CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR
The Art of War
(reprinted, with permission, from Everybody's News, Issue 552, April 16,
1999)
by Michael Blankenship
In late December 1990 and early January 1991, I was doing my own work to prevent the beginning of the Gulf War. I printed up colorful agit-prop flyers telling people to contact their elected representatives, arguing against the concept of blood for oil, urging the continued isolation of Iraq with sanctions, warning against any congressional blank check for President Bush, and even calling for the impeachment of the president should he act in an extra-Constitutional manner. I was convinced that the national interests of the U.S. were, in this case, limited exclusively to selfish, capitalist profiteering. I figured I should use my skills to convince others of the same.
My efforts were met with condemnation, threats, accusations of unpatriotism, and police harassment. I was simply too late President Bush had already done a masterful job of marketing the war to the public, casting Saddam Hussein as "the new Hitler," promising rave reviews and a victorious "New World Order," filling "the theater" with more extras than a C.B. DeMille epic, and directing the liberation of Kuwait as a Benefit for Democracy, a Live Aid with missiles. Once the war had begun, we were treated to the best TV programming of the era, with most of us rushing home each night to see The War Show. Flashy graphics, suspenseful underscoring, live air raids, videotaped hits of "smart bombs," the Jerusalem concert with its audience in eveningwear and gas masks, and of course the spectacular season finale, with most Americans at this point believing that we wouldn't stop before we reached Baghdad, like the best of those patriotic old movies. This was another Hitler, wasn't it? The story wouldn't end with a "To be continued..." would it?
But eight years later, that show is still going on. It may run longer than Cats. "The new Hitler" not only kept his role longer than his "conqueror," but will likely upstage the eight years of Bill Clinton's contract as well. And the action never met with its intention; no democracy was brought about at all. The Kuwait Theater remains a decidedly nonunion house, a racist, sexist, absolute monarchy, ruled by a lazy and privileged elite, with no consideration at all for the rights of poor foreigners, who make up the bulk of its work force.
And before we have even dispensed with "the new Hitler," we are faced with "the newest Hitler." And it's a shame how President Clinton, in search of his post-Monica legacy, has fumbled the scene up to this point. Ironically, he has been resistant to using force for more traditional "national interests" such as those that fueled the Gulf War, but eager to use troops for core American principles like democratization in Haiti, stopping the genocide in Bosnia, even the ill-conceived police stint in Somalia. The president's great failure, however, is his inability to see past the overnight polls, spending more energy "playing to the critics," and allowing his desperate need for approval to hamper his considerable gifts for leadership. If he (we) had not had to spend an entire year embroiled in that tawdry scandal offstage, the country might have been able to follow more closely the deterioration of the Balkans situation. Now, after being in make-up and wardrobe for so long, the president's voice is proving inadequate for the task at hand.
It is absurd to state flat-out that ground troops will not be sent in, indicating an obvious fear of bad reviews. Clinton could use a lesson from Bush on this subject; the ability to lead is dependent upon the willingness to project authority, even if by disingenuous means. It is naive to think that airpower will suffice in a land-locked, rough-terrain, ethnic powder keg. It is dangerous to shift NATO from a mutual defense alliance to an offensive, punitive strike force. It is foolish not to use the power of his office to "pack the house" and mobilize the nation to his side, and it borders on criminal, in my book, to carry on this dumb show without uttering the word "war."
I reject those perpetual pacifists who profess that all wars are bad, that war is something humanity can somehow get past or evolve ourselves out of. Sorry folks, but it's part of our basic nature, possibly even a law of nature. Our challenge, then, is to determine when we are willing to engage in the nasty practice, and what we hope to accomplish with it. War should be approached like the best art; it should be geared to big themes and enlightening principles, not wasted on mediocre efforts, to benefit the privileged, or for bourgeois entertainment. And it should have a beginning, a middle and an end.
At the close of WWI, the people of Europe rejoiced at the Wilsonian concept of self-determ-ination, that peoples had the right to decide for themselves their governments, and no longer be held hostage by empires. But the governments of the Allied Powers balked at this and redrew the map, creating arbitrary states that had never existed before--Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia--and lumping together ethnic peoples who had never gotten along. The Treaty of Versailles is singularly responsible for all of the European strife from 1918 to today.
NATO is now at center stage, with America as the typical Act II hero prompting from the wings. As principal players, we should address our motivations. What do we want? Why do we want it? What are we willing to do to get it? Answers to those questions will determine the form of the production, and indicate whether it's farce, tragedy, mindless fluff, biting satire, or an intensely moving human drama. Meanwhile, the audience awaits.
