According to many members of Congress — both Republicans and Democrats — and every president in my lifetime, the United States is NOT at war. In their minds, what common folks call “war” is something else: police action, hostilities, skirmish, collateral damage, surge, overseas contingency operations, shock and awe, pacification, nation-building, authorization for the use of force — anything but what it is, WAR.
Politicians and military leaders use euphemisms to hide from the American people that we are at war. War is what, exactly? Google AI defines war as “a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state.” I suspect most of us would agree with this definition. I define war as sustained conflict between nations, states, tribal groups, ethnic groups, or organized militias. War is violent, bloody conflict that leads to destruction and death, but in this modern age, it is more than that. Cyberwarfare comes to mind, a tool the United States is currently using to wage war against an array of enemies. Are military actions that disrupt instead of outright killing people war? I would say, yes.
And then we have federal agencies such as the NSA and the CIA, who are committing acts of war against nations that oppose the United States, going so far as to assassinate heads of state and military leaders. These acts are war too, even if they are never reported in the New York Times.
Many Americans tell themselves that we are not at war unless Congress officially declares war. That means the United States has not fought a war since World War II. Never mind the carnage of the Korean War and the Vietnam War that led to millions of deaths. Korea and Vietnam weren’t wars because Congress didn’t say they were. I suspect the millions of people wounded and killed in these not-wars might disagree.
I am sixty-eight years old. There’s never been a day in my life that the United States has not been at war, either covertly or openly. We are currently at war with Russia, Iran, Yemen, and Palestine. Fighting proxy wars does not absolve the United States of culpability. Our money, our weapons, our support, our war. Just because there aren’t American boots on the ground doesn’t mean we are not at war with a nation. We have no troops on the ground in China, yet does anyone seriously question whether we are at war with them? I know, I don’t.
The United States is a bloody people; a nation willing to use violence to advance its agenda and “protect the American people” or any of the other cliches we use to deflect from the fact that we are the bully who uses its behemoth size to get whatever he wants. Individually this might not be true of us, but as a nation, we have made it clear we will, if necessary, use violence to advance the mythical American Dream, city on a hill, defenders of freedom, or other bullshit we tell ourselves to justify murderous violence and destruction done in the name of WE THE PEOPLE. We have never been a people of peace, and 400 million guns suggest that more than a few Americans are willing to use violence against their fellow citizens to ‘protect the American way of life.”
No, we are a violent people, and if you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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