The United States Will Never Fight a Justifiable War (5/29/06)
by Dean Hartwell
On this Memorial Day, we honor those who
gave their lives in military service to our nation. We
should also take the time to think about our future and
determine whether it is worth it for soldiers to risk
their lives.
The sad truth is that the United States will never fight
a justifiable war again. This nation has run out of
righteous causes like the fight for independence
(Revolutionary War), British aggression (War of 1812)
and the defeat of fascism (World War II). It has instead
used war to help the wealthy, stoke the fires of false
patriotism and distract us while the government takes
away our rights.
It didn’t start with the distortion of Iraq and its war
making capabilities. The Bush Administration followed a
blueprint set forth by others. We have also gone to war
under false pretenses in the Mexican-American War, the
Spanish-American War, the Viet Nam War, Grenada, Panama,
Desert Storm and Afghanistan.
We don’t need to defend ourselves the way we once did.
Certainly, we need to be wary of terrorist attacks, but
our most effective responses to them have been through
government agencies like the FBI and the CIA rather than
our military. Moreover, we cannot declare war on
terrorists since they do not represent another nation.
Some point to Iran and say they (or other nations) may
get nuclear weapon capabilities and point them at us or
an ally. Would we not then be justified in going to war
with them? The answer is that this will not happen. We
have shot our wad of credibility by falsely accusing
Iraq of having weapons of mass destruction. Fortunately,
with the possible exception of Russia, no enemy nation
has the capability to launch nuclear weapons onto U.S.
territory.
In our current way of conducting war, we go after
resources if we can (like the oil pipeline in
Afghanistan) and we give lucrative contracts to
companies like Halliburton. In Iraq, the Bush
Administration went for the oil by protecting the oil
fields at the time of the invasion. Then, failing that
goal, it encouraged the bombing of oil pipelines, an act
that has increased gas prices and helped President
Bush’s oil friends.
And, how about all of the U.S. flags displayed after
9/11 and continuing through the Afghan and Iraq wars?
With people waving the flags, our leaders couldn’t miss
getting any idea they wanted passed. And, the
flag-waving made it easier for our government to
discourage dissent by encouraging individual conformity
with this showing of national pride.
Patriotism should not only be determined by the
intensity with which one supports our government’s
actions. If that is what patriotism is, those who
supported British occupation during the time of the
Revolution were the true patriots. Real patriotism is a
pledge to better the nation and the society in which one
lives. This pledge can include criticizing decisions
like the ones that get us into illegal wars.
Lastly, wars today are designed to distract us or to
cause us to look the other way while we lose our rights.
The Bush Administration has justified the
unconstitutional wiretapping as necessary in the “War
against Terrorism.” They make it sound as though getting
a warrant would cause our government officials to let
terrorists get away. Actually, the pertinent law, FISA,
allows retroactive use of a warrant. Likewise, the
government has unnecessarily compromised our right to be
informed about searches conducted on our homes with the
Patriot Act, a 9/11 offspring.
It’s not that we cannot fight a justifiable war again.
It’s that we do not want to. Justifiable wars are about
defending ourselves against attackers, not falsely
accusing other nations of attacking us or preparing to
attack us. By definition, we can’t plan a justifiable
war. Yet helping the rich, appealing to the “patriotic”
and installing repressive laws are all symptoms of plans
by our leaders to fight wars of choice.