waging a general campaign against anti-American extremism would change millions of lives, and be an event of great significance in human history.

March 17, 2007
Comments

But... but... but... educating 23 million children might cost somewhere around 120 billion dollars...

Incidentally, the cost of the Iraq War now may be reaching 2.5 trillion, according to a new study.

Posted by: Phoenician in a time of Romans | Mar 17, 2007 3:56:45 AM