Iconoclast: Diplomatic Absurdity

I will preface this entry by clarifying that this is not meant to be an attack against those you love who are currently serving in the military or have previously done so. This is actually a defense for them and the lies they have been sold.

We tend to have an extreme arrogance about us in this current day where we falsely believe we are civilized. We study our history and read about the barbarism of previous civilizations and naturally assume that because we have advanced that we are civilized. Nothing can be further from the truth. Let’s talk about it.

There was a time in human history when war was to be expected. There was extreme scarcity, superstition, tribalism, and lack of knowledge. We can look back on our ancestors and forgive them because of this. As we look at modern society, we have wonderous technology, education at our fingertips, and the mental capacity to establish common ground. So why does it seem that we cannot seem to avoid international conflicts? No, the answer is not human nature as you so commonly hear. It’s foolish to assume that war is a product of human nature. As a human I don’t have the desire to go and kill my neighbor over a disagreement. What about all the pacifists of the world? Are they not human? Is there something genetically wrong with them for wanting to see an end to war? Of course, not. So, what is the reason for it? We will get to that.

Let’s look at the recent wars that have taken place in the last 100 years. Starting with WW2. The official narrative is that it was a war between good and evil and that good ended up winning because several evil rulers were dethroned and their militaries demolished. Yes, on the surface this is subjectively true, but was there really a solid line that divided good and evil? No. All sides were guilty of horrible things that in hindsight should have never been and would be considered war crimes today. Germany had the infamous concentration camps for the Jews, Japan had Unit 731 which conducted human experimentation on Chinese nationals, Italy targeted civilians with starvation and poisonous gas, France executed POWs without trial, the United Kingdon carried out a bombing raid on the civilians of Dresden, Russian soviets pillaged and raped German woman upon invading Berlin, and the US deployed nukes on two Japanese civilian populaces. Does this really sound like a black and white war of good against evil? Now there will always be those who will try to justify the nuking of civilians by saying it prevented so many more deaths from occurring. But can we in good conscience really admit to ourselves that the killing of civilians is justified to prevent the deaths of soldiers?

Now, I know by now you might be thinking I’m some kind of hippy with an unrealistic expectation of the world. You might be thinking that war is necessary at times and you cannot have peace without war. Well, just hear me out for a little bit longer.  Let’s move up further in history and we will begin to see how utterly pointless modern warfare always was.

Next in line is the Korean war. This was another war started with the façade of good versus evil. When all it really was, was the pushing of ideals by two large countries on two smaller ones. One side pushed the glorious idea of democracy and the other side the glorious idea of communism. After three years and over 2 million dead Koreans later, both sides were still divided and still are to this day.

Then we move on to the Vietnam war. Once again, another conflict filled with propaganda and the promise to rid the world of “evil”. This war echoed everything the Korean war did. North vs south and another failure that ended with over 2 million dead and a generation of traumatized veterans.

Next, we have the Persian Gulf war. It is at this time we begin to start seeing the real reason behind all wars. Resources. The sole purpose of the entire war was to secure oil but was fore fronted as the liberation of a people. This war was not a failure in terms of the mission but did in fact cause stability issues in the future.

Then we had the most recent. The war on terror. Today this topic remains a rather touchy subject due to the events surrounding it. However, most would agree that the resulting conflicts made no sense and were a waste. There was no better time for the US to launch a war. After 9/11, patriotism was the highest it had ever been in a long time. Thus, two campaigns were launched, not just one. A campaign to go into Afghanistan and carry out the impossible mission of killing an idea (jihad). And a campaign to go into Iraq and settle the score from the Persian Gulf war. Both brought little to no results in terms of the official reasons for going in. Afghanistan was another failure with an embarrassing end, and Iraq brought more chaos to an already chaotic region.

Now that we have looked over the last 100 years of war history just in the US alone. Can we honestly say that war brings peace? Or does it instead bring generational hatred and vengeance? Does it shed a positive light on the idea of spreading democracy? Or does it destabilize a population of people for the benefit of another?

