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America’s Wars as a Bad Novel

american warsA curious feature of America’s wars is their lack of thematic coherence.  Lacking a clear beginning (other than the 9/11 attacks), they also lack a clear end point.  It’s all middle – repetition without meaning, action without progress, like a bad novel that introduces lots of characters but that never goes anywhere.  Look at the rolling cast of characters in charge of America’s wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.  Other than generals who disgraced themselves in ways unrelated to combat performance (David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal), their names are unmemorable.

The American people have largely cast aside the “bad novel” of America’s wars.  They find it boring, repetitive, inconsequential (at least to them).  But that doesn’t mean people aren’t paying for it, each and every day.

The American people have largely cast aside the “bad novel” of America’s wars.  They find it boring, repetitive, inconsequential (at least to them).  But that doesn’t mean people aren’t paying for it, each and every day.

In the absence of Congressional declarations, America’s wars today are not being waged in the name of the people.  Cowed by the Executive branch and coerced by money, a spineless Congress willingly sidelines itself. In turn the Executive branch keeps the American people isolated from war even as it misleads them with lies and half-truths.

And thus the American people refuse to take ownership of these wars.  And who can blame them, since these wars aren’t being fought in their name or for their interests.  America’s wars are the preserve of the commander-in-chief and his various “experts” in and out of uniform, men like retired general and current Secretary of Defense James Mattis, John Bolton, the new National Security Advisor, and Mike Pompeo, the CIA chief who now leads the State Department.  Unconcerned with the will and concerns of the people, these men favor aggressive stances and support U.S. military interventions around the globe.

What’s the solution to America’s “bad novel”?  Ignoring or disowning it only empowers its authors and their predilection for waging war, however falsely, in our name.  Instead, we have to overcome America’s ethos of violence and its climate of fear.  Campaign finance reform is vital if we want to suppress the influence of war profiteers.

Cutting the Pentagon budget by at least 20% is essential as well.  Finally, we need to educate ourselves about war, and to insist that wars are fought only when authorized by Congress, and only as a last resort instead of the first.

If we don’t take these steps, America will be forever stuck reading a bad novel with a one-word title: War.

 WJ Astore
Bracing Views

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By William J. Astore posted on May 13, 2018

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LA Progressive, its publisher, editor or any of its other contributors.

Comments

  1. Sharon Abreu says

    May 15, 2018 at 11:19 am

    For the equivalent of 2% of the Pentagon budget, we could create a Cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peacebuilding. It would address violence domestically and abroad, which would save tons of lives and tons of taxpayer dollars. Check out HR 1111: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1111. We have to get the war profiteers out of our government. How do we do that when people keep voting them back in? I also invite you to check out my 2007 music video, Please Don’t Call It Theater When You’re Talking About War: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsULzZbgZ-M&feature=youtu.be&hd=1 – you’ll see there’s a “script” with camel poop on it, which speaks to “America’s Wars as a Bad Novel”. We need to be talking with people we think we disagree with about this. We may find we agree on more than we think at this point. I’m also a supporter of World Beyond War and the Network of Spiritual Progressives proposal for a “New Bottom Line”: https://spiritualprogressives.org/visionary-strategies/a-new-bottom-line

    Reply
  2. Bobby C says

    May 15, 2018 at 10:11 am

    How many people around the world have died from this so-called ‘bad novel?’

    Millions?

    I can’t think of an actual real novel where that many ‘characters’ have perished.

    So it is the rest of the world, not America, that must wake up from this ‘bad novel’ while the death toll continues to rise.

    Reply

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