Dialogues, by Jerry Brown: on Foreign Policy

Harry S Truman: 1949 Point Four Program: focus on under-developed world

GUEST: It was the 20th of January, 1949, in President Harry Truman's inaugural speech. Then, after the inaugural speech, he sketched out his so-called Point Four Program. In that program, which was directed towards what later became known as the Third World, Truman, for the 1st time in history, called half of the world an underdeveloped area. So there it was, the word underdeveloped, a word that has become so natural to us. So the development era for us began with Truman. He was the 1st one, at least from a prominent political stage, who looked at the planet and saw a few nations--the US and some other Western countries--running along a common race track and running way ahead, with many other nations lagging far behind. The big imperative then is to catch up. The image was there before Truman; colonialism had these kinds of notions.

Jerry Brown: Kuwait War demonstrated US innovation in technology of death

It's an unspeakable evil. Sometimes, in self-defense, you have to do a lot. But here there was no issue of self-defense. The greater the magnitude of harm you inflict on other people, the greater the justification ought to be. And here, there's no proportionality whatsoever. By any standard of ethical or moral judgment, by any tradition I know of, there's culpability.

Perhaps the real message of the Gulf War--to China, India, Pakistan, Libya and every other nation--was that whatever weapons they have now, they've got to get better ones. Kuwait was a demonstration case, a message to other countries, that technological innovation in the weaponry of death must be pursued with a vengeance and with renewed commitment. So really, the Gulf War was not about making the world safe, it was about making the future far more dangerous, for the US and everyone else.