As
we navigate through the vicissitudes of life, we encounter a few happy moments
and a few sad ones. But most of what we encounter are neutral events that
neither cheer us nor sadden us.
Also,
there are all sorts of reasons why happy or sad moments happen. In fact, the
reasons themselves can be good or bad or neutral.
The
combination we all aspire to navigate as we go through life, is to consistently
encounter good news that were generated by good reasons.
No
matter how disciplined we are, we remain self-centered by the reality that we
are human beings. And so, when we judge the value of the news as they happen,
or the reasons for them to have happened, we do the judging by measuring the effect
that the event making news will have on our life.
Because
each of us is the member of a family, as well as citizen of a country and
citizen of the world, the things that happen to anyone, anywhere on the globe,
and the way they happen, have a bearing on us individually. Therefore, those
things affect us as if they happened to us personally or to someone close.
Now,
consider the effect of an article that came under the title: “Coronavirus Means
No More Money for Forever Wars,” written by Daniel L. Davis and published on
April 7, 2020 in The National Interest. The fact that the article foretells the
end of America's “Forever Wars,” is good news to all of us, citizens of the
world. But the reality that this will happen as a result of the Coronavirus hitting
America hard, is bad news.
Thus,
we have here good news that happened because of bad reasons. It is the
predicted ending of one calamity by the appearance of another calamity. It is a
situation that forces us to draw a balance sheet of gains and losses. In so
doing, we are forced to evaluate the worthiness of those whose life will be
spared against those whose life will be lost … an unbearable moral burden
forced on us by the events.
What
follows is the condensed version of how Daniel Davis has described the
competing demands which America faces, forced as it is to choose saving the
lives of its soldiers and improving life for its people, or choose to kill the
people of foreign countries under the guise of saving them; people that did
nothing to hurt America’s interests or its people. Here is that description:
“The
pandemic we are facing represents a great challenge to our country. We must use
our resources to support our domestic needs, and end forever-wars. It is time
to end the drains on our resources. With the coronavirus, we can no longer
afford burning money on military missions. The hit to our economy will not be
quickly repaired. Some want to continue pushing the 'maximum pressure' campaign
against Iran, inflaming tensions. This will put American servicemen and women
in Iraq and Syria at risk of their lives, and the potential to get us dragged
into a new war. The pandemic we face represents a great challenge. It will take
every ounce of energy and focus we have to navigate these troubled waters. We
must be wise using our resources to support our domestic needs, and end
fighting unnecessary forever-wars”.
We
may wish that Daniel Davis had called on the leaders of his country to end
fighting forever-wars for better reasons than those listed in his article, but
what happened has happened, and we cannot change the past. What we can do
however, is resolve that a situation like this will never happen again,
especially in view of the fact that there are people who push to continue the
same policy––this time with regard to Iran––a policy that has dragged America
into the hellhole where it finds itself today, and where it has pushed millions
of innocent people. But how can we implement that resolution?
Well,
America calls itself a democracy, but the trouble is that the exercise of
democracy has ceased to be a universal right in America. The way that things
are allowed to happen today, some people are permitted to exercise their
democratic rights to the fullest, whereas other people have their rights curtailed,
even denied entirely. Moreover, those who are free to publicly exercise their
right and get paid for it, are the ones who work behind the scenes and behind
the backs of their victims, to deny them their rights. These are the war hawks
who wear the neocon stripes and work incessantly to silence the voice of
reason.
That
condition has resulted in the leaders of the American government getting only
one side of the story and reacting favorably to those that tell it. This is why
no responsible American is currently in charge of the wars that their country
is fighting in forsaken places around the globe where it will never score a
victory.