Perhaps the primary value of war – from the point of view of national leaders and their loyal followers – is that it places 100 percent of the blame for whatever’s wrong on the other guy: the enemy. And thus there’s no alternative but to kill “him,” which nowadays amounts to slaughtering and dismembering anybody and everybody who lives in his sector of the planet, including children . . . though that part isn’t said out loud.
It's not even “winning” that matters, because in truth there is no winning when it comes to war, just ongoing preparation for the next one. Good ol’ George W. Bush described the phenomenon with such clarity in his 2002 State of the Union address, when he said that North Korea, Iran and Iraq – three countries the United States once controlled – constituted, in their defiance, “an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”
We all know what happened next. We invaded and shattered Iraq. A million or so people died. Nothing changed. Certainly nothing was learned.
For instance, these are the words of George W excuse me, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking two-plus decades later before the Israeli Knesset, in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel:
“Hamas is part of the axis of evil of Iran, Hezbollah and their minions. They seek to destroy the State of Israel and murder us all. They want to return the Middle East to the abyss of the barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages”
From Netanyahu’s point of view, the Hamas attack was completely unprovoked. It had nothing to do with Israel’s occupation of Palestine, turning Gaza into a concentration camp for two million people, continually “mowing the lawn” there, etc. After all, the enemy always bears 100 percent of the blame.
And how national leaders love their enemies – just not in that “love thy enemy as thyself” way. A good enemy – and a war against that enemy – create national unity: “Our goal is victory,” Netanyahu declared, “a crushing victory over Hamas, toppling its regime and removing its threat to the State of Israel once and for all.”
He added: “This is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.”
Law of the jungle?
These words made me pause, oh so briefly. Netanyahu – murderer of children – actually uttered a sliver of truth, unintentionally, of course. His genocidal war on Palestine is, indeed, a struggle between humanity and the law of the jungle. It’s a struggle between brutal force – this is the “humanity” part, simplistic and domination-obsessed – and transcendent sanity: the law of the jungle, i.e., the laws of survival that have evolved into our global ecosystem.
“The jungle environment, a complex and diverse ecosystem, embodies a myriad of interconnected laws that dictate the survival, interactions, and equilibrium of its inhabitants.”
So writes Brandon Angel at the website Nutritional Diversity, noting that “the jungle’s resilience lies in the abundance and diversity of species coexisting in a delicate balance.”
My heart pounds. All I can do is scream the words: What if?
I hear a billion human beings, maybe more, joining the cry. Most of humanity is, by now, oh so ready to move beyond the suicidal stupidity of war, the stupidity of the belief that we can kill the world’s evil and thus create some sort of pretend heaven, which of course will never happen. What if, instead, we committed ourselves to understanding the interconnectedness of life – or as Brandon put it, “the interplay of dominance, territoriality and cooperation”
No, there’s nothing obvious here. There’s nothing simple and clean-cut. Life is a complex, mortal struggle; competing interests arise. But what if we stopped valuing war? What if we conquered our impulse to kill the problem of the moment and looked deeply within it, not simply for a temporary solution but for transcendence?
I ask this question, as an American, of my own government. What if we decided to learn, not just at the margins, but officially and politically, from our own horrific history of genocide and racism, and acknowledge that we have survived not by killing the enemy within but we expanding our sense of who we are? And what if, empowered by this awareness, we refused to be complicit with Israel in its own attempt at committing genocide? What if we chose not to dance with the possibility of war with Iran?
What if, at the starting point of conflict, we began by acknowledging, in the words of the International Union for Conservation of Nature: “In the spirit of nature, everything is connected” . . .?
What might that mean? I don’t claim to know, but the first step is to loosen the grip my own certainties have on me, especially when those certainties are armed.
Instead of sending more bombs and weaponry to Netanyahu, the United States – if it had the courage – could send him the opposite, the words of Martin Luther King:
“And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~end~~~~~~~~~~~
Robert Koehler (koehlercw@gmail.com), syndicated by PeaceVoice, is a Chicago award-winning journalist and editor. He is the author of Courage Grows Strong at the Wound.
The Year Ahead: Ten Issues and One Wild Card
by Mel Gurtov
831 words
2024 is likely to be filled with more than the usual challenges to planetary safety and survival. Here’s a look at 10 issues and a wild card that suggest what’s ahead internationally that is worth our attention.
