“It is not among the least of the calamities of a long continued war, that it unhinges the mind from those nice sensations which at other times appear so amiable. The continued spectacle of woe, blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight, moral obligations of society weakened, till the custom of acting by necessity, becomes an apology where it is truly a crime.”

Leaving the battlefield is sometimes the only way to stop losing the war.

Another day, another month, another year, and soon the cost of the continued war takes a toll greater than the sum of any body count, itself a morbid measure of the tragedy.

Thomas Paine’s fear in The Crisis – as it should be ours now – was that the full consequences of a war protracted is fully realized when unrelenting violence slowly kills the spirit of a nation. And then, yet again, war becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy; a murky, deadly fog through which few can penetrate. All is lost when the purpose of the war becomes the war itself.

thomas paine the crisis war war in iraq

“O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principals. If the bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all the difference between wilful attack and unavoidable defence. Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make a political hobbyhorse of your religion, convince the world thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, for they likewise bear ARMS.”

War is not a moral act, even if justified by defensive necessity. When not of necessity but ideology that war is engaged, it instantly becomes harder to win; and even harder to justify when the ideology is based on falsehood, executed with an incompetent disregard for nothing but the best possible outcome, and expressed to the world through hubris and arrogance.

Justifications thus wear thin, and enemies are provided justifications of their own.

And then becomes the reality of an intractable war that nobody wins.

thomas paine foreign policy war war in iraq

“The weaker any cord is the less will it bear to be stretched, and the worse is the policy to stretch it, unless it is intended to break it.”

Is there cause for concern when regular troops, reservists, and National Guard are asked to return for a second and third tour of duty; When there is talk of “lowered standards” and “moral waivers” in regard to acceptance into the military; When military commanders speak of their forces being “stretched to the breaking point”; When wounded veterans are subjected to poor conditions and substandard treatment.

Are we stretching the cord to the breaking point? And when it breaks, what then? What happens to a foreign policy that depends so heavily on military solutions?

thomas paine rights of man foreign policy military

“For that which is a disgrace to human nature, throws something of a shade over all the human character, and each individual feels his share of the wound that is given to the whole.”

No matter how far removed we may feel, either through distance or time, from the raging and rampant genocidal lunacy that haunts human history, we all suffer. The killing and violence in Darfur is but one more example of the ravages of fear and hate on the human soul, and inflicts one more wound into our shared character as a species on this earth.

thomas paine darfur

“There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once. Time and reason must cooperate with each other to the final establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be first convinced have not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction operates more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy.”

In Thomas Paine’s time, people did not all agree in one moment that a war of independence from Great Britain was prudent or wise. After the war was won, bitterness ensued between the Federalists and Republicans on what exact form our new government should take.

Throughout history, principles, ideas, ways of life that today we take for granted or that seem natural did not appear in the aggregate human psyche in one flash of inspired change. Some “saw the light” and many others weren’t so sure that the light wasn’t blinding to what was right.

Today has its issues which divide people on one side of belief or another. As Thomas Paine said long ago, time and reason will establish these issues as valid or not. Is modern society exacerbating a warming climate, is preemptive warfare sound foreign policy, what is the right balance between personal liberty and government intrusion on that liberty to protect the whole?

These are just some of the questions we face today that engenders bitter debate. Nobody wins when people engage in a contest of personal destruction. A right principle, put forth by a sound and respectful argument, will carry the day. All too often from the lowest echelon of society straight up to the pinnacle of power, we see the exact opposite, and then nothing is served but division, suspicion, and bitterness.

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