[alicebot-aiethics] The Peace Platform

[Noel Bush]

One point worth noting is that this "war", as such, has not suddenly
begun, but has been going on for quite a while.  Who can say how far
back in history it's relevant to trace things -- one only needs ask why
many of the Arab and Muslim countries of the world are so angry to start
talking about all of the bloody battles that were fought on their (and
others') land as part of the Cold War, which goes directly back to WWII,
and one may say that history would have been radically different without
Stalin and the terror of the Soviet regime, but one also must note that
the USSR lost millions of lives and largely won that war, and onward and
onward backward you may go and discover that "peace" is just the word
for "conflicts elsewhere in the world aren't perturbing my daily life
right now".

During the so-called "Gulf War", I was very much opposed to the action
that the US was taking.  It was barbaric and even moreso because of the
surreal, "virtual" nature of how the US-allied forces fought using
Nintendo-like technology, barely dirtying their hands, figuratively
speaking.  I felt at the time that the focus ought to be on relieving
ourselves of the tremendous dependence on oil.  Blood for oil was not a
just exchange.

It's also true that the tremendous bulk and sophistication of the US
military was completely inadequate to defend against what happened in
NYC and DC.  But my conclusion is not that military protection ought to
be disassembled, but rather reconfigured to realistically protect
against the threats which do exist.  That's one of the most important
mandates for the government -- to protect its ordinary citizens.  I'm
far more in favor of a military that is organized and trained to protect
its citizens, than I am in favor of a thin, minimal, "decentralized",
largely symbolic force...because all that the latter means is that in
dangerous times the defense will be left to more vigilante-like groups.
I do not want to see the radical militia groups in the US on an equal
footing with the US military; I would not support a weakening of the
military in exchange for a throwback situation in which small cells
enforce the type of justice they see fit.  One ought to remember that
the power of the US military services have in fact been of service
within the nation's borders as well as without, as for instance in the
case in the 1960s when the centuries-old violence against black citizens
of our country was addressed in some significant ways with no small help
from the military.

It's admirable to suggest that the US ought to let go of the worship of
giant phallic skyscrapers and airplanes, and instead move "back to the
land", and there are plenty of reasons to pursue strategies for
city-building that reduce urban concentration and squandering of
resources in the service of making everything faster, bigger and better.
I'd love to see the day when it's considered a social crime (if not a
legal one) for a lone individual to be seen driving a gas-guzzling SUV
down the road to buy a gallon of milk.  The US indeed lays waste to the
ecological balance in its own part of the world as well as elsewhere.
But in terms of the conflicts with other peoples around the world, such
strategies only suggest how to be "less bothered", not how to live in
peace.

And in fact the "wired world" as it's called owes its existence to this
drive for "dominion over nature" as well as to the US military.  I'd be
happy to trade technological progress for peace, but I wouldn't go so
far as to believe that "liberty and technology for all" will be the
descriptor of a world with more sane ecological practices.

The danger to civil rights is one of the biggest risks in times like
this, and I remember well during the Gulf War when people of Arab
descent were discriminated against unfairly in the US.  The US has a
particular sensitivity to issues of civil rights as it is guilty of
horrific crimes against humanity, against its own citizens, for which it
has thus far failed to make reparations.  A huge part of the population
of the US still faces nearly insurmountable obstacles as a result of
these crimes, some of which continue today in modified, apparently
socially-palatable forms.

Now, one of my classmates in college was a former Afghan "freedom
fighter".  He described to me how he received very special treatment
from the US government: at immigration lines he was whisked to the
front, he was supported in attending a very expensive school, etc.
Presently I'm living in the nation (Russia) that attempted to conquer
his country, and which *still* has soldiers posted near the area, who
are still getting killed trying to prevent incursion of the Taliban into
Tadzhekistan.  The US and Russia certainly share heavy blame for the
present situation.  But my former classmate felt that his culture and
religion were under assault by the Western world.  I found it awful to
imagine that he had killed people, and that he had been in the midst of
bloody fights in which his fellow countrymen were killed.  But what I
found most significant was the cultural and religious significance he
attached to it.

