Addict Nation (39 page)

In fact, terrorists are starting to use the word
terrorism
against us. The incompetent would-be bomber who, thankfully, failed to blow up an SUV in Times Square in May 2010 told the court, “I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people.”
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Faisal Shahzad, while born in Pakistan, was a naturalized U.S. citizen who went to college in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut, ultimately earning an MBA.
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One of the key reasons we’ve yet to hit bottom on our addiction to war is that the average American is so detached from it. It’s an abstraction. Surveys show that our wars no longer rank as a high-priority issue among voters. Today, most American citizens are not asked to make personal sacrifices in wartime, like rationing food or gas. America’s wealthy and powerful are not likely to see their sons and daughters returning with missing limbs and suicidal thoughts, because America’s rich kids almost never go to war. Our all-volunteer military attracts many young people with scant resources and limited opportunities. Yes, the cost of war is sucking up everyone’s tax dollars and ballooning our deficits. But on an emotional, physical, and psychological level, it’s the common soldier who pays the price.

And What a Price

Suicides and suicide attempts are skyrocketing among American soldiers who’ve served in Iraq or Afghanistan. In 2007 alone, more than 2,000 U.S. soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide compared with 350 the year before the war in Iraq was launched.
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In 2007, more than 120 active-duty soldiers succeeded in killing themselves, the highest level since the army began keeping suicide statistics more than a quarter of a century ago.
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One in eight returning soldiers are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can include nightmares, flashbacks to traumatic wartime experiences, and other severe emotional and psychological problems.
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The enemy’s signature weapon, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which can flip a tank, are creating an epidemic of brain injuries. Beyond the thousands of U.S. troops with penetrating wounds, the
Washington Post
reports “neurologists worry that hundreds of thousands more—at least 30 percent of the troops who’ve engaged in active combat for four months or longer in Iraq and Afghanistan—are at risk of potentially disabling neurological disorders from the blast waves of IEDs and mortars, all without suffering a scratch.”
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Romance Versus Reality

Despite this incomprehensible wreckage, we, as a culture, continue to romanticize the drug of war. A drunk romanticizes his alcoholism by remembering the martinis he drank at a stylish bar, not how he ended up puking in the gutter at 3:00 in the morning. Elaborate rituals reinforce the romantic notions surrounding addiction. A cokehead likes his lines on a mirror, a heroin addict has his paraphernalia: the spoon, the needle, and the rope to tie off his arm. A food addict is seduced by colorful candy wrappers.

When it comes to romanticizing an addiction, building rituals around it, and supplying gear for it, nothing tops war. The generals who push for war wear a dizzying array of eye-catching medals, as they talk with each other in obscure, acronym-filled military lingo. It’s no accident that President Obama officially announced his troop surge at the West Point Military Academy, in front of hundreds of handsome, fresh-faced cadets who formed a sea of gray at his feet. Steven Spielberg couldn’t have devised a more psychologically seductive setting to introduce, to the American people, the very messy subject of escalating a war.

“You can’t expect to go somewhere and carpet bomb and expect there not to be ensuing chaos for a long time to come.”

—Matthew Albracht, managing
director of the Peace Alliance

A Pact with the Devil

Another example of war’s addictive characteristics: associating with “lesser” companions. Just as a drug addict will end up in the worst part of town hanging out with an unsavory crowd, if that’s what it takes to get his fix, so war junkies will partner up with questionable characters in an “ends justifies the means” approach.

Even as President Obama was ordering more troops into Afghanistan, the world was questioning the legitimacy of the Afghan government. Afghanistan’s President Karzai was presiding over what is “widely regarded as one of the most corrupt governments in the world,” according to the
New York Times.
U.S. generals have described the government as a “crime syndicate.”
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The Afghan president’s own brother was “suspected of being a central player in the country’s opium trade, a primary source of money for Taliban insurgents,” said the
Times
.
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Wait a second. Aren’t those the very people we’re fighting?

MAD Stands for Mutually Assured Destruction

Somehow, we still haven’t hit bottom on the madness that could land us there. For addicts, withdrawal is very painful. You are deprived of your drug and can feel irritable, sluggish, and even become violently ill. In war, the “withdrawal” is literal but still provokes the same feelings of unease and nausea among those addicted to conflict. One way to get over the pain of withdrawal is to start thinking about starting a new conflict.

