The European
Commission, far from eager to restore the
non-Orwellian name to departments of war -
long since rebranded as departments of
“defense” - is pushing to get deadly weapons
categorized as especially ethical
“investments” meeting Environmental, Social,
and Governance (ESG) criteria. Specifically,
the tools of war, according to the European
Commission, advance the cause of peace.
Those who buy most seriously into the war-makes-peace
propaganda have reservations about particular
means of destroying men, women, children,
infants, and all life on Earth - for example,
nuclear weapons, incendiary munitions,
depleted uranium ammunition, and blinding
lasers - and presumably about defining peace
so broadly as to include a dead rock rid of
all human and other living things. But if you
slaughter people with respectable missiles,
bombs, and bullets then you are not only
engaged in a necessary evil, but are a
philanthropist of the first order.
Leading the
humanitarian death push are 96
UK members of parliament who tell us that
nothing could be more ethical than keeping the
war in Ukraine raging and the risk of nuclear
Armageddon increasing.
A deep divide has been opened up in recent news stories
between two longstanding veins of war
propaganda. One of them used to be more
popular in the days when U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt was unashamed to maintain
that any war at all would be a good thing, and
when war was believed a benefit to those
waging it and even to those subhuman heathen
creatures slaughtered by it. Philosophers like
William James struggled to find some
alternative that could provide the moral
benefits of war. Death counts were exaggerated
and bragged about. Exterminations were given
scientific stamps of approval.
The other strain of war propaganda maintains that war is a
philanthropic enterprise bestowed on the world
through the generosity of those incidentally
happening to profit from it. Death counts are
hidden and reported as small fractions of the
truth. So-called “defensive” imperial
escapades are a “service” done in “proportion”
as an eagerly sought out “last resort.”
The odd development, I think, is that the
newer, more Orwellian line - that war is
progressive and philanthropic - relies more on
ancient myths, whereas the older, more vicious
and barbaric, lust for sadistic violence accepts more modern
facts. If you’re going to claim that war is
defensive and necessary, you have to have
accepted that some people are inferior
creatures with whom one cannot negotiate, who
“only understand violence.” You have to
pretend that wars happening in people’s cities
and villages are on an ancient “battlefield”
free of civilians. Otherwise, you cannot
justify defunding numerous enterprises that
facilitate peace while dumping resources into
what builds momentum for wars. But if you
simply declare your love for the glory and
disgusting gore and evil of war, then your
underlying beliefs need only include that
there’s stuff in various parts of the world
that could make you richer or more powerful,
which is perfectly true, at least in a
shortsighted blinkered way.
The remaining odd fact about these forms of war support is
that they continue to need each other. Without
the pair of them, with either of them alone,
war support and acceptance would be too weak
for wars to continue. Together, they provide a
significant slice of a population, as well as
the illusion of an all-encompassing debate.
Which excuse do you use for the genocides you
back? What? Oh no, I use the other excuse
entirely!
Some day, if we have enough days left, we need to think
outside the Pentagon.
