Endless War has Great Costs
By Matt Southworth on 05/10/2011 @ 06:30 PM
Amid Congress' attempt to "reaffirm" the Authorization of the Use of Military Force, the legal underpinning for the "global war on terror", it is important to weigh the costs of continuing failed war policies. There are many costs of war: the financial cost, opportunity cost, moral cost and human cost, to name a few. The latter two costs—moral and human—generally get the least attention but deserve the most.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been severely morally corrosive. The U.S. is now a nation which holds political prisoners; that has tortured; has waged war under false pretense with no accountability for those responsible for building the false pretense; and has caused—directly and indirectly—the deaths of many thousands of innocent people in the name of combating violent extremism.
The rhetoric now states that these policies continue because the U.S. is under threat. Paradoxically, it is the very policies employed by the U.S. that have perpetuated—not reduced—threats to U.S. and world security and stability.
The U.S. funded the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the 1980s, an adventure which gave rise to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; the U.S. funded and supported Saddam Hussein through the 1980s, providing chemical weapons that were later used on the Kurds in 1989; the U.S. overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 (under Operation Ajax) which led to the bloody reign of Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi until the Iranian Revolution, largely viewed as anti-U.S., took place in 1979. This list—not even remotely exhaustive—goes on and on.
U.S. foreign policy has been viewed as a zero-sum game for far too long and has ultimately undermined security and stability all over the world. Along the way, some people should be credited with acts of evil. However, no one—not even Osama bin Laden—can be charged with our own moral capitulation; that is on us.
What of those human costs?
Many are scarred with wounds we can see; many others with wounds that cannot be seen. The undeniable suffering sustained by the U.S. military is less in scope than the costs paid in lives of innocent Iraqis and Afghans over the last decade—in the hundreds of thousands. One life cannot be valued more than another simply because of the nation one is from; in the eyes of God, all lives are, in fact, created equal.
The unseen scars are, of course, among the hardest to diagnose and treat. Some 2,052,405 have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Veterans for Common Sense, the DoD has reported 90,955 “battlefield casualties” in the two countries. Some 14,000 troops have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) since 2008; rates are believed to be as high as 20% among deployed troops. The Department of Veterans Affairs is presently dealing with 143,530 PTSD patients. A recent Pentagon report found that rates for soldiers hospitalized for suicidal thoughts have risen by an astonishing 7,000% in just the last five years.
Here is a personal story of the struggles some Veterans face.
These wars have robbed those involved—innocent and weapon toting—of sanity and humanity. This legacy is shared by all, as violence begets violence.
Enough is enough.
"Undoubtedly, the death of Osama Bin Laden is a pivotal moment in our nation’s history, one that carries with it the opportunity...to bring much-needed closure to the war in Afghanistan" wrote Rep. Mike Honda (CA). "We have an incredible opportunity to redirect funds and efforts... [but] such a shift requires courage, especially for members of Congress."
Congress has no excuse not to be courageous. Osama bin Laden is gone. The U.S. has lost its moral bearing. Large scale wars failed to deliver peace and stability to the world or avenge the deaths sustained on 9/11. Albert Einstein once said, “The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation.” The cycle of death and suffering cannot end without rethinking how the U.S. engages in the world; we must finally take the high ground.
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