Opinions: Perspectives from readers

Popular thought today seems to support the idea that wars must be fought to bring about lasting peace. If the “bad guys” are killed, then peace will reign. To carry this thought to the extreme would mean Christians should kill all the people in the world who are not Christians, then peace would be here permanently, since all the people in the world would be Christians. The thinking that drives the policies of many countries, both in the past and in the present day, sees peace as the end product of armed conflict.

A new orientation is required that sees peace as the premise rather than the conclusion of one’s methodology. This means we must develop a theology of peace so that governments are actively working toward establishing structures in society and relationships among people that will help insure peace.

If it is important that we accept the sacrifices and the disruption of our daily lives required for national defense and security, why do we not accept that peacemaking will also require similar sacrifices and disruption of our lives?

The cost of fighting a war has now risen to billions of dollars annually. And the related costs of paying health and retirement benefits and other associated costs to veterans will result in more millions of dollars each year to be paid by this generation as well as our children and grandchildren. Nonetheless, large amounts of money are being spent for the development of new weapons of destruction. The budgetary allocations for the military are growing at a rapid rate, while the money available for entitlement programs and for social needs is used to pay for war. There has been a genuine mortgaging of the social well-being of the nation to pay for futile wars.

From mid-1966 through mid-1968 I was working under the auspices of Vietnam Christian Services, assisting refugees in South Vietnam caught in the crossfires of the war. Many houses were bombed by U.S. helicopters just across the street from our home in Saigon. I witnessed other bombing raids and saw many wounded and maimed men, women and children. More than 50,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in that war, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were killed. The United States left Vietnam in 1975 in apparent defeat. What a futile war! And now it is involved in two similarly futile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many people are experiencing serious disruptions in their lives because of the transfer of funds from entitlement programs to the defense budget. Given this set of priorities for defense spending, we may find ourselves in the ironic position of being the best-defended nation in the world but having nothing worth defending because the quality of life has utterly disappeared.

Our security as people of faith must be in a loving, caring God. Our government’s security seems to depend on dominating the world with the greatest and most costly military might used indiscriminately to protect American interests at home and abroad. As people of faith we must insist that our government unilaterally begin disarmament of the military-industrial complex.

The U.S. Empire is in decline. If the current level of military spending is not drastically reduced, the U.S. Empire will collapse along with its economic dominance. It already appears the United States is approaching the limit of its borrowing capacity from China and others.

The Pentagon’s sole purpose is to build weapons of mass destruction and fight wars. The military-industrial complex enjoys vast profits selling military hardware. The Pentagon and the military-industrial complex are dominating the U.S. agenda. It appears President Obama, like all the presidents before him since World War II, is unable to override the military establishment that has planted great fear in the American people, convincing us that wars are the only way to keep us safe. This has resulted in making us less secure than at almost any time in U.S. history.

We Anabaptists are supporting this evil empire unless we raise our voices of concern about our U.S. war policies. Some of us have tried to do this, but our voices have been drowned out by the voices of fear coming from the Pentagon and the corporate war profiteers. We need to find a way to unite our voices.

A small group is trying to start a national movement to convince our policymakers to reduce military expenditures and use money instead to promote peace. To join this movement and learn about how to make your voice heard, go to www.1040forPeace.org.

Paul Leatherman is a member of Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster (Pa.).