War is God’s Way of
Teaching Geography
By Dana Visalli
April 21, 2015 "Information
Clearing House" -
I recently flew from
Seattle to Seoul, South Korea and thence to Hanoi, to join a two-week tour of
Vietnam with VFP—Veterans for Peace. The tour is led by American veterans of the
Vietnam War who now live in that country, working to in some way atone for the
damage done there during that war.
The Vietnamese are a
sweet, friendly, even kindly people, and it is impressive to recall how the
western countries have treated them. The French colonized Vietnam in the 1860s
and enslaved the Vietnamese people, forcing them to work for the enrichment of
France. We have toured the prison that the French built for resistors, which
included a guillotine for those who failed to grasp the god-given right of the
French to rule over them. When the French tried to regain their ‘Indochina’
colony (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) after WW II, the U.S. supported them (we paid
most of the cost of the ‘First Indochina War’), then we invaded and brutalized
the Vietnamese for 20 years after the French were defeated (the ‘Second
Indochina War’, 1955-1975).
As my plane crossed over
the Japanese city of Tokyo on the way into Seoul, I realized that I was
retracing a geography that I was familiar with largely from America’s wars. The
United States firebombed Tokyo on March 10th 1945, dropping 2000 tons
of incendiary bombs on the wood and paper houses of that city, incinerating 16
square miles and killing an estimated 120,000 citizens in the worst single
firestorm in history. U.S. General Curtis LeMay said, ‘It was the biggest
firecracker the Japanese had ever seen.’ A few months later, on August 6th
of that year we dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 75,000
people on that day (150,000 total), and on August 9th we dropped
another on Nagasaki, killing another 40,000 almost instantly (80,000 over time).
The United States divided
Korea into north and south in August of 1945, then invaded South Korea on
September 8th 1945 (note that American reports of this event always
write that the U.S. marines ‘landed’ in South Korea, minimizing the impact of
reality; all cultures interpret events in a manner favorable to themselves)
dissolving the new socialist government that had just formed and installing our
own man, Syngman Rhee, who had been living in Washington DC for the previous 40
years. This unwarranted and illegal interference led to the Korean War 5 years
later, during which North Korea was utterly and completely devastated by
American military power. 3 million North Koreans were killed out of a total
population of 9 million—33% of the population. All of the cities and most of the
villages, roads, dams and dikes in that country were destroyed, creating a
veritable hell on Earth for those millions of peasants. In 1952 General Curtis
LeMay noted with evident pleasure that, ‘We have bombed every city twice, and
now we are going to pulverize them into stones.’
From Seoul I flew into
Hanoi where I met the rest of the VFP group. The American bombing of Hanoi in
1965 (Operation Rolling Thunder), 1968 (Operation Linebacker I) and 1972
(Operation Linebacker II) caused massive damage to this ancient city and killed
thousands of people. From Hanoi we traveled to the city of Hue, in central
Vietnam; Hue was completely destroyed by U.S. bombing of the city during the
1968 Tet offensive. One reporter, Robert Shaplen wrote at the time, "Nothing I
saw during the Korean War, or in the Vietnam War so far has been as terrible, in
terms of destruction and despair, as what I saw in Hue."
Wherever you go, you will
find the land, the people, the infrastructure has been at some point bombed by
the United States. Remarkably, the United States has been bombing Iraq regularly
since 1990 (including during the 13 years of sanctions). Prior to 1990 the
United States provided weapons to both Iraq and Iran for their 1980-1988 war. It
is now a ruined nation, a failed state. The British first invaded Afghanistan in
1838, then again in 1868 and 1920. The United States took over the job in 1956,
when it built an airbase in Kandahar capable of accepting intercontinental
bombers. The United States supported the fundamentalist mujahedeen with billions
of dollars of weapons in the Afghan war with the Soviets (1979-1987), and has
now been at war with and occupying Afghanistan since 2001—14 years. Afghanistan
is also a failed state, as is Libya, which we bombed to rubble in 2011, and
Syria, which we are currently destroying by supply the weapons of war to various
factions.
One begins to perceive a
pattern here in terms of how the America relates to the rest of the world:
endless bombing of other people, other societies and the Earth itself.
America’s pervasive aggression against others has given rise to the axiom, ‘War
is god’s way of teaching geography.’ Who knew where Hue or Pyongyong or Nagasaki
or Fallujah were before we destroyed them?
What is the cause of this
pathology of pandemic American brutality? We have a case of arrested
psychological development on a national scale. Child psychologists Jean Piaget
and Lawrence Kolberg found that the moral development of children went through
several stages. Young children’s early social behavior is typically driven by a
fear of punishment or and related need for obedience. In the second stage of
moral development individuals are concerned with the maintenance of law and
social order. As they continue to mature people recognize that rules and laws
serve social functions and can be altered. Kohlberg in particular identified the
highest stage of moral development as one in which individuals live, act, and
think according to universal ethical principles that emerge naturally in mature
individuals.
Most Americans are trapped
in the first stage of moral development, fear of punishment and the need for
obedience. Writer Larken Rose notes in his book The Most Dangerous
Superstition that, ‘There is a harsh contrast between what we are taught is
the purpose of "authority" (to create a peaceful, civilized society) and the
real-world results of "authority" in action. Flip through any history book and
you will see that most of the injustice and destruction that has occurred
throughout the world was not the result of people "breaking the law," but rather
the result of people obeying and enforcing the "laws" of various "governments."
The evils that have been committed in spite of "authority" are trivial compared
to the evils that have been committed in the name of "authority…. The belief in
"authority," which includes all belief in "government," is irrational and
self-contradictory; it is contrary to civilization and morality, and constitutes
the most dangerous, destructive superstition that has ever existed. Rather than
being a force for order and justice, the belief in "authority" is the archenemy
of humanity.’
It is only when we come
alive to our latent capacity for compassionate intelligence, when we care enough
about the destruction of other humans and ecosystems and the widespread ‘killing
of hope’ by the American military machine to question and/or reject external
authority over our moral and ethical lives, we can each take the next step on
our individual journeys towards becoming mature, useful and relevant human
beings.
Postscript:
In the abstraction of
words we lose track of just what war is. Here is a reminder of the nature of
war, an excerpt from Nick Turse’s recent, well-documented work on the Vietnam
war, Kill Everything that Moves. U.S. marines had burst into a thatch hot
belonging to a young Vietnamese couple. The young mother, Huong, ‘was dragged to
the side of the house. A marine held his hand over her mouth; others pinned her
arms and legs to the ground. They tore off her pants, ripped open her shirt, and
groped her. Then the gang rape began. First one marine, then another. Five in
all. Huong's sobs elicited more screams of protest from her husband, so the
marines began beating him again, after which a burst of gunfire silenced him.
Her mother-in-law's sobs ended after another staccato burst, and her
sister-in-law's after a third. Soon Huong could no longer hear the children.
Then came a crack and a blinding flash, followed by searing pain that brought
her to the ground. The marines exploded a grenade to make the scene "look good,"
then radioed in their results: three dead Viet Cong.’
Dana Visalli is a
biologist living in Washington State. He has traveled numerous times to Iraq and
Afghanistan to witness the impact of the American war in and occupation of those
countries. He can be reached at jdanavisalli(at)gmail.com.
