By Anna Daniels
Almost one hundred years ago President Woodrow Wilson declared in vaulting prose that World War I was the war to end all wars, that it would make the world safe for democracy. The vaulting prose came to naught– the war to end all wars didn’t.
The reality is that the United States doesn’t wage peace with anywhere near the same commitment that it wages war. The veterans who march in the Veterans Day parades this week, as well as those who consciously choose not to, will represent a constant succession of wars, declared and undeclared, since World War II.
The Cold War. The Korean War. The Vietnam War. The Gulf War. The War in Afghanistan. The Iraq War.
How we think about war, conduct war and talk about war has undergone tremendous changes. The last time that Congress authorized the use of military force was in 2001.We now find ourselves in an Orwellian state of perpetual, low grade, undeclared war.
We also know that secret drone strikes are being carried out in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. Occasionally we are told that a terrorist group was destroyed. We also occasionally hear that a wedding party or some other group of civilians were also killed. Vietnam inserted the euphemism “collateral damage” into our war lexicon. It is a term that has not lost its irony or utility.
These are not your great grandfather’s or grandfather’s wars. Today, they may be your mother’s or sister’s wars. Today, there is no draft. With the dismantling of the draft in 1973 at the close of the Vietnam War, Americans have voluntarily served ever since. Many of them have had multiple tours of duty.
The relatively small number of people who are fighting our wars are largely invisible to the rest of us unless they are family members or friends. We are able to pretend that the enormous price tag on the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone of potentially $2.4 Trillion by 2017 doesn’t really affect our lives.
One percent goes to war and a different one percent benefits from it
Our national political leaders are now less inclined to talk about our military incursions in terms of the lofty precepts of freedom and democracy. The assumed “liberation of Iraq” is widely seen as an exercise in hubris except among the war hawks, who are still very much with us. But the terms “freedom” and “democracy” will be polished off and served up in heaping doses on Veterans Day.
They are, after all, the proof of our American Exceptionalism. It is American Exceptionalism that is used to justify the carnage of war and the lingering nightmares they engender; it also defines in a very specific way the value of those who have died in war and the walking wounded among us. It is a necessary, in many ways unassailable, public narrative that we participate in on a formally recognized basis.
This narrative is dangerous to us as a country and as a democracy precisely because it is so necessary and so unassailable. Critiques of who, how, where and why we wage war are deftly framed on the right as a lack of patriotism, as attacks on the character of people who serve in the military or as disrespect of their sacrifices.
The irony of course is that the wars are extolled while too many veterans languish homeless in the streets, can’t find jobs or get the medical care they need and deserve. Veterans with green cards who served honorably have been deported because of criminal offenses since their return. Soldiers from Guam and Puerto Rico serve in the military but don’t have the basic right to elect the president who may send them to war. Conservatives are willing and now poised to slash the budgets that address these issues and simply ignore the others. They are also poised to shovel more money into the gaping maw of the military budget.
Our military incursions have not made the world less dangerous and we haven’t yet managed to bomb our way to peace or democracy abroad. President Obama has spoken on numerous occasions about our “strategic interests” in Asia Minor, the Middle East–and the Ukraine. Those interests may be imprecisely or incorrectly defined, but that terminology gets us much closer to the heart of the matter.
One of the protest slogans that circulated during the Vietnam War years was “War is good business. Invest your son.” War is still good business. The only thing that has changed is that you can invest your daughter now–or gay son. We have outsourced the very lucrative business of war to corporations. Contract labor peels potatoes, installs showers and provides security. Contractors in war zones manage resources like oil and call it nation building. And of course it is the corporations that build and sell all those aircraft, ships, tanks and weapons.
Our strategic interests as a nation are becoming impossible to separate from the strategic interests of corporations. Thanks to the Citizens United decision, corporations are people my friend and are free to shower candidates running for office and those who are elected in limitless funds. Approximately one percent of our population is now fighting our wars, while corporate interests–the other one percent– are cleaning up. To the victors go the spoils.
