tv Religion Ethics Newsweekly PBS August 28, 2011 10:00am-10:30am PDT
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coming up, drones are a key tool in the u.s. military's arsenal. but is it moral to use them? and a promising africa success story the fledgling democracy of ghana. >> i wish i could say we've reached the promised land. we are quite close to it. major funding for "religion & ethics newsweekly" is provided by the lily endowment, an indianapolis-based private
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family foundation dedicated to its founders' interest in religion, community development, and education. additional funding by mutual of america, designing and customizing individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. the estate of william j. carter& and the corporation for public broadcasting. welcome. i'm fred de sam lazaro, sitting in for bob abernethy. as one pastor put it, this is a king among presints. a memorial to the reverend martin luther king jr. was unveiled in washington this week, the first individual who's not a president to receive such a tribute on the national mall. a 30-foot statue lies at the heart of the granite monument that displays words from king's writing and speeches. the choice of a chinese sculptor and royalty payments to king's
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family drew controversy and complicated the $120 million private fundraising effort. congress authorized the monument in 1997. despite the postponement of the memorial's dedication because of hurricane irene, this weekend was still a time of reflection. here to share his thoughts is reverend dr. robert franklin, president of morehouse college, in atlanta, which is also the alma mater of the late civil rights leader. >> dr. franklin, welcome. >> thank you. >> this unveiling comes at a time of serious political polarization in this country. do you think that the monument has the potential anyway to provide some healing in that divide? >> i believe so and i certainly hope so. dr. king was a man of healing and reconciliation even in the context of calling for justice. american politics is broken today andr. king's message, his life, his values and virtues can offer us a strategy for healing what is broken.
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it means political opponents must never dehumanize each other. they must speak truth to power but they must also be willing to negotiate as well as confront. and i think the king memorial will be an inspiration and a reminder that that reconciliation is possible in america. >> what do you think his words would be today in this political environment? >> well, that we have to listen. we have to search for common ground, something that dr. king learned from howard thurman and benjamin mayes at morehouse college. and that it's never appropriate to dehumize or demonize your opponent. we must always recognize their humanity and recognize their self-interest and try to appeal to that. that's why king was such a genius as a moral leader. he confronted, but he balanced that with negotiation. and today all i hear from so many of our public officials, religious leaders, media commentators is confront, confront and polarize.
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dr. king says no you've gone overboard and there's another side to balancing this for the common good. >> one of the points of contention in the debate over this monument has been the whole issue of separation of church and state and the dedication of something to someone who is not just not even a president but also at his core was a baptist minister. talk a little bit about it in that context. >> well, you put your finger on a fascinating question because we've grappled for the past decade and a half with the question of church and state and the appropriate presence of religion in our very diverse public life. i think that dr. king actually offers a refreshing model of how you can be a religious person, a person of faith, in the public square. how? well, he was exceedingly ecumenical and interfaith. he respected the traditions, the texts, the beliefs and practices
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of other people without ever disrespecting or dismissing or marginalizing them. and although king was exceedingly particular, i mean, as you say, he was a black baptist preacher from the south, he was also always in search of what's universal in my particularity. and i think that's an invitation to all americans and when we look at that monument i hope we see king saying i'm looking for common ground not for the basis for further polarization. >> well, dr. franklin, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts today. >> thanks very much. an interfaith service to mark the opening of the monument was moved from washington's national cathedral to the catholic basilica of the national shrine after the cathedral suffered significant damage in tuesday earthquake. stone spires and angels fell from the cathedral's facade and cracks were reported in the building's flying buttresses. church officials say repairs will cost the cathedral millions of dollars. several other churches in the area were also closed following
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the quake, including one in rural virginia, whose sanctuary was condemned. in other news, as fighting raged between rebel forces and gadhafi loyalists in libya's capitol this week, concerns are already being raised about the future of religious freedom in that country. some human rights advocates say they hope a new government will allow christians and other religious minorities to worship freely. meanwhile, a leader of the rebel forces described libya as a country of "religiously moderate" people. he called characterizations of the rebels as islamic extremists scare tactics used by gadhafi. u.s. armed drones played a pivotal role in nato's libya campaign. these sleek aircraft are piloted from afar. american use of drones has increased dramatically in the last few years. the technology may be strategic, but what are the moral implications of using it? kim lawton reports.
