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Subject:Waging of Wars: Anathema to World Peace



Waging of Wars:

Anathema to World Peace



Charles Mercieca, Ph.D.

President

International Association of Educators for World Peace

NGO, United Nations (ECOSOC), UNDPI, UNICEF, UNCED & UNESCO

Professor Emeritus

Alabama A&M University



During the twentieth century, more wars were waged and more people were killed through wars than in any other period of history. On the eve of World War II, Pope Pius XII warned both Great Britain and Nazi Germany saying: In a war everyone is a loser, no one is a winner. In spite of this, the war went on and the Pope proved to be right. Besides, numerous other wars took place since then and the Pope's statement is still being vindicated to this very day.





Dealing with the Culture of War



The leaders of the world have been born and raised in a culture of war and they do not seem to know anything better. If they do not get what they want fast and smooth, they tend to resort to war to take by brutal force what they feel they cannot take without any hustle. For them war seems to be the right thing to do once you get afterwards what you want regardless as to whether this would be considered morally and legally acceptable or not. The culture of war in our earthly society is so deep that we tend to resort to wage war on everything.





We even hear the President of the United States talking repeatedly on television saying that he wants to wage war on terrorism and on poverty. On more than one occasion, Pope John Paul II who is known as the Vicar of Christ, has warned the American President that the waging of wars would not solve the problems the world faces but, on the contrary, such wars would make such problems get much worse in the long range.





The Pope said that the best way to solve problems that are plaguing the world is to go their source to understand them in order to procure rightful remedies. Instead of waging war terrorism or on poverty, we simply need to seek for remedies that would cure such a problem. This way we will enable ourselves to adopt peaceful means to problems we encounter. In waging war on anything, we are eventually using brutal violence that would backfire in due time.



In one of his speeches at Harvard University, President John F. Kennedy observed that the practice of every profession -- be it in medicine, law, business, teaching, you name it -- requires a period of study and preparation. Then he remarked saying: Ironically, the most important of all professions, the political profession, does not require any period of study and preparation at all. The only requirement needed to become a politician and serve in government is to be a US citizen and to have reached a certain age, nothing more and nothing less.





Government as Source of Real Problems



Confronted with this reality, we may begin to understand and realize why the source of numerous problems may be traced to the government itself. Imagine a dear friend of ours entering hospital to undergo a heart surgery. Instead of having a team of physicians operating on him, he will have a team of lawyers or businessmen. Even though these are viewed as professionals but they were not trained for that kind of work. In fact, for that kind of work they could all be considered as functionally illiterate, thoroughly incompetent, and a total disaster that would lead prospective patients to certain death unnecessarily.





Now we may begin to understand why, in spite of their charisma and popularity, our politicians continue to set up priorities that are not in the best interest of the people as a whole. And since the people as a whole constitute the entire nation, then we may conclude that what our politicians do on the whole is not geared toward the welfare of the nation. Ironically, our politicians try to justify anything crooked they do in the name of that magnetic and hypnotizing phrase: national security! In a way this is true when we consider that the "national security" they have in mind is not the welfare of the population but mostly the financial interests of big business headed by the weapons industry.





The best way to remedy the situation is through a well-coordinated national educational program. This could be launched through schools but even here we may encounter serious problems. Those that run our schools were born and raised in a culture of war that taught them to view the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction and their use to destroy the infrastructure of nations, along with the destruction of millions of innocent people, as a necessity for "national security!" They were also indoctrinated to view the indiscriminate sales of weapons to anyone that would give the right price as an intrinsic part of the capitalistic system that entitles you to sell your product, no matter how lethal it may be, to become rich fast and smooth if possible.



In spite of this, there are always schools, especially private ones, which do understand the fallacious polices of a nation that is deeply versed in the culture of war. Besides, we have numerous educational and civic organizations that understand fully well the importance of replacing our culture of war with the culture of peace. These organizations have been blessed with quite a few millions of members all of whom could work hard to procure remedies to the problems we face, rather than resorting to the waging of wars and more wars ending up putting the entire nation, in the long range, on the brink of disaster and collapse.





Preservation of Democracy

The USA struggled hard to grow and develop when it became independent from Great Britain in 1776. Since then, democracy became its foundation where all people had an opportunity to achieve their ideals and to live in prosperity and peace. However, slowly but surely, the capitalistic system crawled in unnoticed like a little snake. But when the snake grew big and became huge, it succeeded to crack the foundations of democracy. The focus then shifted from the needs of the nation's people to the greed of big business that has now replaced democracy with capitalism. For practical purposes, we may group all nations of the world into three major orientations: communism, capitalism and democracy.





Communism and capitalism are two extremes while democracy is like a pendulum that shifts from left to right trying to get the good of the two extremes. In communism, the government controls everything, while in capitalism big corporations control everything including the government. In democracy, those in charge are the nation's people who structure their priorities and who exercise their right for free education and for free health care in accordance with the Natural Law. Such rights are generally offered by communism. In democracy people have freedom of movement and of free speech without any fear of arrest or persecution. These two elements seem to be more provided by capitalism.





In view of what has been stated, the idea of waging wars against anything that the few elite of government officials do not like has proven to be unwise to say the least and devastating to say the most. This explains why we should stop all kinds of wars. We must stop the war on terrorism and the war on poverty, in addition to other types of wars. Instead, we need to procure remedies by going to the source of existing problems, following the wise advice of Pope John II, the Dalai Lama and a number of outstanding statesmen ranging from Kim Dae Jung of South Korea to Oscar Arias of Costa Rica and Nelson Mandela of South Africa.