Help Antiwar.com Expose the War Machine’s Abuses at Home and Abroad

Some people say that being anti-war is to be against “the troops” – the Americans who in the past were drafted to fight and today volunteer to serve. But that is a superficial criticism that distracts from what the criticism of U.S. wars really should be.

Many of us believe in a strong national defense. That requires a fully equipped and properly disposed military of men and women in uniform to defend the country from attack. The “anti” in “anti-war” is a healthy skepticism of the state abusing its power to wage wars of choice, typically in service of ideological and corporatist agendas that have nothing to do with safeguarding Americans. In fact, in many cases, Washington’s overseas interventions over the last century have reflected an imperialist urge that would have been abhorred by the American founders. These wars have blown back domestically to make our communities less safe and less free. Citizen soldiers in the form of our state National Guards were exploited to extend the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and are still being taken away from responsibilities at home to be sent to – and killed – in far flung active duty operations that most Americans know little about.

Today we hear about the deplorable conditions on U.S. Navy vessels in the Middle East. President Donald Trump’s decision to take the nation to war with Iran, without Constitutional approval, and to deploy ships to maintain an illegal blockade far beyond appropriate and safe measure for the men and women on them, is another indication of how Washington and its masters come before those who serve. Top Pentagon officials and the president himself have chosen to downplay the USS Abraham Lincoln scandal and engage in what seems to be coordinated attacks on the press sharing the sailors’ stories. This should raise alarms for everyone, not just the service members and their families. More than ever, we are convinced that Washington and its wars have nothing to do with us. Just see how dirty the powerful fight to protect their own interests.

But on a positive note, today’s rank and file, after 20 years of war, access to social media and more real time information – and more important, alternative, independent news coverage – are thinking more critically about the war policies that affect them and their families. Veterans are seeking out more data, they are writing about their experiences, and they are becoming more proactive in protecting each other, whether that be on health care, improving conditions on base, or pursuing reforms that challenge a military industrial complex that sends their peers into reckless adventures overseas, often unprepared and underserved. One of the biggest under-the-radar stories is that the military industrial complex puts more money into big weapons systems, including ships, that underperform and are even dangerous for our soldiers, Marines and airmen, than they do in outfitting and training its human resources. Why? Because it’s all about the industry, the contractors, Wall Street, and the E-Ring, not the people.

Antiwar.com has become one of the best places for all Americans – including our military and veterans – to get information about this racket. About the secretive military operations overseas, blowback on the homeland, the harm the government is putting our uniformed men and women in everyday, and how they are not taken care of when they get home. This is information that makes people mad, but can also spur awareness and action. Continuing to support Antiwar.com allows it to reach more readers, cultivate new writers, maybe even some who thought “anti-war” was not for them. The fact is that the Washington war machine’s abuses are far reaching. We need a forum that speaks for everyone and anyone who has had enough.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is Editorial Director of Responsible Statecraft and Senior Advisor at the Quincy Institute. She was a regular news writer and reporter for Antiwar.com from 2009 to 2014. She served for three years as Executive Editor of the The American Conservative magazine, where she had been reporting and publishing regular articles on national security, civil liberties, foreign policy, veterans, and Washington politics since 2007. From 2013 to 2017, Vlahos served as director of social media and online editor at WTOP News in Washington, D.C. She also spent 15 years as an online political reporter for Fox News at the channel’s Washington D.C. bureau, as well as Washington correspondent for Homeland Security Today magazine.