Are Americans war-weary?
- By Zhao Jinglun
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E-mail China.org.cn, April 21, 2014
Even the neocon chief William Kristol answered: "Sure" to the question "Are Americans today war-weary?" But he insisted that Americans are not unusually war-weary. And he had high praise for a woman named Heidi Szrom of Valpareiso, Indiana, who called "war-weary" a "shopworn phrase" and attacked U.S. defense cuts. He also praised Ronald Reagan for "winning" the Cold War, and declared "A war-weary public can be awakened and rallied." (See Weekly Standard, March 24, 2014)
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Striking an imbalance [By Gou Ben/China.org.cn] |
But writing in the Washington Post, David Ignatius quoted some House of Representatives who knew what the public was thinking: "I can't adequately describe how unwilling the American people are to get involved in another war in the Middle East." And remarked another: "We are not just war-weary, we are war-wary." (WP, March 24, 2013)
According to a December 2013 Pew poll, 52 percent of Americans believe "the U.S. should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own." Only 38 percent disagree.
Asked if the United States should think less in "international terms but concentrate more on our national problems," Americans agree by 60-16, or a ratio of 5-to-1. That sentiment manifested itself in the summer against U.S. intervention in Syria. That was one reason why Obama did not order cruise missile attacks on Damascus. Another consideration, as Seymour Hersh suggested, the British intelligence informed Washington, it was probably not Bashar al-Assad, but the al-Nusra Front backed by Turkey that carried out the sarin attack in Ghouta.
America fought so many wars, and with the exception of the two World Wars, few had made the country safer. And the Afghan and Iraq wars have been strategic disasters. One wonders why war-weariness came so late. Ever since the end of World War II, Americans have more or less supported their leaders' role as the world's judge, jury and policemen as long as the personal cost was modest. With the abolition of the draft, America now has an all volunteer military, only a tiny fraction of the population, and disproportionately minorities and people from lower income families, bear the brunt of the fighting and casualties.
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