home
about
archives
|
THE WAR PARADIGM
07/18/2008
A recent Washington Post poll shows that 72% of Americans think McCain is qualified to be commander in chief, while only 48% think the same of Obama.
Whether or not this statistic holds over the next four months, and whether or not it is decisive in determining our next president, is uncertain. In elections where the economy is in meltdown, and ordinary Americans are struggling to buy everything from gasoline to milk, national security issues usually take a back seat.
If the commander in chief test is decisive, it proves that the War Paradigm, which has always characterized the country to some degree, is ascendant.
The War Paradigm is the result of the country having been born of war, the union having been saved by war, and the world having been rescued from a madman by war. War has always been a terrible, yet glorious thing to American citizens. American authors like Chris Hedges, author of "War is a Force that gives us Meaning," and James Hillman, author of "A Terrible Love of War," have written brilliantly about this phenomenon. And of course, Mark Twain's "War Prayer" is a classic.
We are a country that was born of war. Had it not been for our willingness to engage in an armed struggle against Great Britain, we might never have gained our independence as a nation, or we wouldn't have gained it so soon. (We are not a patient people.) So our first attitudes towards war were those of pride and patriotism and jubilation.
We had a few small wars after the Revolutionary War, largely forgotten by the American people who are not immersed in history, and so the next war that had a profound impact on the nation was the bloody Civil War. Historians and scholars might differ on the causes of the war as well as the outcomes, but a majority of Americans today have a positive view of the Civil War as a necessary conflict that saved the nation from its own divisions. For many decades after the war ended, however, a war that took the lives of over 600,000 Americans, people turned away from war, seeing it as the most bloody and destructive enterprise imaginable.
And so the nation did not partake in any major war again until World War I, some 60 years later, and then only belatedly and reluctantly. Yes, there was the Spanish American War in 1898, which began our imperial adventures overseas, but it was over quickly without much American bloodshed. (Interestingly like our current war in Iraq, it was a war based on lies.)
World War I, on the other hand, was a terrible and bloody conflict costing 20 million lives, 116,000 of them American. 10 million of the dead were civilians. This enormously high casualty count caused Europeans to turn away from war and probably contributed to their unwillingness to confront Hitler militarily until his tanks rolled over them.
World War II was also a bloody conflict, one that ended the lives of 72 million human beings, 47 million of them civilians. The Unites States lost 416,000 military personnel and 1700 civilians. World War II is remembered by Americans as a necessary war, and to this day the nation feels pride in the work it did in removing the menace of Hitler and imperial Japan from the globe. Next to the Revolutionary War, World War II is considered the nation's greatest war, the one that stirs up the most pride and feelings of patriotism, the one that keeps America immersed in a War Paradigm.
Since World War II, the United States has been continually at war - in one way or another. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq I, Afghanistan, and Iraq II have been the big ones. But there have been other small conflicts: Panama, Grenada, Somalia and Yugoslavia, among others. And of course there have been the huge, overarching wars: the 40 year Cold War against Communist nations, and the current War on Terrorism against Islamic radicals.
Each of these has contributed to the War Paradigm that we live in – the view that we are always in danger, must always be on alert, and that military intervention is something necessary, beneficial and even sacred, no matter the cost in lives or dollars. At all times, we are told by our politicians, we must be ready to fight because there is always someone wanting to destroy us.
But there is another reason the War Paradigm has been so much a part of our country, especially since World War II. President Dwight Eisenhower spoke of it in his farewell address when he spoke of the potential power of a "military-industrial complex."
According to Eisenhower:
"Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
Eisenhower was aware of the enormous drive for power and profit that had taken over the military segment of the economy. However, he could not have imagined, I believe, the lust for war that came over us after 9/11. The War Paradigm, which waned somewhat after the terrible years of Vietnam, has been strengthened ever since 9/11, when the military industrial complex exploded as a result of a traumatized America's demand for safety and lust for revenge.
It did not take much to convince the people, and their representatives in Congress, to go to war, as they would not be the ones to do the fighting when the military consisted of an all volunteer force. Furthermore, Donald Rumsfeld insisted that America's advanced war technology meant we would only need a small fighting force to win. We praised our fighting men and women in sacred and solemn language, even as we sent them off to the desert, and talked ignorantly about "victory" in a far off conflict because it wasn't our children who were going to die. (War is easy to praise when you are a spectator and someone else is taking the bullet.)
We were, sadly, excited about going to war against Iraq, all too willing to believe in the false "evidence" the president and his war chorus presented us. The War Paradigm energized us, brought excitement to our otherwise dull lives as workers and consumers, made us part of the team, created an artificial community of "Americans at war," immersed us in the concept of winning, regardless of how or why we went to war, and swept us all up in support of our troops. We learned this much from Vietnam: when American soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines are "in harm's way," even if the president lied to put them there, Americans are supposed to shut up and wave (or wear) the flag.
The War Paradigm has become so ascendant in the past six years that we allowed our president to go to war against a country that did not attack us, because he convinced us there was a chance that someday in the distant future there was the slightest possibility that they might.
The War Paradigm has become so ascendant in recent years that it has merged with our majority religion, Christianity, and transformed a religion that once stood for turning the other cheek and loving one's enemies into a false American religion that stands for hitting back and bombing one's enemies.
