Humanism versus the militarization of America.

If you engage in travel overseas you should know that, since March 2003, airlines in Europe have been sharing your passenger data with federal authorities in the United States under an interim agreement that was finalized on May 28, 2004. The U.S. government plans to link this to your threat level: whatever terrorist danger you are believed to pose. In a few months this will apply to all U.S. domestic air travelers when airlines are issued a federal security directive to comply with the new Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (called CAPPS II).

Other data on you may be included among the four billion records in the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange ("Matrix" for short), a database that combines personal information gathered from a variety of sources. However, according to the Associated Press, shortly after September 11, 2001, a test of this database gave law enforcement authorities "the names of 120,000 people who showed a statistical likelihood of being terrorists, resulting in some investigations and arrests." The high "terrorism quotient" of these people was determined through factors such as age, credit history, ethnicity, driver's and pilot's licenses, "investigational data" and "connections to 'dirty' addresses known to have been used by other suspects" Because the records include data on innocent people, however, civil liberties groups have objected and at least nine states have pulled out of the program.

If you are a U.S. citizen who is at least 18 and under 34 years of age, whether a woman or a man, this could be the year you become eligible for the military draft. Not only would you need to register with the Selective Service, as men age 18 to 25 already do, but you would have to keep the government apprised of your training and capabilities in such areas as health care, languages, computer technology, engineering, and other specialties needed by the armed services. Bills to reinstate conscription are already in committee in the House and Senate. (See the sidebar by John Swomley beginning on page 14.)

The above are just three examples of how an armed-camp mentality can oppress a nation's civilian population when a "wartime president" militarizes the country. But the rest of the world is affected as well. In today's information age, data collection is easily internationalized as large police and intelligence forces cooperate across borders. As for the draft, the Anti-Conscription Manifesto of 1926--signed by Annie Besant, Albert Einstein, Mohandas Gandhi, Bertrand Russell, Rabindranath Tagore, and H.G. Wells, among others--makes the point that

   conscript armies, with their large corps of professional
   officers, are a grave menace to peace. Conscription
   involves the degradation of human
   personality and the destruction of liberty. Barracks
   life, military drill, blind obedience to commands,
   however unjust and foolish they may be, and deliberate
   training for slaughter undermine respect for
   the individual, for democracy, and for human life.
   ... Moreover, by conscription the militarist spirit
   of aggressiveness is implanted in the whole male
   population at the most impressionable age. By
   training for war men come to consider war as
   unavoidable and even desirable.

A Statement Against Conscription and the Military Training of Youth--issued in 1930 and signed by Jane Addams, Albert Einstein, John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Bertrand Russell, Upton Sinclair, Rabindranath Tagore, H.G. Wells, and others adds:

   Conscription subjects individual personalities to
   militarism. It is a form of servitude. That nations
   routinely tolerate it, is just one more proof of its
   debilitating influence.

   Military training is schooling of body and spirit in
   the art of killing. Military training is education for
   war. It is the perpetuation of the war spirit. It hinders
   the development of the desire for peace.

So it stands to reason that nations which force war training on their youth are more likely to engage in the war they have trained for. By the same token, nations with war aims and imperial aspirations are naturally drawn to policies of conscription. This is why some of the leading Humanists of the twentieth century were able to unite in these statements, addressing an issue that confronts us again today.

The Justness of War

Some will argue, of course, that curtailments of civil liberties, preferably if only temporary, are justifiable in the pursuit of a higher cause, of a just war aimed at making the world a safer place. In the face of such arguments, the question must be asked if a given war can be called just. And the armed conflict before us is the war (actually a preemptive invasion and occupation) in Iraq.

Comparing the facts to Humanist principles, a straightforward case can be made that the war was wrong from the beginning. Let us start with Humanist Manifesto II of 1973, which provides the following urgings and ideals:

   The world community must renounce the resort to
   violence and force as a method of solving international
   disputes. We believe in the peaceful adjudication
   of differences by international courts and
   by the development of the arts of negotiation and
   compromise. War is obsolete. So is the use of
   nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

Humanist Manifesto III of 2003 brings into play basic motivations derived from empathy:

   Humanists long for and strive toward a world of
   mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its
   consequences, where differences are resolved
   cooperatively without resorting to violence.

Beyond these foundational concepts, there is a long secular history behind a set of established standards for determining the justness of any war. Mona Fixdal and Dan Smith write in "Humanitarian Intervention and Just War" in the Mershon International Studies Review (42, 283-312) that although theology was the primary source of the Just War tradition, it wasn't the only one. The medieval chivalric code proclaimed a knight's duty to protect the innocent, which was "one of the first attempts to codify immunity for noncombatants." The Reformation of the sixteenth century split Protestant from Catholic and secular from religious, "but there was often agreement across these divides" Indeed, when many religious philosophers argued that religious wars were the most just, secular scholars who disagreed were joined by some influential theologians--leading to the modern view.

