America’s Addiction To War – Real or Imagined?

“I don’t understand,” she said, “why don’t you just stop after two beers?”
A look of familiarity crossed his face and you could tell he’d been asked that question before. “Do you know that feeling that you get when you’ve had enough to drink?” he asked her.
“Yes, of course,” she replied.
He smiled at her thoughtfully and said, “Well I don’t.”

Many people find the suggestion that “America is addicted to war” to be clever and perhaps somewhat thought provoking. But is it accurate? Is it real? Or is it imagined? What does the suggestion that “America is addicted to war” mean to the average “normal” human being? Or can the average “normal” human being even begin to understand the insanity of addiction?
After 21 years of being clean and sober I find it virtually impossible to explain the disease of addiction to anyone who isn’t an addict. We look the same as you. We walk, talk, and bleed the same; so what makes us different? Why is it you go home after stopping for two beers and I lose my home because I stopped for two years? Why is it, when intelligent, capable, and healthy in all other respects, once an alcoholic puts any booze whatsoever into his system, the ball starts rolling and he will never get enough? When, in fact, did any addict ever get enough?
Celebrated spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle tells us that, “Fear, greed and the desire for power,” are the motivating forces behind war and that man’s need for more creates a “bottomless hole that can never be filled up.” Tolle also suggests that our plans fail, “… when people attempt to change external reality (think war) – create a new earth – without any prior change in their inner reality, their state of consciousness. They make plans without taking into account the blueprint for dysfunction that every human being carries within: the ego.”
The “bottomless hole” Tolle refers to is not only present in those who lead us into war. Addicts and alcoholics die every day attempting to fill the “emptiness” prevalent in their lives. Whether it drives us to drink or to war, our problem – our dysfunction, is rooted in the ego. This soul sickness may be obvious in the individual who selfishly and repeatedly spends the family’s rent money getting drunk, or it may be viewed as the insanity of the collective consciousness of an entire society who, in denial, looks the other way as their armies kill thousands of innocent civilians. Whether the act is domestic violence in the home, or a major war on an international battlefield, the problem resides in our ego. The big question is how do we, the people of this world, solve this problem?
As I wrote Peace Anonymous – The 12 Steps to Peace, and in particular Step Four which focuses on the history of American foreign policy, I began to develop an eerie feeling that I knew and understood the perpetrators of America’s wars on an intimate level. As I wrote the anger I had initially experienced began to dissipate and I started to see the leaders of America’s war machine as kindred spirits, similar to those old-timers who show up in church basements all over the world to attend 12 Step meetings. After years of attending these meetings I have heard thousands of personal stories from addicts and alcoholics and we all have much in common. It seems most of us, regardless of what we were actually addicted to, went to extremes in our efforts to fill the “bottomless hole” inside of us. Regardless of education or intelligence most of us had attempted to play God and control everything in our world in order to have our childish needs met. We were always right and always knew what was best for everyone. We were unable to see how our selfishness had alienated others and when they retaliated we refused to acknowledge and accept our part in the problem. Almost to a man the millions of people around the world involved in 12 Step recovery were in agreement when we spoke honestly of our ego-driven desire for power and our need for more of everything we thought we wanted. Is it a coincidence that the self-will, which seems such a consistent characteristic of America’s political and corporate leadership, is also a consistent factor in the lives of addicts and alcoholics? Isn’t this lust for power, this need for more, which is symptomatic of addiction, clearly evident in the history of US foreign policy?
Logical appeals from friends and family members begging addicts and alcoholics to stop drinking and drugging has been as effective as peace organizations telling corporate America to quit killing for profit. In fact, logic and intelligence may even be counter-productive. An old-timer in AA once told me, “I’ve never met anyone who was too stupid to figure this out, but I’ve met some who were too smart to get it.” The ego’s need to be superior, to intellectualize, to understand, only adds to the insanity.
What saved my sorry ass was to simply accept the problem WAS my thought process, my ego. I could see that the same kind of thinking which had caused the problem could not solve the problem. I was told that to make a beginning all I had to do was accept the fact that I was an alcoholic and for the first time in my life, I had to listen to others and do as they suggested. Today, 21 years later, I am still discovering the cunning, baffling, and powerful aspects of my addiction. So don’t feel bad if you can’t understand addiction, but you CAN accept the fact that the process governing US foreign policy does not work. You can accept the fact that America’s addiction to war is driving us to the edge of the cliff.
There is a great deal of discussion regarding the influence of corporate interests at the highest levels of government. In no other department has the impact of this corporate corruption been more devastating than in the area of foreign policy. The American tax payer gets the debt, but who gets the profit?
The children in Iraq and Afghanistan had no choice: But we do. It’s time to search our souls and let go of the madness. We can lead the world in a global recovery program for peace or we can continue the insanity, knowing full well that to continue will be the end. The disease of addiction will, as it so often does, ultimately kill the host. Isn’t it time for rehab?