Category: War

Violence Never Settles Anything

W.J. Astore

Or does it?

The ongoing Israeli attacks against Gaza put me to mind of one of my favorite science fiction books as a teenager, Robert Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.” In that book, a military veteran and teacher of “history and moral philosophy” is discussing violence with high school students. One of them blithely says violence never solves anything, which draws this memorable response from her hard-nosed instructor:

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue—and thoroughly immoral—doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything,’ I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.

In Heinlein’s book, humans were at war with an alien species and those who chose military service to fight against “the bugs” got the right to vote and participate as citizens in government.

In a fight to the death, Heinlein suggested, the only choice right-thinking humans had was violence and a commitment to the total destruction of the enemy. There was no other solution.

I remember this cover well (vintage 1970s)

How might this apply to Gaza? Members of Hamas are Heinlein’s enemy bugs; in fact, all of Gaza is apparently an alien land that must be ravaged as the bugs are either killed or driven off the land. Violence will settle the issue of who controls Gaza, and by extension the West Bank, once and for all, with the IDF serving as Israel’s “Starship Troopers.”

Don’t get me wrong. My memory flashback to Heinlein was painful. It was not in any way a vote in favor of massive violence by Israel to solve the Gaza “problem.” Rather, I think Heinlein’s insight captures the mindset of those in authority in Israel at this moment. Kill or drive off the “bugs.” Settle this. No ceasefires, no pauses, no compromises. Total victory through massive violence is the decisive option.

In this mindset they are enabled by the U.S. president and Congress, who boast loudly of having Israel’s back, come what may. Indeed, the president and Congress eagerly wish to provide Israel all the weapons it needs to kill or drive off the “bugs.”

Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” remains a controversial book for its depiction of a thoroughly militarized neo-fascist society, a vision captured in Paul Verhoeven’s movie version of the same name, a biting satire of militarism run amuck, though the satire is apparently lost on more than a few viewers.

To echo Heinlein, violence certainly did settle things for the dodo and for the passenger pigeon. They are no more. Yet it’s also true that those who live by the sword will often die by it. And if that sword proves to be a nuclear one, we as humans may yet be joining the dodo in extinction.

Nothing Screams Christian Values Like Massacres and Mass Weapons Sales

W.J. Astore

America’s Cross of Iron

Roughly half of President Biden’s recent budget request for more than $105 billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and border security is dedicated to weapons sales. Nothing screams Christian values like massacres and mass weapons sales.

Speaking of massacres, Aaron Maté has a powerful article on Gaza and the U.S. role in facilitating Israel’s destruction of the same. Here’s an excerpt:

According to Save the Children, the number of Palestinian children killed in just three weeks has already surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019. “Gaza has become a graveyard for children,” a UNICEF spokesperson says. “It’s a living hell for everyone else.” In a statement demanding a ceasefire, seven UN special rapporteurs now warn that “the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide.”

I remember when Sting got into trouble in the 1980s for singing that the Russians love their children too. Is it OK to say the Palestinians love their children too and would prefer that they not be obliterated by “Made in USA” bombs provided for free to Israel?

I wrote this just this morning to a friend who’s been taking fire because she believes the Palestinians in Gaza are human beings who shouldn’t be targeted for ethnic cleansing:

The Israel/Palestine issue is both complex and simple.  To keep it simple, we’re all human beings.  No group of people are “human animals.”  If any country should know the dangers of dehumanizing an enemy, it’s Israel.  Yet that’s precisely what Israel is doing.

There are plenty of Jews who are bravely denouncing Israel, but their voices are not being heard.  Meanwhile, the US government supinely serves the worst elements in Israel.  Our own government is complicit in ethnic cleansing, not that I’m surprised about this, given our nation’s history.

They say Dexter was a serial killer, but he’s got nothing on the jackals in the US and Israel who’ve already killed roughly 10K Palestinians with many more deaths to come.  (With apologies to real jackals.)

I’ve been writing to my senators and representative as well, imploring them not to vote for more murderous weaponry, whether for Israel or Ukraine (or anyone else). Just about all our politicians make noises about our country advancing Judeo-Christian values yet they conveniently forget about values like “thou shalt not kill” and “blessed are the peacemakers.”

Hellscape in Gaza (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

It would be far better if the U.S. stood on the sidelines and did nothing, yet Congress and the President must show their “strength” by using taxpayer dollars to ship scores of billions in weaponry to facilitate mass murder. As they do so, they pat each other on the back for being strong while boasting of creating jobs for various weapons makers in the “homeland.”