The same cycle always seems to occur. An event takes place that is hyper focused in on by all media outlets, the emotions of the masses are played upon, the war drums are beat by the now radicalized masses, the war occurs, information is skewed, the war ends, and the calmed masses realize in hindsight that it should have never happened. Yet, we never learn our lesson. Every time we fall for the propaganda and forget everything about the lesson we learned the last time. When we take the time to think critically, we began to see that in our current stage of human development, war is not only obsolete, but an insult. We have the technology to communicate with anyone all around the world at any time. When many of us take advantage of this technology, it doesn’t take long to see that we as individuals tend to get along. When pointless conversations regarding politics (discussed previously) are avoided, we begin to see that we are more alike than we admit. Despite the cultural differences, we can establish common ground with complete strangers using our first instinct of simple politeness. So, if we as individuals can do this, why is it the governments of the world cannot? The answer is they do not want to.

“War represents the supreme failure of nations to resolve their differences. From a strictly pragmatic standpoint, it is the most inefficient waste of lives and resources ever conceived.”- Jacque Fresco

As I mentioned before, extreme scarcity played a part in early wars. Although we have more abundance than our ancestors ever did, that motive has not changed. No matter the reasons given to us prior. It’s not about spreading goodness, fighting evil, saving innocence, nor defending freedom. These are cover stories. It’s about a concept as simple as capitalism itself, the acquisition and securing of resources. This is not just true for America, but for all nations. America acquired the supposed “evil” Nazi scientists to work for Nasa and advance our space program to beat the Soviets (Operation Paperclip). The Soviets also did the same.

The spoils of war are not a circumstance, but the point. Thousands of years ago, it was about the conquering of nations and seizing their assets. What do we call overthrowing a foreign leader, attempting to change their government into a democracy, and building a military base there? Do we call that Operation Iraqi Freedom? Or do we call it annexation?

Let’s do some more critical thinking for a moment.

Let’s ask ourselves, why is America so prosperous given its size? Is it because God has blessed us favorably over the other 194 countries? Or is it because of war? Not just with other nations, but from on its own soil. Of course, there are many answers to this question but given the topic of this blog, let’s focus on the war part.

We can answer this question by asking how the US in general is so big. Prior to the Mexican-American war of 1846, California, Texas, and most of the Midwest belonged to Mexico. California caught the US’s eye when gold was discovered there (resources). After the war, these states were ceded by Mexico and now belonged to the union (acquisition).

What about before this date? How were the eastern colonies established? Through the forced removal of indigenous tribes that gave us the term “trail of tears”. Obviously, there was armed resistance (war). The entire nation was founded through war between the early colonists, the British, French, and the Spanish. It wasn’t given by God to a small group of pilgrims, but won through violence and carnage.

Now, as I said before, this was at a time of extreme scarcity and primitive technology. Although we cannot overlook the things that took place during this time, we can still understand that it was during an age of ignorance, and history is what it is. The point I’m trying to make is that our goals have not changed at all. We instead sugar coat it with glamorous rhetoric, names, and headlines.

We now have a defense budget that is a few shy of $1 trillion. We try to justify this massive expense by saying we should be ready for any threat, but we must ask ourselves what is the real reason for such a high budget? Especially when we are seriously lacking in vital areas of sustainable living such as infrastructure, homelessness, sustainable power grids, and low literacy rates (54% of US adults have a literacy rate below a 6th grade level). The answer is profit. War is big business with big buyers and big sellers. The US achieved most of its world economic power during WW2. It continues to do so through the selling of arms around the world whenever a conflict arises. We call it a “defense” budget, while forgetting that our Department of Defense was called the Department of War prior to 1947. Our Secretary of Defense used to be called the Secretary of war. Naturally our defense budget should rightfully be called the war budget. But the term defense sounds nicer and is more accepted by the public since “defense” is a good thing. Can we honestly call our involvement in conflicts in the last 100 years a defense? Has the US mainland ever been attacked by an invading military? Did the previous $600 billion war budget prevent 9/11?

