Yup, it turns out we don't do that 'peace' thing well

By D. PARVAZ
P-I COLUMNIST

If you were uncertain as to how our awesome engine for spreading peace and democracy throughout the world is doing, wonder no more: We suck worse than a Sanjaya-Connie Chung duet.

Yup, turns out we don't do that "peace" thing too well.

According to the Economist, the U.S. placed 96th in the British magazine's first Global Peace Index of 121 nations. If the sucking thing bothers you, you can always look at it another way: We're really, really good at shooting at people, destroying their homes and creating an ever-growing army of enemies, thereby ensuring wars for generations to come. Hey, I'm trying to emphasize the positive.

To put the results into context, they are presented under an umbrella project called Visions of Humanity. A heady title, heady concept (see complete list of rankings here www.visionofhumanity.com/rankings/) -- one that the U.S. fails to grasp, as a monkey would a greased football. Consider that Libya (58), Cuba (59) and Syria (77) are considered more peaceful that the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Better yet? China, where political dissidents are either jailed or put to death, ranked at 60. But, just how did those hoity-toity Economist editors come up with this ranking? Surprisingly, they didn't just make it up.
Several factors contribute to a country's position on the list - how much its citizens trust one another, the percentage of the population that is incarcerated, potential for terrorist acts, access to heavy weaponry, crime rates, so on and so forth. These indicators, plus drivers such as the population's level of education, together determine a nation's level of peacefulness.

Guess who we just managed to beat? Iran (97). Whew. It would have been embarrassing if a government we've failed to strong-arm into giving us their oil, er, following our lead in um, freedom and diplomacy, had beaten us on the peace list. This close call, though, shows the list's obvious anti-American bias.

For starters, we should get some credit for restraint. That's right, restraint. Of our 2006 taxes, 41 percent went to military spending, while 5 percent went to social programs. And research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute -- clearly some Nordic hippie think thank -- tells us that global military spending in 2004 surpassed $1 trillion, with our military expenditures accounting for roughly 47 percent of that total. And then there's our belief in how to achieve peace, best explained by President Bush, who said, "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."

You might ask: Aside from outright declarations of war, what else is the U.S. doing to export peace to the rest of the world? Two words: Arms sales. A 2005 report by the World Policy Institute found the bulk of U.S. arms sales to developing countries go to governments defined by the U.S. State Department as undemocratic and with serious human rights issue. Think Pakistan (115 on the Global Peace Index), Angola, (112) and Saudi Arabia (90).

For you anti-patriotic pinkos who care, the top-10 most peaceful countries in the world are: Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland, Japan, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Portugal and Austria. So if you want to move to some dull place where they don't believe in fighting an actual (not ideological) war for peace, now you now where to go.

Speaking of detonating the bejezus out of heaven and earth in the name of peace, justice and democracy...Iraq placed last on the peace list. Personally, I think Iraqis are getting a raw deal here. Their country would have ranked much higher were it not for our invasion, overthrowing its government and flushing its security forces down the toilet. But, hey, they need to be patient over there. When Bush says, "We have an opportunity to lay the foundation of peace for generations to come," the peace to which he's referring will come way, way later -- like, decades after we're done blowing things up there, and the remaining warring factions in Iraq are done killing one another off. Then, they'll have peace. No need to thank us.

D. Parvaz is an editorial writer and member of the P-I Editorial Board. E-mail: dparvaz@seattlepi.com.