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>> drones are increasingly becoming some of the most valuable weapons in america's arsenal. >> this is going to save someone's life one day. >> reporter: unmanned aircraft such as the predator and the reaper can hover over remote areas, and do surveillance for hours, even days. their operators are often in places as far away as nevada or virginia, and the drones can release missiles or bombs with no risk to those operators. experts say within 20 years the vast majority of america's fighting aircraft will likely be pilotless. the use of drones may be strategic, but is it moral? >> if you believe that a society has a duty to reduce unnecessary risk to its combatants, then these systems do that, so that would be actually one moral obligation, and then also the state has an obligation t effectively and efficiently defend its citizens, and these systems are effective and
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efficient, too. >> to accept killing far from the situation of battlefields where there is an understanding of necessity is really ethically troubling for many of us. >> america's use of remotely-piloted aircraft or drones has increased dramatically since president obama took office. both thmilitary and the cia use them in combat operations and in counterterrorism missions. drones have been engaged in lethal operations in at least six countries afghanistan, iraq, yemen, somalia, pakistan, and libya. retired lieutenant general david deptula oversaw the us air force's drone program from 2006 until last year. he says remotely piloted aircraft achieve a moral good. >> the precision, the persistence, and the accuracy of remotely piloted aircraft bring to the equation actually enhance our ability to accomplish our objectives while minimizing loss
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of life. >> yale law school professor stephen carter, author of the book "the violence of peace," agrees that minimizing risk to u.s. troops is a worthy goal. but he says it also has moral implications that should not be ignored. >> when america has troops on the ground and people are dying as well as killing, it's on the news every day. when we're using standoff bombing, when we're using missiles that kill but place no risk, it fades the nation's consciousness. that means it's easieto fight, which means it's more likely we'll fight. >> notre dame university professor of international law mary ellen o'connell worries that the growing availability of unmanned aerial systems lowers political and psychological barriers to killing. >> these sleek, attractive, small glider-like planes fly out
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of their hangar and slip it to a village somewhere and drop a bomb. that seems so easy to do, and on the screen it doesn't look any different than the video game that the soldier plays later at her home. >> are these people arguing that we should only fight if you are exposed to threats and putting your life at sk? that's silly, and i think it's ill-founded. sfwlr edward barrett is director of strategy and research at the u.s. naval academy's stockdale center for ethical leadership. he says, in fact, high-tech sensors on the drones give operators a very detailed picture of what they are doing. >> they're operating from afar, but their senses are very close to the situation. they see very clearly the battle
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damage that they a doing, and therefore they know that they're not playing a video game. >> reporter: he says the distance allows operators to make moral decisions about the use of force. >> a soldier in the situation is scared and possible hasty in deciding what to do and acting and possibly even angry, whereas an operator who's not threatened can use tighter rules of engagement and is not going to be fearful and therefore is going have a much cooler head. >> reporter: deptula says much ethical oversight surrounds the u.s. military's use of drones. >> you have many, many more sets of eyes that are watching what's going on and many, many more people in the decision loop in terms of employing lethal ordinance if, in fact, that is going to be applied. >> reporter: o'connell says she supports the use of drones in combat situations like afghanistan, but she argues that
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use in non-combat settings such as pakistan is morally and legally wrong. >> international law says that on a battlefield in which armed groups are engaged in organized armed fighting we have a presumption of necessity that persons may be killed without warning in that situation. you can ask any member of the united states armed forces where are we engaged in combat today, and they will all tell you libya, iraq, and afghanistan. they will not tell you pakistan. >> reporter: this cia oversees drone strikes as part of the counterterrorism operations, but u.s. officials refuse to discuss the program pub lekly. according to a tally by the nonpartisan new america foundation, since 2004 there have been more than 260 u.s. drone strikes in pakistan, which the foundation estimates killed between 1,600 and 2,500 people. the strikes have generated
