I was recently sneered at, mocked, and trivialized for opposing the war in Iraq by, get this, a semi-famous "Progressive," right here at dkos, a place where I thought the smart money was...well, smart.
"All we need is to become associated with a bunch of pacifists," he snarled (digitally of course). He went on to say that opposing the war would be "political suicide."
So what I take from that is that some of our people are so craven, so desperate for "victory" at any cost, that they are willing to embrace pure evil - because my cherished friends, that's what war is.
The evils which of necessity encompass the life of man are sufficiently numerous. Why should we add to them by voluntarily distressing and destroying one another? Peace, brothers, is better than war. In a long and bloody war, we lose many friends, and gain nothing. Let us then live in peace and friendship together, doing to each other all the good we can. - Thomas Jefferson on the Evils of War
Yes, war is evil, and Thomas Jefferson, my favorite American, is not the only one who has thought so.
Trenchard and Gordon in
Cato's Letters gave us this:
If we consider this question under the head of justice and humanity, what can be more detestable than to murder and destroy mankind, in order to rob and pillage them? War is comprehensive of most, if not all the mischiefs which do or ever can afflict men: It depopulates nations, lays waste the finest countries, destroys arts, sciences, and learning, butchers innocents, ruins the best men, and advances the worst; effaces every trace of virtue, piety, and compassion, and introduces confusion, anarchy, and all kinds of corruption in publick affairs; and indeed is pregnant with so many evils, that it ought ever to be avoided, when it can be avoided; and it may be avoided when a state can be safe without it, and much more so when all the advantages proposed by it can be procured by prudent and just methods.
And no one knows the evils of war more profoundly than those who have fought in them.
I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes. General Douglas McArthur
We've also had Presidents who understood this fact of war, unlike the chickenhawks who have now taken power in this country.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. Dwight Eisenhower, former President and General
Yes, war is humanity hung on an iron cross. Another of our Presidents who understood this was the oft unfairly castigated Jimmy Carter.
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil, but no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children." Those were the words of President Jimmy Carter in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize.
War is always evil. The words of a former Navy officer and veteran, former U.S. President and world peacemaker. Must we learn that anew in every generation?
I find myself filled with horror and sadness and anger and a multitude of questions. It's all so predictable, so unnecessary and so depressing.
The pictures of the abuse and torture conducted by U.S. troops and private contractors turn my stomach and those of millions of Americans. They threaten the lives of American troops still in Iraq and they may threaten any possibility of good will by many Iraqis and many in the Arab world in the future. But we should not be surprised. War is always evil and sometimes even good people do evil things during war. Should we be surprised? Bernice Powell Jackson on The Evils of War
As the "reality-based community," I don't think it would hurt us too badly to consider a few basic facts about the present debacle in Iraq:
- The invasion of Iraq was a
violation of International laws and conventions.
- The invasion of Iraq was based on an
outrageous pack of lies (let's be clear, the necons were never confused about whether or not Saddam had WMDs -
they knew damned well he didn't.).
- The Iraq war has
increased terrorism rather than decreasing it.
- The Iraq war has
infuriated the rest of the world.
- The war in Iraq is a
shocking waste of money.
- The invasion of Iraq was
a shameless grab for oil by the neocons who have gladly sacrificed thousands of
other people's children to enrich themselves and their
war-profiteering friends.
I believe that at least some of the people who are morally challenged by this war, have the excuse of being too young to remember Vietnam. For those of us who were alive and awake between 1965 and 1975, the Vietnam War was a deeply traumatic experience. In it we lost over 58,000 American brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, spouses, fathers, mothers, uncles and aunts. And those were just the Americans. The Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians lost millions. It was an object lesson on the stupidity, the futility, and the shameful, disgraceful waste that is war. Excerpted from a previous diary, the Drums of War.