A majority of this entry has been focused on America because I’m American and what goes on here affects me the most. However, that does not mean other countries are excluded. As I said previously, war is profit for all nations. Third world nations still fight over land while developed nations fight for economic gain at the expense of young lives. It’s hypocritical to have a judicial system that punishes the act that war advocates. We imprison domestic murderers while issuing medals to those who murder overseas. We try to distinguish between murder and killing by covering it with justifiable fallacies. Can we in good conscience say that when the government tells us to kill, that makes it okay? We look down on those who kill in the name of their gods, but praise those who kill in the name of their governments. We cheer when a new war plane or ship is unveiled, similar to how the mutants in Beneath the Planet of the Apes worshiped the Doomsday bomb. We limit an individual’s right to self-defense within the confines of distance and touch but call the active seeking out and targeting of another nation “self-defense”. We expect the populace to handle differences through peaceful means but actively flash images of carnage across the tv screen when our leaders don’t agree and call it patriotism. We censor curse words, obscene gestures, and offensive slogans but will air the death count, battle footage, and descriptions of acts committed by “the enemy”.

We fly million-dollar war planes over sporting events as a glamorous display of power while the crowds below cheer from underneath their crippling cost of living debt (an act of advertising that is funded by the military budget paid directly to the respective sports organization not for patriotism but to encourage enlistment) . We push principles of not tolerating violence to bring about change, yet spend $800 billion on finding new ways of creating violence to bring change. We dramatize recruitment commercials to inspire the youth to sell their bodies in the name of service to one’s own country, yet we abandon them after they return with psychological issues and physical disabilities.

Breakthrough technology is funneled into our weapons decades before it’s applied to the betterment of civilian society. One look at the SR-71 which was retired thirty-four years ago is enough to make one wonder why we still fly commercially with cylindrical jets that are limited to speeds under Mach 1. They claim the reasons for this are because of cost effectiveness. It’s actually considered more cost effective to design revolutionary warplanes that kill more efficiently over planes that can transport the populace more efficiently.

I’ll cover more on the topic of cost effectiveness in the next entry regarding societal economics. However, it is worth mentioning in this entry that with just 18% of our war budget, we could clean all plastic out of the world’s oceans and dramatically enhance marine life. Instead, the Navy target practices by firing live rounds into the ocean. Instead, nuclear weapons are tested in the ocean. Instead, we have sunken naval vessels from multiple nations resting at the bottom of our oceans.

Is war ever necessary? Is it justified when your homes are threatened? What if you look up in the sky and see paratroopers descending on you? The truth is, this would not happen if we did not live in a scarcity driven money centered world. More on that in the next entry. For now, I’ll end this with some more quotes below to help us to critically think, as is the purpose of the Iconoclast series but I'll also insert one final question. After having thought about these things, are we truly solving any problems with war? Or are we just creating new ones for the next generation?

“At the beginning of World War II the U.S. had a mere 600 or so first-class fighting aircraft. We rapidly overcame this short supply by turning out more than 90,000 planes a year. The question at the start of World War II was: Do we have enough funds to produce the required implements of war? The answer was No, we did not have enough money, nor did we have enough gold; but we did have more than enough resources. It was the available resources that enabled the US to achieve the high production and efficiency required to win the war. Unfortunately, this is only considered in times of war.” -Jacque Fresco

“Memorial Day will be celebrated ... by the usual betrayal of the dead, by the hypocritical patriotism of the politicians and contractors preparing for more wars, more graves to receive more flowers on future Memorial Days. The memory of the dead deserves a different dedication. To peace, to defiance of governments.” -Howard Zinn

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on social uplift is approaching spiritual doom” -Martin Luther King Jr.

“War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.” -George Orwell

“Travel is one of the best anti-war weapons that there are. I’ve been to Iran, and if you’re there you see little kids, cops, old people, cemeteries. Once you see that, you can’t say, ‘Oh, Iran, let’s bomb them.”’-Viggo Mortensen

“War is a racket.  It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” - Smedley Butler