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strong protests from pakistanis who claim that many civilians as well as militants have been killed. the u.s. takes the position that those strikes are permissible as part of the war against terror. >> our principal adversary since bin laden has declared war on the u.s. in the mid-nineties ha been al qaeda. it is fully in cognizance with the laws of international armed conflict to pursue those individuals wherever they reside. >> i think they've actually been lulled into a sense that killing with drones is not extraordinary, that these are bad people as determined by our cia, and we could just kill them. this is killing large numbers of persons who we would never allow to be killed in another geographic zone, if they were in the united states for example. >> you need really good intelligence on where those missiles are going, because otherwise you're going to blow up a lot ofedding processions and make a lot of enemies instead of hitting the al qaeda leader who you thought w in the car but really wasn't. >> reporter: the new america foundation estimates that while
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the civilian mortality rate from drone strikes in pakistan had been about 20%, last year it fell to about 5%. as drone technology advances, even more difficult questions may lie ahead. >> perhaps more ethically challenging is the issue of autonomous lethal systems. the idea is that you can use software that rognizes the targets and then makes a decision that's ethical to destroy targets, with no human intervention. >> wherever the technology goes, ethicists say the moral dimensions must be a significant part of the discussion. >> we have to be aware of what these technologies are capable of and what they're doing and demand of our leaders that our ethical, moral, and legal principles that we hold dear, that are the basis of this country, remain uppermost in all of our minds. >> reporter: carter believes that the principles of the just
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war doctrine which have informed military policy for centuries are still relevant for determining when to use drones. >> is there a just cause? is this the last resort? can the use of force actually do the thing that we claim we are setting out to do? and is our use of force proportional to the problem we are trying to solve? when we ask questions like that we're asking moral questions. i think those are the right questions to ask. >> reporter: the department of defense currently has about 8,300 remotely piloted aircraft, not including the cias and plans to spend about $6 billion in 2012 adding to the inventory. i'm kim lawton in washington. a rabbi who claimed to have rescued torahs from the holocaust and sold them to synagogues was indicted this week on two counts of fraud. we profiled rabbi menachem youlus on this program in 2008.
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youlus called himself the "jewish indiana jones" and recounted elaborate stories of rescuing scrolls from concentrations camps, museums and monasteries abroad. federal prosecutors say the stories were fabrications. they have also accused youlus of embezzling money from his charity, save a torah. youlus denies the allegations. the curse of riches is a tragic cliché that's visited so many nations in west africa, a region mired in bloody civil war and deepening poverty even as it sits on a wealth of natural resources and minerals. today we have a story from ghana, one nation that may be breaking that curse. >> reporter: in a region that has seen civil wars and bloodshed, ghana has enjoyed years of peace. >> may mebody leave this service knowing that their tomorrow is better than their today.
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>> reporter: in its packed churches, there's a palpable sense of optimism about ghana's future. >> i wish i could say we've reached the promised land. we are quite close to it, we believe. >> the first building block to ghana's relative prosperity has been a free press. >> this is your show, the unique breakfast drive. >> almost everyone listens to the radio in ghana and lively political give and take is a breakfast staple. tempers flared close to boiling point at times in the studios but only until the show was over. all was quickly forgiven. in a continent where long-running dictatorships are the norm, ghana has enjoyed two decades of thriving democracy. two incumbent leaders have lost in general elections. in 2008, the margin was less than 1%. yet on both occasions the sitting president stepped aside and power was transferred peacefully. >> it is the first time that we have had both economic growth and political stability and
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freedom. >> reporter: ghana was the first african colony to gain independence back in 1957 from britain. it had its share of autocrats and military coups until the early '90s, when long-ruling military strongman jerry rawlins stepped aside and allowed democratic elections. ghana has seen steady economic growth ever since. it exports gold, diamonds and cocoa beans, and now new wealth awaits. >> in june 2007, cosmos struck gold. >> major offshore oil reserves have been found here and the first oil revenues began to flow last december. across africa the discovery of such riches, especially oil, has become known as the "resource curse." >> instead of having oil be a
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source of prosperity and ogress for this nation we just allow a few people, very corrupt people, to amass this wealth and flaunt it to all of us, and we want to work towards this not being the story of ghana. >> ghana has been very fortunate to have oil after democracy and not before. because that democracy is going to influence how ghana manages its oil wealth. >> patrick awuah is one of a growing number of ovseas ghanaians who've returned. he went to college in the u.s., then worked at microsoft. he started a university called ashesi or "beginning." ghana's fledgling democracy needs ethical leaders he says. >> we've borrowed the model of the liberal arts and sciences as the way to do that, that teaches broad perspectives, a deep ethos, a deep concern for ethics and a specialization. >> ashesi has 450 students and will soon triple that number in a new campus being built just