That’s how perverted and twisted government officials are. They’d rather spend scores of billions on death overseas than help struggling Americans here at home.

We need to vote the warmongers out, except I can’t forget what Emma Goldman said about voting: “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

More Lethal “Aid” for Israel

W.J. Astore

Can’t the Israelis Pay for their Own Bullets, Bombs, and Missiles?

Apparently the top priority in the U.S. Congress is sending more “aid” to Israel, most of it lethal. It’s more important than health care for Americans, aid for the poor and disadvantaged, or even aid to U.S. schools and cities. Basically, it’s more important than anything.

Why is this? What elevates sending more bullets, bombs, and missiles to Israel above all other matters in the U.S. government? How does this make any sense?

Last time I checked, Israel is a modern country with healthy finances and is capable of buying this “aid” if it really needed to. Why is the U.S. taxpayer footing the bill for more munitions to kill innocent people in Gaza? I don’t want my money going to ethnic cleansing and more death; do you?

What U.S. “aid” to Israel produces: Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza after a bombing that killed dozens

Most Americans, roughly two-thirds, support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Our voices are simply ignored by “our” government, which of course shows us that “our” government truly isn’t ours. The owners and donors, the oligarchs, have their own priorities, and they are not ours.

In a note to accompany an article with Medea Benjamin at Common Dreams, Nicolas Davies notes that:

The US media have failed to inform the public how isolated the US is in its support for the massacre taking place in Gaza. 120 countries voted for an immediate ceasefire in the UN General Assembly, while only 12 small countries voted with the US and Israel to oppose the resolution. US and Israeli leaders are not just out of touch with the rest of the world, but with their own people. Only 29% of Israelis wanted a full-scale invasion of Gaza, while 66% of Americans wanted a ceasefire – and that included 80% of Democrats.

Not only that, but new House Speaker Mike Johnson has decided to connect $14.3 billion in aid to Israel to an identical reduction in the budget of the IRS! He wants to cripple the ability of the IRS to go after tax cheats in America while giving a huge handout to America’s weapons makers in the cause of “defending” Israel.

You know the saying about death and taxes being the most certain things we face in life? Obviously in America selling death trumps collecting taxes.

“When the Devil Is Loose in the Village”

W.J. Astore

Coming to Hate Those You Kill

After attending a seminar at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum with Henry Friedlander, I taught my first course on the Holocaust just over two decades ago. I then continued to teach courses on the Holocaust until I retired as a professor of history in 2014. Having read dozens of books on the Holocaust, seen dozens of moviesand documentaries on it, and having talked to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, including Henry Friedlander, I learned a few things about how and why such a colossal crime against humanity happened. 

When I took his seminar, Friedlander, who as a teenager survived Auschwitz, taught us that “You don’t kill the people you hate—you hate the people you kill.” It may seem paradoxical, but this insight is powerful. Normal human beings don’t want to be or become killers. Thankfully, killing isn’t easy, even at a remove. (Drone operators are known to suffer adverse symptoms from witnessing death at a distance.)

Yet, if you’re taught and told that you must kill, the moral, mental, physical, and other burdens of killing may drive you to hate those you are killing. “Look at what you made me do!” the killer thinks. You made me do this—and I hate you for it. Doesn’t matter that you’re a guiltless child, I still hate you.

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Photo by Ali Jadallah in Gaza (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) 

I wonder about Israeli officials today, those who are in control of the demolition of Gaza. A few must truly hate Hamas, but there are many more, I think, who’d prefer not to be put in the position of ordering (or carrying out) massive bombing raids and ground invasions that result in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians.

How many in Israel, notably in the Israeli Defense Forces, will come to hate those that they kill? How many will succumb to hate as a matter of survival, a sort of mental coping mechanism?

Honestly, I don’t pretend to understand it all.  Catchphrases like “man’s inhumanity to man” or “the banality of evil” seem too easy.  I remember reading an interview with Primo Levi, another Holocaust survivor, who related an anecdote about his experience communicating with an unrepentant Nazi in Germany well after World War II.  This man wrote to Levi to defend himself; unbeknownst to him, his wife snuck a note into the letter that read:

“When the devil is loose in the village, a few people try to resist and are overcome, many bow their heads, and the majority follow him with enthusiasm.”*

Whether you prefer “devil” or “evil” or “racist extremist” or some other term, history shows how humans readily unleash the most elemental barbarism when they believe they are threatened, especially when the “threat” is dehumanized.

Do we kill those we hate, or do we come to hate those we kill?  Regardless of the causality here, the common words “hate” and “kill” tell us that to stop the hating and killing, we must simply stop.  Stop killing.  Stop hating.  Find another way, a better way, a way that is life-affirming.

