‘Endless Everywhere war’ ignored on Veteran's day.

“Shred the U.S. Constitution!”   That was the sentiment of government experts burdened with the secret job of America’s recovery had there been a catastrophic event during the Cold War.  Mostly former U.S. government officials - these experienced individuals were driven by the possibility of a nuclear war and the hope of rebuilding our nation after it or some other catastrophic event destroyed life as we know it.  

 

Not surprisingly they named the Declaration of Independence as the document worthy of protection.

It held the fundamental principles essential for creating any sustainable human system of government dedicated to human freedom, the fundamental promise of America’s greatness.

 

Abraham Lincoln recognized as much when our nation was close to dissolving over slavery.  That bloody civil war killed more Americans than all of our wars since then, combined.   Lincoln called the Declaration of Independence our “Apple of Gold” and our Constitution its “Frame of Silver”.   Our pledge ending with “Liberty and justice for all” reflects the same.  Having repeatedly failed this pledge Americans are now engaged in ‘endless everywhere wars’. That last stage of war’s evolution is unlikely to end well for humanity. I cannot believe that war is “hardwired” into our species” as a Marine Medal of Honor awardee said in an NPR interview on Veterans Day.  Being a soldier appeared to be the only thing he could think of to give him such a grand purpose for living.  OMG.  Where has our culture and political foundation gone so criminally and insanely wrong?

 

November 11^th was originally celebrated as Armistice Day.  Honoring ‘the War to end all Wars’ after 20 million died.  But its unjust political ending with the treaty of Versailles set the conditions leading to World War II where 50 million would die.  And after it the Korean War.  A war that our US Congress used to change that profoundly misjudged day as a holiday - to honor just US soldiers.  Now it’s Veterans Day.  An opportunity missed to actually teach of the root causes of war...as a way of ending war...and truly honoring all those who have died in them, and from them.

 

Today we are left with two prevailing yet untested passioned principles for achieving ‘peace’.  “Peace through strength’ and ‘peace through disarmament'.    Neither has a chance in hell of working.  Peace is a function of justice. FULL STOP!  No justice.  No peace!

 

War today remains an unsustainable option due to our worshiping of national sovereignty.   A logical concept that was accepted 400 years ago with the Treaty of Westphalia.  But it was fundamentally flawed in lacking justice.  Thus, it has never stopped or even slowed the wars between nations, or the evolution of war and the weapons used to wage it. 

Without a just and enforceable set of rules and regulations to peacefully hold governments accountable for any murderous actions inside or outside their borders, global chaos will continue to reign supreme and accelerate in threatening human freedom and security until we end it, or it ends us.  Put simply.  Protecting human rights and our environment must be put above the protection of National Sovereignty.  And ‘we the people’ accept this without violence or pause.

 

FDR’s wife Eleanor Roosevelt led a hopeful effort intended to remedy global injustices.  She led a project drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  It was unanimously approved on Dec. 10^th, 1948 (exactly 67 years ago and 29 days from today). Unfortunately, the UN was never given the power to enforce it.  And, within a few years, the Cold War began.  Then over the next four decades over 100 million innocent men, women, and children (mostly children) died from easily preventable malnutrition and infectious diseases - while hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on weapons to ‘prevent’ war. 

 

Nuclear weapons may have prevented another hot world war, but on Sept 11, 2001, just 19 individuals armed with razor knives and a little training used our own passenger airliners as WMD and ignited the ‘endless everywhere war’ that is burning out of control today.

 

Thus far it has cost trillions of American taxpayers dollars and twice as many American lives that were lost on the 9-11 attack itself.  Experts claim our 20-year war in Afghanistan and Iraq prevented attacks against us.  In reality, the likely hood of future catastrophic attacks and endless lone wolf attacks has only increased.  And in the last two years, there were more US deaths from domestic violent extremists since Timothy McVeigh’s attack killed 168 men, women, and children in Oklahoma City in 2015.  When (not if) today’s extremists acquire tactical efficiency in biological, chemical, nuclear, cyber, or robotics technology -- millions of Americans will likely die.   We must urgently choose another way to address the root causes of this insanity.  Time is NOT on our side. 

