While
America has gone a century and a half without being “war-torn” in
the conventional sense, the damage of war is not limited to that
inflicted by guns and bombs.
by
Whitney Webb
Part
1
Despite
concern that the United States will soon find itself in a major war
that could have global consequences, many Americans are uninterested
in that eventuality as shown by the minimal attention major
geopolitical events, like the recent bombing of Syria or the
17-year-long occupation of Afghanistan, receive compared to the
President’s alleged sexcapades and rapper Kanye West’s tweets.
Though
many theories have been put forth as to why so many Americans are
uninterested in their government’s military actions abroad that are
committed in their name and with their tax dollars, there is one that
stands out from the rest.
The
United States has been at war for 93 percent of its history. However,
a vast majority of those wars took place abroad and did not
drastically alter domestic life for most Americans, except in the
case of the Civil War. The suffering of wars in which the U.S. has
participated has largely eluded the majority of Americans, save for
American servicemen and veterans — who are often forced to
internalize their suffering in a country disconnected from the
consequences of war.
Compare,
for instance, the suffering unleashed upon the people of Korea during
the Korean War, the people of Vietnam during the Vietnam War and the
people of Iraq during the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq to the
domestic experience of the average American while those wars were
taking place.
Even the
“just” wars of years past, like World War I and World War II, did
not cause the type of destruction that those wars wrought upon
Europe. In fact, the U.S. government – beyond the loss of life of
its soldiers – benefited greatly from these catastrophes and
allowed the country to become a world power.
As a
result, there is a prevailing, though likely unconscious, perception
that U.S. military adventurism abroad, no matter how brutal or
criminal, does not significantly impact the day-to-day activities of
American life, allowing a substantial portion of the population to
ignore the more sordid consequences of U.S. imperial ambition.
Yet,
while America has gone a century and a half without being “war-torn”
in the conventional sense, the damage of war is not limited to that
inflicted by guns and bombs. With yet another war looming, it is
worth revisiting the effects past wars have had on American domestic
life as well as the dangerous precedents that past actions of the
U.S. government taken during war-time have set.
Indeed,
were the U.S. to get involved in a major war with a country like
Russia or Iran, many of the past actions taken by the government,
particularly those aimed at curbing dissent, are highly likely to
make a comeback to the great detriment of American domestic life and,
most of all, American democracy.
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