We are not at war. But if we’re lucky and smart, Trump might be just as good as.
War is hell. I’ll take that as a given. But humans seem to have an addiction to it. Sometimes they come close, a veteran of The War to End All Wars coming back to start the next a couple decades later, but overall in the modern era, we have a roughly 70 year loop. Why?
The American Cemetery outside Florence, for servicemen killed in WWII
If a generation is vaguely 30 years, then it’s about as soon as enough people don’t grow up with firsthand stories of how awful it was, don’t get that ingrained memory of what we’re really talking about when we rattle the sabers. It’s not politics. It’s not pride. It’s suffering of a scale and intensity most of us can’t imagine, no matter how many times we see Saving Private Ryan.
As I study history, comparing nations and centuries, I see a recurring pattern. It’s a blog so I’ll summarize:
We have a war. Then we spend the next generation and a half improving human society. Reminded of just how important peace is, of what really matters in life, and of our communal humanity, we don’t mind contributing a piece of our paycheck to create a social order that preserves us. We know that this is not only ethically right, but in our own self interest.
Cemetery in Riga, Latvia. Born in 1931, I bet that military man understood how serious talk of war really is.
Then we forget. Those years click by and we start to see Us and Them as different, and say “They don’t deserve My time or concern or money.” Especially the money, god help us. So we clamp down, get mean, regress, let the hot momentary emotions overrule the deeper warm ones.
And so we repeat.
70 year loop? It’s been years since WWII. (The Vietnam War in all this is another post.) I look at the actions of the Trump Administration and the cheers of the people who think They Muslims don’t have a place in Our America, and I see forgetfulness. I see people who’ve forgotten what it is to be a refugee, to be vulnerable, to be threatened by guns instead of terrorized by Fox News.
The school converted to Tuol Sleng Prison, Phnom Penh. Cambodia remembers, and does not threaten war.
So what now? Do we have to go to war? I don’t think we do. God I hope we don’t. We can remember what’s at stake, how foolish it is to respond to concerns and suspicion with aggression. That dropping bombs on one terrorist makes 10 more in his place. That turning our backs on those in need shows moral bankruptcy and reason for villification. We can realize that demonizing Islam is working with ISIS/Daesh to create an artificial religious war.
Basically, by seeing the awful policies and rhetoric of the Trump administration, if we do it right, we can relearn the lesson of what really matters in life. Without pulling a trigger.
Or we can do it the old way.
I have never felt so disheartened politically. We can but raise our voices to call for ‘doing it right’ and succeed in drowning out those striving to ‘do it the old way’.
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Absolutely. The old neoconservative technique of “let the poor have just enough to stay alive, squeeze out the middle class, and let the 1% have the wealth” just wasn’t good enough. The desire for change is sincere and well deserved. I just hope we can find a better way to do it than xenophobia, dishonesty, and blaming exactly the wrong people.
I still believe in the fundamental goodness of the human spirit. Even among those who voted for Trump. Not in him, but we already have quorum. 😉
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No one ranted on the blogs when Obama paused Middle East immigration for a while or when he cancelled the law that stated Cubans could stay here as soon as they step on US soil – why is that?
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Those are good points. (Well, I’m sure plenty of people ranted in the blogs about every step Obama took, but not me and not as widely as they are now, perhaps.)
Re Cuba: eliminating the Wet Foot Dry Foot doctrine was intended to normalize relations with Cuba. A compromise deal to increase the chances of true peace and reconciliation between our countries, ie diplomacy. Whether that doctrine in itself was good or bad, I don’t feel qualified to say. Whether it would have worked, we also probably will never know, since I doubt Trump has any interest in improving relations with Cuba.
Re: Obama in 2011. This one I hadn’t even heard of before. (To be fair, I never touched US soil in 2011, but I still should have heard of it.) If my research is correct, in 2011 military investigators were digging through a backlog of evidence and on an IED found fingerprints of two men who had since been granted entry into the US. Seeing this as evidence that the system wasn’t strong enough, they slowed (not stopped) applications from Iraq while they improved the system. Once that was done to everyone’s satisfaction, it returned to normal levels.
