Scapegoating the peace movement
March 23, 2008
By Steve Klinger.
There is so much wrong with Michael Swickard Ph. D.’s latest rant against peace advocates (www.haussamen.blogspot.com) that it’s hard to know where to begin. And responding to him at all is to a great extent an exercise in futility because he won’t stop spewing his half-digested half-truths and stereotypes, as if the three exalted letters after his name and his desktop reference book of quotations somehow bestowed upon him the wisdom he unendingly proclaims.
This time the pompous educator accuses the peace movement of “fueling the next global war.” I’m surprised he doesn’t quote Dick Cheney to reinforce the accusation. Instead he quotes Churchill, who was talking about Hitler. Today’s Hitler, we are asked to impute, must be Osama bin Laden… or was it Saddam Hussein? In Swickard’s world of guilt by association, it doesn’t much matter that the Pentagon’s own report released last week acknowledged that there was no connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq. None, that is, until the Bush administration exploited the post-9-11 frenzy of patriotism and retaliation to invade Iraq on a flotilla of lies and fear-mongering. Now there is a connection because the invasion was so inflammatory to the Muslim world and so badly bungled that al-Qaeda gleefully stepped into the breach. So by Swickard’s twisted logic, those who now want the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq are traitors to freedom, no doubt emboldening the enemy and thus blameworthy for the global war he says will follow if they dictate policy.
Swickard quotes Churchill and Newt Gingrich; I’ll quote Bill Maher, who describes the Republican vision of a 100-year war in Iraq thusly: “A staging ground for ten decades of warfare with Islamist militants, for whom the place is becoming a terrorist fantasy camp (‘Come to Iraq and fight real Americans in your own back yard! Get your picture taken with real al Qaeda pros! Learn the fundamentals of blowing yourself up!’).” The U.S. was its own worst enemy in redirecting the war on terror away from Osama and into Iraq, but now the peace movement is leading us to global war?
Next on his hit list are those who impede our all-voluntary military by discouraging recruitment in schools or asking for an equal opportunity to present materials from the GI Rights Hotline, for example. Swickard describes them as saboteurs who are to blame for the military’s recruitment problems. Those problems wouldn’t have anything to do, would they, with the fact that enlisted soldiers and National Guardsmen have been lied to, repeatedly redeployed, given inadequate body armor, ordered to drive over civilians and fire without provocation, then been maltreated at veterans’ hospitals when wounded in heroic performance of the duties Swickard is extolling?
The good doctor of education then heaps scorn on women who carry peace signs, suggesting they are too stupid to realize “our enemies would especially enslave them.” Speaking out of one side of his mouth, he claims to respect the sincerity of the peace movement’s beliefs, but from the other he insults their intelligence and questions their patriotism. I think Cindy Sheehan, for one, is smart enough to realize that al-Qaeda (and the Taliban) treat women abominably, but also that American young people – including her son Casey – have died and been injured by the thousands in a war that should not have been fought in the first place.
Then there is the Reagan crock about freedom, as if freedom had anything whatsoever to do with why we are in Iraq! Unless of course freedom is a three-letter word that starts with “o” and ends with “l.” Why are we not concerned about the freedom of the women in Saudi Arabia, which is our convenient ally and co-conspirator (and also the source of most of the 9-11 terrorists)? What about freedom in the occupied Palestinian lands and in places like Chile and El Salvador and Guatemala and East Timor, where U.S. interests always seem to lie with dictators friendly to our corporate expansionism? Could that be the freedom Reagan was really describing?
First of all, there is no one “peace movement” but myriad groups and individuals of conscience who see a need for human consciousness to evolve. Unlike some in the “peace movement,” I do not espouse total pacifism, and I do believe in self-defense, with violence, if necessary, as a last resort. I do not believe in the pre-emptive invasion of sovereign nations because they might become a danger or because they may stand in the way of our control of global resources or finances. And even as I acknowledge a limited role for violence, and reluctantly depart from Gandhi and King, I embrace the concept of actively advocating for peace as a necessary step in human evolution for the survival of the species. I believe we can and must aspire to peace even as we acknowledge that real enemies exist who sometimes compel us to retaliate.
I will offer a quote from Father John Dear, himself a pacifist, which illustrates with perfect clarity why violence as a doctrine of statesmanship is doomed to failure: “Violence in response to violence only leads to further violence. It cannot stop terrorism, and will never stop terrorism because war is the ultimate form of terrorism.”
I am inspired by the words of Thich Nhat Hanh: “When someone stands up to violence, a force for change is released. Every action for peace requires someone to exhibit the courage to challenge violence and inspire love.”
Does that mean I personally wouldn’t shoot an armed and crazed intruder who threatened my life or my loved ones? No, it doesn’t. Some in the peace movement would disagree with me, and I defend and admire their conviction. There must be some among us who teach the pure virtue of nonviolence or else even the goal will perish. Quoting Fr. Dear again, “The only people who forget that Jesus was nonviolent are Christians.”
Instead of ostracizing the peace purists as Swickard does, we should recognize them as more highly evolved Homo sapiens and thank them for the wisdom they impart and the example they set. They are our collective conscience, and to whatever extent we actively devote ourselves to promoting peaceful solutions we move the process forward.
“Peace at any price” may not lead to peace, but neither will war built on greed and deception. Swickard talks of the military as our defenders, and surely as individuals and combat teams they perform with great valor and courage. But when the language of the land turns to doublespeak and defenders are in truth aggressors, we will have neither peace nor freedom but only the false security of empire built on the backs of the globally exploited. Because corporatism cannot grow forever, and a planet cannot survive consumption without limit, and empires invariably stifle freedom and liberties at home to gather the force to impose their will abroad, they perpetuate violence whether it is used against them or not. Empires must fall, not because there are barbarians at the gates but because they are rotten to the core within, having sacrificed their principles to the spoils of conquest.
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