Hooked On Weapons: Unfortunately It’s Us
Vice President Dick Cheney has said it would be “a serious mistake if a nation such as Iran were allowed to become a nuclear power.” He did not enumerate the reasons, but a logical person would assume it has something to do with keeping a doomsday-rendering weapon from the hands of a vengeful and irrational government.
Of course, had Cheney used those words, the hypocrite alarm would have sounded. Not only has the United States pursued an overhaul of its own nuclear weapons program in recent years, but since the invasion of Iraq, polls from around the world have shown our country to be the biggest perceived threat to peace.
Cheney also failed to mention that the president of Iran, just days earlier, said his country was willing to abandon its uranium enrichment program, as long as Western nations did the same. Such a move would actually have the public’s support. In 2005, the Associated Press reported that 66 percent of Americans believe no country should possess nuclear weapons.
Yet, our government’s defense experts ignore this opinion and cling to the Cold War theory, claiming the nuclear standoff created a fear of mutual destruction that actually prevented war.
How that applies in today’s world is far from clear.
Nuclear weapons are the great equalizer. They make weaker nations just as strong as the United States; therefore, having them at all–-be they within our borders or with an overseas ally—opens a slew of world-ending possibilities. From accidents and miscommunication to terrorist takeover, nuclear weapons pose a threat to the United States like no other.
Given our position in the world, it would be to our advantage—and by extension to the advantage of every other inhabitant of this planet—that we lead the way toward disarmament.
However, if our reaction to recent international bans on even conventional weapons is any indication, such a movement is far off. Forty-six countries agreed to abandon the use of cluster bombs at a conference in Norway last month, but the United States joined Israel, Russia, and China in snubbing the event. While all four countries are major arms dealers, the rebuke was particularly resonant given Israel’s disputed use of U.S.-supplied cluster bombs in last year’s war with Lebanon.
The United Nations’ humanitarian chief described Israel’s deployment of these weapons as “completely immoral,” considering that the 98 percent of casualties are to non-combatant civilians. Current estimates also suggest 1 million unexploded bomblets are scattered throughout southern Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has taken the position that “these munitions do have a place and use in military inventories,” which is not surprising considering we are also the world’s largest supplier of small arms. Last year we provided nearly half of the weapons sold to militaries in the developing world, many to unstable regions already engaged in conflict.
These low-tech weapons are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths over the last decade, including the genocide in Rwanda. But when the U.N. member states met in November to curb the trade of guns and other light weapons, the United States was the only country to vote against the historic measure.
When compared to the so-called “axis of evil,” our deeds of violence are no less horrific. Worse yet is our denial and inability to seize the role of international peacemaker.
There’s little doubt President Dwight Eisenhower’s prophesies of the “military industrial complex” and “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power” have become a reality. Let’s hope Ike is right about one other thing he said: “People want peace so much that one of these days, government had better get out of their way and let them have it.”
Bryan Farrell is a researcher for “Rolling Stone” and writes on international affairs for many publications, including “The Nation.”
All governments defend their monopoly on violence. All governments marginalize and, when they can, criminalize nonviolence. It’s the only way they can stay in power. They provide barley enough social services to obscure their primary reason for being: the perpetuation of violence.
The presence of an 800-pound gorilla with no morals - and a culture based on violence and aggresion - forces everyone else to arm to the teeth in self-defense.
Contrary to Nietzsche’s theory, governments are not formed to perpetuate violence - they just seem to gravitate in that direction when social constraints allow them to do so.
Every society forms some sort of government, so government is not the problem, since it is a social given - but letting violent, aggressive, arrogant, paranoid sociopaths become entrenched leaders IS a problem.
Fascism is indefensible, since it is both unsustainable and ultimately self-destructive. The world doesn’t seem to have learned the lessons of WWII - guess we’ll have to repeat the lesson until we all graduate to the next level - or exterminate ourselves instead. The latter consequence becomes more likely all the time - but it is the culmination of decades, even centuries, of stagnation in social evolution. We seem to be going the way of the dinosaurs, despite mankind’s claim to being more highly evolved - what a joke that is!
Ultimately the purpose of the US government is to protect the privilidges of the wealthy through the use of force.
We use force to control our population to such an extent that we imprison a greater percentage of our population than any other country in the world including Cuba, communist China, fascist Burma or any dictatorship you would care to name.
Next time you step around a homeless person remember that it is only the threat of armed response that keeps that person from using unoccupied buildings or eating some of the tons of edible food thrown away by grocery stores in your town.
Overseas we are trying to steal control of Iraqi oil from the people who live there and enforce export agreements that would give US corporations the profits from their oil sales.
Anybody who believes we are in Iraq for any reason having to do with democracy or human rights is stupid enough that they already hold title to the Brookly bridge.
This is all so lame-brained stupid!
The same employment defense industries (and other toxic and destructive businesses)offer could be had making hospital and water purification equipment, decentralizing energy and food production with renewable sources (translate wind, solar, geothermal, tidal power and non-GMO seed stock that could be saved from year to year), cleaning up toxic waste sites, and a million and one other green businesses designed to allow people to live with a sustainable foot print on our ecology.
This war making machine makes all the sense of medieval notions of both science and religion–ignorant and misguided to the point of insane!
Shame on US.
A nation has the right and obligation to protect its people.
“Nuclear weapons are the great equalizer.”
A nation will develop nuclear weapons if it feels threatened.
Nuclear weapons don’t kill people, people do.
Poet, you make a great point. I often wonder what the world would be like if the US sent armies of health care workers and other people who want to help others (excluding religious zealots looking for souls to save) instead of sending troops to dominate every corner of the globe. Can you imagine putting all the resources we currently put into warmaking into life enhancing and saving? I wonder if we would be worrying about terrorism and “why do they hate us” if we actually used our power to help instead of harm.
jp–
I’m with you JFK started something called the Peace Corps among whose original purpse were:
Go only where invited
Do projects desired by the local population
Serve only 2 years
Your meager earnings were banked for you when you got home.
This sure as hell beats AID, World Bank, and IMF practices and as we lift the standards of living for the world we diminish the fear, hopelessness and despair that are fertile breeding grounds for violent revolutions and totalitarian movements. But first we need to heal our own land before we can effectively help others.
Eisenhower was right. The military-industrial complex has taken over our country. Both Democrats and Republicans feed its endless appetite. It is bleeding us dry of national budget resources. It is causing an arms race from China and Russia, igniting a new cold war. Few in Congress have the courage to vote against military budgets.(Don’t call them “defense budgets”- most of the funds are for internation aggression and intimidation)