I see this as fundamentally different from what Trump is doing. It was a response to a tangible cause, and led to a stronger process. (Exactly what Trump is claiming doesn’t exist.) But even more importantly, in its nature it was reasonable and non-discriminatory, so didn’t send the message that this one does, namely that the US considers Islam to be an enemy. That message is profoundly dangerous to not only US safety and interests, but world peace itself. It works with ISIS/Daesh’s narrative of religious conflict to worsen the prospects of genuine peace in the world, and actually LESSENS America’s safety. (Not to mention that these countries seem to have been chosen since they’re too weak and uninfluential to respond strongly to being included, as well as the troublesome fact that they also match the list of countries in which Trump doesn’t have business interests.)
It is also a danger to American troops, which rely on local assistance in all their foreign engagements. These in-country helpers put their lives on the line to protect our soldiers, and we are turning out backs on them. (I personally have had Afghani students who waited years for Congress to follow through on their promise to get them entry into the US.) How can we expect people to help our soldiers if those helpers see us turning our backs on them?
These are my thoughts, but I admit, I was pleased to hear them echoed by a succession of CIA and FBI agents. If you’d like I can dig up the interviews.
And thank you for your comments. I genuinely appreciate hearing your thoughts and concernsm including in response to any of what I’ve just added. Only talking to people who agree with me 100% is a waste of time.
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It is a pleasure talking to someone who is informed and I thank you very for taking the time to give me your opinion.
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Thank you as well, I very much appreciate your input and conversation.
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My sister asked me the same question just yesterday. I had to scratch my head and then realised that, like vagabondurges, I was travelling overland from London to Sydney for most of that year. Not much internet across Central Asia. You can be sure I would have been objecting had I known.
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Perhaps its worth noting that there hasn’t been a war in the continental United States since the Civil War concluded in 1865. In some parts of the world, war has been effectively unceasing for multiple generations. I can’t help but wonder how that informs consideration of the matters you raised in this entry.
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Excellent point. The fact is, I can only speak to my cultural experience. I should have specified that I was talking about the US and its primary engagements. In other countries, the cycle of violence is much faster and less forgiving. I hope we do not join them in that place.
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Perhaps it’s worth noting that there hasn’t been a war in the continental United States since the Civil War concluded in 1865. In other parts of the world, war has been essentially endemic for multiple generations. I can’t help but wonder how that informs consideration of the matters you raised in this entry.
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Good enough point to raise twice! 😉 Glad it did, since now I’m wondering what effect that physical protection has had. Perhaps not having the war fought on our soil helped us recover faster, overcoming the sort of devastation that otherwise might bog a country down? It’s hard to forgive, learn, improve, and move on while you’re physically surrounded by ruins…
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Perspective is inevitably based on experience, and that has both positive and negative connotations. And it’s not always obvious what the impact of past experience will be.
For instance, one would think that the unprecedented devastating experience of the Great War would have made the prospect of another war on the European continent almost unthinkable. And yet, only two decades after WW I ended, World War II began. On the other hand, it’s at least arguable that the experience of the Great War (in part) made countries like France reluctant to engage Hitler militarily until it was “too late.” A bit of cognitive dissonance, no?
History is fascinating, and endlessly complex.
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Very good points. It’s both maddening and reassuring to know that a more informed perspective on what’s going on might not emerge for a decade or more.
The case of WWI to WWII is very interesting. Impossible to know for sure, but (as I think we’re agreeing) the rest of the world’s reluctance to engage Hitler came from that hellish education of war. The reason Hitler came back so quickly, for me, is linked to the punitive excess of the Treaty of Versailles (and the Depression). One cannot expect peace while leaving other nations to live in desperation and poverty with no hope for improvement, while simultaneously giving them an easy enemy to blame for it.
That lesson is devastatingly important today, when decades of neoliberal economics have left so much of the developing world behind. We condemn other nations to poverty and think it’s good for us. Trump is determined to see Mexico collapse, as far as I can tell. Syria crumbled because a drought gave that last spark necessary (I’d use the straw on the camel’s back, but that seems a bit crude here…). The whole Middle East was deliberately divided (by Kissinger’s policies) to keep it weak and poor. Then you get leaders (like Trump) who reinforce the idea that the West is opposed to their very identity (Islam) and we should not be surprised when the voices calling for war gain strength, in direct opposition to the fundamental goodness of the human soul.
Sorry for the long comment. It’s just terrifying. I believe the end of war leads directly to peace. But punitive and desperately unequal conditions, armed with rhetoric and emotion, lead us back into the profound suffering and mutual destruction of conflict. And I see it happening in the news today.
