April 30, 2007
by Brian Trent
If you answered yes to the above question, you've probably succumbed to cultism. In the modern era of American politics, it seems to be the favored tool to replace courage, integrity, and intellectual honesty. The pre-war debate over Iraq was a great example of this; Iran is just the latest repetition. Iran has been the target for today's war-screamers and peace-insisters, followed closely by Pakistan. When the talking (hydra) heads discuss it, we're encountering the very same pattern in the days leading up to the Iraq War.
The problem in America is not liberalism or conservatism, but extremism. There's a big difference between opposing war and opposing a war. The former is puerile idealism. The latter is a freethinking choice.
When freethinking people who supported the war with Afghanistan (after all, they attacked us) then questioned the allocation of our resources, manpower, and money to a country which had nothing to do with terrorism, the warhawks screeched. They weren't capable of listening to rational argument. Today, their blind arrogance and ignorance has made the world unquestionably more dangerous.
It isn't that war is wrong. The Spartans at Thermopylae, confronting an army of 100,000 Persians, changed the course of history by protecting Greece (and as a result, the foundations for democracy, science, and philosophy.) This accomplishment could never have worked with doves sent bearing olive branches to alight on the Persian king Xerxes' shoulders. It was done with the Spartan sword. Zack Snyder's film "300" provides a very graphic examination of this tale.
And much the same, the fight against terrorism (which owes many roots to the same region from which Xerxes' soldiers came) isn't something likely to be resolved through discussion and flowers. A fundamentalist mindset, much like Hassan-i-Sabbah's devotees nine centuries earlier, is at work. It won't be talked down; bullets, not pamphlets, are the best way of stopping barbarians who kill in the name of divine endorsement. Looking forward, we can hope that greater education will influence future generations to thwart this kind of fanaticism.
It can even be argued that war has been a motivating factor for progress, as the flint arrowhead gave way to the surgeon's scalpel. A group of berry-pluckers isn't going to evolve technologically as quickly as hunters who must use innovation and coordination to stalk and kill. Such metaphors begin to dry up as we enter the nuclear age (and eventual antimatter applications) however.
Yet this hardly means that war is always the right tool for the trade. Warhawks don't like complexity, and refuse to examine issues. Their mindset is childish and not a little demented. They like absolutism. But reality doesn't support their philosophy. Iran, despite its government, has a huge underground movement of progressives bent on establishing a secular democracy in their country. Pakistan, on the other hand, has a government allied with America but a population rooted in religious fanaticism.
The purpose of this discussion is not to endorse or oppose war with Iran or Pakistan, but to demonstrate the complexities involved when we consider unveiling our weapon-case. Neoconservatives love to bandy Reagan about like a patron saint, yet blissfully ignore that the dissolution of the Soviet Union owed much to the olive branch, not the arrows.
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And let's face it: war isn't something we should be particularly proud of. It displays the worst side of humanity's character. It tempts one to wonder what we could be doing - the cure of all diseases, the alleviation of environmental problems, the colonization of other worlds - if we didn't spend so much time in the business of killing.
And it is a business. Different wars require different tactics; fighting against fascism in World War II, then waging the cloak-and-dagger Cold War, and now the War on Terror. Three wars, requiring three different sets of tactics. Assassins, Delta Force types, wetwork specialists. these are the best tools for our latest war, but they don't line the pockets of big defense contractors. And those contractors know it.
"A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment," said President Eisenhower. "We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
The trouble with the Iraq War is that it was conceived, marketed, and sold by the treacherous alliance of plutocrats and theocrats who had no regard for American security aside from their own stock-market securities. Fueled by militant nationalism (and a perverted version of Christianity not dissimilar to the mantras of the very terrorists we're supposed to be fighting) they crushed open debate on the subject. Now we're seeing the results of this misdirection and deception: The tripling of Al-Qaeda according to recent findings, the squandering of global goodwill, the miring of US resources into Iraq. while the cultists still scream, "Don't question! Don't debate! Attack! War is peace! Fnord!"
I supported war with Afghanistan before 9-11 ever happened, back in the days when the Taliban were dynamiting centuries-old Buddhist statues. Imagine if a fanatical government took charge in Egypt and decided that the pyramids were an affront to Allah; those pyramids, like the Afghan statues, are a gift to the human race and no one government reserves the right to destroy them simply because of the latest theological fashion trends.
War is a tool; so is peace. As such, they can be used correctly or incorrectly. To decide if it should be applied, and how it should be applied, and against whom it should be applied, requires open discourse, debate, and discussion. That means unplugging cowardly spinsters like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter (and the fanatics from the pacifist front.) Let them live in a world of absolutes.
Let them scream about liberalism, conservatism, while the rest of us see them for what they represent: extremism.
That should not be the American way.
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Brian Trent [send him email] is a professional essayist, screenwriter, and novelist; he is the author of "Remembering Hypatia" and the forthcoming "Never Grow Old: the Novel of Gilgamesh." Brian is a contributor to American Chronicle and The Humanist Magazine. Visit his website at www.rememberinghypatia.com.
Copyright 2007 Brian Trent
