"We Are, After All, at War"

On 23 August 2007, I turned 73. For 66 of these 73 years the US has been at war. Sometimes these have been "real" wars, sometimes rhetorical exaggerations; some wars lasted years, some were swift incursions—"actions" not "wars." But all these engagements involved turning wheels within a massive military machine costing roughly the same each year (in 2000 dollars) from 1940 to the present: 330 billion annually, a total of 22 trillion dollars (see sidebar). How can anyone even imagine that amount of money? What would it buy if put to constructive purposes? Health care, education, public works, arts, housing? Right, it doesn't make sense to unilaterally totally disarm. But neither does it make sense to be the world's number one military spender for years, decades, generations. Not since Rome has an empire extended itself militarily with such effort for so long. Plus the cost doesn't stop with dollars. The cost is cultural, personal, and spiritual.

Consider the past 66 years: WWII, the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War, the Iraq War, the War on Terror. And the "smaller" wars and actions (in quotes because all deaths are large, all casualties painful): Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Lebanon, Cambodia, El Salvador, Colombia, Liberia, Egypt, Zaire, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor, Yemen, the Philippines, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Haiti, Somalia, Dominican Republic, Libya, Nicaragua, Honduras, Iran…and more. Plus untold covert actions and wars waged by surrogates guided by American advisors; allies who not infrequently turn into enemies, such as Saddam Hussein. Or the dirty wars of Latin America fought in the name of anticommunism with American help. And the dozens of dictators propped up by US money and power. What about the close calls, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the US Seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Straits threatening war if China attempts an invasion. Or the current "showdowns" with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear programs? The Congressional Research Service (CRS), in its "Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad," reports that from 1950 to 2006 there were 153 occasions when American forces went on missions outside of the USA's borders (Grimmett 2007:15-39). No year was without its own particular military excursion, many had several. Yes, some of these were for a just cause or humanitarian reasons; but most were applications of US policy by force.

In addition to active armed intervention is the US "presence": troops stationed in bases around the world. Plus the covert operations not listed in the CRS document because covert means "classified," officially kept out of public view—even in a supposedly "open" society with a self-proclaimed "free press." Who knows how many secret actions there have been and how many continue today? These overlap the adjuncts of war: "intelligence" (what a weird name for spying), torture, and terror. Even my seven years of peace, my infancy and early childhood— from 1934 to 1941—were gloomed by the 1937 Japanese invasion of China and the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939.

American society has been deformed by war and threat of war, a political-cultural-economic paranoia that requires maintaining a large standing army, weapons research and testing, and a vast stealth apparatus. In the US we are bombarded (yes, I recognize the metaphor) by messages reassuring us that we can enjoy the benefits of peace—consumer goods, relaxation, an open society—while fighting wars. The messages are disturbingly contradictory: live "normally" but "if you see something, say something"—one of the catchphrases of the War on Terror. This catchphrase is posted—at least in New York—on all public transportation. This message, and others like it, is uttered in a gentle voice and displayed on omnipresent signage. Thus the surveillance that is now part of the American Way of Life is abetted by strategic, paranoid warnings. Go on vacation but take off your shoes before passing through the metal detector. The war machine needs both jingoism—America is the best, the greatest, the freest—and paranoia—America is under attack...