Opening Minds and Hearts
We are in the midst of a tremendous shift in our collective understanding of the role of the US and its military. For the first time since the declaration of the “War on Terror,” people are rapidly expanding their critique of the use of force as a means of responding to differences. The level of brutality and the magnitude of destruction that we are witnessing have opened deep questions about where we are all headed. Many people are asking if death is the only way. Surely, we can find another way forward.
Justice seeking people have argued for many years that military force is no solution, that war is never an answer. People have organized to demand that we spend on books, not bombs; playgrounds, not planes; education, not annihilation. These efforts to question the use of military force by the US government, either directly or indirectl, are now gaining a larger and growing audience.
The of the destruction taking place in Gaza, and our ability to see this in close and often intimate ways, has opened new conversations among people who only weeks before thought little of US foreign policy and US military commitments around the globe.
Some of these conversations focus on the specific role of the US in protecting the State of Israel with words and weapons. These efforts are being understood as part of a larger pattern to protect US capitalist interest around the globe, claiming military force is necessary to keep “us” safe. Yet after more than two decades of a war on terror and billions of dollars in support of a global military network, no one is safe. All this energy and effort has resulted only in massive destruction and death. With more to come.
The military campaigns the US has launched in the name of fighting terrorism have taken an almost unimaginable toll on human life. In a report released by Brown University’s Watson Institute earlier this year, we find that these wars have killed 4.5 million people either directly or indirectly. Close to another 40 million people have been displaced.
David D’Amato, an independent journalist, recently wrote a thoughtful article in Counterpunch about how the construction of a war on terrorism has distorted people’s ability to develop a critical perspective on US imperial efforts. He concludes with a hopeful reflection worth thinking about. He says:
The United States government and its allies have, with great care, fashioned a language around terrorism and terrorists that cows and manipulates us, that pins to the idea that war is peace and freedom is slavery. We have never really had a way to think about these things that wasn’t constructed by ruling classes to serve their interests. We’ve given millions of human bodies and lives, almost all innocent, to the child’s idea that terror comes from the weakest and most marginal among us, instead of the strongest and most respected. We accepted this child’s idea because it was easier than the truth: the most powerful actors are naturally the worst actors, because they use violence without scruples or accountability. There is a deep absurdity to a world in which an institution such as the United States government pretends to have the moral authority to decide who is treated as a terrorist. If Americans awoke, it could presage a world awakening, a new movement of free people looking for fairness and equality.
This awakening of our minds and hearts is being born in the grief of this time.