Today's standards for considering a war just have evolved through modern secular philosophy. They require that there be sufficient cause to justify the war (such as self-defense), that the war only be waged as a last resort, that it be waged by a legitimate public authority, that it have a reasonable prospect of success, and that the war's destructiveness be outweighed by the good achieved. In the conduct of the war an explicit formal statement must precede hostilities, no more force than necessary can be applied, and the weapons and methods used must distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.

In his article, "Practical Pacifism" in the November/ December 2002 Humanist, Andrew Fiala provides an additional point, "that violence is such an evil and our ability to control it and justify it is so limited that we must err on the side of peace." He adds that "violence is like a contagion--it tends to spread as violence begets vengeance in an ever increasing circle."

Conceptually related to this, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955, a statement to humanity that inaugurated the modern peace movement and was, in addition to Einstein and Russell, signed by such prominent Humanists as Herman J. Muller and Linus Pauling, says:

   We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to
   learn to ask ourselves not what steps can be taken
   to give military victory to whatever group we prefer,
   for there no longer are such steps; the question
   we have to ask ourselves is what steps can be taken
   to prevent a military contest of which the issue
   must be disastrous for all parties?

The disaster referred to is a global holocaust from weapons of mass destruction, which an increasing circle of violence could ultimately create. Russell and Einstein concluded that such weapons have rendered the complete prevention of war a necessity.

All of these points taken together, and compared to the specifics of the war in Iraq, make the conclusion clear. The American invasion wasn't motivated by self-defense but rather on pretexts of suspicion; it wasn't done as a last resort because the UN weapons inspectors were still at work gathering information; and it wasn't waged by the right authority because neither the United Nations nor the International Court of Justice called for it. These are just three among the many reasons why this conflict didn't meet standard Just War criteria. Most directly, the invasion of Iraq was a product of the "Bush Doctrine" which is similar to the old Soviet Union's "Brezhnev Doctrine" used to justify the invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan--all of which were illegal.

The Costs of War

But let's look at where matters stand now. As of this writing, according to Cable News Network figures for June 14, 2004, there have been 949 deaths among the "coalition of the willing" These represent 833 Americans and 116 coalition troops. U.S. Department of Defense figures, updated as of June 10th, are slightly different: 827 American dead and 5,013 wounded in action. The DOD website gives no figures for other "coalition partners."

The health and well being of returning soldiers should also be of concern. How many people think of the permanently maimed? What of the trauma many have suffered because of acts they were ordered to commit? We know from bitter experience with Vietnam veterans that such actions have tragic and long-lasting effects upon young men and women. We have no way of determining the cost of this aspect of the war, though we know that the suicide rate among soldiers in Iraq is alarming.

Many Americans joined the military because their socioeconomic status severely limited their options. Many had no idea what they were getting into when they signed up for the National Guard. Many received little or no training for wartime conduct before they were shipped to Iraq. And many even lack the basic equipment.

Imagine that. The most powerful and well-funded military machine in the history of the world isn't adequately supplying its troops in the field. As Al Gore noted in his speech at New York University on May 26, 2004:

   Luckily, there was a high level of competence on
   the part of our soldiers even though they were
   denied the tools and the numbers they needed for
   their mission. What a disgrace that their families
   have to hold bake sales to buy discarded Kevlar
   vests to stuff into the floorboards of the Humvees!
   Bake sales for body armor.

And for walkie-talkies and other equipment as well.

But while we ponder the suffering of the "victors" we should also ask about the suffering of the "vanquished." Why is it so difficult to secure figures for Iraqi dead and wounded, both military and civilian? Why doesn't CNN or the Department of Defense provide such statistics? During the war in Vietnam the U.S. military kept count of such things (albeit sometimes exaggerating the number of "kills"). Today, however, there is little American interest shown in keeping track of the death and suffering of an enemy considered "evil." As General Tommy Franks of the U.S. Central Command said, "We don't do body counts."

Regarding the suffering of Iraqi noncombatants, only the organization called Iraq Body Count seems to be keeping track of civilian fatalities--not the media, military, humanitarian groups like the Red Cross, or the Iraqi government. The Iraq Body Count website, at www.IraqBodyCount.net, established in January 2003, is run by sixteen U.S. and U.K. researchers. As of this writing the site estimates the number of Iraqi civilians "reported" killed to be a minimum of 9,436 and a maximum of 11,317.

