{"id":202751,"date":"2022-01-10T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=202751"},"modified":"2022-01-07T08:44:08","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T08:44:08","slug":"the-myth-of-the-good-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2022\/01\/the-myth-of-the-good-war\/","title":{"rendered":"The Myth of the Good War"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/robert-Koehler-commonwonders-e1506263351946.gif\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-52002\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/robert-Koehler-commonwonders-e1506263351946.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"85\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>5 Jan 2022 &#8211; <\/em>Love thy enemy? I get a chance to do so on a regular basis, thanks to the email (or nasty-mail) I sometimes get in response to my column, e.g.:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>\u201cMust be a dearth of anyone with anything intelligent to say for the News to put your drivel out for us to chew on. Not going to go over ridiculous points you made . . . not worth my time. Next time offer a cure. Otherwise it\u2019s just reportage that we already know.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I have an advantage here. When I get a communique like this, I know the writer read my column in a regular newspaper, not a progressive site on the Internet \u2014 and that\u2019s a good thing for multiple reasons.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>One:<\/strong> The mainstream media is often fearful of a viewpoint like mine, which is critical of war and nukes and nationalism and border cages and such, so I always feel delight on learning I\u2019ve made it into mainstream print.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Two:<\/strong> Hearing from someone who hates what I\u2019ve written is the essence of across-the-aisle communication. So what if the letter hits me like a verbal bullet? The writer exposed himself to a counter-viewpoint, expanding his awareness of the world. Let me do the same.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sometimes I get challenging emails that address actual issues, to which I always respond. But when the email is just angry bluster (sometimes profane, sometimes containing a threat), I shrug and usually let it go. My primary rule in such cases: If I do respond, wait till the emotion ebbs. Tossing a counter-insult back at the writer \u2014 using words as weapons \u2014 is just playing <em>High Noon<\/em>. Gotcha! It accomplishes nothing of value.<\/p>\n<p>The above letter, from a guy named Tom, was in response to a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/commonwonders.com\/poisoning-ourselves-with-war\/\" >recent column<\/a> called \u201cPoisoning Ourselves with War,\u201d which, in describing the vicious harm caused by our drone warfare, attempted to make a transcendent point: As we dehumanize and kill the enemy, along with collateral children and other innocents (<em>\u201cthe cameras showed women and children staggering out of the partly collapsed building, some missing limbs, some dragging the dead\u201d<\/em>), we also dehumanize ourselves. And the consequences of this are destroying the world.<\/p>\n<p>Drivel, eh? A second response, from Jim, was a little more informative:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWar is hell, no sh*t. Tell it to the Jews, The Chinese people, and anybody else that would have been COMPLETELY wiped out by the likes of Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini. Maybe the people who fought and died in a war they didn\u2019t start should have done so more politely. Easy for you to say when you have never had to fight for your or others people\u2019s lives, just sit-back and second guess others that were clearly superior to you. The next time some petty dictator comes along maybe you could try your best Chamberlain and see how that works for you.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cAs for the Jihadists I\u2019m sure they would love to hear from an infidel, especially an American. Why don\u2019t you drop in and say hi to ISIS, I\u2019m sure they would make you feel right at home.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don\u2019t normally make such commentary public, but when Hitler came up, I found myself wanting to throw the Fuhrer back at them. Then it started occurring to me that the barbed-wire divide between our respective viewpoints was more than a personal difference of opinions. This is national! This is how the military keeps on trucking, snatching its trillion-dollar budget every year, pushing on with the alleged war on terror that it\u2019s been losing for the last twenty years . . . and by \u201closing,\u201d I mean producing results that are the opposite of its alleged goal (to eradicate evil, or at least terrorism).<\/p>\n<p>As <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2022\/01\/04\/20-year-war-terror-was-amazing-success-if-you-were-terrorism\" >Nick Turse<\/a> points out, in the two decades since Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which he called a blank check (\u201cnow worth $5.8 trillion and counting\u201d) to wage war, it has been invoked by four presidents thus far<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cto justify counterterrorism operations \u2014 including ground combat, airstrikes, detention, and the support of partner militaries \u2014 in 22 countries, according to a new report by Stephanie Savell of Brown University\u2019s Costs of War Project. During that same time, the number of terrorist groups threatening Americans and American interests has, according to the U.S. State Department, more than doubled.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And beyond the financial costs, how many people have these efforts killed? How many have they displaced? And what, in God\u2019s name, is the difference between the multi-millions we have killed, in all the wars we\u2019ve waged (and lost) since World War II, and those killed by Hitler?<\/p>\n<p>The only difference is this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Every American exercise of military force since World War II, at least in the eyes of its architects, has inherited that war\u2019s moral justification and been understood as its offspring: motivated by its memory, prosecuted in its shadow, inevitably measured against it.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So writes Elizabeth D. Samet in her <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Looking-Good-War-American-Happiness\/dp\/0374219923?ots=1&amp;slotNum=0&amp;imprToken=f0bf1609-91c7-b78e-ee0&amp;tag=thneyo0f-20&amp;linkCode=w50\" >recent book<\/a>, <em>Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The myth of the good war! This is what Jim evoked in his email to me and it\u2019s what George W. Bush evoked when he launched the war on terror. Bush\u2019s words to the nation were \u201cdecidedly old-school, the comfort food of martial rhetoric,\u201d Carlos Lozada writes at the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2021\/11\/29\/the-cost-of-sentimentalizing-war-elizabeth-d-samet-looking-for-the-good-war\" >New Yorker<\/a>, in his review of Samet\u2019s book.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cWith the Axis of Evil, the menace of Fascism (remixed as \u2018Islamofascism\u201d\u2019), and the Pearl Harbor references, the Second World War hovered over what would become known as the global war on terror, infusing it with righteousness.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The myth of the good war may well be the most destructive certainty misleading the crumbling empire known as \u201cUSA! USA!\u201d Here\u2019s the problem, though. Building global and environmental peace \u2014 listening to and understanding one another \u2014 is a slow, extraordinarily complex process. It\u2019s so much easier to keep waging war against the bad guy of the moment, who will never go away.<\/p>\n<p><em>______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Robert-Koehler-pic-e1500749603385.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-77939\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Robert-Koehler-pic-e1500749603385.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound<em> (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/koehlercw@gmail.com\" >koehlercw@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/commonwonders.com\/the-myth-of-the-good-war\/\" >\u00a0Go to Original \u2013 commonwonders.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>5 Jan 2022 &#8211; The myth of the good war may well be the most destructive certainty misleading the crumbling empire known as \u201cUSA! USA!\u201d Here\u2019s the problem, though. Building global and environmental peace \u2014 listening to and understanding one another \u2014 is a slow, extraordinarily complex process. It\u2019s so much easier to keep waging war against the bad guy of the moment, who will never go away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":122360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2009,1050,504,1301,1969,126,118,1594,172,75],"class_list":["post-202751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-anti-war","tag-imperialism","tag-international-relations","tag-nuclear-war","tag-us-wars","tag-violence","tag-war","tag-war-economy","tag-west","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202751","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=202751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}