Forward...To End War

THE HAGUE, 11 August 2017, bird's eye view of the empty International Court of Justice (ICJ) great hall of justice courtroom with judges bench, lawyers and audience chair settings, before holding a hearing

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Friends,

Following the admonition to “Go Forward, Not Backward” at the DNC convention our current national concern is now focused on the November election cycle, as well it should be. Yet as I reflected on the convention there was a conspicuous lack of attention to one of the major issues of our times: the never ending wars. Other than calls for a ceasefire in Gaza and the Harris commitment to a strong defense, war was seldom mentioned, and it will seldom be at other times in electoral politics as well. The obvious reason is that we are not able or encouraged to vote or focus directly on matters of warfare, and it is not a popular or welcome issue on a party platform. Despite billions of dollars that dominate our national budget, and our enormous “aid” packages of lucrative arms sales that sustain and support warfare across the globe, Pentagon spending is not mentioned in electoral discourse. In response to this negligence, I want to try to express, once again, my strong opposition to war and our failure to adequately, publicly address the moral and economic impact of U.S. warfare and our lack of deep commitment to peacemaking.

Several months ago now I proposed to write a regular column related to war, and a good number of you signed up to receive it. I named it “Gyroscope” with the intention of offering some frame of factual stability to a discussion about my perspective on what we need to know about U.S. warfare. In spite of my intentions I simply could not even begin the intended series of pieces, and, in fact, I could not write even one entry. 

The reason, I think, I could not launch is because our culture successfully makes war somewhat acceptable, or, more likely, inevitable, and I could not manipulate my moral compass sufficiently to be able to accept that premise. We make war acceptable by a combination of raising up the valor or the soldiers and/or the mostly perceived need to defend against a presumed greater evil, and these two approaches are by and large successful. And thus our culture shrugs our shoulders in grim resolution that war is an acceptable, if regrettable, reality. We get so we are increasingly now able to ignore reports of hundreds killed by our bombs, or displaced by warfare itself, while equally tragic reports of far fewer injuries from natural disasters, accidents, and gunfire capture the headlines.

When I try to reflect and write about war I just seem to be overwhelmed by the depth and breadth of the human suffering and planetary destruction it represents: death, lifelong wounds, moral and spiritual trauma, grieving and vengeance for those who died, readjusting to a life without a father, mother, son, daughter, financial loss, and massive displacements of hundreds of thousands of people. And the physical destruction from all the wanton bombs and bullet pocked, shattered former homes and public buildings evokes at least a heightened awareness to the immensity of the destructive crime scene of war that we can hardly imagine if we have not had to endure it. Add to all this the truly incalculable losses related to the financial cost of war and the waste of natural resources and human enterprise involved in manufacturing and deploying munitions that are likely then only to be destroyed as they destroy each other and the landscape they savage. All the resources and the human effort to create weaponry could be better used, reason suggests, for human welfare and not warfare. And a final moral depravity of war is that the primary benefactors are the war profiteers supported by those who perpetrate war and then strut their “commander-in-chief” egos. All these observations have immediate references specifically to the wars during the past twenty years, but they are generally applicable to all wars.

As in all my writing, however, I need to find something hopeful about my topic. Writing about war is particularly challenging in terms of finding something redemptive. When I am able to be honest about how enormously despicable and evil war is on our planet I easily conclude that the topic defies the normal moral and rational screens applied to the rest of life, and it is thus beyond a normal moral evaluation. The ideals of compassion and the common good so easily become irrelevant. The one often noted exception is the powerful, memorable, positive impact of bonding that the soldiers who have shared and survived a common experience of heroically facing death on the battlefield.

If it is thus true that attempts to explain and counter war with moral arguments may seem futile, are we to conclude we don’t really need to try? Are we to passively accept that wars just need to run their course until the carnage, destruction and horror of it all become sufficiently overwhelming and unacceptably disastrous to those most directly affected, and eventually to those laterally who are expected to pay for it? Although thousands of books have been written to try to explain war, perhaps it is just best to allow the poets and fiction writers to take this responsibility. 

Yet I always do find some areas of hope. 

1) Massive, global opposition to war. Global humanity, if given the opportunity, has denounced war and united in attempting to prevent it. The several million people joining in a massive, world-wide demonstration against the likelihood of war on Iraq on February 15, 2003, highlighted the potential for the effectiveness of a coordinated effort to stop a war. The effort failed, but a new marker of global resistance to war was established, and that momentous outpouring of opposition to war can serve as a future inspiration and reference.

2) The establishment of the United Nations in 1945 provides a commons for mediation and arbitration related to the causes and prevention of war. Granted its idealism and effectiveness have only partially succeeded, but it does represent an established institution for addressing planetary violence, war, deprivation and injustice, and it can become reformed and more effective to create a precious forum for global peace and justice.

3) Creating and maintaining peace through the rule of law. The International Criminal Court in The Hague* established only in 2002 is just now beginning to find its place of respect and success as an effective court of international law. There already exist a number of international laws about the conduct of war, but until there is full recognition of them, and a willingness and ability to enforce to them, the ICC’s effectiveness will continue to be tested as it needs a more visible and successful case history. Less powerful nations are beginning to be successfully brought to justice, and the mechanisms for bringing cases against the more powerful nations are now being considered. . The failure of the U.S. to ratify and join the ICC severely compromises any claim we have to truly seeking peace in the world.

4) And, finally, promising initiatives regarding the creative use of nonviolence in the  science of prevention and resolution of war are relatively new areas of research and application to identify and fund opportunities to prevent regional and expanded deadly conflict before it becomes open warfare. These efforts primarily include greater attention to diplomacy and anticipation of likely areas of deadly conflict using ever more effective peacemaking skills as well as addressing the underlying causes of existing and volatile civic unrest. I consider it very important that we become aware of these initiatives, and I strongly commend your attention to this still largely unknown area of international peacemaking. For more details please consider the FCNL white paper entitled “Alternatives to War.” https://www.fcnl.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/AlternativesToWar.Report.web_.pdf

Thank you for attention to this often difficult topic of war.

With a steadfast commitment to peace,
Tom