I was watching Filipino satellite TV this morning before work because I wanted to hone my Tagalog skills and also because I’m tired of hearing about the guy with TB who placed the world at risk by flying from the States to Europe and back. On a news show called “ 24 hours” I saw a story that was quite interesting. It was about peace: the Global Peace Index. Watching this story, I learned something about the US that you probably won’t hear a lot about from our media.
The Global Peace Index is the brainchild of Australian IT entrepreneur and philanthropist Steve Killelea. According to the PR Newswire, the index uses the Economist Intelligence Unit to assess a countries' peacefulness based on wide range of factors. The 24 factors include the ease of obtaining weapons (guns, small explosives), military expenditure, local corruption, and the level of respect for human rights.
The PR Newswire states that:
"The objective of the Global Peace Index was to go beyond a crude measure of wars by systematically exploring the texture of peace," explained Global Peace Index President, Mr. Clyde McConaghy, speaking in Washington. "The Index provides a quantitative measure of peacefulness that is comparable over time, and we hope it will inspire and influence world leaders and governments to further action."
The Index has already won the support of an influential and distinguished group of supporters, many of whom are dedicated to promoting global peace, including former U.S. President James Carter, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sir Richard Branson and Harriet Fulbright of the Fulbright Centre
.
And from this analysis, some patterns were observed:
-- Peace is correlated to indicators such as income, schooling and the level of regional integration
-- Peaceful countries often shared high levels of transparency of government and low corruption
-- Small, stable countries which are part of regional blocs are most likely to get a higher ranking
An analysis of 121 nations on their peacefulness was completed. Norway ranked first. Most peaceful nations are in Europe, but Japan was an exception from Asia. The US ranked 96. Why is the US ranked near the bottom of the list? MSNBC reports that it's because we are involved in war, but that’s ignoring some important data that contributes to the formula. The China National News is a little more complete in its reporting:
Its low ranking (the US) is a result of gun abuse, civil riot incidents, engagement in warfare and external conflict, as well as the fact that a large share of its GDP goes on military expenditure.
You might wonder what gives the US the moral license to promote peace when it’s near the bottom of the list.
Another factor to consider for the US and its citizens is the country on the bottom of the list: Iraq. Yea, Iraq is number 121. And who is to blame for that? I can imagine that persons in other countries are saying “let Americans kill themselves and others over there rather than over here in our place.”
Here are the rankings from the PR Newswire:
Countries most at peace ranked first
Rank Country Score
1 Norway 1.357
2 New Zealand 1.363
3 Denmark 1.377
4 Ireland 1.396
5 Japan 1.413
6 Finland 1.447
7 Sweden 1.478
8 Canada 1.481
9 Portugal 1.481
10 Austria 1.483
11 Belgium 1.498
12 Germany 1.523
13 Czech Republic 1.524
14 Switzerland 1.526
15 Slovenia 1.539
16 Chile 1.568
17 Slovakia 1.571
18 Hungary 1.575
19 Bhutan 1.611
20 Netherlands 1.620
21 Spain 1.633
22 Oman 1.641
23 Hong Kong 1.657
24 Uruguay 1.661
25 Australia 1.664
26 Romania 1.682
27 Poland 1.683
28 Estonia 1.684
29 Singapore 1.692
30 Qatar 1.702
31 Costa Rica 1.702
32 South Korea 1.719
33 Italy 1.724
34 France 1.729
35 Vietnam 1.729
36 Taiwan 1.731
37 Malaysia 1.744
38 United Arab
Emirates 1.747
39 Tunisia 1.762
40 Ghana 1.765
41 Madagascar 1.766
42 Botswana 1.786
