One of the most memorable of the many chilling government slogans in George Orwell's 1984, is the title today. Perpetual war for perpetual peace. It describes perfectly the mindset of the Pentagon, the service leaders, and, i greatly fear, the Obama White House. Glenn Greenwald's brilliant column of yesterday in Salon, makes precisely this point. I don't know what's gotten into the skulls of the editors of the Washington Post, but they argue that the country should continue to fund the never-ending war in Afghanistan as vital to the national security, but that healthcare for all Americans is an expense that must be paid for on borrowed money, and thus should be postponed. Like Greenwald, who cannot understand or countenance this logic, I too wonder what in the name of all that is holy has gotten into the heads of these well-dressed, well-stuffed, well-insured purveyors of Beltway wisdom. Have all those three-martini lunches and heavy hors d'oeuvres at the soirées of the powerful completed addled their brains?
Staying in Afghanistan, and following Army and Marine Corps doctrine--as an aside, I was always struck by the idea that all the dense justification for what these guys do and how they do it and why they do it, goes under the title of "doctrine." Kinda like the teaching of the Church, eh?--anyway, their doctrine on counterinsurgency is what in practice is nation-building, "securing the population." And this the Pentagon argues is what has to be done in Afghanistan. What this means, of course, is that the US is then committed for who knows how many more years and billions of dollars and who knows how many deaths of American troops. This is necessary, on hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowed money, and healthcare for millions of US citizens without it is not necessary and too burdensome on the budget?
[Days later in a new city]: To wrap up the above: I cannot understand for the life of me why the American people put up with these huge lies we're told. Can anyone seriously believe that the tripe now be dished out by our best military mind in Afghanistan, the sainted McChrystal, i.e., that 40,000 more troops is what he needs to implement the correct strategy that will turn the war around in that God-forsaken corner of the world. You mean that's all? Oh . . . I see, there are no guarantees or promises or timetables. Just give me the troops and the billions and we'll see.
Right. This is an exciting prospect for me. How about you?
2 comments:
One of the main pillars of our illusory and mendacious Social Construct is War: the good war, the war we always win, war for right and justice...
Most of the stories are based on World War II.
It has most recently been regurgitated by Tom Brokaw. However, as incredible were the sacrifices of that generation,they also gave us McCarthyism and the Black List, they gave their Nihil Obstat("let nothing interfere") for continued racial intolerance, etc.
They were human. They had good and evil - just like us.
But this idolatry is hard to break. From the tone of your posting, I assume Mr. Greenwald sort of parallels religious belief and this faith in war.
If he does so, I hope we see that it is more than a literary device: it is the story of our lives, our personal history...the faith in war; faith is inescapable - that's why erudite Atheists prattle on about it endlessly.
Now the search for war will continue, for part of the myth says the good war, WW II, got us out of the Depression; well, it did.
However, the scenario requires:
(1) unconditional victory
if WW II had dragged on into mutual exhaustion, history would have been quite different.
(2) massive destruction of countries, economies, and population centers of a fairly advanced nature. Destroying mud hut villages, and then launching a Marshall Plan to replace them is not the economic scale we want, and
(3) the social discords in the USA caused by the Greaat Depression were doctored by (a) massive bloodletting and fury, (b) such measure as the GI Bill, wherein the underprivileged who fought gained privileges for fighting which would have been denied them, had there been no war.
It ain't in the cards.
But we shall pretend it is. The Congress, the Executive, and the Supreme Court all pray at the Church of Perpetual War and Inequity...never forget that there are two horns of this dilemma: violence and inequity.
Thank you as always, Montag, for your insightful comments. You make any excellent point here about the so-called "Good War." I needed to reminded again about the pervasiveness it plays in our national mythology. In addition to McCarthyism, WWII also bequeathed to us a number of other unsavory things such as the Cold War itself, the knee-jerk glorification of the American military (despite the aberrational '60s), acceptance and justification of mass murder with atomic weapons, the bogus interpretation of war as a legitimate engine of economic progress. All of which helps to explain the idolatry which we practice over everything and everybody connected with WWII.
You are certainly correct to remind me of the connection between inequity and war. Wars need something besides hordes of worshipful acolytes. They need unlimited quantities of cannon fodder. And the principal, if not sole, component of cannon fodder is millions of willing sacrificial victims from the mudsill level of society.
WWII now occupies a permanent place in our national mythology. It is never going to be seen as anything but one of the most glorious events in the history of mankind, along with the American Revolution. People like us, when the time comes, will be eliminated as dangers to the freedoms and liberties of the people.
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