Practical Pacifism
I have become a pacifist. It has nothing to do with religious fervor or moral views. It is much simpler than that.
I was thinking about claiming that in two or three thousand years of recorded history, there has never been a single case where a war successfully resolved a problem. But on reflection, Israel's early God-directed approach seemed like a rather permanent solution; total annihilation, killing every man, woman and child, and even their animals, then turning their town into a pile of rubble that the sands of time rather quickly covered up. But what was the legacy of that? The Israel of today has few friends in its neighborhood. Fast-forwarding, it seemed like our Revolutionary War solved the problem of having to put up with colonial England's King George, and our American Civil War made it clear that the republic is indeed indivisible, and brought an end to slavery. But at what cost?
I do not know if anyone in the colonies ever did a cost analysis on the Revolutionary War. I suppose the British did. As for the Civil War, whatever the dollar figures, the bottom line was that the South was totally devastated economically, and the North was nearly bankrupted. According to Zfacts, the war in Iraq, thus far, has cost you and me $422-billion. That's a lot of money. Your share of that is about $1,406 for each member of your family. Iraq's population is about a tenth of ours, so rather than spending that money to invade their country, kill a lot of people, and wreck a lot of stuff, we could have just given each man, woman and child $15,337. That is about fifteen times the average income in Iraq, and since half the workers there are unemployed, that windfall would surely have been appreciated.
But, of course, its not just about money. According to the DOD, we have lost 3,774 of our country's best in Iraq. Nobody knows for sure what the Iraqi death toll is, but most suggest the figure is at least ten times higher than our casualty rate. That is also the approximate number of our wounded; about eight or nine people coming home with Purple Hearts for each one that comes home in a box. Much less obvious are psychological wounds. Nobody really knows the extent of that, because "real men" are apt to "suck it up," and soldiers have traditionally taken a dim view of wimps. However, based upon the thousands of returning soldiers who have sought help, the estimate is that about a third of those returning from Iraq are in need of it. If the 140,000 people we have in Iraq came home tomorrow, the shrinks would have some 46,000 new customers. That's a lot of PTSD. No doubt that figure could also be multiplied by ten to get some idea of what's going on on the Iraqi side.
And so our invasion of Iraq has been rather costly to all involved. People these days seem to embrace the philosophy that the ends justifies the means, so what have the ends been so far? We got rid of Saddam Hussein and his two crazy sons. In spite of all their hardships, few Iraqis are willing to express any regrets about that. But that's about it for the "plus" side of the picture. The government we installed to replace Saddam's regime does not work, and will probably be radically altered as soon as we get out of the way. The sanctions we engineered in the years leading up to our invasion succeeded in ruining Iraq financially, with the average family's income reduced to less than 25% of what it was in the good times, and since the invasion it's dropped even less. Let us think about that for a moment; how well could we manage an 80% pay cut? The sanctions also took a toll on Iraq's infrastructure; electricity, water, sewer and refuse removal services, and transportation. The destruction visited upon the country after the invasion did not improve that situation.
What is much worse than any of these things is the fact that we have succeeded in destroying America's credibility as a force for good in the world, and made it easy for a lot of people to hate us. That is a legacy we will have to cope with for at least a few generations. Maybe worse even than that is what we have done to our own self-respect. There are few who still cling to the belief that there was some provocation to justify the invasion of Iraq. The consensus is that contrary to the assertion that the operation was launched as a result of misunderstandings about intelligence data, it was intentionally promoted by "spin" (propaganda) and intentional misinformation (lies). Regardless of what people believe about the motives, most now see the war in Iraq as a mistake at best, and at worst, legally criminal. This really dampens one's enthusiasm for getting out to wave the flag and sing God Bless America.
So, returning to the point, can anyone argue that war is ever a sensible way to achieve political objectives?
In 1949 the U.S. Government's Department of War was renamed the Department of Defense. That was a move in the right directions, but unfortunately World War II had not dampened everyone's appetite for belligerence and enthusiasm for military adventure. While President Truman and most Americans were in the mood to embrace Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy on the inevitability of forever having to deal with bullies, "Speak softly and carry a big stick.", not everyone involved in the building of the most formidable war machine the world had ever seen was as ready to stand down. At the end of his term as President, General Eisenhower was acutely aware of this, and warned:
People from FreedomsWatch.Org cite their personal losses, and appeal that those will not have been suffered for no reason. They advocate "staying the course," of course. Perhaps this unfortunate experience will finally permit us to understand what President Eisenhower was trying to tell us. In that case, none of the losses, on either side, will have been suffered in vain.