Even as we claw our way out of the quicksand of Iraq and Afghanistan, powerful elements within our government are already sounding the drumbeat and making preparations for what could be our next war.

In August 2010, America’s highest-ranking military officer disclosed that the United States has a plan to attack Iran. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, on NBC’s
Meet the Press
, “I think the military options have been on the table and remain on the table . . . It’s one of the options that the president has. Again, I hope we don’t get to that, but it’s an important option, and it’s one that’s well understood.”
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The justification for what could become America’s next war? Same as the last—that all too familiar acronym: WMDs.
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Admiral Mullen believes Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon is an unacceptable risk. Do I believe Iran’s claims that it wants nuclear energy simply for peaceful uses? No. Do I think there are ways to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions that don’t have to culminate in bloodshed? Yes. Just like we can create war, we can create peace.

Let’s go back to the days after 9/11, when we had a clear choice. We could have gone after the attack’s mastermind, Osama bin Laden, with enough determination and resources to catch him and bring him to justice. Then we could have paused to quietly reflect. Had we done so, we would have realized that we were at a crucial turning point in history. We could have chosen peace.

“America was at a moment where we could have embraced the good will of the world, which was with us in our moment of sorrow, and determined to work with the world community so that nothing like 9/11 would ever happen again. America still needs to embark on a period of truth and reconciliation so that we can set right our moral compass.

“We first have to know the truth, because you can’t get to the question of reconciliation or amendment until you know the truth. We don’t know the truth because it really hasn’t been discussed. There has been no accountability. We are actually living a lie about the nature of the war against Iraq. This is no longer disputable.”

—Dennis Kucinich, Congressman (D-OH)
and sponsor of the Department of Peace Act (HR 808)

Making Amends

Many people in recovery from addiction say they made their biggest spiritual leap after admitting their misdeeds and apologizing to those they’d hurt. The process of confession frees an addict from guilt and remorse. It lets us move on in our lives with peace and serenity. It allows us to break through and evolve beyond our self-destructive patterns.

Would our military leaders ever consider doing a formal inventory of the wrongs in the Iraq war, from the faulty WMD intelligence to the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal and beyond? We all know the story by now.

We need to make amends to those we’ve harmed. Recovering addicts talk about how they’ve not only apologized to family and friends but even returned money to employers they’ve stolen from. Given that we’ve committed to spending more than $300 billion on 2,500 jets, I think America can come up with peaceful ways to undo some of the damage we’ve wrought.

Greg Mortenson is the author of
Three Cups of Tea,
which describes how he built dozens of schools in the Taliban’s backyard: “The only way we can defeat terrorism is if people in this country where terrorists exist learn to respect and love Americans . . . and if we can respect and love these people here.’”
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As part of an amends process, we can easily trade in bomber jets for schools. CARE—a humanitarian organization that fights global poverty—reportedly operates hundreds of schools in Afghanistan, and they’ve not been attacked by extremists.
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If America hits bottom on our addiction to war, we can embark on a journey of emotional sobriety to heal the wounds of war and create alternatives. But we can’t wait for our government to do this. The government is broken. It’s up to us, individual Americans. Dwight D. Eisenhower saw this movement on the horizon, saying, “I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”
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“There really is hard science behind the work of peacebuilding.”

—Matthew Albracht, managing director of the Peace Alliance.

The Peace Dividend

There is a growing movement among U.S. citizens that is taking a different shape from the antiwar protests of the sixties and seventies. It’s called
peacebuilding.
Conflict resolution is a burgeoning field of study in universities. Nongovernmental organizations are joining together to work for peace. In 2009, the first Global Symposium of Peaceful Nations met in Washington, where awards were presented to the world’s most peaceful countries.

The financial rewards of nonviolence are being studied as well. The Institute for Economics and Peace says peace on earth would add about $10 trillion to the world economy every year.
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While some big corporations make billions from war, the vast majority of people lose money and are unable to start new businesses, afraid to travel as tourists, and—of course—there’s the tax bills. It’s hard to focus on making a buck when you’re dodging bullets and mopping up blood.

“Conflict is inevitable. Violence is not.”

—Matthew Albracht, managing
director of the Peace Alliance

So what is the secret to peacebuilding? Charles Dambach’s biography
Exhaust the Limits: The Life and Times of a Global Peacebuilder
lists the keys:

Always be on the side of peace

Listen, really listen to learn and understand

Demonstrate respect