Growing up in suburban America, I have never experienced a bomb being dropped in my neighborhood. I have never seen a tank drive past my house. I’ve never seen a foreign soldier fully armed, walking around my town, trying to “keep the peace” and “bring democracy to my country.”
For most of the world, this is a common reality. Since the end of World War II, America has been at constant war in dozens of countries at a time, and not a single one has followed the constitutional process of a congressional declaration. Since then, we have been directly responsible for about 20 million deaths, according to a compilation of studies by James A. Lucas, a member of the September 11 Coalition. When one factors in indirect deaths by authoritarian regimes supported by the US government, such as the fascist coups in dozens of South American and Asian countries, this number adds to tens of millions more.
This puts our death count in the levels of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and other wonderful characters our history books tell us about in somber tones. I guess it may be different because we had such great intentions; spreading democracy and freedom! With 900 overseas bases in 130 countries and drone strikes with which we can find and kill someone anywhere in the world, I bet everyone feels liberated as hell!
I doubt many people outside the US are feeling that way. Our war on terror has bred more terror than ever before. We take down one leader and a worse one takes their place. We bomb terrorists, and their neighbors become filled with sorrow and hate and become terrorists themselves. It’s no different from the 20th century, where our government violated civil liberties and drafted kids my age to fight against the creeping threat of communism thousands of miles away and end up creating chaos.
Back in the 60's, the anti-war movement was mainstream, and very powerful due to the harsh resistance from American citizens against the Vietnam war. But today, it seems like most people crave war. We make movies glorifying US snipers who kill children in their own country and US soldiers occupying a foreign land who are attacked by the friends and family members of people the soldiers killed. The president who promised us change copy and pasted the foreign policy of the president before him, but few protest. The two most popular candidates for president casually discuss more war, more bombing, and more imperialist nation-building, and people cheer them on. Besides the possibility of a Libertarian president, Gary Johnson, it looks like we’re going to see more of what we’ve had for decades before.
I don’t need to know what happens in the next few months. I don’t need to know what country is doing what overseas and what vague threat of terror is creeping up on us. I know what our wars do to my fellow human beings, and I know that war never ends in peace. I don’t care what the context of our next call for battle is. I’m already against the next war.
