The United States has been at war -- major boots-on-the-ground
conflicts and minor interventions, firefights, air strikes, drone
assassination campaigns, occupations, special ops raids, proxy
conflicts, and covert actions -- nearly nonstop since the Vietnam War
began. That’s more than half a century of experience with war,
American-style, and yet few in our world bother to draw the obvious
conclusions.
Given the historical record, those conclusions should be staring us
in the face. They are, however, the words that can’t be said in a
country committed to a military-first approach to the world, a continual
build-up of its forces, an emphasis on pioneering work in the
development and deployment of the latest destructive technology, and a
repetitious cycling through styles of war from full-scale invasions and
occupations to counterinsurgency, proxy wars, and back again.
So here are five straightforward lessons -- none acceptable in what
passes for discussion and debate in this country -- that could be drawn
from that last half century of every kind of American warfare:
1. No matter how you define American-style war or its goals, it doesn’t work. Ever.
2. No matter how you pose the problems of our world, it doesn’t solve them. Never.
3. No matter how often you cite the use of military force to
“stabilize” or “protect” or “liberate” countries or regions, it is a
destabilizing force.
4. No matter how regularly you praise the American way of war and its
“warriors,” the U.S. military is incapable of winning its wars.
5. No matter how often American presidents claim that the U.S.
military is “the finest fighting force in history,” the evidence is in:
it isn’t.
And here’s a bonus lesson: if as a polity we were to take these five
no-brainers to heart and stop fighting endless wars, which drain us of
national treasure, we would also have a long-term solution to the
Veterans Administration health-care crisis. It’s not the sort of thing
said in our world, but the VA is in a crisis of financing and caregiving
that, in the present context, cannot be solved, no matter whom you hire
or fire. The only long-term solution would be to stop fighting losing
wars that the American people will pay for decades into the future, as
the cost in broken bodies and broken lives is translated into medical
care and dumped on the VA.
One caveat. Think whatever you want about war and American
war-making, but keep in mind that we are inside an enormous propaganda
machine of militarism,
even if we barely acknowledge the space in our lives that it fills.
Inside it, only certain opinions, certain thoughts, are acceptable, or
even in some sense possible.
from here
So begins a lengthy article much of which we can agree with. Socialists, however would undoubtedly stress another point; why ever should one section of the working class of the world be thrust into war against another section in a different country (or even in their own, as happens in civil wars)? Wars are started by factions and cheerleaders of the capitalist class to gain leverage, control of resources or territory and to make fat profits in the process. The losers are on both sides - those who are persuaded that it is in their personal or patriotic interest to do the fighting. It isn't. They are stooges manufactured by the propaganda of the system.
No war is a good war and certainly not in the interests of the vast majority of the world's population.
JS
No comments:
Post a Comment