Unwinning Wars

Have you ever noticed that whenever America makes war, a war declared in the media and not in Congress, a war against a word, an idea, a state of mind, a condition, or a category of nebulously defined behaviors, substances, or political entities, instead of a war declared and waged against a nation or nations, that these Wars On are conflicts which America never wins, or at least is never the clear victor? That, in fact, these Wars On never really end, though such wars may subside and flare up, are occasionally discretely abandoned by their sponsors, or else we declare victory and withdraw.

There was/is the War on Crime. In America, the main victors in this war are politicians who are “tough on crime” during their election campaigns. Often the criminals join the politicians creating in a “win/win situation.”

There was the War on Poverty, and America certainly did not win that war. Today, under various dog-whistle rubrics such No Child Left Behind, and Welfare Reform America wages an undeclared War on the Poor.

There was/is the War on Drugs; did America win that war? We just say no to the drug-du-jour, and when next year’s model hits the streets it always seems to be more noxious, more addictive, and more destructive to society than the last drug “scourge.” However, this crusade, like the War on Crime, is a perennial winner for politicians and for the drug businessman too, on the whole.

For a long time, America fought a War on Communism, aka the Cold War; to my mind better called the Hot-and-Cold War. Some say we won that war, around the time the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell. But both North Korea and Vietnam, “Communist” states to which we served up piping-hot war in the midst of the Cold War, still have “Communist” governments run by the same basic set of people that were in charge when we were making war on them.

We went to the brink of the hottest of hot wars during the episode known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and since maintained a simmering enmity against the “Communist” regime of Fidel Castro. Yet nearly a half century later we are still waiting for Fidel to just fall down and not get up. The most populous nation on Earth, China, has a “Communist” government run by the same ruling class for almost 70 years. China and its present day ruling class are more powerful than the Imperial dynasties of old. Even in most of the territories of the former Soviet Union, the same ruling class, more or less, is in charge, where there is anybody is in charge; the rich are richer, the poor poorer. Did America really win the so-called Cold War?

For the past few years now, America has waged the War on Terror. How terrified do we, the people, have to be, before our own ruling class can call it a win? How many of our freedoms will we give up before we will surrender the least of our comforts, or give up the strangely comforting fear itself? How many countries must be laid waste, how far must “Democracy” be spread, before the “Terrorist” bogeyman can be retired? How many people have to die before the President the United States of America can declare final victory?