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outside the capital, accra, with funds from the world bank and other investors. students and alumni we talked to echoed the school's values. >> you are training ethical leaders, entrepreneurs who are going to take over in terms of the integrity, in terms of sharing the national cake or the national pie among everybody so that the majority of the ghanaian nationals are not eating the drops or the crumbs from the table, but then they are sharing equally. >> for now, ghanaians are hardly sharing equally. there's still deep poverty in rural areas, where the majority of ghana's 22 million people live. development experts say the best way to attack poverty is to create jobs and improve the rural economy. a number of efforts have begun to do this. for example, shea nuts are a major export. they're processed in europe and america into shea butter, used in skin creams or as a food
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additive. now several small processing enterprises have been set up in ghana, supported by private aid groups as well as the u.s. government. some are mechanized but hundreds of women are employed in traditional processing, kneading a dough that comes from boiling and crushing the nuts to release the prized shea butter. >> when you pick the nuts and sell, that is just the end of it, but when you process it into butter, the profit you can get to support your children by paying their school fees. >> so there is more profit than if you process the nuts? >> yes, it is. >> there's a long way to go. 95% of ghana's shea nuts are still exported raw, and processing is even more difficult with what is still ghana's chief export cocoa beans. very little chocolate is made anywhere in africa because of a lack of refrigeration or milk. so the emphasis here instead is on getting a better price.
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kojo aduhene tano and his neighbors belong to kuapa kokoo, ghana's largest cooperative. it was set up 20 years ago with the help of british aid group called twin trading. its buyers have pledged to pay higher fair-trade prices. the coop even owns part ofa fair trade chocolate line called divine, sold mostly in europe and online in the u.s. nationwide, the coop has 64,000 members, and its profits have paid for community wells, credit unions, and schools. it's hardly made anyone rich. fair trade does not have a fair share of the chocolate market. kuapa accounts for just 5% of cocoa growers in ghana. >> we need more money from you. >> people in rich countries need to buy more fair trade ocolate, he says, even as i discover that he got his first taste of it very recently. >> how old were you when you first tasted chocolate?
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>> i was 48 years. >> you were 48 years old? life is still tough, but kojo tano is much more optimistic about the future. he only went through eighth grade, but his six children are being educated. the two oldest are away in college. >> when i grow old they will look after me. >> this is the best times to be a young person in ghana. >> that optimism is echoed in the capital, especially among yong people. >> there's the oil find, vodafon has just come to settle, there's kpmg, there's price-waterhouse, there are all the giant multinational companies coming in. the opportunities are just overflowing. >> whether it's in big oil or tiny shea nuts, ghana's challenge will be to make the benefits flow more equitably, also to keep its commitment to democracy and freedom of information. religious leaders in this largely christian country will have a key role in all of this. >> with the advent of oil, there
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is a civil society oil and gas platform who are watching, who are keeping vigil over everything. there's even a faith-based organization, coalition between the christian council of ghana and the ghana pentecostal council. between those two you have a majority of ghanaians, and we are extending that a third level to add a coalition that involves the muslims, and what we want to do is to monitor what comes in. >> the ghana natatnal petroleum corporation has for the second time lifted a total of 994,691 barrels of jubilee crude oil. >> for now, oil revenues are being meticulously reported. how they should be monitored and spent is an ongoing debate that will escalate as elections approach in 2012. finally, on our calendar this week, muslims will mark the end of ramadan with the three-day festival of eid
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al-fitr the "feast of fast breaking." the holiday is celebrated by special prayers and visits with friends. that's our program for now. i'm fred de sam lazaro. you can follow us on twitter and facebook, find us on youtube, and watch us anytime, anywhere on smart phones and iphones. there's also much more on our web site, including more on ramadan and on the new martin luther king jr. memorial, you can comment on all of our stories and share them. audio and video podcasts are also available. join us at pbs.org. as we leave you, music from the morehouse college glee club at a concert in washingt, d.c. earlier this year.
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♪ major funding for "religion & ethics newsweekly" is provided by the lily endowment, an indianapolis-based private family foundation dedicated to its founders' interest in religion, community development, and education. additional funding by mutual of america, designing and customizing individual and group retirement products.
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