We are a Warrior Nation. Don’t smile. Don’t feel proud. Don’t start flexing your muscles. That’s not a compliment. America is not Sparta defending western civilization at the pass of Thermopylae. Recently, at best its been more like Chuckles the Clown oblivious to the crushing weight of the elephant that's inexorably descending.
Even though some Americans take pride in the "warrior" label and may imagine themselves and the American military to be the 300 Spartans leading Greek forces into a glorious, ordained battle to save democracy, they shouldn't. For America that "warrior" label has become, since the end of WWII, a testament to atrophied ideals, misplaced allegiance and a comfortable indifference to tragedy. More than that, it represents a surrender to a violent nature that has led the United States to the brink of a financial and moral abyss.
What has placed the United States at the edge of this abyss? The accumulated violence of 60 years of warrior mentality and the willingness to spend whatever it takes to sustain that violent legacy. What has been the cost? How bad is it?
To get an idea, imagine walking through New York City and seeing the mutilated bodies of the entire population, 8,274,527, piled on every street throughout the city. Then imagine the same thing in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, San Jose, and Lancaster. The death toll would be 19,789,479. Or, imagine the entire population of the state of New York dead, defiled and mutilated. That's 19,297,729. Then imagine after those horrifying, tragic loses the President's press secretary announces in a press conference that, "The administration deems the losses to be unfortunate collateral damage but within an acceptable range. We will not be taking any questions at this time. Thank you." She then turns her back and walks away.
Tragically fanciful scenarios of callous indifference aside, either of those totals, the cities or state, would amount to fewer real deaths than occurred in the wars in which the United States has engaged since the end of WWII. We engage in those wars voluntarily, so whether Americans feel those deaths were justified or not, they are for good or ill, right or wrong, America’s responsibility.
To say that out loud is also dangerous because questioning the ethics and morality of the United States' intentions and character is unacceptable in these days of monitored and managed patriotism. Nevertheless, the simple fact is that America is not yet nearly the country that it should be, needs to be, and, I hope, wants to be. However, it is clear from its current history that it is an aggressor nation with a warrior mentality.
That has been the opinion of some people for a long time, and this recent Afghan-Iraq warrior crusade just punctuated a long line of destructive engagements. What’s not accurately known are the figures about how much total havoc the United States wreaked on the world and itself. One of the things that I first discovered while searching for the weight of human carnage was that there were a lot of discrepancies even in official records. Most telling was the lack of information about civilian casualties, the real victims of wars. When I could find them, those figures varied widely. For instance, the estimate for the Korean War was between 2 and 5 million. We really have no clear idea about how many families we have decimated in the name of ..... whatever excuse - sorry, reason - we were using at the time. For those that innocently and tragically suffer for the acts of politicians and fanatical leaders, no accurate figures exist. But we know far more accurately the numbers of dead perpetrators of the carnage. It’s as if the innocent are just incidental issues, minor consequences that need not disrupt "the larger picture."
What I fear is that many Americans have become inured to war. At just the mention of the troops and the Afghanistan war and the Iraq war, we should be able to "see" and "feel" the horror, desperation and suffering, and it should haunt us; that should be automatic. It is not. Instead, we have become anesthetized to the misery that war always causes. We no longer see the anguished faces or hear the mournful cries. Too many wars for too many years have created a numbness to its tragedies. The constant presence of war has blended in and become part of the everyday scenery. Instead of the VietNam War making war a horror never to be repeated, it was added to the growing list of wars and may actually have further enabled the numbing.
Even worse than that is the public's visceral need to attach itself either to the warrior through the war or to the war through the warrior. For the warrior "the slaughter of a foe gratifies an instinctive craving-" (Freud) and through the warrior some Americans vicariously relish an attachment to that "instinctive craving." Whether caused by frustration, a feeling of impotence, or the innate, instinctual violence of human nature, at various emotional levels there is a desire to identify with the power, strength and violence that accompanies the warrior at war. It is a disturbing and dangerous reaction to war which appears to be natural and irreparable.
