Anti-War

Kurt Vonnegut swore to the widow of his best war-time buddy that his Dresden novel (Slaughterhouse-Five) would be an anti-war book before she welcomed him into her home.

Vonnegut enlisted into the U.S. Army in early 1943, at the height of our involvement in World War II.  Whether he enlisted rather than waiting to be drafted is not clear.  As a 4th generation German American (he makes this absolutely clear on the title page of Slaughterhouse-Five), he may very well have been conflicted fighting Germany.  Whether he could have opted for the Asian theater of war is also not clear.

He published his anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, in 1969, 24 years after the central event (the Allied fire-bombing of Dresden) of the book.  It is not unusual for writers to take years (or decades) before they can write about traumatic events in their own lives (and to fictionalize it, too).

But what IS unclear above all else is: the reader is left not really understanding what the phrase “anti-war” means to the guy writing an anti-war novel.

Surely, you are kidding; it is self-evident what “anti-war” means.  For example, the United States of America is an anti-war nation, our people are “anti-war,” Americans hate war.

Not so fast!  Do we really hate war?   On December 7th, 1941, before we learned of the Japanese military bombing Pearl Harbor (a clear declaration of war on the U.S.), 85% of our citizens were “isolationist” (World War II had begun in Europe and 85% of us wanted nothing to do with it), maybe even pacifist.  The next day, after FDR woke us up with his "Day of Infamy" speech and declared war on the Empire of Japan, 85% of us were ready to go to war with Japan.  In a foolish war-time decision if ever there was one, Adolph Hitler declared war on America a few days later on December 11th (what took him so long?), and Congress declared war on the Axis powers the same day.  Were we an anti-war nation until we were attacked by the Japanese?  Were we still an anti-war nation after we declared war ourselves?

I would like to make clear that anti-war does NOT mean pacifist; different words mean different things.  Pacifists “turn the other cheek” when they are struck.  From our opening words, it should be clear that “anti-war” may imply that we will not provoke – we will not START – a war; but we WILL join the action if we are attacked, perhaps after diplomacy has failed to right the wrong done to us.  Under this definition, do we still believe that we are an anti-war nation, an anti-war society? 

I fear NOT. 

The Union did not join the War Between the States until the Confederacy attacked a Union fort.  The United States did not join World War I until we were attacked.  Same for World War II.  In June of 1950, communist North Korea attacked OUR South Korea.  One can make the case that WE were attacked, but one can also make the case that it was not OUR war to fight.  Our nation was not attacked by the North Vietnamese in 1955, we were not attacked by the island nation of Grenada in 1983, nor were we attacked by Iraq in what became known as Desert Storm. Iraq had not attacked us on “September 11th,” nor had Afghanistan.  Having our economic interests threatened is not the same as our nation being militarily attacked, especially when those economic interests are private interests.  We have had more than our share of provoking wars; our actions prove that we are NOT "anti-war."

And, our collective relationship with guns surely suggests that we are not anti-murder either.  But that is another (related) story for another time.