{"id":182306,"date":"2021-04-05T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-04-05T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=182306"},"modified":"2021-04-04T06:36:02","modified_gmt":"2021-04-04T05:36:02","slug":"ending-the-endless-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/04\/ending-the-endless-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Ending the Endless War"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em>31 Mar 2021 – <\/em>Will Joe Biden end the endless wars or won\u2019t he9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have serious doubts that he has the will or political acumen to do so. But that\u2019s only a fragment of the question that needs to be asked, as we approach the twentieth anniversary of our global \u201cwar on evil.\u201d A far, far bigger question looms, a question with answers scattered across the global landscape: Can we learn to wage peace? Can we create a united world, free of borders and scapegoats? Can we transcend our alienation from and exploitation of the planet that is our home and our nurturer? Can we stop being afraid of people we don\u2019t know, people who are \u201cdifferent\u201d from us? Can we let go of our need for an enemy?<\/p>\n

Millions of global citizens believe the answer to these questions is yes and are committed to creating a different world \u2014 I call it participatory evolution \u2014 but at the highest levels of collective human organization, cynicism and ignorance rule. Or perhaps I simply mean cluelessness. Militarism is embedded in the infrastructure of the nation state. It\u2019s not simply that borders and interests have to be \u201cdefended\u201d; the easiest way to maintain the illusion of national unity is to present the people with a powerful enemy, imaginary or otherwise.<\/p>\n

\u201cOurs is the cause of freedom,\u201d George W. Bush<\/a> declared in November 2001, a month after the U.S. began its war on Afghanistan and two months after 9\/11, recently quoted in an essay by Andrew Bacevich. \u201cWe\u2019ve defeated freedom\u2019s enemies before, and we will defeat them again. . . . My fellow Americans, let\u2019s roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how wars always start \u2014 with enthusiastic optimism to beat the band. Wow, we\u2019re going to make the world a better place. Two decades later . . . huh? The war is still there, absurdly, pointlessly, one of many that we don\u2019t even bother to justify anymore. They just are. We have to complete our mission. Sorry about the background noise.<\/p>\n

Bacevich also quotes Gen. Stanley McChrystal, one-time commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, who \u2014 ten years into the debacle \u2014 acknowledged that the United States and its military had no idea who they were actually invading.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t know enough, and we still don\u2019t know enough. Most of us \u2014 me included \u2014 had a very superficial understanding of the situation and history, and we had a frighteningly simplistic view of recent history, the last 50 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As Bacevich noted<\/a>, McChrystal was speaking purely in a strategic sense. We could have conquered our enemies and won the war if we had had a clearer understanding of the country we were about to invade, the people we were about to bomb. Unbeknownst to the general, of course, his confession of top-level military and political ignorance opens the door to much larger matters, such as how to live in peace and sanity. What if we actually spent time trying to understand one another? What if we valued rather than feared our differences? What if we actually had less revved-up determination to kill our problems and more determination to solve them?<\/p>\n

What if? What if?<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth domestically and internationally, we must dramatically ramp up the use of proven powers of peace-building, including dialogue, mediation, conflict resolution, economic and social development, restorative justice, public health approaches to violence prevention, trauma-informed systems of care, social and emotional learning in schools, and many others.\u201d<\/p>\n

What if those were the words of President Biden? If they were, maybe war itself would not seem endless or inevitable. But the words are from Marianne Williamson\u2019s website, specifically from the \u201cPlan for a U.S. Department of Peace<\/a>\u201d \u2014 a bill initially introduced by former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich in 2001, and reintroduced in every new Congress since then, calling for a cabinet-level Department of Peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cDomestically,\u201d the plan continues, \u201cthe need for coordinated effort to end violence in our country is also greater than ever. Too many of our citizens, and in particular our children, fear violence on a daily basis. One hundred Americans die of gun violence every day. We have areas in our inner cities called \u2018domestic war zones.\u2019 From gang and drug violence, to mass shootings even in our schools, to bullying and sexual violence, the United States is riddled with violence. We have not yet addressed it holistically or in an integrated fashion. While we treat symptoms, we do not treat cause.\u201d<\/p>\n

I repeat: We treat the symptoms. We hide in utter fear of the cause, because confronting causes means looking inward as well as outward. The refusal \u2014 the inability? \u2014 of most leaders at the national level to approach humanity\u2019s biggest problems holistically, rather than simply blame them on \u201cthe other,\u201d says to me it\u2019s time to begin loosening the certainty that borders are real, that nation states are real. As George W. Bush \u2014 not to mention Donald Trump \u2014 taught us, nation states (and wars) are built on public relations: on clich\u00e9s and lies. \u201cWe\u2019ve defeated freedom\u2019s enemies before, and we will defeat them again.\u201d<\/p>\n

How could any sane human being imagine that actions built on this kind of thinking could solve, or heal, a complex issue? That\u2019s like suggesting that we try healing Covid-19 by injecting bleach. You know, going to war against it.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 commonwonders.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

31 Mar 2021 – The refusal \u2014 the inability? \u2014 of most leaders at the national level to approach humanity\u2019s biggest problems holistically, rather than simply blame them on \u201cthe other,\u201d says to me it\u2019s time to begin loosening the certainty that borders are real, that nation states are real. \u201cWe\u2019ve defeated freedom\u2019s enemies before, and we will defeat them again.\u201d How could any sane human being imagine that actions built on this kind of thinking could solve, or heal, a complex issue?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[867,1161,1188,120,267,1126,260,487,1050,504,950,291,1105,780,769,91,86,109,287,95,70,126,118,492,172,75],"class_list":["post-182306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-anglo-america","tag-arms-industry","tag-arms-race","tag-conflict","tag-geopolitics","tag-hegemony","tag-history","tag-human-rights","tag-imperialism","tag-international-relations","tag-invasion","tag-military","tag-military-industrial-complex","tag-military-intervention","tag-military-supremacy","tag-nato","tag-occupation","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-us-military","tag-usa","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-war-on-terror","tag-west","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}