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Understanding American Predisposition to War

Comment by Larry Ross, February 28, 2007

This is a fascinating study by a US historian on violence and war in America since its inception.

It is very much a part of the culture. Violence, crime and war are also very popular as entertainment in movies, TV shows, war games and videos. Children grow up playing war games such as "Cowboys and Indians" or between gangsters and police. One of the most popular TV serials was about a Mafia Don, his family and his rackets and crimes. In this social climate it is perhaps natural for people not to seriously question the reasons and motives of their leaders taking them into war. It's as natural as apple pie.

Americans have been repeatedly fooled into supporting questionable wars, as they were in the continuing 2003 illegal war on Iraq.

Bush and his team only had a litany of lies and slogans to justify his war on Iraq. 4 years later Bush is using virtually identical lies and slogans to justify a much larger war on Iran, with potentially far more serious consequences. It seems so much in the American tradition to be fooled and conned into war after war. Polls show that Americans have finally been educated enough to reject Bush's Iraq war. But the polls show that a majority have bought Bush's lies on Iran and thus will probably support a new war on Iran. Given the potential dire consequences, and lack any rational justification, there is a puzzling lack of protest in the US about a war with Iran - much less than there was before Bush took them into a war with Iraq. However if you consider the cultural history as outlined below, it becomes more understandable. Also, in recent history, all America's wars have been inflicted on other countries. American mass bombings and slaughter of people overseas, result in only a few US soldiers returning maimed or in body bags. Few Americans are now greatly bothered with hundreds of thousands of foreigners killed in illegal and immoral American wars based on lies. They have been dehumanised and conditioned to be detached and to accept such things as a normal background to their busy lives. The mass media and popular right wing war commentator propagandists are careful not to talk about potential escalation and consequences, or about the rights, wrongs, lies and false assumptions of wars like Iraq. 

However the massive bombing of  Iran could have such extreme consequences, that everyone, including Americans, will suffer. Hopefully more people will be concerned enough to help prevent this great crime from happening.

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In case you missed it: Violence is the American Way

by Ira Leonard, April 23, 2003

" Increasingly, Americans are a people without history, with only memory, which means a people poorly prepared for what is inevitable about life -- tragedy, sadness, moral ambiguity -- and therefore a people reluctant to engage difficult ethical issues. " - -- Elliot Gorn, "Professing History: Distinguishing Between Memory and Past," Chronicle of Higher Education (April 28, 2000).

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In August 2002, President George Bush began to drum up a war fever in America with a view to toppling Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein, alleged to be the possessor of weapons of mass destruction. Bush did so without providing the evidence, the costs, the "why now" explanation, or long-term implications of such a war.

And by October 2002, The United States Congress not only granted the president a virtual declaration of war for an historically unprecedented "pre-emptive war," but did so without raising any questions about the whys, the evidence, the costs, or long term implications for the nation -- and for the world -- of such an unprovoked invasion.

Only a democratic society accustomed to war -- and predisposed to the use of war and violence -- would accept war so quickly, without asking any questions or demanding any answers from its leaders about the war.

And only the opposition of the French, Germans, Russians, and Chinese finally forced some Americans to raise questions about what was actually being planned. This, coupled with the anti-war demonstrations on February 15th, 2003 by millions of people in 350 cities around the globe, delayed President Bush from actually launching this war against Iraq by mid-February 2003.

Nothing, however, seemed to stop the bush administration's drive for war. Nor did the failure of American diplomatic efforts to get authorization from the United Nations' security council seem to bother the members of the congress, virtually all of whom remained silent or in support of war. The incessant polls showed that a majority of the american population continued to support a preemptive war even as -- or perhaps because of -- increasingly angry objections were voiced by important longterm allies and antiwar demonstrators all over the world.

Continue.....