You Can't Make Mistakes.

“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will
never be able to repay you.” – John Wooden, sports coach (1910- )

I don’t generally like to use out-of-context quotes, but this popped up this morning and it resonated for me. It is terribly true.

I don’t mean to say that this is what I do, or how I live my life. I imagine that some of the things that I do help people, and that some of those people are not going to be capable of paying me back. I mostly do things to help myself, but what I have found is that the things that help me really end up helping other people as well.

This re-conception of altruistic behavior could really change the way that we interact if it were adopted my more people, and organizations/governments, for that matter. Not to beat a dead pony, but let take the war(s) in which my nation is currently embroiled. The original intent of these wars was to help our own citzens to feel better about something terrible that happened to us.

The stated intent was to help the people of Afghanistan by ridding them of al-Qa‘ida and to help the people of Iraq by ridding them of Saddam Hussein. Had the best interests of the United States and the citizenry thereof been actually kept in mind, diplomacy would have been employed, as well as military force, and strong leaders would have been sought by the citizens of these countries—as well as by the leaders of the United States. Rather, my leaders chose—several times—leaders who agreed with the policy of the United States regarding the redistribution of power and wealth in these countries. These men inevitably noticed that the continued military presence in their nations was not conducive to a peaceful resolution of the situation, but would only foster ill will, and breed discontent with what was seen, by Iraqis at least, as an “occupation.”

This view of an American presence in Afghanistan and Iraq as occupation comes from a deeply ingrained negative sentiment in these places about colonial oppression and occupation. Iraq—or, more aptly, the region currently called Iraq—has been colonized time and again throughout history. Afghanistan the same. Americans can no longer understand these feelings about colonial rule because it has been hundreds of years since we felt the boot-heel of colonial English rule. For these nations, on the other hand, it has been but a few years since they have gained independence from colonial rule. Colonial oppression often begins as a mere presence. Then, that presence is solidified into an occupation, and then a governor is put in place who answers to a government in some distant land. Rinse and repeat throughout human history.

Perhaps then, this is a problem of having short memory. Perhaps citizens of the United States have completely forgotten their own colonial oppression. Perhaps the citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq hold misperceptions about the military behemoth that currently looms in their country. All that aside, taking action that is in the best interests of the United States—i.e. – removing, or at the very least planning to remove, the military presence from Iraq and Afghanistan—will eventually help the people of those nations as well. The situation in those countries will perhaps be rough for a while, but it is rough now. If there is no American military presence, however, the groups that fight in protest of the American military presence have nothing to fight for. They will quickly be weeded out.

This move would be in the best interests of the United States because there would no longer be the huge financial burden of maintaining a military presence in another country looming over our economy. Americans who do not believe or understand that state budget crises, less federal funding for social services/college tuition, and poor economic growth are not the effect of routing funds to bloated defense budgets are fooling themselves. The money that we spend maintaining a standing military presence in another country has to come from somewhere. In the end, it comes from us: not just in the form of taxes, but in the form of giving up things that we would otherwise like to have. In the past, during war-time, American citizens rallied and rationed. Now we are rationing our children’s futures, our own economic stability, and the resources of our own cities, towns, and villages so that a war may be fought which currently has done nothing for us.

We may want to re-think the original reasons for our march to war, and the reasons that we tell ourselves today so that we can sleep at night.