Why I Am Anti-War

“War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell, and of the two, war is a lot worse. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell, but war is chock full of them. Little kids. Cripples. Old ladies. In fact, except for a few of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.”

In this quote from Captain Hawkeye Pierce from the critically acclaimed television series M.A.S.H., we see a succinct summation of why war is such a terrible tragedy begot to the world. In war, it is the innocent who have their homes destroyed, wealth stolen, and freedoms curtailed. It is the innocent who bury their dead, upending their worlds forever. In war it is the innocent who suffer the greatest.

The Dead

World War II had an estimated 80 million deaths over its six years of death, destruction, and terror. Of that 80 million, an estimated 50 million were civilians. 62.5% of the deaths in WWII were not soldiers on the front lines, but people in their homes, in their hometowns, trying to survived the hubris of their countries’ leaders.

The US Civil War had an estimated 50,000 civilian deaths, most in the South. The Iraq War was responsible for an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths since 2003. That’s twenty-two times the amount of American casualties, and almost five times the amount of insurgent casualties.

In war, the dead civilians almost always outnumber the dead soldiers.

Economic Theft

Wars cost money. When including the six principal countries on both sides of World War II and adjusting for inflation, the war cost upwards of $15.2 Trillion. All of that money was taken away from capital investment and used to rain terror, destruction, and death upon the world. With all that money, the military used it to purchase vast resources. This forced civilians to ration goods, leading to a lowering of their living standard.

In today’s world, though, civilians don’t face the same type of rationing. Instead nation’s use central banks to print money and rob the civilians of their wealth through inflation.

And it is not just inflation and rationing that affect civilians. Many central planning policies were born out of war. Roosevelt modeled his New Deal after much of what Wilson administration did during the World War I. These policies could pick winner and losers, and prevent capital investment and economic growth outside of the war machine.

Erosion of Liberties

War also attacks the liberties of civilians. Many people cite the quote “shouting fire in a crowded theater” from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes when attacking what they deem to be “dangerous speech,” but what many people do not is that Holmes used this rationale to upheld the prison of Charles Schenck for distributing pamphlets telling people to resist the draft during World War I. This ruling by the Supreme Court was in direct violation of Schenck’s First Amendment rights.

Since the passage of the PATRIOT Act after the attacks of 9/11, the US has seen the creation of unconstitutional TSA, warrantless wiretaps by the NSA, and the creation of REAL ID, forcing States to participate in a national ID system of all its civilians. The PATRIOT Act is used to monitor our transactions, our conversations, and our movements without due process or just cause.

Conclusion

I want to leave you with one final clip on the morality of war and the part we as civilians play in the process from the Americanization of Emily, a war movie all should see.