In teaching the Holocaust, I came across a multi-volume encyclopedia devoted to humanity’s genocides throughout history.  Imagine that!  An encyclopedia is needed just to document the almost countless times humans have engaged in mass murder against other humans.

Will Gaza (2023) become the latest entry in this devilish encyclopedia?

*Ferdinando Camon, Conversations with Primo Levi, The Marlboro Press, 1989, p. 37.

What Gaza Needs Now Is Mercy

W.J. Astore

A grim historical lesson taught by Thucydides, who wrote on the Peloponnesian War more than two millennia ago, is that the strong do what they will while the weak suffer what they must. Historically, the Jewish people have often been weak. Weak in the sense they had no homeland. They had no army. They were, in a word, vulnerable.

Compounding this vulnerability was prejudice. People who are vilified, who are dismissed as untrustworthy, who are defined as “other,” even as “human animals,” are especially vulnerable to the strong because the vilified rarely attract staunch champions or even sympathetic helpers.

Today, the Jewish people remember and commemorate those who helped them, who stood for justice, who were “righteous gentiles,” at places like Yad Vashem.

A person in a bow tie Description automatically generated
Armin Wegner, a German who spoke out against the Nazi persecution of Jews, was jailed and tortured. He is counted among the righteous at Yad Vashem.

There’s a famous saying, the gist of which is that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing. During the Holocaust, far too many people did nothing when confronted by the evils of Nazism, and millions died as a result.

Today, the Jewish people are no longer weak. In Israel they have a homeland protected by powerful armed forces. They have staunch allies, including the world’s premier “superpower,” along with nuclear weapons, perhaps 200 of them, enough to wipe out the nations and peoples in their immediate vicinity.

Again, Israel today is strong. Thus it faces the ethical dilemma of the strong: the ability to kill on a mass scale, an ability too easily justified in the name of “defense.”  Will Israel illustrate Thucydides’ maxim of the strong doing what they will and the weak—in this case, the Palestinians—suffering as they must?

The hardline Israeli government appears to see mass violence, mass death, and mass expulsion as the only solution in Gaza.

History is replete with examples of the strong doing what they will while the weak suffer. Yet Israel is exercising overwhelming power against weak and vulnerable people in ways well known to Jews who’ve suffered greatly themselves in a long and tortured past.

Palestinians in Gaza are not collectively guilty of crimes committed by Hamas. They are an entrapped and desperate people.  What is to become of them?

Israel knows the value of righteousness, of justice for all, of an abiding love for all life, as reflected in the moral exemplars honored at Yad Vashem.

What Israel needs now is moral heroism. What Gaza needs now is mercy.

Photo by Ali Jadallah in Gaza (anadolu agency via getty images)

Israel, America, and Going “Massive”

W.J. Astore

Using Terror Attacks as an Excuse to Kill Indiscriminately

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on America in 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knew exactly what to do: “go massive.” Al Qaeda’s “shock and awe” attacks were an opportunity for the Bush/Cheney administration not only to strike against “terror” but against Saddam Hussein and Iraq, possibly even Iran, even though those countries had no role in 9/11. Here’s how Rumsfeld put it:

“Hard to get good case [against Iraq]. Need to move swiftly. Near term target needs – go massive – sweep it all up, things related and not.”

Going “massive” had another benefit: it distracted Americans from the colossal failure of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld to keep America safe, to anticipate and prevent the Al Qaeda attacks. Americans rallied around the flag and asked few questions as Congress gave the president a blank check to wage a “global war on terror.”

Something similar is happening in Israel today. The Hamas terror attacks are giving Bibi Netanyahu and the hard right in Israel an opportunity to “go massive,” to “sweep it all up, things related and not.” This has the added virtue of distracting Israelis from the colossal failure of Netanyahu in anticipating and preventing the Hamas attacks. Like their American counterparts, Israelis are tending to rally around the flag as their government is given a blank check (supported by the USA) to wage a war on terror in Gaza.

Of course, a war on terror is a war of terror, which is what we’re witnessing in Gaza. Massive Israeli bombing. Deaths that will soon exceed ten thousand. Widespread hunger, thirst, and suffering. Massive displacement of Palestinians from their homes. All justified because Israel was attacked, and not just attacked but embarrassed, as America was embarrassed on 9/11.

Consider these satellite images from Gaza showing massive destruction from Israeli bombing.

