It is time we create a society where war and violence are not the norm
In September, when I started my yearlong fellowship with FCNL, I wrote about the moment when my life changed forever. On September 11, 2001, the U.S. experienced immense tragedy and chose to become a new version of itself. President Bush and Congress, with the backing of the public, chose to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. His successor, while drawing down the full-scale wars, chose to launch multiple bombing campaigns, ratchet up military aid, and continue the drone war.
As my FCNL supervisor recently wrote, this is war now and my generation will live with the national and global reality that our leaders, with the public’s consent, created. We chose to enter a new era of militarism and violence and young people will have to live with the consequences for the rest of our lives.
The costs of the War on Terror are relatively well-known. Our country chose to launch two full-scale wars and a drone campaign that killed 210,000 civilians, 48,800 soldiers and police, 7,000 contractors, and created 7.6 million refugees and internally displaced people, and 970,000 Veterans Administration claims. Those are millions of lives that were either cut short or ruined because of our country’s choices.
On top of the mangled bodies and broken families is the global norm of militarism and violence that our country chose to re-create in the past 15 years. The norm of the bipolar world during the Cold War was one of proxy conflict. The U.S. fought and funded its way through the century until the 1990’s when it pivoted toward its new role as the largest remaining military juggernaut.
After the events on 9/11, the country began a new global fight, this time against what it calls terrorism. Our country’s actions showed other countries that relying on military force to crush terrorist groups, rebellions, and all other kinds of resistance is acceptable. It is permissible to incur collateral damage, “torture folks,” and violate fundamental rights as long as you’re on our side. We’ll give you weapons, cash, and training as long as you’ll do our bidding.
Our country’s promotion of violence is not new and it’s not surprising, for my generation lives in a country born out of and bred on violence. From the original war to slavery to Hiroshima to Jim Crow to Vietnam to Iraq to Iraq again to Gaza and to Mike Brown, here we are, in 2015, living with this legacy. Violence is what the U.S. does, from the streets of Baghdad to the streets of Baltimore, 40 miles from where I sit.
Militarism isn’t just a foreign policy issue. It affects everyone everywhere. It’s the $1.7 trillion that was spent on bombs, bullets, and tanks rather than schools, infrastructure, health research, alternative fuels, ending homelessness, and alleviating poverty. It’s the thousands of young lives thrown away in vain and the soldiers turning guns on their own heads and the young people shot and choked to death in their streets and the cops roaming the hallways of our schools and the millions of people languishing in the world’s biggest prison system and the men raping and assaulting women on college campuses; militarism is a culture of violence that has colonized every aspect of my generation.
It does not have to be this way. We chose to become this and we can choose to become something else. During my year as an FCNL Young Fellow, I have talked to thousands of FCNL supporters who support a new norm. The military-industrial, prison-industrial, and election-industrial complexes created and sustained by our elected leaders are daunting, gigantic enterprises. Our institutions have proven that they will not dramatically reform from within. They will bomb, spy, acquit, and deal to be self-serving.
The only ways to change our culture and norm of violence is to close the political space that allows our leaders to perpetuate its existence and open new space to create a better alternative. Domestic and foreign policy change must happen hand in hand. Our country cannot continue to gun down young people here and expect a norm of peace abroad; the dissonance is unconquerable.
As this summer’s movements around gay marriage and racist flag removal have shown, making it politically impossible for a leader to take a certain position is an effective way to make change. We, young and old, arm in arm, must recognize the country’s wrought history and violent present and make it unacceptable for our leaders to let militarism reign. It starts with treating each other gently and then demanding a future about which we can be proud.