43 Lithuania 1.788
44 Greece 1.791
45 Panama 1.798
46 Kuwait 1.818
47 Latvia 1.848
48 Morocco 1.893
49 United Kingdom 1.898
50 Mozambique 1.909
51 Cyprus 1.915
52 Argentina 1.923
53 Zambia 1.930
54 Bulgaria 1.936
55 Paraguay 1.946
56 Gabon 1.952
57 Tanzania 1.966
58 Libya 1.967
59 Cuba 1.968
60 China 1.980
61 Kazakhstan 1.995
62 Bahrain 1.995
63 Jordan 1.997
64 Namibia 2.003
65 Senegal 2.017
66 Nicaragua 2.020
67 Croatia 2.030
68 Malawi 2.038
69 Bolivia 2.052
70 Peru 2.056
71 Equatorial
Guinea 2.059
72 Moldova 2.059
73 Egypt 2.068
74 Dominican
Republic 2.071
75 Bosnia and
Herzegovina 2.089
76 Cameroon 2.093
77 Syria 2.106
78 Indonesia 2.111
79 Mexico 2.125
80 Ukraine 2.150
81 Jamaica 2.164
82 Macedonia 2.170
83 Brazil 2.173
84 Serbia 2.181
85 Cambodia 2.197
86 Bangladesh 2.219
87 Ecuador 2.219
88 Papua New
Guinea 2.223
89 El Salvador 2.244
90 Saudi Arabia 2.246
91 Kenya 2.258
92 Turkey 2.272
93 Guatemala 2.285
94 Trinidad and
Tobago 2.286
95 Yemen 2.309
96 United States
of America 2.317
97 Iran 2.320
98 Honduras 2.390
99 South Africa 2.399
100 Philippines 2.428
101 Azerbaijan 2.448
102 Venezuela 2.453
103 Ethiopia 2.479
104 Uganda 2.489
105 Thailand 2.491
106 Zimbabwe 2.495
107 Algeria 2.503
108 Myanmar 2.524
109 India 2.530
110 Uzbekistan 2.542
111 Sri Lanka 2.575
112 Angola 2.587
113 Cote d'Ivoire 2.638
114 Lebanon 2.662
115 Pakistan 2.697
116 Colombia 2.770
117 Nigeria 2.898
118 Russia 2.903
119 Israel 3.033
120 Sudan 3.182
121 Iraq 3.437
Yeah - United States is higher on the list because we have more population. We have ten times as many people. Any casualties in Iraq, multiply by 10 to see what the impact would be here. Say 600,000 dead - that's 6,000,000 - like all of NYC maybe.
Posted by: not my president | June 02, 2007 at 11:55 AM
The first 3 photos don't show up on my Mac - maybe because of the way they are formatted? I'm not at work so they can't be blocked. I'll also see if this is the Kos diary you wrote and then go vote for it because it's awesome!
Posted by: slugbug | June 02, 2007 at 11:57 AM
http://www.morganquitno.com/dang07.htm
"1" is Most Dangerous, "50" is Safest
The 2007 Most Dangerous States
Posted by: received from James | June 02, 2007 at 07:40 PM
I found it interesting that they didn't include some of the world's most war-torn countries (like Afghanistan) or some of the world's most "peaceful" (like North Korea). North Korea has almost no crime, no public protests, it doesn't involve itself in any wars and it spends a fraction of the amount on the military that the US does. It probably would have come in #1 and that's why it was excluded.
I also object to the criteria of widespread guns-- Switzerland would likely have been #1 without the inclusion of that factor. Switzerland shows that widespread guns can bring peace.
Interestingly, Costa Rica is #31, yet it has NO MILITARY AT ALL. How did they come up with these rankings again?
Japan is required by its constitution to not involve itself in warfare because it started one of the largest wars ever. How are factors like that not taken into account? They even admit that islands have an advantage because they don't have neighbors to deal with-- hence New Zealand and Ireland doing so well. (Remember that Ireland even refused to help out its neighbor Britain in World War II and sent condolences on the death of Hitler... it would have been considered more peaceful at the time than Britain or the US, but isn't that a misleading perception? The US and Britain were fighting for so many other countries in the world, including Norway. Many of these countries can have smaller armies because they're in NATO or the UN or they're our allies and the US picks up the slack for them. I'm not saying it should be that way, but it's a fact and was not included in this report.)
Posted by: Gloria | June 18, 2007 at 01:48 PM