My friend Paul Chappell, a West Point graduate and veteran of Iraq, who left the Army in November 2009 as a captain, has written two books on ending war. He says that peace activists must actively confront and debunk the myths that perpetuate war. The following are his ideas and are expounded upon in his books.*
1. Human beings are naturally violent.
If human beings were naturally violent, the military wouldn’t have to induce people to join. They could say: Join the military and kill people! We’ll pay you!
Human-on-human violence is actually a universal human phobia. The greatest challenge the military faces is training people in battle to stay and fight, rather than run away.
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a psychology professor at West Point who wrote the classic, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, found that 98% of soldiers are traumatized by having killed in battle. The 2% who aren’t, are psychopaths, previously traumatized by life situations.
2. War is inevitable.
War is a choice. As Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, veteran of WWI, and other conflicts said, “War is a racket. It always has been. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the U.S. during WWI…How many of these new millionaires shouldered a rifle?
“The general public shoulders the bill of war…in newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations…And the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill. Visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad…or any of the veterans’ hospitals in the United States.”
Gen. Omar Bradley, veteran of WWII, said, “Wars can be prevented just as surely as they are provoked, and we who fail to prevent them share in guilt for the dead.”
3. War makes us safe.
In fact it is peace that promotes security, along with friendship, trade, prosperity, health, education, and mutual understanding. The U.S. has bases in more than 150 countries, yet those bases do not ensure our safety; they give us a reason for people to hate us. Our base(s) in Saudi Arabia are the reason Bin Laden gave for attacking us on 9/11. Every innocent person we kill in our “war against terrorism” creates more terrorists. If there were a terrorist cell in Los Angeles, would we bomb L.A.? No, we would arrest the terrorists. The best way to deal with terrorism is with international police work—and with winning hearts and minds. The best way to overcome our enemies is to make them our friends.
* From Capt. Paul Chappell, Will War Ever End? A Soldier's Vision of Peace for the 21st Century, and The End of War: How Waging Peace Can Save Humanity, Our Planet, and Our Future, available from Amazon
