Wednesday 11 September 2002

Pic of the day: This picture is of my millenium candle which I bought for new year 2000. It doesn't burn very bright these days.

War and rumors of war

Let me preface this by stating that I am a Norwegian, not an American. Even though I have friends and relatives in the USA, and even though my countrymen are fighting in Afghanistan side by side with their American allies, I necessarily have a certain emotional distance to the events of September 11th last year. This is only fair; the USA had considerably more emotional distance to the German invasion of Norway on April 9th 1940, the memories of which continued to haunt our country for 60 years. If you think these events cannot be compared, as the terrorist attack was so much worse, perhaps you should skip this entry and read one of my more lighthearted ones.

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The USA won its freedom through a War of Independence, or so it is commonly believed. In contrast, Norway became independent from Sweden after more than a century of peaceful nation-building, including democratic institutions set down by a constitution, and an explosion of art, music, drama and literature based on local tradition and the resurrection of the local language(s). Seeing as Great Britain (somewhat greater than today) was a fairly civilized country too, I am pretty sure that the same approach would have worked in the colonies. As a matter of fact, it was in the process of doing so when the process was hastened by hotheaded people on both sides.

After this event, there has been a lingering impression on the American society that war may be a good thing. Like a lottery virgin who wins the first time, they were hooked. Indeed, the concept of war has taken on a wider meaning: Like the Arabic "Jihad" it now encompasses all large-scale concerted struggle against evil. Thus we have the "war against drugs", which has certainly not eradicated drugs or even ended their occupation of American territory, but has helped ensure that American prisons now hold five times as much of their population compared to our European democracies. Yes, that's compared to the size of the population, not absolute numbers. The absolute numbers are on the scale of some small nations.

One year after the first major terrorist act against the USA, it is still unclear whether the "war against terrorism" is a military war, or a new attack on the country's own misbehaving citizens, or both of the above. It is not obvious either which of the two would be most effective. All indications as viewed by the scientific community say that the anthrax attack last fall was from domestic sources. The analysis of the anthrax spores show them to be the same strain that USA produces, not the type cultivated by its antagonists.

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Terrorism is not a nation. There are nations that are more supportive of terrorist groups than others, and these nations can be attacked and made to suffer by a superior military force. Provided, of course, that they are small enough to not strike back. The USA supported insurrections around the globe with money, weapons and military advisers for decades. Nobody bombed the living intestines out of USA because of that, for the USA had nuclear weapons. That's right, the reason the USA got away with it was not that USSR and China realized that the US was right and they were wrong. If only they had! The sad truth is that one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. As further proof of this, nobody has bombed China for annexing the peaceful neighboring country of Tibet. Because they are really big and have nuclear weapons. Wars are strange like that, you should not start them unless you think you can win them. This is kinda easy to see when you are fighting a nation, but harder when you are fighting ideas.

One year ago, around 3000 men and women (and a few children too, I believe) died a horrible and meaningless death because of acts of fanatic malevolence. The same day, a much larger number of children died from malnutrition and preventable diseases. Not from malevolence, just indifference. Of course, only a few of them were American and hardly any were European, so why should we care? It's not like they are real humans or anything. They're just numbers in the middle of the newspaper.

Cynical observers of the "war against drugs" may say that a "war against poverty" would mean incarcerating the poor – in so far as this is not already being done. In reality, the USA has probably done more than any single other nation to alleviate poverty in the third world, because of its tradition of free trade which has opened enormous markets for countries in need of western cash to upgrade their primitive technology. Asian countries that have taken advantage of this have moved from abject poverty to the standards of European middle class in a couple generations, while nations that have denounced the USA as capitalist pigs or godless heathens have sunk steadily deeper into their own latrines.

What I am saying in a roundabout way is that when the USA wages war against invisible enemies, it tends to lose. (This should hardly surprise anyone when you think about it.) Like the Islamic Jihad, the very use of the word alienates the people whose hearts you need to win. For this kind of war is fought in the hearts and minds, not on the battlefield. (And if you think the USA & allies have "won" the war in Afghanistan and can safely turn our back, then you are in for a huge surprise when the whole thing collapses into a slaughterhouse of indescribable proportions.)

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It is commonly said, even by historians, that the USA won the cold war by outspending the USSR. I believe this to be only an excuse for the USSR to throw in the towel. Information scientists were already calculating the time when the telephone density of the Soviet Union would make it impossible to maintain a dictatorship. The level of communications technology seems to correlate very strongly with the type of government. It was through the US-lead worldwide growth in economy and technology that communism fell. The same fate is overtaking China even as I write this. Despite the desperate attempts by the ruling Communist Party, the time for censorship is running out. If the USA wants its enemies to fall, the country must lead a movement toward a freer exchange of ideas. I am not convinced that its current government is on that path today, but I believe most of the voters would want that.

Like most Norwegians, I have relatives and friends in the USA. I spent much of 9/11 on IRC with my American friends, trying to find out where everyone was and whether they were all safe. Others were watching on television, worrying about their own friends and relatives. But know that in a full scale war, people will have to live like that every day for years. Never knowing if their son, their brother, their lover will come home alive. You will lose friends and relatives, or find them scarred for life. Have you already forgotten? Must each generation learn this anew? Will you not care until you stand by a headstone?

As far as I know, nobody has said this before, in which case I want to put it in the public domain: War is innocent people killing each other because their leaders both believe they are right. As I said One year ago: "Whenever someone tells you to obey without thinking, remember this day."