The effect of this "collateral damage" on the population of Iraq is devastating, from the initial bombings to the shooting of innocents. What could be more sadistic and cruel than cluster-bombing children and terrorizing whole cities? In Fallujah, American troops killed so many people in May that the municipal soccer field was converted into a cemetery. Roughly 300 people, many of them women and children, are buried there. Why do we hear no outrage about this?

Beyond the death counts there is the prison scandal. Here we see how war causes a breakdown in normal codes of behavior and promotes abuses on all sides.

In a report completed in late February of this year, the U.S. Army concluded that the institutional failures of the military prison system were "devastating" The report cited numerous instances of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" Some soldiers had reported the abuses to superiors, who told them, "Don't worry about it." But something should have been done then instead of only after the whole scandal came to public light. The military should know well that soldiers who find themselves in mortal danger for months on end, see their friends die, and hear horror stories of enemy torture and terrorism will react violently toward enemy prisoners. That's the point at which the leadership is supposed to be there to maintain order, humanity, and American values.

Now the images of prisoner abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison have exposed to the international community the failure of the United States to heed the Geneva Conventions it has so long upheld. People in America and around the world are disgusted by the inhumane acts carried out so blatantly. And while the Bush administration insists that the sadistic few who directly committed them deviated from U.S. standards, newer evidence reveals such abuses to be widespread through the system, occurring not only in Iraq but in Afghanistan and at Guantanimo.

Furthermore, in a January 25, 2002, memo written by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales for President Bush regarding the rights of terrorist prisoners, Gonzales cited that the "war against terrorism is a new kind of war" and, in his judgment, "this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions" Yet the Bush administration assures us that neither the president nor his top officials have said or done anything that approves abuse or torture of prisoners.

In late 2001 instructions from the legal counsel of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, regarding treatment of American Taliban recruit John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan, directed military intelligence officials to "take the gloves off" in their interrogation of him. Bush administration memos from late 2001 to early 2002 classified the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a location sheltered from both the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, where the interrogation process could be conducted in secret and without fear of intervention. But Rumsfeld claims there were no abuses at Guantanamo and all those in custody have been treated humanely.

A legal brief prepared for Rumsfeld in March 2003 asserted that, in the interest of national security, bans on torture are not applicable to interrogation in accordance with the president's authority as commander in chief. Attorney General John Ashcroft insisted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that the president never ordered torture. Yet he refused to turn over the policy memo to the committee. And Rumsfeld, for his part, won't provide documents detailing his own instructions on interrogation techniques.

In the face of this evidence, together with the photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, the administration seems to have ignored international law in its handling of prisoners of war. What a shame that the administration has so soiled the image of the United States as pillar of justice and humanity. What a lost opportunity to illustrate to the world why democracy is better than dictatorship.

All these matters taken together show that the United States has inflicted death, injury, humiliation, and tremendous social and cultural loss on the Iraqi people. Surely it was obvious to anyone that the Iraqis never had a chance and that the invasion would be a slaughter. Since the invasion, it has also become clear that the United States had inadequate plans both for preserving Iraqi society and culture during the hostilities as well as dealing with postwar occupation and reconstruction. After a war, conquering nations have a responsibility to the conquered to help them recover. Naturally, a postwar plan must be determined in advance. This would include such things as providing security, reestablishing infrastructure and economy, and helping the people establish a political system of self-determination. In these areas the United States has performed poorly. It remains to be seen if the U.S.-U.K. resolution for the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq's interim government, approved by the UN Security Council on June 8, 2004, actually works and the new government holds up.

But however well or ill that government functions, U.S. actions in Iraq have clearly served to breed increasing numbers of cold blooded terrorists. The world has been made less safe as the threat of terrorist acts against the United States and other nations has increased. In this regard, Al Gore declared in the aforementioned speech that the Bush administration is:

   making things worse with each passing day. They
   are endangering the lives of our soldiers and
   sharply increasing the danger faced by American
   citizens everywhere in the world, including here at
   home. They are enraging hundreds of millions of
   people and embittering an entire generation of
   anti-Americans whose rage is already near the
   boiling point.

Which takes us back to the original message. Violence begets violence; war breeds more war. And war itself is extremely hard to justify and costly to carry out as it emphasizes some of humanity's worst traits and brings oppression not only to the civilian populations of the vanquished but to those of the victors as well. In the specific case of Iraq, this conflict is militarizing the United States in ways at complete odds with democratic and Humanist values.

Barbara Dority is president of Humanists of Washington in Seattle, executive director of the Washington Coalition Against Censorship, and cochair of the Northwest Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force. Fred Edwords is editor of the Humanist and editorial director for the American Humanist Association.