Broadly speaking, the USA and Israel share a conceit of being God’s chosen people and also of having the world’s finest and best military forces. These conceits were challenged respectively by the success of the Al Qaeda and Hamas terror attacks. Embarrassment coupled with anger and revenge leads to going “massive,” irrespective of wisdom or legality (or morality). Going “massive” is also a great CYA exercise, as in covering your ass.

Now is the time, these failed leaders decide, to punish “evildoers,” innocent people be damned. What matters is violence, action, vengeance, settling scores, irrespective of human rights and the so-called rules-based international order. It’s time to kill.

If history doesn’t quite repeat itself, it surely does echo as Israel, much like the USA after 9/11, goes “massive” and kills innocents while claiming it’s all in the cause of self-defense and justice.

Israel, Gaza, and the Language of War

W.J. Astore

Pay Attention to What You Read

Here’s a typical quick summary of the dire situation in Gaza from CNN this AM:

The US is seeking to delay an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza amid calls to free more hostages held there by Hamas and allow aid into the besieged enclave. A senior Israeli official told CNN there will be “no ceasefire” in Gaza, but emphasized efforts are ongoing to free the more than 200 hostages in the region “as quickly as possible.” However, the official added, “humanitarian efforts cannot be allowed to impact the mission to dismantle Hamas.” More than 4,600 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7 and over 14,200 others wounded, the health ministry there said.

Conditions on the ground in Gaza continue to deteriorate as Israel repeatedly bombards the strip with airstrikes.

For “Israeli ground offensive,” substitute massive military assault.  Note the mention of hostages held by Hamas but no mention of hostages/prisoners held by Israel.  “Besieged enclave”–open-air prison or concentration camp under constant bombing would be more telling.  “Dismantle Hamas”: the IDF goal is the total destruction of Hamas, with the death of civilians being blamed on Hamas because “they” allegedly use human shields, i.e. the Israeli government and military is never to blame.

Note the passive voice: 4600 people “have been killed in Gaza” — well, who’s killed them?  Who’s wounded 14,200 others?  With weapons provided by which countries?

Conditions in Gaza continue to “deteriorate”: What does this mean, specifically?  Lack of food, water, power, people dying in hospitals due to lack of supplies, people screaming in agony due to lack of anaesthesia, etc. And why are they “deteriorating”? It’s not just due to airstrikes by Israel. The Israeli government’s decision to stop food, fuel, electricity, and water to Gaza is creating the conditions for death and illness on a massive scale.

Looks like bombs over Gaza today—what can you do? It’s just the weather (Caitlin Johnstone)

Caitlin Johnstone has a fine critique about how Israeli bombing is being reported by the Western press. In essence, it’s reported as if bombs are simply dropping from the sky on Gaza: massive bombing as a very bad hail storm that must be endured and over which humans have no control.

Pay very close attention to how this war is being reported, especially in the Western mainstream press. For we all know the saying that the first casualty of war is truth.

Update: I’m involved with an effort, “Words About War Matter,” and the group led by David Vine has posted guidance for language related to Israel, Hamas, and Gaza. The link is https://www.wordsaboutwar.org/gaza.html.

Biden’s BS Bundling

W.J. Astore

Why Not Add Medicare for All or Aid for the Unhoused?

President Biden’s “aid”—or, to be honest, weapons packages—for Ukraine and Israel also bundles together other weapons wish lists, or trigger treats, for Taiwan and border security. Here’s a quick summary, courtesy of Heather Cox Richardson:

Today [Friday] the administration asked Congress for a little over $105 billion in funding for national security. The package would devote $61.4 billion to support Ukraine (some of it to replenish U.S. stockpiles after sending weapons to Ukraine); $14.3 billion to Israel for air and missile defense systems; $9.15 billion for humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Gaza, and other places; $7.4 billion for initiatives in the Indo-Pacific; and $14 billion for more agents at the southwestern border, new machines to detect fentanyl, and more courts to process asylum cases. 

It’s more than absurd to call these weapons exports “funding for national security.” The United States is not made more secure by funding permanent war in Ukraine or genocide in Gaza; quite the reverse, actually.

Scenes of destruction in Gaza sure make me proud to be an American. Let’s bundle more bombs and missiles for Israel.

Of course, the Biden administration knows there are elements in Congress who are against scores of billions for more war in Ukraine, hence its decision to bundle it with aid to Israel, Taiwan, and border security. It’s a cynical exercise to bundle all these packages together and to demand that Congress vote “yea” or “nay” on the entire bill.

Revealingly, polls show that slightly more than half of Americans are against more weapons shipments to Ukraine and Israel, despite all the propaganda about how killing Russians and Palestinians is vital to U.S. national security. What Americans are in favor of is humanitarian aid, the comfort of warm blankets rather than warm guns. Americans have a lot more sense and compassion than their government.

