Tag: World War II

Russian war fever: Will it spread? (Part 1)

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Alfred L. McAlister, Ph.D.

The chapter on “War Fever” in the forthcoming International Handbook of Negotiation and Mediation (M. Gallucio, Ed., Berlin: Springer) analyzes the psychology behind ploys used to gain popular support for military aggression. These include:

Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin. Photo by Cherie A. Thurlby in public domain; from Wikimedia Commons.
  • Invocation of a moral obligation
  • Advantageous comparisons with worse actions by other nations
  • The demonization of enemies

Usama Bin Laden described his followers’ attacks on the U.S. as a defense of threatened Palestinian people and children dying because of economic sanctions against Iraq, contrasted it with the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan at the end of World War II, and labeled the people of the U.S. and other Western nations as godless infidels.

In the U.S. attack on Iraq, the action was portrayed as a morally imperative act of self-defense, much less reprehensible than Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical warfare against his own people, while Hussein was depicted as a snake in political cartoons.

Following this pattern, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his followers justify the invasion of Crimea as a humanitarian act to protect threatened compatriots, contrast it with the certainly less defensible U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and describe the new leaders of Ukraine as terrorists and Nazis.

These patterns are predictable and, unless people learn to anticipate and reject them, will continue to be effective ways to stir up popular national support and make international excuses for military aggression.

Dr. Alfred McAlister’s essay “War Fever: How Can We Resist?” will be published this spring in the International Handbook of Negotiation and Mediation, edited by Mauro Gallucio (Berlin: Springer).

Abuse of ethical standards? Experts in support of war

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest contributor Michael D. Knox, Ph.D.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has bombed more than 25 countries. In these 68 years, no other nation has killed and injured more people living outside its borders. We have more nuclear weapons, more chemical weapons, and more soldiers than all other nations combined.

Nazi physician Karl Brandt sentenced at International Military Tribunal.
Nazi physician Karl Brandt is sentenced at International Military Tribunal. Image in public domain, from Wikimedia Commons.

In 2014, the U.S. continues drone and missile attacks on residential neighborhoods in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. We use concentration camps, torture, assassination, threats of war, and spying on our own people.

The invasions, the killing of thousands of children, the suffering of the wounded, the torture, the environmental impact, and so on, occur only because of support provided by professionals, educators, and scientists whose ethical standards should preclude any involvement with war.

These specialized experts include university professors, scientists, healthcare providers, journalists, engineers, teachers, and the clergy. Modern U.S. wars could not be fought without the complicity of these respected groups. Such groups were also part of the German war machine.

If you are a member of a group with ethical standards, be aware of what contributions your colleagues may be making to the U.S. war efforts. Consider how ethical standards apply, hold violators accountable, and do what you can to get your profession out of the war business.

All Americans, regardless of occupation, should consider what they are doing to sustain war. Without citizen support there would be no U.S. warfare.  Please consider what you might do to show your opposition to the bloodshed. Examples of what other Americans have done are recorded in the US Peace Registry.

Michael D. Knox, Ph.D., is distinguished professor emeritus at the University of South Florida, Tampa, and chair of the US Peace Memorial Foundation. He is also editor of the US Peace Registry. Dr. Knox’s work is now focused on recognizing Americans who have had the courage to publicly oppose one or more U.S. wars www.uspeacememorial.org/WorldPeace.htm.

Globalization for good (Globalization, Part 2)

Posted on by kathiemm
Arab Spring collage
Arab Spring collage, from Wikimedia Commons. Used under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Liberal economists—the ones ballyhooing about the benefits of unfettered capitalism–have gleefully co-opted the term “globalization.” [See Forbes article]. It is this form of globalization–the one of which the multinational corporations and financial institutions are so proud–that has kept multitudes of people in near or literal slavery.

Globalization, however, involves much more than economic profits and losses, ruthless greed and numbing poverty.

Consider, for example, the United Nations. Lots of folks argue that it is an unwieldy bureaucracy failing to fulfill its mission, yet it has globalized the idea of human rights. This  achievement—anathema to the international corporate power structure–helped to change the face of the globe, and helped to free the colonies that survived not just the First but also the Second World War.

Moreover, that process has continued. Global transmission of values such as human rights, democracy, and self-determination has been fostered by globalization of systems of communication, including the social media.

The globalization of forms of quick communication is a double-edged sword, however. It can be used to promote violence as in the Rwandan genocide. It can be used by governments to spy on everyone, as in the case of the National Security Agency (NSA).  But it can also be used to promote nonviolent resistance to vicious dictators, as in much of the Arab Spring movement, and to alert people around the world to horrors being perpetrated far from their homes.

Globalization is like knowledge—it can be used for good or ill. Our goal should be globalization for good.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Systems so perfect

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Mike Corgan

“dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.”

Man frightened by specter of national spying.
Image by Carlos Latuff, copyright free. (FRA refers to Swedish wiretapping law).

C.S. Lewis wrote those words for his verse play The Rock, but they could just as well apply to U.S. foreign policy and security affairs. (Witness the current daily National Security Agency (NSA) eavesdropping bombshells.)

We have always been dazzled by our technological prowess when it comes to security. In the American Revolution, the British had muskets, but we had rifles. The Civil War had aerial observation, repeating rifles, railroads, and steam-powered warships. In World War I, every machine gun on all sides had at least one American patent; in World War II, we had long-range bombers that could deliver the atomic bomb.

Nowadays we can listen to everyone everywhere.

Maybe we should take a lesson from our use of the atomic bomb. It took awhile, but many of us finally realized that this was something awesomely and terribly different. In spite of some impassioned calls to do so, neither the U.S. nor any other nation has used nuclear weapons since World War II ended in 1945. In my Navy days we used to deride “capabilities in search of a mission.”

Perhaps we can learn that our ability to eavesdrop on everyone, like our ability to deploy nuclear weapons, has a serious downside. We ought not to use this “system so perfect” everywhere without clear and agreed-upon restraints. Yes, terrorists do present a serious threat to our society–but so does the breakdown of trust between citizens and government and among those who should be our allies and partners in fighting this scourge.

We have incredibly effective, near-perfect systems, like “smart” weapons, drones, electronic intercept equipment, and so on. We humans need to be good and smart, too.