Wars Abroad Lead to Suppression at Home
Wars Abroad Lead to Suppression at Home
Supporters of the assault on Iran were quick to smear critics as traitors.
President George Washington’s often-read but rarely heeded Farewell Address includes a passage that has remained perennially relevant in American life. Reflecting on the domestic costs of entangling alliances, Washington warned
Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second [reinforce] the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests.
Washington’s warning proved prophetic in the mid-20th Century as the United States shirked its traditional nonaligned foreign policy, and supporters of overseas crusades have consistently used these campaigns abroad to manufacture enemies at home. This conflation of foreign enemies with their alleged American supporters has come at a high cost to liberty and civility, essential components for a republic of self-governing individuals.
This conflation is occurring again today, as supporters of President Donald Trump’s war on Iran have taken to accusing opponents of siding with the enemy. Setting the tone for this new wave of slander, Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham waved away substantive concerns about the war and declared, “The real conflict here is between those who believe America is good and those who believe fundamentally that it is corrupt and evil.”
Ingraham, of course, is not alone. In the months leading up to the war, another Fox News host, Mark Levin, used his platform to viciously condemn noninterventionists, comparing them to enemy sympathizers and modern-day Nazis. Finally, even less incendiary supporters of the war have set up a false binary where a preference for caution is tantamount to aiding America’s enemies. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), in a complete abdication of his Constitutional duties, voiced opposition to an upcoming War Powers Resolution vote, saying, “It plays right into the hands of the enemy.” Johnson’s intervention worked, and last week Congress failed to reassert its authority to declare war.
Given the fraught history of accusations that war skeptics aid the enemy—and the ramifications of such accusations on domestic life—it would behoove Americans to be on guard against the presence and persistence of this phenomenon.
Such false binaries and baseless accusations have a long and shameful history within the United States, one that has shaped policy and led to the suppression of dissent. During the nadir of modern American civil rights that accompanied World War I, the specter of enemies within led to egregious legal curtailments of basic liberties and inspired waves of vigilante violence. Before American entry into World War II, interventionists cultivated an environment of fear and paranoia that buttressed illegal wiretapping and domestic espionage against Americans whose only crime was wanting to keep out of the war.
Even when such accusations and slander do not manifest in civil rights violations by the government, they nevertheless artificially circumscribe public opinion on foreign policy to the detriment of American society. As the U.S. entered World War II after Pearl Harbor, a wave of prominent newspapers throughout the country fired noninterventionist writers and editors, thereby constricting the reach of formerly mainstream opinions on war and peace.
Throughout the Cold War, the fear of communism and similar false binaries greased the skids for the formation of a permanent warfare state. During Vietnam, supporters of the war used the spectacle of a largely left-wing anti-war movement to negatively polarize grassroots conservatives into supporting it. And throughout the Global War on Terror, the logic of “you’re either with us or against us” permeated American politics. Washington’s acquisition of security dependents throughout the Cold War has resulted in an outdated alliance structure depicted as a league of democracies who fight against autocracies—more binary thinking that corrodes public discourse.
We do not know how the current war will end. We do not know whether the slander against war critics will manifest in violations of civil rights as it has in the past, although, given President Trump’s recent track record, there is ample reason for alarm. Regardless of how things shake out, if you oppose this war, do not be intimidated by this slander. If you are one of those Americans who are unsure what to make of the war, do not allow this slander to sway your mind.
Finally, if you support this intervention, do not forget the unseen costs that come with overheated pro-war rhetoric. Our republic cannot survive if every foreign adventure becomes a domestic purge.
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