| Chapter 32 | |
| War crimes | |
| The two words in the title of this chapter are redundant. Every war is a crime. Everything that is bad about crime takes place in war: People die. They get assaulted and raped. People are forced to live under horrible conditions. Houses are destroyed. Possessions are stolen. War is portrayed by the governments and armies who conduct it as a necessary evil. In fact, itÕs just evil. Soldiers arenÕt heroes, so much as they are victims of the war machine. | |
| Militarists argue for the necessity of war with statements like Òwar has existed throughout human historyÓ and Òthe world is a dangerous placeÓ. We call bullshit. Humanity has put an end to other barbaric practices of ancient societies such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, and (almost) slavery. There are dangers in the world, but surely dangers can be reduced by methods other than war, cooperation foremost amongst them. | |
| Arguments for the supposed necessity of war have been eloquently refuted, in books like David SwansonÕs War is a Lie [Swanson 2010]. We also recommend reading General Smedley ButlerÕs 1935 essay, War is a Racket [Butler 1935], written by the head of the Marine Corps in World War I. Guys like him should know. | |
| The war frame and the crime frame | |
| It matters whether we label violence perpetrated by governments, armies, and political groups as war, or as crime. Linguist George Lakoff [Lakoff 2014] talks about framing: explaining a given situation by making an analogy to a simplified, prototypical story that has particular roles and events. | |
| Which frame you choose determines what underlying assumptions you will make. Politicians and business people often promote misleading frames in order to manipulate the way people view situations. | |
| War has a frame: it has opposing armies, enemies, battles, victory or defeat. Crime also has a frame: it has criminals, victims, suspects, police, trials, verdicts, and sentencing. There is a subframe of crime called organized crime, where crime is perpetrated by a long term, large-scale group that has significant resources and the ability to plan and execute criminal activity. | |
| One of the big differences between the war frame and the crime frame is what you can do about it. In the crime frame, you conduct investigations that identify individuals, collect evidence, follow the money to determine how criminal activities are financed, etc. You canÕt commit violence against a suspected perpetrator unless you have evidence. You have to respect the rights of the suspect. | |
| In the war frame, you shoot. You try to destroy the enemy. No rational thought or proof about whether the suspect is guilty of a crime is necessary. The actions of Òour sideÓ, even if violence or destruction is involved, are usually not questioned or always assumed to be justified in self-defense. Mistakes that come to light are Òcollateral damageÓ, or Òfriendly fireÓ, to be excused. | |
| Another big perceived difference between the frames is that war is an emergency, and crime is generally not. The key thing about an emergency is that it is a very serious threat, and there is a scarcity of time for the response to it. | |
| As the Scarcity book [Mullinaithan 2013] tells us, scarcity brings both focus (perhaps positive) and blindness to consequences. Scarcity also disrupts rational thought. In order for the military-industrial complex to get the public to ignore the negative consequences of war, they have to portray every military situation as an emergency. | |
| To sum up, ÒwarÓ and ÒcrimeÓ are just different ways of talking about the very same thing: violence against innocent people. The differences are whether they are sanctioned by government, and perhaps that war has a larger scale than crime. | |
| But itÕs worth paying attention to which frame is used to talk about itÑthe crime frame gives us a path towards constructively dealing with it, whereas the war frame precludes any real solution. | |
| Why did the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand start World War I? Sinking the battleship Maine start the Spanish-American War? Why did 9/11 spark the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Because these crimes were framed as acts of war, leading to a runaway feedback loop of escalation. | |
| Does the war frame make sense for combatting crime? | |
| Long-term solutions, like improving education and the economy in the third world, are rejected out of hand because they arenÕt perceived as having the potential of an immediate fix, whereas (despite the evidence), war is. | |
| Never mind that the 12 years and $4 trillion spent on the Iraq war were certainly long-term and large-scale investments, and they failed. In order to avenge the deaths of about 3000 Americans in the September 11 attacks, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars caused 5000 American deaths and hundreds of thousands of deaths of Iraqis and others. While things like tightened airport security may have reduced our vulnerability to further attacks, the military actions may have increased the total number of jihadis willing to conduct such attacks. Was that rational? | |
| Thinking about todayÕs situations of endemic violence in the Middle East, perpetrated by groups such as Al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State, should we view this as war, or as criminal activity? | |
