War: What Is It Good For?

And now for some good news: there are fewer wars than there used to be (and they are becoming less deadly), actual casualties from terrorist acts are minimal, and terrorism does not warrant current government-hyped levels of concern among the public.

A new report, War and Peace in the 21st Century by the Human Security Centre in Vancouver, suggests the end of the Cold War has brought more benefits than are commonly acknowledged:

The number of armed conflicts has declined by more than 40 per cent since the early 1990s, while casualties have declined dramatically.

The average battle deaths per conflict per year dropped from 38,000 in 1950 to 600 in 2002.

The most severe conflicts - those with more than 1000 casualties a year - declined by 80 per cent during the 1990s.

Last year there were 25 armed secessionist conflicts, the lowest number since 1976.

The value of the arms trade fell by a third between 1990 and 2003, and the number of refugees fell by 30 per cent between 1993 and 2003.

Take this information with a pinch of salt. We still have Cold War ideologues closely linked to the arms trade with their fingers on the nuclear button. Another 70 Iraqis were killed in a US airstrike overnight... Our governments are still sowing the seeds for more violence and hatred in the future.

Many Americans in particular seem to be enjoying the spectacle of war more that ever before, and America is more than ever a warlike nation:

... at the end of the Cold War, Americans said yes to military power. The scepticism about arms and armies that informed the original Wilsonian vision, indeed, that pervaded the American experiment from its founding, vanished. Political leaders, liberals and conservatives alike, became enamoured with military might.

The ensuing affair had, and continues to have, a heedless, Gatsby-like aspect, a passion pursued in utter disregard of any consequences that might ensue.

Today AmericaBlog tries turning the tables on the twisted logic of our current "war":

If a senior White House staffer had intentionally outed an American spy during World War II, he'd have been shot.

We're at war, George Bush keeps reminding us. We cannot continue with business as usual. A pre-9/11 mentality is deadly. Putting the lives of our troops at risk is treason.

Then why is the White House and the Republican party engaged in a concerted campaign to make treason acceptable during a time of war?