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This transcript appears in the March 4, 2022 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

[Print version of this transcript]

Tony Magliano

War Is Not Inevitable! Emergency Response to the Crises: A New, Human-Centered Paradigm

The following is the edited transcript of the presentation by Tony Magliano to Panel 2, of the Schiller Institute conference, “100 Seconds to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock: We Need a New Security Architecture!” on February 19, 2022. Mr. Magliano is an internationally syndicated columnist for the Catholic social justice and peace mission.

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Schiller Institute
Tony Magliano

My name is Tony Magliano. I write an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace column. I am honored to be invited by the Schiller Institute to share a few brief thoughts concerning the crisis inflicted upon starving Afghans as well as the volatile Russian-Ukrainian crisis.

The Human Cost of War

According to Brown University’s “Costs of War” project, Afghanistan has endured more than 46,000 civilian war deaths, serious human rights abuses against civilians committed by CIA-armed militias, mental health problems in two-thirds of the population—including countless traumatized children—large-scale destruction of infrastructure, and over 2 million refugees.

On top of all this misery, countless Afghans are starving!

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently told the UN Security Council that, “Daily life has become a frozen hell for the people of Afghanistan.” He said,

As a matter of moral responsibility—and regional and global security and prosperity—we cannot abandon them. They need peace. They need hope. They need help. And they need it now.

In addition to a quick, far more robust response to ensure that all Afghans—especially the children—have enough quality food to eat, Guterres underscored the need to free-up frozen Afghan currency reserves and additional cash injections.

While the Biden Administration has committed approximately $780 million for humanitarian assistance, that stingy amount is less than what the U.S. spent every three days during its 20-year war in Afghanistan.

This is a humanitarian emergency! Following the selfless example of first responders, we need to provide an emergency response.

We owe it to them!

The Russian-Ukrainian Crisis

Turning to the volatile Russian-Ukrainian crisis. If war breaks out, it will be a total disaster—except for political hawks and the military-industrial complex. Weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon are already raking in a fortune fueling this immoral, preventable war.

Just imagine all the inhumane carnage from a conventional war, but even worse, imagine a thermonuclear war.

As reported by Vatican News, Colonel [Konstantin] Sivkov, Deputy President of the Kremlin-backed Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences (RARAN), is worried that military tensions between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine could escalate into nuclear war; citing that such a nuclear war would destroy the U.S. and Russia and change the world forever. This is a most appropriate time to watch the realistic nuclear war movie, The Day After.

A New Societal Paradigm

The people of the world, especially the poor and vulnerable, desperately need a new economic, political, and societal paradigm. A global model that places the life and dignity of human beings at the center. Where, in place of greed and raw power—love, justice and peace rule the day!

We need to remove our selfish blinders and broaden our view, realizing that we were created by God, father of all, and that we are all brothers and sisters in one human family.

Jesuit theologian and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin, insightfully said,

The age of nations is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the Earth.

Pope Francis, in his recent encyclical letter titled Fratelli Tutti—All Brothers: On Fraternity and Social Friendship urges us to build a Gospel-centered fraternal global alternative that replaces our “throwaway culture” with the “culture of encounter.” He challenges all of us, saying,

With the money spent on weapons and other military expenditures, let us establish a global fund that can finally put an end to hunger, and favor development in the most impoverished countries, so that their citizens will not resort to violent or illusory solutions, or have to leave their countries in order to seek a more dignified life.

Let’s build the Earth! Thank you.

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