What War Looks Like

Background Reading for Teachers and High School Students PDF. By Howard Zinn. 4 pages.
An essay by Howard Zinn on the impact of war.

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In all the solemn statements by self-important politicians and newspaper columnists about a coming war against Iraq, and even in the troubled comments by some who are opposed to the war, there is something missing. The talk is about strategy and tactics, geopolitics and personalities. It is about air war and ground war, weapons of mass destruction, arms inspections, alliances, oil, and “regime change.”

What is missing is what an American war on Iraq will do to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of ordinary human beings who are not concerned with geopolitics and military strategy, and who just want their children to live, to grow up. They are not concerned with “national security” but with personal security, with food and shelter and medical care and peace.

Published by Rethinking Schools.

Comments

  • War, fought conventionally, is a tragic affair. However, conflicts fought using "peace armies" would be less costly financially and in lives lost. Gandhi proposed such armies and small scale examples have been done in UN peacekeeping forces, Nonviolent Peace Force, Christian Peacekeeping Teams, and Witness for Peace. Details of such armies can be read about in Gene Keyes' essay "Force Without Firepower". (www.wholeearth.com/Force Without Firepower) I urge all readers of the Zinn Education Project to read this hopeful work and use its ideas whenever they can. Randy Converse

    - conversekrtm

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