Letters to The Editor: March 9-15, 2023

The Editor:

Our nation’s budget should reflect the concerns of its citizens. As citizens we are greatly concerned about recent increases in violence, atrocities and human suffering around the world. We believe peacebuilding and reconciliation programs represent an important means to facilitate nonviolent conflict resolution. These programs effectively create cultures of peace by bringing together adversarial groups in safe spaces to address divisions and work toward common goals.

Investing in peace not only saves human suffering, but also saves U.S. taxpayer dollars. The Institute for Economics and Peace, in fact, has concluded that every dollar invested in peacebuilding “carries a potential $16 reduction in the cost of armed conflict.” Peacebuilding programs work, they save lives and they are cost-effective. Unfortunately, U.S. support for this work has been persistently underfunded. In fact, our country spends 200 times more on war than on peacebuilding. 

We urge representative Rick Larsen to strongly advocate for an increase in peacebuilding funding at the House Appropriations State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee Member Day Hearing on Wednesday, March 8 as well as at ongoing budgetary talks. Specifically, we urge the following appropriations be included for fiscal year 2024:

• $40 million to reconciliation programs

• $66 million to the Complex Crises Fund

• $25 million to atrocities prevention programs

Each of these programs provide critical tools to meet today’s challenges and facilitate the development of a framework toward sustainable peace. These requests, we feel, are indeed investments – that is, they represent resources that can be put in place now which will have an outsized impact in terms of positive outcome in the future.

As U.S. citizens, we are truly alarmed by the recent dramatic growth of violence around the world. More needs to be done in a preventative sense, for all of our sakes. We sincerely hope representative Larsen will push for these requests to make a positive difference in our world.

The San Juan Islands Advocacy Team is a group of concerned citizens from the 2nd congressional district of Washington working with the Friends Committee on National Legislation to lobby Congress for a sane and nonviolent foreign policy.

Andy Hiester

San Juan Islands Advocacy Team

Eastsound, Orcas Island

In the comments ... 

Thank you Jonathan Hall for your recent articles on the natural history of our area. As a member of the Drayton Harbor Shellfish Protection District Advisory Committee and the Whatcom Marine Resource Committee, I appreciate any help we can get to inform our fellow residents about water quality and marine resources. We are in a struggle to preserve and protect our freshwater and marine habitat and water quality. Your regular columns can do a lot to help.

If you or anyone would like to learn more about what Whatcom County is doing to monitor the water quality of California and Dakota creeks and Drayton Harbor, check out this interactive map: bit.ly/3L0M0Eb.

Rick Beauregard

Blaine

Thank you for your comment. I will likely do an article on water quality or at least highlight the importance of good water quality when addressing topics such as shellfish.

Jonathan Hall