[-=glw=-]
I was thinking about claiming that in two or three thousand years of recorded history, there has never been a single case where a war successfully resolved a problem. But on reflection, Israel's early God-directed approach seemed like a rather permanent solution; total annihilation, killing every man, woman and child, and even their animals, then turning their town into a pile of rubble that the sands of time rather quickly covered up. But what was the legacy of that? The Israel of today has few friends in its neighborhood. Fast-forwarding, it seemed like our Revolutionary War solved the problem of having to put up with colonial England's King George, and our American Civil War made it clear that the republic is indeed indivisible, and brought an end to slavery. But at what cost?
I do not know if anyone in the colonies ever did a cost analysis on the Revolutionary War. I suppose the British did. As for the Civil War, whatever the dollar figures, the bottom line was that the South was totally devastated economically, and the North was nearly bankrupted. According to Zfacts, the war in Iraq, thus far, has cost you and me $422-billion. That's a lot of money. Your share of that is about $1,406 for each member of your family. Iraq's population is about a tenth of ours, so rather than spending that money to invade their country, kill a lot of people, and wreck a lot of stuff, we could have just given each man, woman and child $15,337. That is about fifteen times the average income in Iraq, and since half the workers there are unemployed, that windfall would surely have been appreciated.
But, of course, its not just about money. According to the DOD, we have lost 3,774 of our country's best in Iraq. Nobody knows for sure what the Iraqi death toll is, but most suggest the figure is at least ten times higher than our casualty rate. That is also the approximate number of our wounded; about eight or nine people coming home with Purple Hearts for each one that comes home in a box. Much less obvious are psychological wounds. Nobody really knows the extent of that, because "real men" are apt to "suck it up," and soldiers have traditionally taken a dim view of wimps. However, based upon the thousands of returning soldiers who have sought help, the estimate is that about a third of those returning from Iraq are in need of it. If the 140,000 people we have in Iraq came home tomorrow, the shrinks would have some 46,000 new customers. That's a lot of PTSD. No doubt that figure could also be multiplied by ten to get some idea of what's going on on the Iraqi side.
And so our invasion of Iraq has been rather costly to all involved. People these days seem to embrace the philosophy that the ends justifies the means, so what have the ends been so far? We got rid of Saddam Hussein and his two crazy sons. In spite of all their hardships, few Iraqis are willing to express any regrets about that. But that's about it for the "plus" side of the picture. The government we installed to replace Saddam's regime does not work, and will probably be radically altered as soon as we get out of the way. The sanctions we engineered in the years leading up to our invasion succeeded in ruining Iraq financially, with the average family's income reduced to less than 25% of what it was in the good times, and since the invasion it's dropped even less. Let us think about that for a moment; how well could we manage an 80% pay cut? The sanctions also took a toll on Iraq's infrastructure; electricity, water, sewer and refuse removal services, and transportation. The destruction visited upon the country after the invasion did not improve that situation.
What is much worse than any of these things is the fact that we have succeeded in destroying America's credibility as a force for good in the world, and made it easy for a lot of people to hate us. That is a legacy we will have to cope with for at least a few generations. Maybe worse even than that is what we have done to our own self-respect. There are few who still cling to the belief that there was some provocation to justify the invasion of Iraq. The consensus is that contrary to the assertion that the operation was launched as a result of misunderstandings about intelligence data, it was intentionally promoted by "spin" (propaganda) and intentional misinformation (lies). Regardless of what people believe about the motives, most now see the war in Iraq as a mistake at best, and at worst, legally criminal. This really dampens one's enthusiasm for getting out to wave the flag and sing God Bless America.
So, returning to the point, can anyone argue that war is ever a sensible way to achieve political objectives?
In 1949 the U.S. Government's Department of War was renamed the Department of Defense. That was a move in the right directions, but unfortunately World War II had not dampened everyone's appetite for belligerence and enthusiasm for military adventure. While President Truman and most Americans were in the mood to embrace Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy on the inevitability of forever having to deal with bullies, "Speak softly and carry a big stick.", not everyone involved in the building of the most formidable war machine the world had ever seen was as ready to stand down. At the end of his term as President, General Eisenhower was acutely aware of this, and warned:
"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. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
The fiasco in Iraq is certainly a manifestation of President Eisenhower's worst fears, except that he had no way of envisioning an even more scary scenario - a coalition of politically conservative and religious fundamentalists crawling into bed with the powers that be in the military-industrial complex, to successfully capture the Executive Branch.People from FreedomsWatch.Org cite their personal losses, and appeal that those will not have been suffered for no reason. They advocate "staying the course," of course. Perhaps this unfortunate experience will finally permit us to understand what President Eisenhower was trying to tell us. In that case, none of the losses, on either side, will have been suffered in vain.
[-=glw=-]
Labels: Politics
posted by BoysMind at
12:37 PM
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