Let’s Face It, Americans Are a War-like People

25CBD3BF-6AAF-464B-A38F-4A389BC5EE2CJimmy Carter, rightfully proud to be the only U.S. president to complete his term without war, military attack or occupation has called the United States “the most war-like nation in the history of the world.”

It doesn’t take a detailed understanding of world historical events to see that this is true, though the reason for this could certainly be debated.  U.S. history is littered with atrocities, from the fierce grasp with which we held onto slavery and subsequent suppression of blacks, to the centuries of slaughter of native Americans, to the detonation of atomic weaponry, to Vietnam, Central America, Iraq, Yemen, and so forth.  Maybe these horrible acts are the results of  bloodthirsty American cultural norms that we’ve shared since the Revolution.  But perhaps the reverse is true, i.e., that they are the cause of our current indifference to/approval of armed aggression around the planet.  Not of any help either is the fact that money is the de facto religion of America, and it feeds the military-industrial complex, that continues to grow like a cancer.

While there is no way to know the exact mechanism by which it has happened, it’s clear that the fact that nothing good has come from U.S. military involvement since 1945 has not deterred us from wasting lives and resources in every corner of the globe.

Sadly, it’s the only thing we’re really good at, but how sustainable is the business of war?  How far will that take us into a future in which China, an incredibly peaceful nation, hasn’t spent the $6 trillion we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is taking over the world in terms of economic dominance?  It’s appears that, with the decline of American education and every other aspect of our economic competitiveness, we’re headed for a decline, perhaps a long and slow one, into irrelevance in the global marketplace.

Speaking for a moment on behalf of all humankind, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. What type of people tear up the peace agreements and pledges to cut carbon emissions that the entire world came together to put into place? A recent Gallup poll asked people from more than 50 countries, “What do you believe to be the biggest threat to world peace?”  By far (the second response wasn’t anywhere close) the most frequent response: The United States.

Readers shouldn’t construe this as Anti-American, though I’m proud to say that I fiercely resent what my country has become.

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One comment on “Let’s Face It, Americans Are a War-like People
  1. marcopolo says:

    Craig,

    You seem very confused and conflicted.

    Many US presidents other than Jimmy Carter presided over a peaceful US. Herbert Hoover being a prime example.

    Jimmy Cater was well-meaning, but weak and ineffective. His foreign policy dithering strengthen US enemies,while weakening and destroying US allies.

    Quite correctly, you speak of an America born from the violence, aggression and expansionism of the Revolutionary War, and continuing throughout the nations history, always deploy US military might to serve American interests.

    Having conceded America’s violent history, you state you’re “proud to say that I fiercely resent what my country has become”.

    Presumably this is reference to the current President who so far has proved to be one of the least willing Presidents to deploy US military forces.

    Into this morass of inaccuracies and contradictions, you refer to “China” (by which I presume you mean the “Peoples Republic of China”) as an ” an incredibly peaceful nation” !

    Since the end of World War 2, Communist China has been involved in an almost continual series of armed conflicts, starting with the long and incredibly savage civil war.

    In 1950, China launched the battle of Chamdo as the opening battle in the campaign to invade, brutally crush, occupy and practice wholesale genocide against its tiny neighbor, Tibet.

    Later in the same year, China deployed the first of more than 2 million soldiers to fight in the Korean War for the next 3 years.

    Between !954 and 1958, China launched military attacks in the Taiwan straights against the Republic of China, each time receiving a bloody nose and retiring with heavy losses.

    !959, the PLA once again brutally suppressed an uprising in Tibet, this time concentrating on eliminating Tibetan civilians and erasing cultural identity.

    1960-61 China fought a costly, although ultimately successful campaign in Burma.

    Since 1962, large numbers of PLA and special Chinese Security forces were deployed to the annexed province of Xinjiang to suppress, crush and eliminate resistance of the local Uyghur people. This on going, an very unequal, contest continues to this day.

    In 1962, while the world was distracted by the Cuban missile crisis, China seized the opportunity to attack a completely under-prepared India resulting in the first Sino-Indian war.

    Although the numerically inferior 10,000 India troops eventually halted 90,000 Chinese attackers, it wasn’t until 1967 when China attacked a second time. a much better prepared Indian army was able to repel the Chines invasion and reclaim the lost province of Sikkim.

    1969 saw China attempting to seize territory from the USSR, only to lose once again.

    1965. China sent active troops and military aid to to fight in the Vietnam. only to discontinue in 1970 after Vietnam expelled China.

    China continued supplying military and political assistance to Laotian communists and Pot Pot’s genocidal regime in Cambodia.

    In 1979 China launched a series of attacks against Vietnam with mixed results but heavy causalities. The main purpose was to aid Pol Pot in Cambodia. (The assistance was futile, resulting in heavy PLA losses.

    China has also been involved in a series of military adventures in
    Africa, such as Mozambique, Angola, etc most of which were failures, although the current military mission to Djibouti to prop up the chaotic dictatorship Ismaïl Omar Guelleh seems to be more successful.

    To call China “incredibly peaceful” is inaccurate. Confusing military incompetence with being ‘peaceful’ is always a dangerous conclusion.

    In recent years the PLA has undergone a massive transformation becoming far more formidable, professional, nationalistic and aggressive with much greater military capacity.

    The sort of people who “tear up silly, insincere and empty “symbolic” peace agreements and pledges to cut carbon emissions” are pragmatists who prefer reality, sincerity and shun hypocrisy.

    The Paris Agreement was a document no sensible American should have anything to do with.

    Wishing something were true, is not the same thing as it being true.