What every American should have learned from the Vietnam Experience:
- The Military Industrial Complex will start wars based on lies to enrich the connected few (the haves and have mores)
- The Defense Industry profits from war and cares more about profits than it does about morality or human life
- War is expensive and drains money from the American economy, funneling it into the pockets of the well-connected few, those who own or are invested in the Defense Industry, and the politicians they buy off
- War is a brutal, nasty, horrific, wanton, and immoral sacrilege - there is nothing so wrong in all the rest of human experience (except torture)
- In war, the slaughter of innocents is unavoidable
- In war, people we love die in vain
- Even those who survive a war are horribly damaged, most for the rest of their lives
- There are few things - almost nothing really worth fighting a war over
- Wars are instigated and driven by manipulative greedy little men who care more about
money than human life, morality, or justice - they do everything but fight them
- When you wake up in the middle of a nightmare, it's best to just end it - endless arguing about whether or not we could just up and end it cost us tens of thousands of American lives in Vietnam - to no noble purpose
- War is for barbarians and evil cocksuckers who are always happy as hell to send other people's children off to kill and die for their personal enrichment
- Our government lies like a fucking rug
- Our government is not above attacking us when we disagree - will go so far as to kill us (see Kent State)
- Our government has a nasty habit of breaking laws and then lying about it (see Gulf of Tonkin, Watergate, etc.)
- A war is capable of damaging an entire generation - even those who didn't actually fight in it
So what are we to think of someone who wants to win so desperately that they are willing to embrace the evil of war? Is it really necessary or wise for us to become like the Republicans to defeat them? (And if it is, I say fuck that!) Even if the public supported the war (
and they do NOT!), would it be right to pander to their bloodlust to get elected? Now let me make a daring statement, and may everyone capable of understanding hear this:
some things are more important than politics. If you don't believe that then you have sunken into the morass of moral relativism as practiced by the neocon Republicans. Their
consequentialism is nothing more than the old saw,
the end justifies the means, and any first year philosophy student can tell you that "the end justifies the means" is the doorway to hell. In this philosophy, any moral outrage, any outright abomination such as torture can be justified based on (an expected) good outcome. This is the purest Machiavellian bullshit - and Machiavelli is a most dubious hero to the biggest assholes on the planet. I don't think we want to start thinking like them.
The same individual, who castigated me for my icky old pacifism, criticized me for being from the "far left." Well God forbid! How can there possibly be a place for leftists in a liberal/progressive community? Why don't we all just cower in the middle, subvert our principles, embrace an evil war because some pol said we ought to, and hope like hell that no one catches us thinking or acting like we're not in the "mainstream?" What a crock of pettiness, fearful thinking, and small-minded crap. Why don't we all become a bunch of straightjacketed compulsive conformists with no (overly) bold ideas and indistinguishable from our rightwing opponents? Surely then no one will criticize us! Surely then assholes all over America will vote for us, and not those other assholes!
Voter turnout in this country typically ranges from one third to one half of eligible voters. I contend that the other half are people who don't bother to vote out of - fear - conviction that the person they vote for would just end up screwing them in the end. There is certainly plenty of historical precedence for that. Who can blame people for being uninspired by a perennial choice between the lesser of two evils? Who can get excited about electing the next crop of corporate suck-ups?
Let's not pretend to like lies (like war) just because they are "popular," and might gain us a few votes. I firmly believe that there are many millions of uncounted Americans who, like myself, are sick to death of dishonest politicians, lies, and petty political gamesmanship. Remember how excited people got when Stephen Colbert spoke truth to power at the Whitehouse Correspondents' dinner? Or what a patriotic thrill it was when Ray McGovern stuck his neck out and confronted Rummy on WMDs? Or how strongly people responded to Cindy Sheehan getting all up in Bush's face and demanding to know what "noble purpose" her son died for?
Why did people get so excited and inspired by these events? Because we'd all been lied to so profoundly, and for so long, and (maddeningly) with the complete acquiescence of the media to the point where we were starving for truth - and to hear truth spoken to power. It is my contention that that hunger for truth is still with us today more powerfully than ever, and feeding that hunger with the unadulterated truth is the hidden force that can drive the Democrats into power. If we had a candidate who would boldly stick out their neck and speak the plain unadulterated TRUTH, I believe there would be millions of people who maybe never before voted crawling out of the political woodwork to cast a vote for truth, justice, and the American way.
So I say to hell with the paid political consultants who say we have to become more like the Republicans to get elected. We all saw what they did for Kerry in 2004. I say to hell with the asshole vote! We don't need it. There are untold millions of Americans out there who are dying for true and bold leadership -someone who will smack down the neocons, stand up to Bush and his bullies, and speak the TRUTH to the American people without fear or political calculation.
And the TRUTH is that war is an evil abomination, and this war, in particular, is unworthy of our blood and our treasure, our sons and our daughters.
Let us curse the lies and uphold the truth - for the truth, my dear friends, shall set us free.
Let us all vote for the Democrat who tells us no lies!