Right or wrong, the world is engaged in a sort of religious war.  For
the radical Muslim part of the world (certainly not including all people
who practice Islam), this is "clear".  For the US, which claims itself
to be above religion, this is an unutterable fact.  The US is in one way
or another the present-day heir of the arrogance and barbarism of the
Christian crusaders who centuries ago felt it their "duty to God" to
Christianize the "heathen" world.  This is certainly not to say that
Christianity itself is to blame, any more than Islam is "to blame".  But
the value-set of this kind of imperialism is the adopted heritage of the
US, which feels that its "culture" of free trade, consumerism for all,
uplifting of the masses through technology, etc., is the right solution
for the whole world.  This is definitely the *focus* of anger for people
whose countries have been trampled by other much larger powers fighting
over oil, trade access, and so on.  I do think it's possible to imagine
a world in which states identified as Islamic live in peace with states
identified as Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and even
"agnostic"...but I also think that when one or another of those states
have caused harm to the other the religious differential is the natural
first target of anger.

All this makes for a real mess, because on one "side" you have people
who feel they're fighting a religious war, and on the other "side"
people who almost deny that there even is such a thing as religion
(except as something that is to be granted "freedom").  It would seem
that the US-Western-democratic side has substituted "liberty and
technology for all" in place of "Jesus Christ for all", without
realizing they're pushing the same doctrine.  The "other side"
substitutes "Jihad" for "stop destroying our country", in an eerie
mirror-image.  When a militant Muslim radical attacks a symbol of US
imperialism, he feels he is attacking a symbol of Western-Christian
imperialism.  When a Western force attacks a Muslim nation, it feels it
is attacking a dangerous, "backward" radical element.

All of this symbolism blurs everyone's sense of what they're doing.  How
is it possible for someone to contemplate the destruction of thousands
of lives in a single day?  Rhetoric -- "jihad" -- makes it so.  How is
it possible for someone to accept that they live in "peace" when their
own nation has killed thousands of innocent people to protect that
person's "way of life"?  Rhetoric -- "democracy" -- makes it so.
Rhetoric is religion, though religion need not be rhetoric.  The
rhetoric against "religious fundamentalists" is just as dangerous as the
rhetoric *of* religious fundamentalists.

But separate rhetoric from action, see them distinctly, and you see that
regardless of rhetoric thousands of people were murdered.  Throw away
rhetoric and that murder is unjustifiable, every bit as unjustifiable as
the murders the US has committed in pursuit of the propagation of its
own "way of life".  Whether that "way of life" is the 1950s Corn Flakes
style that we can all easily ridicule, or the whitewashed "wired world"
rhetoric of the dot-com generation that preaches equality and prosperity
through the spread of technologies that trash the earth in their
production, "way of life" is no justification for murder on any side.

