Progressive Ponderings: War Talk

NOTE: Joe Mayer originally wrote this article in February of 2005, almost a year before Vox Verax went online. Since the issues it addresses are still as valid today as they were two years ago, we are posting it for the first time on the internet.

The ponderings in this issue come from the thoughts of Arundhati Roy as expressed in her book "War Talk". Ms. Roy is a native of India and a citizen of the world, in fact, a progressive citizen of the world.

In this upside-down world, anyone engaging in peaceful resistance is treated with derision and even hatred. If peaceful means of settling international grievances are disdained and thus not attempted, then the world will believe that only violence can bring about a solution.

Nationalism and patriotism have been the causes of most of genocide of the past century. Pieces of colored cloth shaped into a flag have been used by national leaders, of both democracies and dictatorships, to shrink-wrap people's minds and then use again to wrap the dead in ceremonial shrouds.

The U.S. government, in order to fuel the War Against Iraq, cynically manipulated the peoples' grief. In doing so, it devalued grief, drained it of meaning. It pirated the most private of human feelings for political purposes.

Terrorism is the only recognized reality. This, then, underlies the notion that only war can solve the terrorism problem. Carried to its final conclusion this means that terrorists have within their hands the power to trigger nuclear war.

The United States has more nuclear weapons than any country of the world. These weapons have been used on civilian populations only by the U.S. A preemptive attack by the U.S., even if Iraq has nuclear weapons, is a signal that any nuclear power is justified in attacking another nuclear power.

"We seek peace," states George Bush. This comes from the president of a country that has been at war with other countries on nearly an annual basis.

Within a year of officially beginning the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan, in country after country freedoms are withdrawn and civil liberties are halted in the name of preserving democracy. Protesters are labeled terrorists and dealt with in the same way. Dissent of all kinds qualifies as terroristic.

Donald Rumsfeld stated that his mission in the War Against Terror was "to persuade the world that Americans must be allowed to continue their way of life." Roy:" When the maddened King stamps his foot, slaves tremble in their quarters." The American way of life is simply not sustainable because it doesn't recognize a world beyond its own shores.

The underlying logic of terrorist attacks, as well as retaliatory wars against countries that support terrorism, is the same: to punish citizens for the actions of their governments.

With a belief that the Almighty has bestowed on America the right to murder and exterminate people for their own good, its president is able to declare, "We are a peaceful nation." This belief allows America to also say that its freedoms are built on fundamental values, that it rejects hate, rejects violence, rejects murder, rejects evil.

In its recruitment drive for allies in the War Against Iraq, the U.S. invented facts. Bush was determined to go to war regardless of facts and regardless of public opinion. When Bush continues to say, "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists," we can say, "No, thank you."