The War Paradigm has become so ascendant that we put magnetic yellow ribbons on our cars, showing that we support the troops, and we condemn anyone who is not a cheerleader for war.
The War Paradigm has become so ascendant that we sit silently in our homes as our president threatens another country that hasn't attacked us.
The War Paradigm has become so ascendant that Republicans get away with calling Democrats who oppose the war "Defeatocrats," and accuse them of wanting to "lose."
The War Paradigm is so ascendant that nearly half the citizens in this country are willing to vote for a "war hero" from thirty-five years ago and an entirely different war, just because some think his service and suffering makes him more "patriotic" than a man nearly half his age who is obviously the better candidate, but who has never served in uniform.
The War Paradigm is what decided the 2004 election. We were at war in Iraq, and even though the Vietnam War hero John Kerry seemed like the most logical candidate to win the presidency, especially against the Vietnam War avoider George W. Bush, this is not what happened. John Kerry may have been a war hero, but he became a war protestor after he returned, and that is what infuriated a small group of people who then put together the Swift Boat attacks against him. It was those attacks that slowed his momentum and allowed Bush to defeat him. Had Kerry not violated the unwritten rules of the War Paradigm, by protesting against the Vietnam War while troops were still "in harm's way," the Swift Boat attacks would never have happened.
It's interesting to note that many people have tried to end the War Paradigm and replace it with a Peace Paradigm, where diplomacy and cooperation replace armed conflict, but they have never been successful. There was a huge peace movement during the Vietnam War, but while it helped to end that particular war it did not succeed in defeating the War Paradigm. As recently as four years ago, we were still arguing over Vietnam, with protesters still being blamed for "America's only defeat," the most shameful thing imaginable in a country that lives under a War Paradigm.
A peace movement tried mightily to stop the Iraq War before it began, but it failed and seems now to have faded away, even though a majority of Americans believe the war was a mistake. Nobody is marching to end the war anymore. The War Paradigm is simply part of life, and the lessons of Vietnam have been internalized: you never criticize the troops and you speak respectfully of the war effort, even if you oppose the war.
Thus, even though this war has become unpopular, most people (other than the progressive bloggers) don't get too worked up about it. If you are running for the presidency, it is still important to be in favor of war on some level, to be a person strong enough to take us into war, to leave "all options" (which means military ones) on the table, and to be tough enough to be commander in chief. And so John McCain talks of staying in Iraq 100 years, and of "victory" and of understanding how to wage war. Barack Obama, on the other hand, may say he wants us out of Iraq, but he is careful to add that he wants more troops in Afghanistan to go after Osama bin Laden. Obama would never be elected unless he embraced to some extent, the War Paradigm. Dennis Kucinich ran from the perspective of a Peace Paradigm, and he lost, because it takes more than one candidate to change an entire paradigm.
What would a Peace Paradigm look like?
If we lived under a Peace Paradigm, we would not live in constant fear that some other country wanted to destroy us. We would do all we could to cooperate with the other countries of the world in trade, environmental protection, disease eradication, the elimination of hunger, and the solving of problems between nations through dialogue, compromise, and problem-solving. We would eliminate the "military-industrial complex" even as we had a plan to gear up our defenses quickly if necessary.
Our president, in talking with adversarial nations, would say that peace was an option that was always on the table, and would do everything he could to avoid war.
There would be no such thing, in America's Peace Paradigm, as pre-emptive wars, or preventative wars. There might, at times, be the need to defend ourselves, but that would not be uppermost in our minds.
Our "military" would not be a professional one, but would include all of us. While there would be a small professional core, everyone would have a role to play in defending the country should it ever be in danger.
We would elect presidents who promised peace, diplomacy, cooperation, and problem-solving with other nations.
Our primary exports would be food, clothing, medicines, and luxuries rather than guns, missiles, tanks and bombers.
We would drive cars that did not use the fossil fuels that currently enrich a handful of countries and create an unstable world eager to acquire those resources, and we would heat and cool our homes with resources that are available to all human beings: wind, sun, grains, water, etc.
We would hold scholarly symposia for academics from all nations, those we consider allies, and those we hope to consider allies, to foster cooperation and find solutions to global problems. In fact, our hope would be to end the words "allies" and "adversaries" because all nations realized their interdependence.
We cannot do this, however, as long as we have presidents, vice presidents, and presidential candidates who traffic in fear, take the money of lobbyists for arms dealers, let military commanders decide policy, and hope to gain the support of the citizens with talk of war and their willingness to wage it. We cannot wait and hope that a presidential candidate will come along, bringing with him a Peace Paradigm to magically transform us. Until and unless we citizens decide war is not the answer, and a peaceful world is something we are willing to work for, we will not escape the War Paradigm that defines so much of our lives.
In the meantime, we slog through another presidential election where there is talk of who would be a stronger commander in chief. However, this isn't 2004 when orange alerts still influence our voting. This is 2008, when the War Paradigm is in decline because people care more about losing their homes than losing a war thousands of miles away against a vague and faceless enemy. A majority of people may be more willing to elect someone who wants to focus on education, health care, housing, jobs, and prosperity for all than on war, weapons, and prosperity for a few.
Perhaps this recession could be a blessing in disguise. If our economic struggles prompt us to elect a man who will end the current war, and focus on our needs at home, even as he works to eliminate nuclear weapons, we might just be able to turn a corner and find our way to a Peace Paradigm.
All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com
|