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There’s really no systematic starting point for determining where past experience impacts events. For instance, the Treaty of Versailles…keep in mind that Germany, as a modern, unified state, didn’t exist until after the Franco-Prussian War concluded. And the outcome of that war–which included the loss of two French provinces to the newly unified Germany–had a lot to do with France’s insistence on the terms of the treaty that ended WW I, more than 40 years later. So too did the fact that France suffered incomprehensible losses, human and capital, during WW I, considerably larger losses than Germany despite being among the “victors” of the Great War.
And the Middle East…the division of the region long pre-dated Kissinger. It goes back at least as far as–oh, the coincidence–World War I when the Allies (via T.E. Lawrence) fomented the Arab uprising in exchange for certain “promises” (which mostly went unfulfilled). The League of Nations mandate that followed the end of the war altered, but mostly solidified, the Great War-inspired divisions in the region. Then there was the free-for-all that followed the end of WW II, including (but by no means limited to) the UN mandate covering Palestine, the creation of the Israeli state and…well, you probably know the rest of the story (you probably know the part of the story I’ve summarized as well, come to think of it). In any event, all of this predates Kissinger’s Cold War inspired thinking as it pertains to the Middle East.
My point–and I apologize for taking so long to get to it–is, these narratives have so much history behind them it’s almost impossible to really pinpoint a beginning to the story we tell ourselves today.
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I think you’re absolutely right, these conflicts really do go back to prior causes. [The Franco-Prussian War had roots in previous bloodshed like the Napoleonic Wars, perhaps going as far back as Parisii v Franks. You really have to hand it to Bismarck for knowing what would unite the Germanies. And we have three religions whose primary texts include much of our earliest historical record, god help us.]
But while those ancient grudges are undoubtedly part of it all, I do think our human memory of the previous two generations is more important. When world events change the flow of those enmities, it takes awhile to take hold, but once it does, they become the new reality. I think back to the vicious wars for centuries in Britain, yet now we say Anglo-Saxon like it’s one thing, not remembering that the Angles and the Saxons killed each other for centuries. I think that’s where this two generational loop comes in. I would bet that within the first generation after Angle-Saxon peace, it would have been possible to reignite the violence, but after the grandparents’ stories didn’t include it? Nah.
This is actually tremendously heartening. Ireland is on its way, I think few are the Americans who feel antipathy towards Vietnam, and North Korea is only seen as adversarial so long as their leader demands it. Perhaps our great-grandkids will be terribly bored by tales of Islamophobia.
Or zombie apocalypse. I’d give it 60:40.
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You’re right; there’s a limit to tribalism. There must be or we–the generalized members of the human race–would have exterminated each other long ago.
I’d like to think that even the two-generation limit that you’ve identified is a moving (read: shrinking) target. After all, one of the things that distinguishes us from the Angles and the Saxons, among other warring tribes of pre-history, is an undeniable interconnectedness. I would really like to think that the growing, maturing ability to interface with people from all across the globe is having something akin to the “one world” effect that Wendell Wilkie wrote about more than 75 years ago.
And then I look at the rocks that Trump and the Brexit denizens turned over and I simply must pause. Deep down, I guess, I think that this is just one of those blips that will be viewed in (two?) generations as that ever-necessary momentary half-step backwards as opposed to the sheer cliff that it appears today. I hope so, in any event.
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Saving Private Ryan had such a big impact on me as I watched the soldiers approaching the beach and people being blown up. Terrifying. Message: No war unless absolutely necessary!
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True. Such an awful war. But countering the authoritarianism and genocidal policies of the Nazis feels like a war worth fighting. But I desperately hope we never go back to such a thing again.
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Don’t forget that many get rich off of war. Eisenhower knew what was happening when he warned of the military-industrial complex. Who knows what monied interests are involved in the Bannon and Trump shenanigans. But you can be sure they are involved. Here’s a piece of Eisenhower’s Farewell Address in 1961: “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
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Absolutely! Thank you for the reminder, and the quote. If I could vote for a candidate composed entirely of that quote, I would. I long for an ethical Republican like that so much….
I’ve heard his original speech called it the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex, but he took the last part off in deference to his friends in congress… Might be time to put it back on.
The people who make money off the suffering of armed conflict should be put on trial. Fair trial. But on trial.
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