HIDDEN CAUSES

This is from The Progressive Review.............PEACE...........Scott

http://prorev.com

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

[Another in our series on important issues that are ignored or
suppressed by the establishment including the media. We will eventually
have a page devoted to this topic]

ABOLITION OF WAR

Could the end of war be the abolition movement of the 21st century?

Even leaving morality aside, it would make a lot of sense. The United
States, for example, hasn't won a war - in the sense of gaining
something significant other than the symbolism of "victory" - in over
sixty years. In fact the few military victories have been mostly against
military less than 1% the size of ours - Panama, Grenada and Bosnia. The
one exception - the first Iraq war - was against a force 15% the size of
America's.

America's defense expenditures are more than double those of all the
other top ten militaries combined. Yet we continue to drastically 
shortchange healthcare, retirement and education on behalf of purported
military readiness.

One reason we are so willing to do so is because we consider war
inevitable. In fact, war is not the product of human nature but of the
organized state, a fairly recent invention in human history. Further,
the nature of this invention has drastically changed over time. What
general today would order his troops to fight in the manner of Henry
VIII or even General Grant or Lee? And what did the American Revolution,
the Civil War and Vietnam have in common, how were they different and
which list is longer? Why do we use the same term to describe conflict
that a hundred years ago claimed civilians as only 20% of its casualties
but today results in 80% of its victims being civilians?

And what was the logic of World War I? After all those deaths, it helped
to produce Hitler. Even a non-romantic look at the Civil War would at
least raise the question: was there another less deadly way of having
dealt with slavery and the South?

A logical review of America's own wars since WWII would lead almost
inevitably to the conclusion that wars are no longer - if they ever were
- an effective way of handling foreign affairs. They are excessively
costly, environmentally disastrous, kill too many people and don't
produced the sought-after results.

We avoid such questions because they seem almost unpatriotic. But what
if war is another form of behavior - like slavery in the 19th century -
that we now - if we so will it - have the potential of declaring extinct
as part of our moral and social evolution?

We rarely ask this question not only because it seems too hard, but
because we routinely accept accustomed approaches that are reasonable in
the short run - such demanding the end to a particular war - but which
avoid the larger issue.

In other words, we remain peace activists instead of becoming war
abolitionists.
We call ourselves anti-war protestors but are really only talking about
Iraq. And so forth.

The alternative would be a serious war abolition movement that would
help others understand the futility of the military approach, its
masochistic costs and the techniques and advantages of peace and
mediation.

If this all sounds too radical, consider the following:

"I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is
more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its
very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a
means of settling international disputes. . . "

And this:

"Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. Various methods
through the ages have been attempted to devise an international process
to prevent or settle disputes between nations. From the very start
workable methods were found in so far as individual citizens were
concerned, but the mechanics of an instrumentality of larger
international scope have never been successful.

"Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn
failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. The
utter destructiveness of war now blocks out this alternative. We have
had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more
equitable system, our Armageddon will be at our door."

The first words were spoken by General Douglas MacArthur during his
farewell address to Congress. The second was from his statement soon
after the surrender of the Japanese aboard the battleship Missouri.

A couple of years later, Japan approved a constitution with this
provision:

"Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and
order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of
the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling
international disputes."

ABOLISH WAR
http://www.abolishwar.org.uk/avoid.shtml

TRANSCEND
http://www.transcend.org/

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||