History shows that the American government’s chief policy in dealing with worldwide violence seems to be fighting it with more violence. I don’t think I need to provide any examples. Rarely are nonviolent means an important part of our peacemaking process. Remember the “Peacekeeper Missile” of the late 1980s? As the name implies, the missile was designed for peacekeeping purposes. “Peacekeeper Missile,” other than being right up there with “rap music” as one of the biggest oxymorons of all time, was an attempt to make a violent war tool seem more humane.

The military expenditure of the United States Department of Defense for fiscal year 2006 is over $440 billion. The current U.S. military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next 14 biggest spenders combined, and nearly seven times larger than China’s, which places second. Part of the reason our budget probably isn’t translating well into domestic or worldwide safety is because we’re not spending it wisely. Most of these funds are spent on paying for military personnel, research and development, and weapons. So, in a large part, most of our defense dollars are spent on items that are not “peaceful,” such as creating advanced military technologies and weapons development. We spend billions on our own bombs, tanks and guns in an effort to stop others from using their bombs, tanks and guns in ways we don’t like. Metaphorically, we are the mother who spanks her child, saying “Stop spanking your brother!”

Spending more money, time and effort into employing peaceful and non-violent means to solve the world’s “violent” problems is an option that is rarely explored. Studies show that poverty and a lack of education are strongly correlated with violence worldwide and in our own backyard, yet these root problems of violence are often ignored when trying to find a solution towards worldwide peace.

Razek al-Kazem al-Khafaji is an Iraqi man who lost his wife, six children, parents and two brothers in an attack led by U.S. “precision-guided” weapons during America’s bounty hunt for Saddam Hussein. The day after the attack, Mr. al-Khafaji was furious, and to a group of reporters he yelled, “May God take our revenge on America!”

These are the clips we see on the news: Mad Iraqis and Middle-Easterners wishing death upon America, followed by government officials promising to stop terrorism as long as we have the funds to do so (enter the huge defense budget).

Back to Mr. al-Khafaji. Consider his situation. What’s an Iraqi to do? This man’s entire family was obliterated, leaving him alone, confused and enraged. Obviously, he wouldn’t mind getting back at the United States. It’s an appealing option for someone in a desperate situation who has seen America do nothing but harm in his region for decades. A terrorist or militant group will feed him and shelter him, providing weapons and a promise to kill Americans and get back at the U.S. Terrorism is a tempting option to many around the world devastated by U.S. military or political action.

It isn’t a stretch to see that our military spending and tactics, aimed primarily at violent ends, helps breed worldwide terrorism and hate. What about taking part of our military funds and using it to employ non-violent means to help decrease worldwide violence?

Imagine if one of our main goals was to send our troops out to bring Iraqis and the rest of the world food, drinking water, first aid kits, medicines, clothes and books. Imagine hundreds of schools and hospitals set up around the world donning American flags. America is currently engaged in such humanitarian efforts, but it doesn’t represent one percent of the dollars we spend building bombs. Wouldn’t spreading wealth and peace make for less anti-Americanism and perhaps, less people willing to devote their lives to killing Americans?

I think it would. Right now, 1.3 billion people in the world can’t have a glass of clean drinking water. 1,300,000,000 people. While we’re sipping away at our $2.00 Evians, I say, give them a darn drink! We can be a little bit more creative than bombs and tanks; wouldn’t providing the entire world with safe drinking water ensure that others would have a more favorable attitude towards us?

What if we started to be known as the country that sought first to help people through non-violent action, instead of making military decisions to solve our problems or exploiting countries for their natural resources? What if we had enough modesty to share our incredible wealth with the rest of the world, even to the point where we might go without some of the amenities that have become a part of our daily lives? Imagine how people in poor and desperate situations would feel about us then! Wouldn’t we be reducing the chance of people hating us and terrorists attacking us? Wouldn’t this world simply just be a better place? I don’t consider myself a moral expert, but isn’t this just the right thing to do?

Spending more time and effort into making the world a better place to live for others might just make the world a safer and more pleasant place for us to live too. Fighting to get more federal dollars allocated for peaceful purposes might be a good start. It’s impossible to defeat violence if all we have are guns, tanks and bombs. I think it was put best by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, regarding the U.S. war in Iraq, said, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

Behzad Varamini is a graduate student in Nutritional Sciences. He can be reached at bv29@cornell.edu. Gain Through Loss appears alternate Wednesdays.