1. It will be another year of record temperatures and accompanying environmental stresses: more droughts, hurricanes, floods, species and coral reef losses. Antarctica’s ice loss will be particularly remarkable. The agreements reached at the COP28 conference on climate change will be cited again and again, but probably not in celebration of widespread compliance. In the US, climate litigation will be on the upswing. Among the most interesting cases will be those in Oregon, Hawaii, and California in which young people—following on a favorable court decision in Montana—are suing to protect the health of future generations from environmental damage.
2. Major wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine will continue throughout the year, with international support for Ukraine and Israel trending down. Expect the Ukraine war to feature more Ukrainian attacks inside Russia and some spillover of Russian attacks into NATO (Poland) countries. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza will become unmanageable as Israel’s occupation tightens. Israel may be convulsed by renewed conflict between the far right and liberals over judicial independence. Its war with Hezbollah may not be containable, leading either to Israeli military action in Lebanon or to conflict with Iran—or both. There may be calls in the US to attack Iran, not just in support of Israel but also to create regime change and end Iran’s nuclear program.
3. Failed and failing states may increase under the weight of coups, civil wars, climate change, and deteriorating economic conditions that include high food insecurity. Africa has many such stories: Sudan, Niger, Burkina Faso, Somalia. But Africa is not alone; Haiti, Myanmar, and Pakistan also stand out. These signs of collapsing authority will put enormous pressure to provide aid on the UN and other international and nongovernmental organizations—aid that will be increasingly hard to come by.
4. The debt crisis for the poorest countries will intensify, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where every country is deeply in debt to China and has no foreseeable way out.
5. China will mainly be looking inward, not outward, as its economy gets deeper into trouble. Internal security will have top priority for Xi Jinping as he doubles down on party, military, and social discipline. Repression may intensify as the party-state seeks to thwart rising social dissatisfaction.
6. China-US relations may improve marginally as high-level diplomacy normalizes, especially military-to-military communication. But improvement depends on stabilization of the Taiwan situation following upcoming elections, and a cooling down of tensions in the South China Sea. Neither of those possibilities is likely if a pro-independence candidate wins in Taiwan and if the Philippines and China cannot resolve their competing territorial claims in the South China Sea.
7. The nuclear issue in North Korea will again raise alarms as Pyongyang carries out more long-range missile tests. Another North Korean underground nuclear test is also possible. The chances of a resumption of US-North Korea diplomacy seem remote.
8. Illiberal populism, a.k.a strong-arm autocracy, is likely to strengthen in so-called democracies such as Modi’s India, Orban’s Hungary, and Erdogan’s Turkey. Expect anti-democratic leaders in China, Russia, and elsewhere to continue their disinformation efforts aimed at supporting far-right politicians and denigrating liberals. Worse yet, centrist parties in Europe will seek to pacify the far right to maintain their ruling coalitions.
9. Cyberhacking and other threats to governmental and personal security will increase. Chinese hacking of US targets, for instance, has changed from economic sabotage to acquire corporate secrets, to attacks on critical infrastructure such as utilities and transport systems, experts say. The hacking issue seems destined to become a top matter for US-China discussions.
10. Immigration will continue to challenge liberal governments and give fuel to far-right politicians and extremist groups. The tendency everywhere will be to limit immigration by narrowing amnesty and residency rules.
Finally, the wild card: the US elections. A Trump victory would mean a turnabout from international involvement to domestic upheaval as Trump seeks retribution against his enemies. His politics of revenge will have global consequences.
It would portend a dramatic decline in democratic governance and liberal values, a significant withdrawal of the US from alliances and international organizations, pressure on Ukraine to give in to Russian occupation of its land, a major reduction in US foreign aid and other international programs, termination of US commitments on climate change, and a significant uptick in US-China tensions (especially over Taiwan). Authoritarian leaders and politicians around the world will cite the US retreat from democracy as a model and act accordingly.
Even a Biden win, if not accompanied by Democratic control of the House or Senate, would spell trouble for US international commitments, starting with Ukraine and climate change.
Sorry to be so pessimistic, but facts and trends are inescapable. It would be nice to live in peaceful, harmonious times, but we don’t.
—————————-end—————————-
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University and blogs at In the Human Interest.
