It is conventional wisdom that it was the draft that ended the Vietnam war. According to this explanation, cowardly college students subject to the draft and their unpatriotic families forced an end to the war. This is Karl Marx’s explanation. Material interests, not empty morality, are said to have brought the war to an end.
The fact that in those days the US still had an independent media of sorts that sometimes framed the war in moral terms is ignored. Are we sure, for example, that the film of the naked little girl running in terror down the road burning with napalm was ineffectual in arousing moral opposition to the war? Are we certain that it wasn’t an aroused moral conscience that brought about the end of the war but was college students’ fears for their lives and limbs?
If we ascribe ending the war to material interests, it makes ending the war look as unworthy as the war itself.
Yet, virtually every conservative columnist, commentator, newsperson and politician, as well as today’s antiwar protesters and apparently the Pentagon, believes that a military draft would reduce Americans’ toleration for wars because of body bags coming home to middle and upper class parents. Apparently, the lower class doesn’t mind its kids coming back in body bags.
Those in thrall to this explanation, which derives from Marx’s materialist explanation of history, do not notice that Vietnam was our longest war. It apparently took almost forever for the material interest of students and their parents to realize itself and stop the war.
Why are we afraid to say that the war stopped because American troops and the American population got tired, offended even, from killing women, children and noncombatants? Vietnam had not attacked the US. The US had interjected itself into a civil war in a far off place, as it has done in Afghanistan.
By invading Iraq the US started a civil war between Sunni and Shi’ite. In Pakistan the US has started a civil war between the religious tribal population and the secular US puppet state. In Palestine the US started a civil war between Fatah and Hamas.
One continuously reads from those Americans opposed to America’s wars of aggression that the wars are possible because they don’t affect Americans, just those few who sign up for the voluntary military. Thus, there are insufficient material interests at stake to stop the war. This is a common explanation for the weakness of the antiwar movement.
One could argue instead that it is the triumph of Karl Marx’s materialist thinking that has made moral protests impotent. What is morality? You can’t weigh it, define it, measure it. It can be dismissed as the whining of material interests. In contrast, material interests, such as lives, limbs, and bank accounts are real.
For whatever the reason, morality has shown itself to be an impotent force in 21st century America. Americans show no remorse at over one million dead Iraqis and four million displaced Iraqis due entirely to an American invasion based on lies and deception. The lies and deception are now well proven. Yet, there has been no apology for the horrors that Americans inflicted on Iraq.
Afghanistan is another example. Intentional lies conflated the Taliban with al Qaeda and “terrorists.” The diverse peoples in Afghanistan who were first ravaged by Soviet bombs are now ravaged by American bombs. Weddings, funerals, children’s soccer games, people waiting for fuel or food, people asleep in their homes, people attending Mosques have all been murdered and are murdered routinely by the US and its NATO puppets.
Each time civilians are murdered, the US denies it, only to be contradicted every time by the evidence.
Why is the president of the United States contemplating sending yet tens of thousands more US troops to kill people in Afghanistan?
The answer is that the United States is an immoral country, with an immoral people and an immoral government. Americans no longer have a moral conscience. They have gone over to the Dark Side.
Humanity has endeavored for millennia to control evil with morality. In the American “superpower,” this effort has collapsed and failed.
The United States needs to be censured for its immoral behavior, not have that behavior rationalized as being in its material interests.
The 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty made a perjured promise that the Seminoles had the same rights as citizens.
There followed a decades long ethnic cleansing war, which included the destruction of crops, cattle, villages and men, women and children.
Some Seminoles of various races, who couldn’t prove they were freemen, were enslaved.
A notable event was the perfidious capture of Osceola by General Jessup, may he be cursed, under a white flag.
I am quickly coming to the conclusion that many Americans are in a coma of delusion. It is impossible to reach anyone on the banality of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan wars – not to mention the war against Palestine. Whether it is moral grounds or material.
Nothing seems to penetrate through the pro-war propaganda:
We’re murdering millions of people under the pretense of a lie – “who cares!”
We’re destroying homes and families – “who cares!”
We’re torturing innocent people – “who cares!”
Returning troops are committing suicide at alarming rates – “who cares!”
The entire war is based on lies – “who cares!”
The troops who fight in this war make them guilty of war crimes – “who cares!”
We’re funding the Taliban – “who cares!”
We’re helping with the opium trade – “who cares!”
Hundreds of thousands of troops are coming home with PTSD and/or missing limbs – “who cares!”
The entire nation has been brainwashed into accepting these wars – “who cares!”
The wars are destroying our economy – “who cares!”
Torture makes the country more vulnerable to acts of terrorism – “who cares!”
The Iraq war weakens the US’s security – “who cares!”
And I’m often met with the enduring phrase: “if you can’t support the troops – how about you stand in front of them.” or “you’re an a**hole.” or “[so-and-so] is a brave heroic person I know who is fighting this war against evil incarnate – how dare you try to make [so-and-so] sound like they are murderers.”
I worry that the only solution to this might be an act of violence – destroying these types of peoples gods – in other words, smashing their TV’s. It might not be the only source of this immoral madness in this country, but it sure is a strong conduit of some of the most dangerous, mind-numbing, anti-moral arsenol in the known world.
I don’t agree with Chad Heller, plenty of people don’t support our government, it’s pretty much lost it’s citizens allegiance. Most of us are disgusted by the Palestinian tragedy, The war profiteers, the lying, the killing, but out leaders ignore us and look the other way for their campaign contributions.
Thankfully Italy put some found some American CIA members guilty for kidnapping, abduction for torture, and now we have Germany. Three top defense heads have just resigned for lying about 70 civilians killed in the tanker bombing in Afghanistan. Britain has the Chilcot (sp?) committee investigating Tony Blair’s lies in the run up to the war too.
At least some countries are stepping up and providing an example and I’m sure it’ll shame our government, if they have any left, that is. The tide is turning.