 

By now it should be self-evident that the most powerful military in the world cannot stop the abuse of any and every technology.   Just weeks ago the new director of our nation’s newest national security agency (CISA – Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency) said “everything is connected, everything is interdependent, and everything is vulnerable”...we need a ‘whole of world’ approach. 

FACT 1:  When a person, group, or nation is determined to commit mass murder (with some willing to die in the process), security is an illusion.  Biosecurity and cybersecurity are oxymorons.  And anyone who believes any technology can be made safe...is a moron.  Social media will only be effectively controlled when the hearts and minds of those who use it, grasp the fundamental principle that ‘united we stand’ – stand a chance of maximizing humanities freedoms and security.  And ‘divided’, we are doing down.

 

FACT 2:  US military involvement since 9-11 has created more committed murderous extremists than existed before 9-11.   Don’t believe that our most capable and honorable military force will be able to stop a biological weapon entering our nation or truck bombs from obliterating our public buildings.  Understand that a cyber-attack, an EMP event, or someone with a book of matches can target our vulnerable infrastructure and inflict mass murder.   A recent GAO study of our military's most sophisticated weapons systems reported that 80 percent were hackable by relatively simple methods. 

 

We fail to realize that our Constitution as it is, cannot protect us.  And is actually making things worse.  Any serious effort to detect and then preempt a domestic attack must inevitably violate our 4^th Amendment. And with the recent rise in domestic ‘terrorism’ irreversibly linked to a global White Supremacy movement that is catastrophically clear.   

 

This is often framed as a freedom/security dilemma.  Its best resolution requires deeper thinking beyond our primal fears.  This can start by thoroughly understanding the evolution of weaponry and war itself.  Then calculate the costs of future war.  Then realize It can no longer be calculated in terms of lost blood and treasure.  But we could lose civilization as we know it.  

 

After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, someone asked Albert Einstein “What weapons would WW III be fought with?’  Einstein wisely answered that he didn’t know.   But he was certain that “WW IV would be fought with sticks and stones.” 

 

Exponential advances in every technology now yields unprecedented killing capacity to almost anyone with a serious grudge and enough money to buy a car, truck, or computer.    The dual-use nature of every technology means that any disarmament effort can easily be thwarted with human creativity if the will is there to commit mass murder.  

 

With or without the Second Amendment we will not be safe.  Take guns away and cars or trucks can be used to slaughter dozens.   Timothy McVeigh, a former US soldier used his knowledge, a rental truck, fuel oil, fertilizer, some copper wire, and a timer.  In seconds nearly 200 people died.

 

This one factor of ‘dual-use technology’ should fundamentally shift our approach to war, peace, and security.  And now we know that intentional mass murder isn’t the only or even the greatest threat we face.  Pandemics, global warming, supervolcanoes, asteroids, and now Artificial Intelligence are also grave threats to our freedom and security.  If you doubt this read Global Catastrophic Risks 2018 https://globalchallenges.org/en/our-work/annual-report/annual-report-2018

Or the NOVEMBER 3, 2021  FBI and Homeland Officials Testify on Domestic Terrorism before the House Intelligence Committee on agency efforts to counter domestic terrorism. The witnesses answered questions on a variety of topics, including the rise of white supremacy, the protection of civil rights and civil liberties, the role of social media in the spread of extremist ideas, distrust of federal law enforcement agencies, and the U.S. attorney general’s investigation into threats made against local school board members.   FBI and Homeland Security Officials Testify on Domestic Terrorism

 

 

Yet our nation’s war budging priorities have only escalated.  Remember, we were already spending more on defense than the 7 next largest national military budgets combined -- most of those are our allies. And budgeting for a Space Force to address the weaponization of space.

 

Few lawmakers consider the opportunity costs of relying on weapons to protect us.  The funding that could have been invested in preventing other threats we know will come and now did come as Covid19.   Or used to prepare for threats that we can never really prevent like a super volcano or EMP event.

 

Most expert discussions about any national security threat now stress the word ‘resilience’.  They know we aren’t going to be able to prevent them given the limited funds of our government, the constraints of our Constitution, and the abhorrent stultification of our elected policy-making bodies.

 

Those who study ‘war’ or ‘peace’ need to get rapidly schooled regarding the fundamental causes of both and the advantages of addressing systemic causes rather than symptoms. 

