America and Moral Wars

More than any other Western nation, the United States has, since the end of World War II, tried to resolve international political disputes by using the immoral instrument of war. In every instance (Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, and the Persian Gulf), U.S. political leaders have based their actions on moral grounds. They have used violence against other nations to force adherence to "the rule of law." To believe they themselves really believe in their justification of the use of war (an immoral action) to precipitate a moral result (adherence to a rule of law) strains credibility.

We are a Religious Nation

Annual sales in the United States of the Holy Bible exceed those of any other book. Church attendance is proportionately greater than in any other nation. Adherence to the tenets of religious beliefs is widespread even among non-church goers. Americans are regarded by themselves and by the peoples of other nations as being moral. And deep down they believe what the Holy Bible says:

"...scatter thou the people who delight in war. (Psalm 68, Verse 30)

"And he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2, Verse 4-)

Is there, then, reason to believe that the people accept the moral justification for war espoused by their leaders because the people credit their leaders with being as moral as the people? Or is there reason to suspect the appeal of the leaders to morality is a means of conning the people, especially at times when no other valid justification for war exists?

Is it not time for the people to awaken to the more realistic justification for war:

"And the men who had made the war -- the sharp politicians and the devoted patriots, the men who dreamed the American dream in different ways and the other men who never dreamed any dreams at all but who had a canny eye for power and influence -- most of these, by now, are prisoners of their own creation...and the act of embracing unmitigated violence could he a substitute for thought." (A Stillness at Appomattox (1953) Bruce Catton, pp. 198-9.)

Catton's observation was part of his soaring comment on the fourth and final year of the American Civil War, described by the politicians of the day as a great moral crusade. Now we know the Civil war was fought for political and economic reasons not moral reasons. Its purported raison d'etre, the abolition of slavery, was one of the economic issues although it had moral overtones.

So we must conclude that war is in the eye of the beholder and that it could be a "substitute for thought."

"To cause to come out of a savage or barbarous state." (The definition of "civilize" in Webster's Dictionary.)

For centuries human beings have been trying to civilize themselves. History records only modest gains, since the civilizations constructed during the process were built with the use of force.

Moral War

Christ, the Western World's most revered religious leader, formulated principles usable in preventing not justifying war. So did Buddha some 500 years before Christ, along with Confucius and, later, Muhammad. Their failure to exercise the paramount influence in efforts to civilize humankind may he attributed in part to the success of political leaders over the centuries in conning their peoples into believing that war is moral.

Window of Opportunity

In the life of a nation as in the life of an individual there appear, from time to time, windows of opportunity to better the lot of humanity. The end of the Cold War was just such an opportunity. Not since World War II had so propitious a time arrived to try to alter the conduct of international relations.

The world waited for the United States, the nation with the greatest power and influence, to take the lead. But our political leaders would not even acknowledge the Cold War's end; and they still resist for reasons of their own.

Soviet Leadership

It was the arch-opponent of freedom and democracy, the Soviet Union, that picked up the torch of peace and ran with it. Mikhail Gorbachev, with foresight and courage (knowing the USSR's national security would be endangered), initiated the demise of communism, thereby ending the Cold War. He also conceived the need to build a peaceful world, a vision that won a Nobel Peace Prize which might have been won by George Bush. But Bush and other makers of U.S. foreign policy—insecure without their Cold War blanket and at sea without a post-Cold War vision—were prisoners of a Cold War mentality. Meanwhile, Gorbachev is gambling the integrity of the Soviet Union on democratic and economic reforms. In Perestroika in 1987 (pages 198-9) he said:

• The world has diverse political and social systems.

• It is permeated with opposing trends and acute contradictions.

• It is encountering worsening global problems and fundamental social shifts.

• It is rich with unheard of possibilities for development and progress.

• It is, in the present day, a world in which all of us are coming to depend more and more on one another and are linked by the same destiny.

• There is imperative need for pooling the efforts of humanity for the sake of self-preservation.

The New World Order

The recent decision to go to war against Iraq, again justified as a moral cause, implied the need for but did not spell out a New World Order." Unlike Gorbachev's concept, Bush's relies on coercion and continuation of the U.S role of world policeman to force adherence to "the rule of law" whatever that may be. Bush has not accepted the fact that "neither the United States nor the Soviet Union is able to force its will on others." (Perestroika, op. cit.) For Bush the macho image of the United States still prevails. (See Commentary on American Foreign Policy, We the People October 1988, Vol 3, No. 3). He fails to digest or understand the import of the observation made by Rep. Les Aspin, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, about the decision to go to war against Iraq:

"This is going to be the defining moment for America's role in the world for a decade or more to come. How we come out of this will determine whether we can or cannot still call on force to achieve our goals abroad. How we come out of this will determine whether we can or cannot use the United Nations to achieve our goals. How we come out of this will determine our relations not only with the states of the Middle East but also of Europe. It will establish who we can work with in the future, and how." (The Washington Post, January 20, 1991, Outlook Section.)

Realities

In our 1988 foreign policy commentary, (We the People, October 1988, Vol. 3 No. 3), we identified some of the realities underlying the conduct of international relations. And we suggested guidelines for reassessing, refining, and maturing American foreign policy. Subsequently we had the temerity to suggest a broad approach to U. S. foreign policy during the remainder of the present decade. (We the People, January 1990, Vol, 5, No, 1.) In summary we said:

• Recognize that, with the end of the Cold War, international economic competition has displaced military competition.

• Recognize that an expanded Europe, with greatly increased economic strength, has replaced the Cold War as America's pivotal foreign policy.

• Assure that the United States continues to play a role in the political evolution of Germany.

• Be prepared diplomatically to take policy account of strife generated by the destabilizing violence of ethnic competition all over the world—without being the world's policeman.

• Recognize the necessity that the United States become an ideological bridge between the Orient and the Occident, giving more than lip-service to accommodation of legitimate Eastern (including Near Eastern) aspirations. American makers of foreign policy, within the government and the foreign policy establishment, must begin to credit the ideas of others and of foreign nations. In the words of Gorbachev we must pool our efforts. It is time for U.S. officials to admit, more to themselves than to the rest of the world, that they do not have a monopoly on good ideas and that they cannot put their own ideas into effect without broad cooperation.

The task of formulating a viable "New World Order" should not be all that difficult. Most of the mechanisms for peace are already in place, although they should he looked at anew with a view to strengthening their provisions and adding other mechanisms. For example, viable regional organizations must be formed for use in resolving political disputes on a regional instead of the world level. (See statement by Charles H. Haynes, editor of Foreign Policy, delivered January 8, 1991 at a Washington conference on the Persian Gulf hosted by the Cato Institute).

International Tranquility

For the United States, the provisions of a viable "New World Order" may be a simple task. The more important task comes in shedding America's macho image and creating the will to utilize, in cooperation with other nations, peace mechanisms instead of war.

...Robert Sturgill...
Bethesda, MD
January 30, 1991

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