A Just War?

BY STEVE CLEMENS

Howard Zinn's lecture at Macalester College on April 7 asked the question, "Is a just war possible?" To answer this question, he said it might be best to look at the three wars in American history which are widely considered to be "just." If you are familiar with Zinn's "A People's History of the United States," a landmark book for reading history from the perspective of those on the lower rungs of the ladder of success and power, much of what he shared about the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and World War II was not new information. What was powerful for me was how he linked all three of these wars as "Holy Wars" within the dominant American mindset.

Throughout his hour plus talk, this historian asked rhetorically of his student audience: I bet you didn't hear this story in your history classes in school, did you? Beginning with the war with England for American independence and following in chronological order the War Between the States and the war against the fascism in Germany and Japan, Zinn described the commonly assumed causes, listed some of the costs involved, and then commented on some of the results of these wars which are often seen as "just." Even though there were questionable actions taken during these wars, for most people their just causes remain intact. But Zinn stressed the distinction between a just cause and a just war. War is not the best remedy for a just cause—and he made his case convincingly.

The Revolutionary War is often perceived as an "easy war." There were "only" 25,000 soldiers killed on the side of the rebellious colonies. But, Zinn informed us, with a population of only about 3 million, the mortality rate was equal to 2.5 million causalities in the U.S. today—no small figure. That is certainly part of the cost. But weren't the results—independence from the empire of England—worth it? It depends on from whose perspective. One-fifth of the colonial population in 1776 was made up of black slaves. Did their status change with independence? No, slavery not only remained, it was institutionalized in the Constitution! George Washington didn't want blacks serving in his revolutionary army. I'm sure he realized the danger of training and arming folk who might not want to return to servitude afterward.

Did "Indians" benefit from the war for independence? The revolution was disastrous for them, Zinn contends. Prior to the war, the British Proclam-ation of 1763 prohibited whites from living west of the Appalachians, thus ceding the territory to Native Americans. It was "Indian Territory." After the war, there were no limits to where whites would seek to possess the land and expel the previous occupants.

Women? The Declaration of Independence declared "all men are created equal." There was no women suffrage. Women just weren't considered in the calculus of the day.

The "working poor"? Zinn called us to look at the Revolution in terms of class. There was conscription for the Revolutionary army—but the rich could buy their way out. The privates in the army were treated like dirt. Many had no shoes; they often weren't paid—while the officers were well clothed and well fed. Did we ever learn about the numerous mutinies during the Revol-utionary War? Washington had the leaders of the mutiny in New Jersey executed by their own fellow mutineers. The Constitution was a class document that benefited the wealthy class.

The war dead from the Civil War battles was over 600,000—or equal today to 5-6 million killed. Did you learn about the draft riots in the North in your school lessons? What about the violence targeted at blacks in the North? In the South, class divisions were pronounced. Were you taught that slaveholders were a minority of the whites and if you owned 20 or more slaves you were exempted from the Confederate military draft? Plantation owners grew cotton for a cash crop rather than growing food and there were riots led by the wives of white soldiers in the South who were starving.

Sure, at the end of the Civil War, blacks were "free"—but how "free" were they? As the white power structure quickly repressed the radical reconstruction, Jim Crow replaced the unfulfilled promise of "40 acres and a mule." Instead of being slaves, many blacks were forced economically to work as sharecroppers or tenant farmers-always in debt to the wealthier whites. Was this why the war was fought? Vagrancy and other Jim Crow laws led to the arrest of many black men who were then jailed, sent to prisons, and then "rented out" to white landowners as part of the chain gangs. Did the Civil War "free the slaves" or primarily tweak the nature of the oppression?

World War II is often referred to as "The Good War." WWII left 50 million dead. Yes, Hitler committed atrocities-but so did we. We adopted a strategy of bombing enemy cities in an attempt to "destroy morale." Nearly 600,000 German civilians were killed in the bombing of cities like Hamburg, Frankfort and Dresden. In one night, 100,000 Japanese civilians were incinerated in the firebombing of Tokyo. Zinn talked about reading reports written by John Hersey shortly after Hiroshima was nuked.

These are the wars that few Americans are willing to criticize publicly because they are considered "just wars."