 

This perpetual reactionary approach is simply unsustainable economically.  And in this context the education of all Americans is the most vital element essential to our national security, preserving our freedoms, and continued prosperity.   Still unknown to most Americans is the weighty conclusion of the final report of the bipartisan Presidential Commission on National Security in the 21^st Century.  Released just six months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, it concluded that the lack of education in the US secondary and university level institutions was the second greatest threat to our national security.   Terrorism was #1.  As evidenced in the GOP Governor victory in VA early this month, liberals continue to fear the use of fear in using education in the context of national security in motivating its voters.

 

In honoring our veterans in the future or celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the end of WW I we could also remember (or learn about) President Kennedy’s creation of the Peace Corps.  He knew the foundation of peace.  And its trainees also risked their lives in villages and hamlets around the world to bring education, health care and farming to the poor.  They deserved to be honored as much as military veterans.  Our brave military veterans who recently served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or nations in Africa rightfully debate the value of having our military do nation-building.  And some of our best military leaders acknowledge that if we don’t fund more humanitarian efforts we need to “buy more bullets”.

 

Fundamentally, ‘we the people’ need to urgently redefine what is meant by national security.  And how it must be achieved.   The answer lies mostly in how we decide to use our Constitution to address the root causes of war, disease, genocide, hunger, poverty, and other global injustices.  We must put all people first.  Not our national pride or self-interests.   This is the biblical concept that helped create our great nation.  Failing this, we will increasingly fail to be great.  It may be our only means of keeping ahead of China in global standings.

 

I’m offering a new meaning of the acronym NFL.  Forty-one years ago another bipartisan Presidential Commission (on World Hunger) unanimously offered a practical means of maximizing our national security.  “In the final analysis, unless Americans -- as citizens of an increasingly interdependent world -- place far higher priority on overcoming world hunger, its effects will no longer remain remote or unfamiliar.  Nor can we wait until we reach the brink of the precipice; the major actions required do not lend themselves to crisis planning, patchwork management, or emergency financing... The hour is late.  Age-old forces of poverty, disease, inequity, and hunger continue to challenge the world.  Our humanity demands that we act upon these challenges now...” 

 

The commission specifically warned that “The most potentially explosive force in the world today is the frustrated desire of poor people to attain a decent standard of living. The anger, despair, and often hatred that result represent real and persistent threats to international order…  Neither the cost to national security of allowing malnutrition to spread nor the gain to be derived by a genuine effort to resolve the problem can be predicted or measured in any precise, mathematical way. Nor can monetary value be placed on avoiding the chaos that will ensue unless the United States and the rest of the world begin to develop a common institutional framework for meeting such other critical global threats as the growing scarcity of fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources, environmental hazards, pollution of the seas, and international terrorism. Calculable or not, however, this combination of problems now threatens the national security of all countries just as surely as advancing armies or nuclear arsenals.”

 

It also stated “that promoting economic development in general, and overcoming hunger in particular, are tasks far more critical to the U.S. national security than most policymakers acknowledge or even believe. Since the advent of nuclear weapons, most Americans have been conditioned to equate national security with the strength of strategic military forces. The Commission considers this prevailing belief to be a simplistic illusion. Armed might represents merely the physical aspect of national security. Military force is ultimately useless in the absence of the global security that only coordinated international progress toward social justice can bring.”

 

Today, the best means of addressing these global injustices is the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that every nation agreed to in 2015.  Funding them can be done without increasing any debt to any government.  Freezing and then seizing illicit wealth stashed in offshore accounts (see Pandora Papers) could start to achieve these affordable, attainable, and nationally agreed-upon goals using solutions that already exist.   What’s needed is the political will that could be achieved if each of the major progressive movements (peace, environment, and social/economic justice) and the tens of thousands of not-for-profit organizations within each of them, come together as a Movement of movements, to pass legislation to make it happen. 

Each member of Congress swore to protect the Constitution.  It cannot protect them, you, or your loved ones without using it to achieve “liberty and justice for all”.   That is what most of us have pledged to do thousands of times.  

So much of what we have been doing...and continue to do...is simply unsustainable.

Time is running out.