Both the numbness to war and the "instinctual craving" have foreseen consequences. Coffins are draped with flags and civilians lay buried under the rubble or bull-dozed into mass graves. Still, leaders speak as if there is a legitimate rationale for the deaths. For years they have offered numerous protestations that they were "expanding democracy," "protecting American interests," "preventing the expansion of totalitarianism," "coming to the aid of an ally," "preventing the spread of communism," "demonstrating their patriotism." Still, mostly in retrospect, it too often rings hollow. The simple fact is that our lust for military solutions has caused the deaths of over nineteen million people. All of those deaths are, shared or not, our responsibility.
We do have some insight into the value and importance that Americans attach to war and the warrior mentality. In order to be considered viable, presidential candidates must profess not just a readiness but a willingness to use force as a solution. Where Obama stands on war has yet to be truly determined. However, his stance on Afghanistan indicates that at least on this issue a similar, bellicose policy will be used. For those for whom war and aggression is anathema both financially and morally, any aggression that results from anything except a real last resort to defend our country is absolutely unacceptable. Whether or not Afghanistan is in that category will begin to be clarified to the American public as we leave Iraq, assuming that Obama is more forthcoming than Bush was. Obama's desire to increase defense spending only adds to the argument that we might not see a great change in the general, aggressive policies of the past.
We do not know if the "change" of which Obama speaks will encompass a seminal change away from our warrior mentality or if it will be more of the same but just for a different reason in a different location. Congress is no less a victim of the warrior mentality than the administration and much of the general public, and if Obama desires to change from a warrior nation, he will need Congress to join him but their judgement and skepticism must be infinitely greater. It cannot take the same path as it has in the past.
While there are times when defense of the country is necessary or unavoidable, that warrior mentality has lowered the bar for those times so much that it has condemned the United States to be in a constant state of war or preparation for it. Whether America's warrior mentality is a result of callous insensitivity or the callous insensitivity is a result of the warrior mentality, makes no difference; the results are the same - an uncommon willingness to send people to die and to kill and that is destroying our country financially, physically, emotionally, and morally.
What Presidents, Congresses must come to understand, realize and to truly feel is that they don't declare war; they declare death. And that death finds the innocent men women, children, infants as easily and ruthlessly as it does the intended targets. Along with that they also declare that the destruction, mutilation, atrocity and the degradation of humanity, regardless of who suffers it, is justified. Warrior nations readily look for justification and then accept it with minimal resistance. That is what we have done.
Addendum: Now this is a wild guess on my part, but maybe the warrior mentality and the abuse of power might be the reason that the authors wrote Constitution so that only Congress could declare war. Maybe having one person determine that it is a good idea to have people die for his or her belief needs to be eliminated. But since WWII our Presidents and Congress have determined that it was faulty logic. Their proof - the Korean War, Vietnam War, the Gulf War and the Iraq War and at least twenty million dead. Hell of a proof.
What follows is what I have been able to find so far. It does not include all of the conflicts and the numbers are very conservative:
Korean War Casualties
Civilian: 2,000,000 - 5,000,000
Peoples Republic of China and North Korea: 347,000
United States and Allies: 57,441
Vietnam War Casualties
South Vietnam, United States and Allies: 313,666
North Vietnam and China: 1,101,446
Civilian: 5,850,000
Gulf War Casualties
Gulf War Iraqi: 26,000
Gulf War Civilian: 3,664
Gulf War United States, Allies: 2,094
Iraq War
Iraq War Iraqi Military and Police: 8,000
Iraq War Us Coalition: 4,499
Iraq War Civilian: 151,000
Afghanistan War
Afghanistan US: 611
Afghanistan Civilian: 26,873
Other Conflict casualties
Somalia US: 43
Haiti US: 4
Bosnia-Herzegovina US: 12
Kosovo US: 20
Population of New York State: 19,789,726
Population of Cities used for comparison
New York: 8,274,527
Los Angeles: 3,834,340
Chicago: 2,836,658
Houston: 2,208,180
Phoenix: 1,552,259
San Jose: 939,899
Lancaster, CA: 143,616