Look beyond the rhetoric that equates to "this is our fault for being so
greedy" and note that thousands of people were killed.  Some
organization planned this very well.  That organization is guilty and
must be found, and stopped from doing anything like that in the future.
Any organization -- government or "terrorist", must be held accountable
by the world for its actions.  The US government and other governments
have not been held accountable for all of theirs, but that is no reason
to say that a false sense of "peace" can be had simply by balancing out
the economic and ecological practices of the US.  Either the world
permits this kind of terror or it doesn't.  There is no such thing as
"peace" until such terror is stopped, on all sides.  If stopping this
organization means that the US military and its allies must put soldiers
in Afghanistan or elsewhere, that is a fight worth fighting.  The war
has always been going on, just not always at our doorstep.  One may pray
for peace as well as pray for rain, and both may be of some comfort, but
elsewhere there is someone praying for blood.  Stop that person.  Stop
those people -- those who are particularly responsible and would
continue such terror.  That may mean killing them, and if so, let it be
that way.  That is one real-world outcome of "justice".  Accountability
on all sides is important.  Maybe there are US oil executives who are
just as guilty of perpetrating heinous crimes.  Let all be punished.
But it's impossible to prettify the situation into a simple wish for
"peace".  Impossible.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: alicebot-aiethics-admin@list.alicebot.org 
> [mailto:alicebot-aiethics-admin@list.alicebot.org] On Behalf 
> Of Richard Wallace
> Sent: Thursday 13 September 2001 7:34
> To: alicebot-aiethics@list.alicebot.org
> Subject: [alicebot-aiethics] The Peace Platform
> 
> 
> Quickly realizing that I am in a small minority in my own 
> country, I thought it would be appropriate for me to 
> articulate my feelings about the war and peace.  I have a 
> long history of opposing American military involvement 
> overseas, beginning with the Vietnam War, which ended when I 
> was 15.  I was one of the few opposed to the Persian Gulf 
> War, believing that sanction were not given enough time to 
> work.  As a long time member of the Libertarian party, I have 
> always favored a reduction of the U.S. military.  These ideas 
> are not all new in response to the current crisis, but a 
> summary of long held personal beliefs and values.
> 
> Today in our Writer's Group at the Chapel we began to prepare 
> a statement for Peace, but we were interrupted by a member 
> who wanted to Bomb Them Back to the Stone Age and be the 
> Policeman of the World.  The mood changed and we couldn't 
> finish the statement, so I decided to take another crack tonight:
> 
> 1. Let's not concentrate office workers in gigantic towers, 
> but spread them around many smaller facilities throughout 
> cities and suburbs. 2. Let's not rely on jet travel so much.  
> America made some bad choices in the past, when we sacrificed 
> the railroads to build interstate highways and support jet 
> travel.  Rebuild the railroads and diversify our 
> transportation options. 3. Stop driving so much.  Telecommute 
> more, and decrease our reliance on automotive transportation, 
> and in turn oil. 4. Alternative energy sources like Wind and 
> Solar need to be developed much more.  Continued reliance on 
> oil only increases the chance of conflict. 5. Decrease U.S. 
> military involvement overseas.  Let other nations settle 
> their own conflicts without us.  We don't have to be 
> Policeman of the World. 6. The Wired World will help us 
> decrease our reliance on fuel and transportation, and allow 
> us to spread out and decentralize organizations. The recent 
> burst of the Internet bubble does not invalidate the 
> long-term potential for services such as home shopping.  
> Investing in network and computer technology will liberate us 
> from the hydrocarbon economy. 7. The Pentagon and the World 
> Trade Center are powerful symbols of America. But they are 
> also symbols from a time gone by.  The Pentagon was built 
> during World War II and oversaw the Cold War.  But it is a 
> symbol of an industrial age, an age of mechanized war between 
> states.  We should decentralize the military as much as 
> possible to remove such high-profile targets.  The World 
> Trade Center too is a symbol of an age when Bigger was 
> Better.  The challenge to build the highest building in the 
> world is an archetype of the age of extremes.  It was an age 
> before environmental impact studies, historical preservation, 
> or archaeological studies of building sites in lower 
> Manhattan.  As evil as the destruction of these symbols was, 
> we should ask whether the existence of such symbols is worth 
> the price. 8. No outcome could be worse than the loss of 
> civil liberties and human rights that have been built up over 
> generations.  We cannot sacrifice any of our civil rights in 
> the name of tracking down and punishing terrorists. 9. 
> Afghanistan is one likely target of military action.  It 
> should be remembered that Afghanistan has never been 
> conquered, although the British and Russian both tried for 
> centuries.  Afghanistan destroyed the Soviet Union.  The 
> terrain is mountainous and the people are accustomed to 
> fighting foreigners on their own soil.  The last place in the 
> world where America should be involved militarily is 
> Afghanistan. 10. Pray for peace.  Whether you stand for war 
> or peace, please say a prayer for a peaceful outcome as soon 
> as possible, with the smallest loss of life. Even if you 
> disagree with every point above, you can't disagree that the 
> pain and suffering ahead should be as limited as possible.  
> If enough people pray for peace, it can be achieved.
> 
> Thanks for listening.
> Rich
> 
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