Tuesday, March 10, 2015

US war policy


US WAR POLICY

Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, “pepinsky” at pepinsky.blogspot.com

March 10, 2015

 

                It is ironic to hear US UN Ambassador Samantha Power berate Europeans for not increasing their military spending just after President Obama’s memorialization of the Selma marchers led by Martin Luther King, Jr., a follower of Gandhian non-violence (on BBC World Service “News Hour,” http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31813490 ).  Power demands a unified, Euro-North American, response to Islamic terrorists worldwide.  Hers is an unqualified call to greater global war, led by the US with whomever we adopt an alliance of convenience.  On the BBC as in the US, we are fed little short of news of an occasional tactical victory against the IS.  Our only principle is that the IS is a land of people whose violence is uncivilized, and hence merit nothing but “degradation and destruction” by bombardment, by which we have achieved a remarkably high kill ratio, thanks to our wealth and technological advancement.  Our moral entitlement to be the superior killer aside, it does everything to confirm that we are a devil of an enemy of unprecedented global proportions, from Ukraine to Afghanistan most of all.  To many no doubt, it just goes to show that we are indeed the Great Satan, and to lend support those who would make us feel the terror and destruction we inflict upon them.  That makes me as an American feel more vulnerable, let alone misrepresented.  The military restraint the Europeans are showing is a tribute to the common defense of those who would shed their image as colonizers, a tribute to their will to make peace rather than war, paired with a priority for domestic public investment.  We ought to be following their lead, not proclaiming ourselves to be the world’s no. 1 public god of death and destruction.  If nothing else, they’re being practical about national security, while we’re giving ourselves cause for more insecurity.  Love and peace, hal

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