We Have To End War: Part IV Of “War No More: The Case For Abolition” By David Swanson

We need a movement that differs from the past movements that have been against each successive war or against each offensive weapon. We need a movement, as Judith Hand and Paul Chappell and David Hartsough and many others have proposed, for the elimination of war in its entirety. We need education, organization, and activism. And we need structural changes to make these steps more powerful.

Because:

War-making and war preparations are destroying our natural environment and diverting resources from a possible rescue effort that would preserve a habitable climate. As a matter of survival, war and preparations for war must be completely abolished, and abolished quickly.

U.S. militarism is not a symptom, it is the disease:

Ending U.S. militarism wouldn’t eliminate war globally, but it would eliminate the pressure that is driving several other nations to increase their military spending. It would deprive NATO of its leading advocate for and greatest participant in wars. It would cut off the largest supply of weapons to Western Asia (a.k.a. the Middle East) and other regions.

An immediate benefit:

It would create a world free of nations threatening first-use of nukes, and a world in which nuclear disarmament might proceed more rapidly. Gone would be the last major nation using cluster bombs or refusing to ban land mines. If the United States kicked the war habit, war itself would suffer a major and possibly fatal set-back.

So, how do we get there from here?

Very good question. For starters:

The development of independent media, and steps to break up the corporate media cartel are critical for ending war.

This is a systemic problem that requires systemic solutions:

We need to remember to think, not in terms of forces that supposedly create war on their own directly, but in terms of factors that contribute to the social acceptability of war in our culture. One of our primary targets therefore is false beliefs, propaganda, a broken communications system.

Speaking of false beliefs:

The Danger of Obedience

War support often consists largely of support for the idea of trusting and obeying presidents and other officials.

. . .

Obedience is seen as a virtue in the military, and people not in the military begin to talk as if it is their virtue as well. They begin referring to their “commander in chief” rather than their president. They begin believing that citizens should shut up and do as they’re told and think as they’re told to think, rather than running the country and compelling public servants to serve the public.

What to do, what to do?

What Then Must We Do?

We must create a moral movement against mass-murder, even when the mass-murder is accompanied by flags or music or assertions of authority and promotion of irrational fear.

Nobody wins a war:

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake,” said Jeanette Rankin, the heroic congresswoman who voted against U.S. entry into both world wars.

Outlawing War is the only solution:

But it is relevant, I want to suggest, that torture had already been banned. Torture had been banned by treaty and been made a felony, under two different statutes, before George W. Bush was made president.

. . .

We are in that same situation with regard to war. War was banned 85 years ago, making talk of banning war problematic. We were in that same situation, in fact, even before the U.N. Charter was drafted 69 years ago. By any reasonable interpretation of the U.N. Charter, most—if not all—U.S. wars are forbidden. The United Nations did not authorize the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, the overthrow of the Libyan government, or the drone wars in Pakistan or Yemen or Somalia. And by only the wildest stretch of the imagination are these wars defensive from the U.S. side. But the two loopholes created by the U.N. Charter (for defensive and U.N.-authorized wars) are severe weaknesses. There will always be those who claim that a current war is in compliance with the U.N. Charter or that a future war might be. So, when I say that war is illegal, I don’t have the U.N. Charter in mind.

A lengthy discussion of The Kellog-Briand Pact and then:

Nor am I thinking that every war inevitably violates the so-called laws of war, involving countless atrocities that don’t stand up under a defense of “necessity” or “distinction” or “proportionality,” although this is certainly true. Banning improper war, while useful as far as it goes, actually supports the barbaric notion that one can conduct a proper war. The situation in which a war would be a “just war” is as mythical as the much-imagined situation in which torture would be justified.

Which brings us to:

War the Crime, not “War Crimes”

It is common to think of “war crimes” as improper conduct during a war, but not to think of the war itself as a crime. This needs to change. When presidents and other leaders of nations get away with launching wars, their successors repeat their crimes.

Skipping way ahead:

Global Rescue Plan

People ask: Well, what do we do about the terrorists?
We begin learning history. We stop encouraging terrorism. We prosecute suspected criminals in courts of law. We encourage other nations to use the rule of law. We stop arming the world. And we take a little fraction of what we spend killing people and use it to make ourselves the most beloved people on the planet.

The United States alone is perfectly capable, if it chooses, of enacting a global marshall plan, or—better—a global rescue plan. Every year the United States spends, through various governmental departments, roughly $1.2 trillion on war preparations and war. Every year the United States foregoes well over $1 trillion in taxes that billionaires and centimillionaires and corporations should be paying.

The national and global benefits:

Such a project would do well to consider programs of public service that involve us directly in the work to be done, and in the decisions to be made. Priority could be given to worker-owned and worker-run businesses. Such projects could avoid an unnecessary nationalistic focus. Public service, whether mandatory or voluntary, could include options to work for foreign and internationally run programs as well as those based in the United States. The service, after all, is to the world, not just one corner of it. Such service could include peace work, human shield work, and citizen diplomacy. Student exchange and public-servant exchange programs could add travel, adventure, and cross-cultural understanding. Nationalism, a phenomenon younger than and just as eliminable as war, would not be missed.

You may say I’m a dreamer. We number in the hundreds of millions.

Educate, Organize, Get Active

http://worldbeyondwar.org/end-war/

This lengthy post just skims the surface of a lengthy and worthwhile read. The title says Part IV, but I couldn't find parts I-III. If you want the rest of the story visit World Beyond War:

http://worldbeyondwar.org

And you could buy the book (PDF for $2 donation):

“A Global Security System: An Alternative to War” – 2017 Edition Now Available

http://worldbeyondwar.org/alternative/