President Obama said that he would ask Congress to re-authorize the Use of Military Force. Citizens should be carefully attuned to the debates and votes that will occur this year if the re-authorization is taken up in the lame duck session of Congress. A great deal is at stake. The best way to honor our veterans and all casualties of war is to participate in this national discussion.
The San Diego Free Press is devoting this week to the topic of War and Peace. It is our way of participating in that discussion. We have asked our contributors to submit articles on the topics and we will run encore editions of articles previously published. Over the course of the week a variety of voices will provide a variety of perspectives. We hope that readers will join in the conversation and respond.
Anna Daniels
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“We hope that readers will join in the conversation and respond.” Amen that.
Listened to this on KPBS this morning on my way to work (ironically working for the Navy). Apparently a big problem facing vets who actually experienced war is concern about what people will think of them when they return, particularly if they were involved in acts that would be considered socially unacceptable to most civilians (and even fellow vets). I definitely think the American public has an obligation to be more conscious of what these people are going through. Especially in a city like San Diego where there is no excuse for the average person to be so detached.
http://www.kpbs.org/news/2014/nov/10/listen-vets-oceanside-public-library-helps-build-u/
World War I was the biggest example of the futility of war. There was no real reason for it. Young men were just itching for a fight and the glory of it all. Nietsche said, “A good war halloweth any cause.” The feeling was that a war cleared the air from the boredom of the era preceding it. They thought they would be home in a few short months wrapped in glory. Instead, half a million died miserable deaths choked in barbed wire or their lungs blown out by mustard gas. And the culture of prewar Europe was completely destroyed.
This insane exercise led directly to the Second World War as the Germans were saddled by the Treaty of Versailles with reparations that immiserated them. The Second World War led directly to the Cold War because Stalin held onto the areas he had “liberated” in eastern Europe. When the Cold War was finally over and the Berlin Wall came down 25 years ago thanks to the visionary Mikhail Gorbachev, there was finally a chance for a world dedicated to peace. That chance was squandered when George W Bush stole the 2000 election from Al Gore.
How different the world might have been had Al Gore actually become President. There would have been no Iraq war. There would have been no destabilization of the Middle East. Resources might have been dedicated to good works in the rest of the world that might have built up good feelings towards the US instead of the resentment that much of the impoverished world holds against the US. That resentment leads directly to terrorism and an unending endeavor to protect ourselves from it. If we had been the world’s friend instead of the world’s dominator, there might have been thankfulness extended towards us instead of resentment and hatred.
If we had spent as much money pursuing peace as we have pursuing war, we would have many more friends in the world and many fewer enemies. They would be watching our back for us instead of trying to destroy us.
In my lifetime (and I fear much longer perhaps as a bequeath to my grandchildren, not holding my breath on that one either though) I think I will never see a headline that reads “peace breaks out” anywhere in the world. As numerous as the sand grains that flows through an hourglass (as the soap opera glamorized on TV) deaths occur at a horrific rate everyday because of one damn religious group seeking to “straighten out” another, whether similar or completely different, and what do we do? Nothing but fan the flames with our direct interference, or indirectly, by “aid” consisting of lending devastating weapons to one side or the other (again tainted with our blessing from some invisible god who remains on the sidelines and judges from afar as if he/she even cares). Where is any compassion, empathy, humanism, or even one tear shed as if we (the USA) cared for the suffering and maiming of “civilians” and the slaughter of “soldiers” who have the mandate to carry on towards the ever elusive victory and/or reward of peace that we claim to cherish so much? There is no “right” side to be on and war continues to solve nothing yet we stay in the game with all our chips in and think that some different outcome or conclusion is possible. That is the exact definition of insanity and that is an apt surname to the whole folly we call war, no matter what the rationalizing or reasoning might be.
250 million people in refugee camps created by war somewhere.