Letter to the Late Dwight D. Eisenhower
President Eisenhower:
Regarding your fantastic quote about peace, I’m afraid I have some news. Things have changed here, but not for the better. The concept of nonstop war is now fully taken for granted; for most Americans, it’s no longer even noticed. There are 10 major wars, 25 minor wars, and 19 “skirmishes and clashes” in progress as I write this letter to you.
Yes, most people want peace, but at this point, we’re so ill-informed and so effectively manipulated that we’ll believe anything, and agree to go to war over it in a heartbeat.
You warned of the ultimate consequence of the military-industrial complex, but with so much money at stake, the will of the people at that time was ultimately discarded. Now there’s twice as much cash on the table, the will of the people means exactly nothing.
You did what you could, but right this minute it appears it wasn’t enough.
Having said that, people of peace will never give up, and your words stand as a wonderful inspiration. Thank you for your courage.
Craig,
You seem to be growing more and more nostalgic for a misremebered grey world of the ’50’s. A sort of ‘Pleasentville” that never existed.
The nature of warfare and conflict has changed and evolved since the 1950’s. Television, and now even more intimate media, has brought battlefield events into everyone’s living room forever changing the nature of conflict.
Even the concept of what constitutes a ‘major’ war is no longer relevant. The UN defines a “Major” war as 10,000 deaths. Once this may have been a “major war” , but in today’s populations 10,000 deaths in a remote unimportant nation, becomes just another minor dispute.
The human species is by nature aggressive and competitive.
America has always been an aggressive nation, but only from self-interest.
Carl von Clausewitz made some very pertinent observations on conflict, the most famous being;
” War is merely the continuation of politics by other means “.
Even more relevant,”Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come from kindness are the very worst”.
“The will of the people” is a much misused phrase. Indeed. it’s merely a justification for people who represent only a small faction of “the people”.
The Military-Industrial complex is simply a response to the industrialization of war. It doesn’t in itself conduct or even promote conflict. It exists because it’s an extension of the human psyche.
The fantasy of the peoples of the world sitting around becoming vegans and singing “Kumbaya” is exactly that, a fantasy! If that occurred our species would perish.
The only way in which the peoples of the earth could unite, would be it we were invaded by aliens.(Even then, there would be collaborators).