Afghanistan – Page 3 – Engaging Peace

Where does honor lie?

Posted on May 25, 2015May 25, 2015 by kathiemm

“Peace restraining war” part of the Bolton War Memorial by Walter Marsden
Image by Gordon Lawson and in the public domain.

Today, Memorial Day 2015, I commemorate what the United States could have been and still could be.

The participation of colonists (invaders) from abroad in the near genocide of the native peoples did not make the United States great, let alone honorable.

The bloody subjugation of the Philippines into an American colony did not make the United States great, nor were the invaders honorable.

Were the Americans who fought in WWI and WWII and Korea and Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq and the countless other forgotten little wars that Americans fought in the last two centuries brave? I am sure many but not all of them were. Were they fighting for their country? Most of them probably thought they were doing so. Were they actually fighting on behalf of the military-industrial complex, the powerful elite intent on pursuing its own interests with little concern for the human costs? I believe so.

Is it appropriate to honor members of the military who killed others, including innocent civilians, because they were told to do so and trained to follow orders? I believe sympathy for them and their families is more appropriate; however, I am also moved by the words of Ambrose Bierce, who fought for the Union in the U.S. Civil War, and was distressed by the insistence of northerners and southerners in the post-war decades to have two separate memorial days, honoring only their own dead: “The wretch, whate’er his life and lot/ Who does not love the harmless dead/ With all his heart and all his head— / May God forgive him, I shall not.”

But, I ask you, when will we start honoring the conscientious objectors, the war resisters, the anti-nuke activists, and all those who embrace nonviolence? When will we create a national peace memorial and a Memorial Day transmuted into a day honoring the pursuit of peace, nonviolence, and human rights?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

American Sniper, Part I

Posted on January 12, 2015January 12, 2015 by kathiemm

By guest author Ross Caputi. This is the first in a series discussing the implications of the new film, American Sniper.

What American Sniper offers us — more than a heart-wrenching tale about Chris Kyle’s struggle to be a soldier, a husband, and a father; more than an action packed story about America’s most lethal sniper — is an exposure of the often hidden side of American war culture. The criminality characterizing American military engagements since the American Indian Wars, and most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, is hardly noticeable in this film. And that’s exactly my point.

Chris Kyle built his reputation as a sniper during one of the most criminal operations of the entire occupation of Iraq, the 2nd siege of Fallujah, yet American Sniper doesn’t even hint that Chris Kyle did anything in Iraq except kill bad guys and defend America. This speaks volumes about how little we understand the wars our country fights around the world.

Perhaps my argument seems strange — that the most significant part of this film is what is not in it. I believe the omissions reflect more than what the director decided was irrelevant to the plot. They reveal an unconscious psychological process that shields our ideas about who we are as individuals and as a nation. This process, known as “moral disengagement ,” is extremely common in militaristic societies.

What is fascinating about American Sniper is how these omissions survive in the face of overwhelming evidence of the crimes in which Chris Kyle participated during the 2nd siege of Fallujah — an operation that killed between 4,000 and 6,000 civilians, displaced 200,000, and may have created an epidemic of birth defects and cancers. That he can come home, be embraced as a hero, be celebrated for the number of people he killed, write a bestselling book about it, and have it made into a Hollywood film is something we need to reflect on as a society.

Ross Caputi, a regular writer for engagingpeace.com, is a former Marine who participated in the 2nd Siege of Fallujah. Today he is on the Board of Directors of the Islah Reparations Project. He is also the Director of the documentary film Fear Not the Path of Truth: a veteran’s journey after Fallujah Ross holds an MA in Linguistics and he is working on an MA in English Studies at Fitchburg State University. Read his blog here.

Operation Shanghai

Posted on September 29, 2014September 28, 2014 by kathiemm

According to the New World Encyclopedia, psychological warfare involves using propaganda or similar methods to demoralize an enemy and ensure victory, possibly without physical violence. Modern examples include the U.S. spreading leaflets over Japan during WWII and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A similar term, psychological operations, is defined by the U.S. Department of Defense as:“The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups in such a way as to support the achievement of national objectives.”

A glaring omission from these definitions is the extent to which people in power can use “psychological operations” to intimidate and coerce their own people into compliance with their goals.

During WWII, the US government used propaganda leaflets to convince Americans that it was shameful for them to take time off from work even for a holiday and that they needed to mistrust everybody.

In olden days and in some parts of the world today, civilians have been kidnapped, beaten, tortured, and forced to fight battles for their kidnappers. Today, in the US and many other parts of the world, leaders can influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of their own people without necessarily using violence to achieve their objectives. Does refraining from violence when pressuring and enticing people into using violence make that coercive influence any less an abuse of power than shanghaiing them?

Is there any valid reason for believing that throwing all of our military might at ISIS will make us or anyone else in the world safer?

Are YOU guilty of a war crime?

Posted on April 7, 2014April 4, 2014 by kathiemm

To put the question differently: Do you pay taxes?

If you do, you may be committing a war crime.

Tax Rebellion, a group active in the United Kingdom, argues that “Under the international laws of war, it is a criminal offense to pay tax to a Government which is waging illegal war.”

The group goes on to argue that the wars against Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya are all illegal, violating the Treaty for the Renunciation of War of 1928 (also known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact) and the United Nations Charter.

They quote the judges from the Nuremberg trials at the end of World War II:

“War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

The United States government is involved in acts of aggression around the world, with most of these kept successfully out of the awareness of ordinary citizens.

Iin the United States, one group that is devoted to educating the public concerning financial and human costs of aggression and promoting the use of tax money for peace, not war, is the Peace Economy Project. Visit their site and learn all kinds of things you probably didn’t know—including the “wide range of operations in Africa, including airstrikes targeting suspected militants, and night raids aimed at kidnapping terror suspects…”

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology