There has to be a better way to stop wars and reduce military
spending. Polls show U.S. voters divided on current wars and
more often show majority opposition to them. Yet, when Congress
“debates” war the widespread view of Americans is muffled, not usually
not heard.
For the last decade, the peace
movement has been politically left and Democratic leaning. The right
wing has been kept off the stage, and as a result, the anti-war movement does
not reflect the breadth of American opposition to war. For too long the
peace movement has been like a bird with only a left wing. It can
barely fly and when it does it seems to go in circles. Perhaps a bird
with two wings will fly better?
This past weekend Voters for Peace sponsored a meeting of 40 people
from across the political spectrum who oppose war and Empire. The
people attending see the U.S. military as too big and too expensive and
recognize spending $1 million to keep a soldier in Afghanistan for one
year is a symptom of mistaken militarism that weakens U.S. economic and
national security.
The purpose of the meeting was to see if we could work together.
Could we put aside our differences on other issues and focus on
reducing American militarism and in the long run ending reliance on
war?
The conversation began with discussions of the history of anti-war
advocacy in the United States and what we can learn from it. One point
repeatedly made by people on the left and right was that historically
there have been conservatives who opposed war and empire. Today those
voices are heard in a whisper, if at all. Before the Spanish American
War, World War I and World War II, strong opposition to foreign
intervention not only came from progressives but also from traditional
conservatives rooted in the recommendation of George Washington’s
farewell address – ‘avoid foreign entanglements.’ How can we re-awaken
that common sense conservatism and forge a broad based anti-war
movement?
What would a broad based anti-war movement look like? Some of the
conservatives in the room warned against this 21st Century movement
looking like the anti-Vietnam war protests of the 60s. Many on the left
and right acknowledged that the mass weekend protests against Iraq were
large in size but ineffective in result. While there is a role for such
protests, they are not sufficient for the task at hand. Some
conservatives warned against describing the United States as
imperialist – that would get up the hackles of many Americans. But,
they were comfortable describing the United States as an Empire.
Personally, I found that of interest. Americans never hear discussed
in the media whether or not our country is an Empire. And, if we were
to have such a discussion the critical questions would be is Empire
good for us, for our national security, for our economy, for our
democracy? Having those questions debated would be a breakthrough in
political dialogue.
It is hard to deny the American Empire. The U.S. has more than
2,500,000 DoD personnel deployed across the planet and 761 military
bases on foreign soil not counting more than 100 in Iraq and more than
400 American and NATO bases in Afghanistan. U.S. troops are now
stationed in 148 countries and 11 territories according to DoD’s
“Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and
Country.” America has spawned a military network larger than the Roman
Empire, which at its height had 37 major military bases, and the
British Empire which had 36. More bases are planned; billions spent
building bases in far off lands while large swaths of American cities
degrade into impoverished zones and the infrastructure of the nation
crumbles.
When the Cold War ended, rather than reducing troops in Germany,
Japan, Korea, Italy, the Philippines, and so many other nations; ending
the NATO alliance which was designed to combat the now non-existent
Soviet Union; and shrinking the weapons and war budget, the U.S.
decided to seek to become the sole superpower on Earth. U.S. military
spending is now as much as the whole world combined. The U.S. Navy
exceeds in firepower the next 13 navies combined. When all the budgets
are accounted for – the Pentagon, the wars, the 16 intelligence
agencies, the super-sized embassies – total Empire spending is more
than $1 trillion annually.
And, the Empire has deep roots. General Smedley Butler, the most
decorated Marine in history joined the Marines in 1898 and served 34
years in China, Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba, Mexico and other nations as
part of the early American Empire. When Butler retired and thought
about his career he described himself as a “racketeer” for U.S.
business interests around the world and said “war is a racket.”
But, this massive Empire is not discussed. It is the elephant in the
living room of American foreign policy. And, the entrenched
military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about
in 1961 is now so powerful that cutting the military budget is off the
table in Washington, DC – despite cost over-runs of hundreds of
billions in weapons contracts, the GAO consistently describing the
Pentagon as un-auditable and budgets filled with waste, fraud and
abuse. The war budget grows and grows despite a fragile if not
collapsing economy at home.
After a long day of discussion it became evident that people from
across the political spectrum, despite differences on other issues,
could in fact work together to challenge American militarism. Some in
the room who had been working on these issues for forty years thought
such a coalition was decades past due. Some of the students in
attendance had their eyes opened to the history of traditional
conservative anti-war efforts as in their lifetimes it had not been
heard from.
In discussing this publicly, so far I have only heard from one
person on “the left” who opposes it. He was a co-founder of
Progressives for Obama and he lumps everyone on the conservative side
into what he calls “racist populism.” Such broad stroke descriptions of
people are prima facie evidence of prejudice and certainly not
consistent with people I have met from across the spectrum. But, his
opposition shows the challenge on “the left” – too many are unwilling
to stop their support for the Democrats and Obama.
The challenge on the right is also difficult. The Neocons have taken
over almost all significant conservative organizations. How can we
attract traditional conservatives to anti-war advocacy? The day after
the conference, the surprise land slide victory of the anti-war
conservative, Ron Paul, at the CPAC convention gave hope that there
were more right wing peaceniks than we may have imagined.
While our task is urgent – something which the 1000th death of a
U.S. soldier in Afghanistan and the weekend’s killing of two dozen more
civilians in an aerial attack brings home – our job is immense. Undoing
a century old Empire that is larger than any that ever existed, is no
easy task, but for citizen patriots it is an essential one for the
survival of the nation and the benefit of the world.
Voters for Peace