Right Here, Right Now | Killing in the Name Of

by A. E. O'Neill

[Originally published February 17, 2003 at ignorance.tv]

America was founded on an untested ideal of universal liberty, democracy and equality and, in the minds of its revolutionary founders, who had never known a world where personal freedom was guaranteed by law, there was nothing more fundamental than protecting those basic, inalienable rights.

From those noble beginnings, it's sometimes hard to imagine how the current situation developed. Freedom of speech has ultimately ensured the lowest common denominator a permanent platform and an insatiable audience. Freedom of the press has inflated the public's "right to know" into an obscenely profitable media machine, capable of instantly and incessantly broadcasting all of our most twisted, antisocial, violent and stupid fetishes to the entire world in less time than it takes to get a pizza delivered.

The right to security, and the need to protect that security, has bred a nation of adolescents with a state-sanctioned gun fixation and a bloodthirsty legal system. Police forces are breeding grounds for bigotry and brutality, overcrowded prisons foster a subculture of career criminals and, while murder rates have steadily decreased since its reinstatement, the death penalty claims more and more prisoners' lives every year.

In defense of the American "way of life," power-hungry military strategists manipulate foreign policy through incompetent, self-promoting politicians and "overseas interests" are protected by an ignorant lynch mob with an annual spending budget of over $396 billion dollars.

America's belief in peace through superior firepower is as old as America itself, from civilian crowds in 1770s Boston spoiling for a fight with the British to post-911 airline passengers' grimly sizing each other up pre-flight. Raised on images of the cowboy, the rogue cop and the soldier-for-hire, it's no surprise that their role in the global community is equal parts separatist, vigilante and mercenary.

However, Americans are beginning to understand that there is nothing black and white about modern foreign policy; the decision to kill in self-defense, or in the defense of an ill-defined but passionately believed-in "way of life," might also mean killing in the name of money, oil, power and revenge.

For all the things that make Western society backwards and corrupt, though, there are at least as many things that make it the only place on earth where most of us would want to live. When we criticize the government, we do so with the twofold knowledge that any system founded on human reasoning is susceptible to human failure and that very few nations in the world have managed to carve out as workable a system.

Even so, these days it's hard to know exactly where the high road is. Killing for oil is unconscionable but standing by while a mad dictator murders thousands of his own citizens is equally unpardonable. Thousands of civilian casualties are not an acceptable trade off for destroying an enemy encampment but allowing thousands of Americans to die without being avenged is equally unacceptable.

They are, in the Texan vernacular, damned if they do and damned if they don't. Intervene and you're labeled a bully, do nothing and you're accused of condoning all of the ungodly acts committed in a foreign conflict.

In 1983, the United States established diplomatic relations with Iraq and provided weapons and financial support for their war against Iran. Twenty years later, 135,000 U.S. troops are stationed outside of Iraq, poised to attack.

In 1953, the United States pulled out of the stalemated Korean War. Fifty years later, they find themselves back in the crosshairs of an old enemy; North Korea now possesses long-range nuclear weapons capable of reaching American soil and boasts the fourth-largest army in the world. Also, they're not particularly keen on negotiating.

This is, undoubtedly, the most volatile and uncertain political climate most of us have ever experienced. In the past, in times of war, it was easy for Americans to determine where they stood; they were either behind their President, behind their squad leader or behind a protest sign. Now, as the song goes, the front line is everywhere.

The world is growing smaller and more dangerous before our very eyes; its leaders are responding to the threat predictably... but its citizens are not. Anti-war protests are heating up around the world and, perhaps most significantly, in the United States as people weigh the perceived threat against the certainty of lost lives. People are questioning the motives of their leaders and what price they're willing to pay for peace.

The amount of opposition we're seeing now — from American citizens, from within the U.N., in the press and in organized protests across the world — seems to be about more than merely a disagreement with America's choice of enemy — after all, the world's list of rogue nations is a short one and Iraq certainly qualifies as a political liability — but it seems like the growing anti-war sentiment is indicative of a more profound shift in global attitudes.

It looks, for now, like the United States has a long, hard journey ahead before it gets to that place, and many lessons to learn along the way. We are standing at the threshold of a turbulent period of global readjustment — a crucial period for our political, social and spiritual evolution — and America stands at the very center of this intersection between the past and the future.

The entire human race is becoming embroiled in a pivotal confrontation where racial and religious fundamentalism and petty territorialism come up against the modern sensibilities of tolerance, compassion and rationality. The way we handle ourselves in the conflicts to come will determine whether or not we are ready to get past our crippling paranoia and greed to move forward as a species. But the path is far from clear at this point.

The "global village" is now far too intertwined for a doctrine of "live and let live" to supercede not only the intricate network of trade agreements but also our commitment to defend against human rights violations. There is a growing awareness that every stone we throw sends ripples throughout the entire community. If simply refusing to go to war could avert the disasters we now fear, the U.S. government would have no choice but to back down. Unfortunately, that's clearly not the case.

As one Saturday Night Live "Weekend Update" correspondent commented last year, "President Bush was criticized... for not having a clear stance on the Middle East crisis. Good! The only people with a very "clear stance" on the Middle East are the crazy people..." So perhaps it isn't such a bad thing to find oneself at a loss for a definitive conclusion on all of this. It is supremely complicated and the course we take now will determine the fates of millions, if not billions, in the future.