WASHINGTON — "Money is a coward."
That sums up America's approach to foreign policy.
At least, that's what Secretary of State Colin Powell told me and 20 or so other editorial writers who gathered here recently for a State Department briefing.
You could say it in many other ways. Investors want safety. Nations without independent courts and respect for private property scare wealth away. Leaders who don't allow basic freedoms can't expect a lot of enterprise.
But somehow, "money is a coward" says it best.
Considering we are at war, that wasn't the message I expected from the secretary of state. But, on reflection, it was an appropriate one. What, after all, are we fighting for if not a system of values?
The American value system is, of course, about much more than money and the pursuit of riches. The Bill of Rights offers a nice laundry list of protections that allow people the freedom to achieve amazing things on their own within the framework of a stable government. But that kind of freedom, history has shown, does tend to make people wealthy, as well. And that is an unmistakably big selling point — one Powell uses again and again.
He said he repeats the same general message to the long list of foreign ministers who parade through his office. "Come on, come on, try democracy. Free your people. Give them a chance."
Then he adds, "But democracy only works and the free enterprise (system) only works when the people have the ability to vote and vote freely and honestly, and the free enterprise will only work — you will only get money coming to your country — when you get rid of corruption, when you stop the stupid little wars you are all involved in, and when you put in a sanitation system. When you start working on health care for your people and clean water, power — investment will be drawn."
I thought about his words this week as I looked at the pictures coming out of newly liberated Kabul. On Tuesday, the Deseret News ran a front-page photo of a group of young men running triumphantly and uninhibited down a street. In the center is a boy who looks to be in his early teens. He appears to be shedding a traditional outer garment of some kind, and he has a Western-style sweater and buttoned-down shirt underneath. His smile speaks volumes. On an inside page was a picture of men listening to music on a radio, something the Taliban had forbidden.
On Wednesday, we ran photos of women baring their faces for the first time in years. You find smiles like that only on people who have had a death sentence overturned. Freedom is indeed a universal desire, and it surely will be a byproduct of the war on terrorism.
This week I received the "2002 Index of Economic Freedom," the latest edition of an annual report published jointly by The Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal. It is a ranking of the economies of the world on the basis of how free they are from government intervention.
Every year, it reaches the same conclusion: The nations with the most economic freedom also are the most prosperous. The editors cite data from the World Bank that shows how this makes a difference in per capita income. In repressed countries, incomes average about $3,500. In nations that are mostly free, which includes many of the semi-Socialist nations in Europe, incomes average $11,549. But in free economies, the per capita income is $23,325.
The bottom of this economic list includes all of the usual suspects — North Korea, Iraq, Libya, Cuba, Laos, Iran and Turkmenistan. The top is equally predictable, except that this year it includes Estonia, the first former Soviet republic to crack the top 10.
We are, of course, fighting a war in Afghanistan that has more to do with religious fanaticism than with the desire for wealth. The men who flew jetliners into buildings were, by all accounts, educated. They had access, at least, to money and a better life while they trained here.
And yet, it has everything to do with freedom, human dignity and the ability to judge freely among competing ideas. Without those things, fanaticism tends to grow and prosper, and the resulting poverty offers it fertile soil.
Powell said a lot of formerly repressive nations are starting to get it.
"They all want textile quota relief," he said. "Peru, the president's killing me. He wants his high-quality cotton to get access to our market. The president of Pakistan is going to slap me around in New York on Saturday . . . not about Afghanistan, but about textile quota relief. . . . And so, this value system that we take out to the world is what our foreign policy is all about."
Judging by the faces of those folks in Kabul, it sounds like a winning strategy.
Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com.