| Think of Al Qaeda or ISIS as being like the Mafia. TheyÕre organized crime. Neither Al Queda nor ISIS is a government (though they claim to be), nor an army, really. Actually, far more people work for the Mafia worldwide, than ISIS. The MafiaÕs annual budget is vastly greater than money spent by radical Islamic groups. Probably more people die each year as a result of Mafia activity than in Middle East wars. | |
| Yet nobody suggests bombing Sicily or New Jersey as a way of combating the Mafia. Instead, fighting the Mafia is done with methods meant to deal with high crime. In the UK at least, the organization charged with fighting terrorism is part of Scotland Yard, the crime-fighting organization, not part of the military. | |
| Any opponent of war encounters almost immediately the objection, ÒWhat about World War 2?Ó Was it justified to call that a war and not a crime? Was it, as Studs Terkel called it, The Good War [Terkel 1984]? | |
| Certainly, it came the closest, of any historical event, to fulfilling the frame for war. It was instigated by the national governments of Germany and Japan, each with an organized army. It truly was an emergency, as HitlerÕs armies were marching through Europe, and Japan attacked the US at Pearl Harbor. And never before had such violence against innocent people been unleashed at such a large scale. ItÕs hard to have any sympathy at all for Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. So if anything qualifies as a just war, that one does. WeÕre willing to concede this one example. | |
| But we still canÕt help but feel that, had the long-term solutions we are advocatingÑrelieving material scarcity, teaching people to be more cooperative, improving mental health, developing more rational decision-making processes for government and other organizationsÑbeen in place, they might well have stood a chance of preventing the situation from deteriorating until war was inevitable. | |
| Suppose a mental health professional had been able to provide therapy for Adolph Hitler (who was beaten by his father as a child), when he acted out as a troubled teenager? Suppose the economic troubles and runaway inßation of 1930Õs Germany (themselves a consequence of World War 1) hadnÕt happened? Would people have elected Hitler? Suppose Germans had been better educated about science, so they would have recognized HitlerÕs ranting about eugenics in Mein Kampf as insanity? This is all in the realm of shoulda, woulda, coulda, so itÕs impossible to know. Chapter Four of David SwansonÕs book, War is a Lie [Swanson 2010], treats World War 2 and debunks in detail conventional arguments for its inevitability and its ÒgoodnessÓ. | |
| After World War 2, the US government at least had the foresight to realize that poverty from World War 1 was a major cause of World War 2. If it left Europe in ruins, it risked yet another war. So it launched the Marshall Plan, helping Europe to get back on its feet. Where was the Marshall Plan for the Middle East after the first Iraq war? So guess what happenedÉ | |
| After seven decades, Germany is at ÒwarÓ againÑthis time, beating the USÑin installation of renewable energy sources. And thanks to GermanyÕs inßuence, the US finally has decent beer. LetÕs move national pride from conquest to culture. Battle of the Bands, not Battle of the Bulge. | |
| We should stress that we have no personal animosity towards the rank-and-file men and women of the armed forces. Our scorn is reserved for war-mongering politicians, the military-industrial complex, and those elements of the military that do promote or exacerbate war, or commit gratuitous violence. We realize that soldiers often join out of an admirable sense of selßessness, discipline, and willingness to defend others. If they join out of perceived economic necessity, thatÕs sad; they are victims of a dysfunctional economic system. | |
| We would counsel them that the military isnÕt the best way to fulfill their desire to serveÑinstead, join the Peace Corps, MŽdicins sans Frontires, or any one of a number of groups where you can help others, travel and have adventures, learn discipline and camaraderie, and make friends for America rather than enemies. Feel like you have to serve by having a gun and threatening violence to bad guys? ThatÕs great, tooÑevery police department in the country is hiring, every year (though weÕd prefer they purchase only non-lethal weapons). | |
| In the US today, there is increasing strife between local police departments and low-income communities, such as in Ferguson, Missouri, New York City and Baltimore in 2014-5. One of the reasons for this has been that increasingly, fighting crime in urban areas has been reframed as a Òwar on crimeÓ. | |
| Military hardware has been sold to local police departments, an economic boon for the military-industrial complex. Taxpayers pay twice for this, once when the military buys it, and again when it is sold to police departments (and a third time, when they have to deal with the consequences of weapons use). Peaceful street protests are met with tanks and military weapons. Police departments are staffed with returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, many with PTSD. Rights of criminal suspects are ignored. No wonder many residents of low income communities feel like they are being invaded by an occupying army. | |
| The acts that provoke wars, like the September 11 attacks, are evil. But theyÕre crimes, not acts of war. The invention of the linguistic frame of war is perhaps the greatest crime ever committed. |