“Veterans today are killing themselves at a very high rate.” – Swords into Plowshares
The third debate for the GOP presidential nomination seems to confirm that both parties in America are pro-war, now that the Democrats have shown their affinity for war in Ukraine. Only newcomer, Vivek Ramaswamy, advocated against both wars in Ukraine and Israel. Like Trump in 2016, Ramaswamy is an outsider working against a deeply entrenched war machine that provides quid pro quo support for its advocates. But war is nothing more than a solution looking for a problem. Having created a permanent welfare for warfare boondoggle, every potential dispute now requires its cure, resulting in endless wars.
Yet, despite the obvious, America itself is at little risk of invasion with oceans on both sides, friends to the north and south, and a society, armed to the teeth. Therefore, in order to keep the arsenals brimming with armaments, politicians must continuously alter their definition of national security by constructing new threats, real or imagined. Proxy wars, allow the United States to spill its treasure, but not its blood, by commanding battles between other nations.
There is much irony in Woodrow Wilson’s decision to enter the US into WWI to make the world safe for democracy, using force to bring about the peace. To this day, we continue to spread our democracy through foreign aid, our partnerships with international agencies, and by demanding human rights compliance worldwide. When we aren’t passively forcing other nations’ hands, we empire-build through sanctions, tariffs, and embargoes, creating more enemies with every restriction.
Unfortunately, the twenty-first century of never-ending, needless, and immoral wars has made veterans its most appalling victims. A 2021 Watson Institute study of the past two decades revealed an average suicide rate among veterans of 6,364 per year, in part, because enlistees since 9/11 are more likely to be deployed with wars dragging on for decades. Resulting from stress, burnout, trauma, and difficult re-entry back into society, suicides committed by veterans significantly outpace civilian deaths.
In Ron Paul’s 2015 book, “Swords into Plowshares” Dr. Paul describes his conversion as an Air Force flight surgeon in 1963, to his anti-war activism that made him famous among libertarians. Its title, “Swords into Plowshares” emanates from Isaiah 2:4, where military weapons are converted into peaceful tools, from tanks to plows, from war to peace. Likened to the non-aggression principle where no individual or state may aggress another person or property, except for reasons of self-defense, this libertarian ideal, requires that any war must be defensive with retaliation targeting only the criminals themselves, free of collateral damage and the mass destruction of private property. To remove the engine of war, Paul suggests an end to the Federal Reserve, a rallying cry from libertarian acolytes to this day. Instead, a commodity currency, free of government manipulation, would lead to more peacefulness and less opportunity for war.
Yet, the government is eager to advance the myth of wartime prosperity. While war used to require the approval of higher taxes from the citizenry, the Federal Reserve made that awkward duty unnecessary. Now, the Fed simply creates money and credit by purchasing government debt, hiding the costs, and delaying the consequences. Then, government officials and the media use propaganda to garner public support. By creating fear of attacks, they strike at our human need for safety, without revealing the necessary trade-off of decreasing liberty.
But war ensues, nonetheless, because war benefits the Military-Industrial Complex, that unholy alliance between the government/military and the private sector/the defense industry. It not only destroys both lives and liberty, but its economic damage creates poverty and dependence on a growing state. Worst of all, war divides people, and creates lasting resentment. Fortunately, recent polls suggest Americans are becoming increasingly disillusioned by the trend of eternal wars.
Our Founders advocated for a foreign policy of neutrality: “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none”. War was restricted, and only Congress could initiate it. Over time, our passive interest in other nations' business morphed into the desire to craft others in our own image. Now, American foreign policy is one of interventionism, taking sides in every international dispute. Those who resist are branded as isolationists, even though they simply desire peaceful interactions, believing that amity, markets, and trade solve most problems between nations.
Every November 11, we are reminded to honor the men and women who keep America safe by enlisting in the military. Originally known as Armistice Day, its recognition was ironically called “a day dedicated to the cause of world peace”. If that goal is ever to be attained, we must begin by respecting our Founder's wishes, a policy of peace.
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