Defending Democracy: When Wars Come Home

 

BY MATTHEW HOH

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

The elected majorities of both political parties argue Israel’s genocide of Palestinians must be supported because Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. $175 billion, in just 2 1/2 years, has been appropriated for war in Ukraine to defend democracy. The GOP and the Democrats have brought about a needless and reckless cold war with China, again, because of democracy.

The wars I took part in, Afghanistan and Iraq, were waged by the US under banners of freedom and democracy. The same with Libya and Syria. Millions were killed, wounded and made homeless. The hot wars of Cold War I that killed tens of millions were justified by the need to make the world safe for democracy.

For generations, US political and military leaders, amplified constantly by enthusiastic media, have asserted to the American people that the slaughter of millions around the world has been necessary to protect democracy from what are almost always described as historically dangerous forces.

A massive campaign, including the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars, has been spent over nearly a decade on a narrative that Donald Trump* is an existential threat to our democracy. Despite statements of shock and declarations that this is not the American way across American media, the only surprise should be that it was only this past weekend that someone acted on the messaging and attempted an assassination.

There is no boundary, line or demarcation that prevents that same calling of young men and women to kill and be killed abroad from being heard and obeyed domestically. Thomas Matthew Crooks may have believed he was the hero being called upon, acting out a fantasy of being a modern Knights Templar, a 21st century Son of Liberty, armed against enemies foreign and domestic, and willing to sacrifice blood for democracy.

Wars overseas will come home.

This first appeared on Matthew Hoh’s Substack page.

Matthew Hoh is a member of the advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans For Peace and World Beyond War. In 2009 he resigned his position with the State Department in Afghanistan in protest of the escalation of the Afghan War by the Obama Administration. He previously had been in Iraq with a State Department team and with the U.S. Marines. He is a Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy.               

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/17/defending-democracy-when-wars-come-home/