In a Jan. 2 interview with Fritz Edlinger, Secretary General of the Austria-based Society for Austro-Arab Relations Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University addressed many topics, one of which was on the establishment of a UN fund to promote sustainable development with money taken out of military spending. On this topic, Professor Sachs had the following to say:
“Outside the UN across the street from headquarters is what they call Isaiah’s Wall, which is the inscription of the prophet Isaiah chapter 2 verse 4 which says ‘They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations will not make war on other nations, neither will they teach war anymore.’ I’m paraphrasing but you know Isaiah had the idea in the 8th Century BCE of the transforming the military to the civilian use. And we’re now spending two and a half trillion dollars a year worldwide on the military. The United States is around 40% of the world’s spending—shocking because we’re 4% of the world’s population.
