According to U.S. media outlets, the U.S. has not only a right to kill people anywhere, as "needed," but can suffer as the victim of "aggression" and respond with "defense" anywhere, so that Syrian attacks on U.S. troops in Syria have been generally referred to as Syrian aggression, as have interactions between U.S. and Russian planes near the border of Russia been referred to as Russian aggression. In 2015, a CNN presidential primary debate moderator asked this question: "We're talking about ruthless things tonightcarpet bombing, toughness, war. And people wonder, could you do that? Could you order air strikes that would kill innocent children by not the scores, but the hundreds and the thousands? Could you wage war as a commander-in-chief?"
If a recording were obtained of a North Korean or Venezuelan or Iranian leader declaring his willingness to kill thousands of children, that would be not only cause for great outrage, but also grounds for bombing the offending nation, thereby in fact killing thousands of children which is not a crime when a U.S. president does it. In fact, it is a basic duty of every president according to CNN. Exceptionalism, of course, is a close sibling of racism and xenophobia and fuels and is fueled by them.
U.S. exceptionalism is adopted by other nations that become complicit in U.S. crimes. Ireland is a neutral nation. Under Hague Convention V in force since 1910, "Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power." But the United States sends troops and weapons through Shannon Airport by the millions. I asked Ireland's ambassador to the United States how that could be legal, and she replied that she'd asked the U.S. government, and they'd told her it was.
And the Number 1 way in which we pretend that war is not a crime is . . . normalization. Our entertainment, our education, our mass media, and our politics treat violence, often extreme and sadistic violence, as normal and unremarkable, and participation in war as an admirable and praiseworthy "service" completely regardless of whether the war participated in is an evil murderous catastrophe. It's gotten so bad that many people can't imagine a world beyond war.
What do we do about this? One thing we can do is normalize a culture of peace. Once upon a time the Kellogg-Briand Pact was displayed in post offices and classrooms. Once upon a time Veterans Day was Armistice Day. At World BEYOND War we've just published a Peace Almanac with an important peace event for each day of the year. We need to celebrate the work of peace activists, including those who've written essays being honored here today, and including the Outlawrists of the 1920s. We need to see examples of principled, non-partisan, moral, fearless, strategic, and successful activism, like what created the Peace Pact.
We also need to educate people about the possibility and necessity of ending war. We need to work on projects that weaken the institution of war and strengthen structures of peace. At World BEYOND War we're successfully moving local governments to divest from weapons industries. And we're supporting campaigns to prevent and close military bases. We're also spreading the message of ending war and envisioning a world beyond it with books, videos, and events. Some of the best events that I recommend doing are friendly debates between supporters and opponents of war.
We need more people to use the books, articles, courses, and videos on worldbeyondwar.org and to sign the declaration of peace there.
We need to cure exceptionalism through changing our thinking, learning about and respecting the other 96 percent of humanity, where the other 50 percent of the guns and prisons are. We need to create standards of holding criminals accountable even when they are guilty of the supreme international crime. This may require democratizing the United Nations or empowering national governments to hold the United States to basic standards, but we can begin small. When Dick Cheney planned to come to my town I asked the local police to arrest him for torture. He never came.
We need to make open and public government and foreign relations a basic demand in our platform of reforms alongside clean elections and fair taxes and sustainable energy. We need to learn enough about war to reject the notion of a good one. We need to learn enough about the history of abolishing war so that the Kellogg-Briand Pact is known by everyone, this day is a global holiday, and we dedicate ourselves to completing the project that was advanced by the Outlawrists.
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