Speaking of the wonders of bundling, if Congress is so eager to send aid to Israel or perhaps to beef up Taiwan (those “Indo-Pacific initiatives”), let’s bundle a few more proposals into this bill.

How about a $15 or $18 federal minimum wage? Student loan debt forgiveness? A public option for health care or even medicare for all? How about humanitarian aid for America’s unhoused, the people living in tent cities?

Sorry, I don’t believe my “national security” is enhanced by more weapons for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, or even at America’s border with Mexico. Bundling all these weapons packages together, to the tune of $105 billion plus, isn’t just cynical. It’s total bullshit. BS, to be technical.

It makes me almost glad Republicans can’t elect a speaker because you just know most in Congress are eager to enable more killing overseas—in the cause of national security, naturally.

We’re making America a greater democracy one major weapons shipment at a time. Bundling them together is truly the sign of the “indispensable” nation.

Biden’s Trigger Treats for Ukraine and Israel

W.J. Astore

The Exceptional Nation Promises More Bullets, Bombs, Guns, and Missiles

In an address to the nation from the Oval Office last night, President Biden promised more trigger treats* for Ukraine and Israel: at least $60 billion for Ukraine and at least $10 billion for Israel in an “aid” package that may reach $100 billion.

President Biden urges Americans to send more weaponry overseas so America’s allies can kill more evildoers. Trigger treats!

Biden repeated several tired cliches about America. That we’re the essential nation, the indispensable one, and also the arsenal of democracy. But maybe what we’re really truly “essential” for is guns and more guns, war and more war?

Biden assured us that sending scores of billions in weaponry was good for America: that those artillery shells and so on that shred Russian and Palestinian bodies are made right here in the USA. They’re job-creators, not body-manglers! Rejoice as America adds more jobs by providing more guns and ammo to Ukraine and Israel.

Biden, like so many in the Pentagon and the U.S. military, resorted to business-speak, explaining that this massive package of “aid” was an “investment” in national security that will pay Americans “dividends” down the road. Actually, all this weaponry will be bought the real American Way, with deficit spending, and the “dividends” will most certainly be more death and destruction and possibly even World War III.

Biden apparently sees only one course for both Ukraine and Israel: total military victory over their opponents. There was no mention of diplomacy, of ceasefires, of negotiation, of compromise. The only way out is through a massive number of dead, full stop.

Biden, who has a bad habit of pointing at the camera, and therefore America, for emphasis, did implore us not to give into hate in its various forms, including Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Yet it’s not easy to square an anti-hate message with $100 billion in mostly military aid so that Israel and Ukraine can squash and kill all the evildoers in their midst.

Biden, in sum, had a very grim message for America, and therefore for the world, one that embraced war and more killing as “essential” and “indispensable” because that’s the only course one can take when confronted by “pure, unadulterated evil.” And, anyway, war creates good-paying jobs in America. Trigger treats for all!

*I took the idea of “trigger treats” from a local gun shop that is displaying a sign for Halloween that reads “No tricks just trigger treats.”

Can We Agree on a Few Basics?

W.J. Astore

Sides in War Are Not “Teams”

1. Killing civilians and especially children is wrong.

2. Cutting off water, food, electricity, and fuel to millions of vulnerable people is wrong.

3. Forced mass evacuations of hundreds of thousands of people in preparation for a destructive invasion is wrong.

4. Dropping thousands of bombs and killing thousands of innocents is wrong. So is launching hundreds of unguided rockets and killing scores of innocents. 

5. Holding hostages and threatening to slay them is wrong.

Whether Hamas or Israel are doing these things, they are wrong.  Putting an end to such wrongs through a ceasefire is right.  Certainly, it’s less wrong.

In going to Israel and embracing Netanyahu, President Biden is obviously choosing one side, that of Israel, and empowering it to do whatever it wants in Gaza. Interestingly, Biden claimed that yesterday’s destruction of a hospital in Gaza was done in his words by the “other team,” meaning Hamas.

The terminology here is striking. Israel and Hamas are not sports “teams” in which we choose to root for one side against the other. Israelis and Palestinians are people equally deserving of human dignity and human rights.

I’ve written about the invasion (so to speak) of war terms into sports and vice-versa. Biden’s dismissal of Hamas as the “other team” that’s allegedly responsible for the hospital’s destruction and the deaths of hundreds of innocents trivializes a deep human tragedy.

Are we ever going to move beyond this “team” mentality where we root for the total victory of one “team” over another?