Is the U.S. Addicted to War?

I see an eerily familiar pattern developing in the international affairs of our nation. The United States is floundering, trying this and that, insisting that we are right, digging ourselves deeper and deeper into a hole without definite hope for a way out, vacillating between shame over our actions, and refusing to admit that we have a problem.

I know these behaviors intimately and recognize them for what they are: symptoms of addiction. We are in denial. We need a support group. The U.S. needs "Warmongers Anonymous".

Here is the quiz used to determine addiction by a well-known support group. Some of the questions have been modified to fit the case of a nation rather than a person. A response of "yes" to four or more indicates a problem:

1. Do you ever wage war alone?
2. Is it hard for you to imagine a life without war?
3. Do you find that your friends are determined by your war alliances?
4. Do you use war to avoid dealing with your problems?
5. Does war let you live in a privately defined world?
6. Have you ever failed to keep promises you made about cutting down or controlling your war mongering?
7. Has your war mongering caused financial problems?
8. When your defense armories are nearly empty, do you feel anxious or worried about how to get more weapons?
9. Do you plan your life around your defense strategies?
10. Have your citizens ever complained that your war mongering is damaging your relationship with them?

It is time to admit that our nation has lost control and to seek help. The most successful approach to solving problems of addiction known has been a 12-step program. Therefore, I propose the following as a solution to our nation's dysfunction:

- Our leaders need to admit that they are powerless over warmongering and that their policies have become unmanageable.

- They need to believe that a power greater than our government can restore them to sanity.

- They need to turn our nation over to a higher power and conduct a searching and fearless moral inventory.

- Once they have admitted to God, themselves, and another nation the exact nature of our wrongs, they need to be entirely ready for God to remove their defects and humbly ask him to remove their shortcomings.

- They need to make a list of those nations, groups, and people that they have harmed and make amends to them whenever possible.

- Then, our leaders need to continue to take inventory, promptly admit when they are wrong, and seek through prayer and meditation to improve our nation's conscious contact with God, as they understand him, praying only for knowledge of his will and the power to carry that out.

- Finally, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, our nation should try to carry this message to other dysfunctional nations, and to practice these principles in all their (domestic and foreign) affairs.

I believe that this is what our founding fathers had in mind when they founded our democracy as "one nation, under God".

What could our Americans hope for, were they to follow these principles? The following are just a few of the 12 step program promises:

1. We will know a new freedom and a new happiness.

2. America will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

3. Americans will comprehend the word serenity and know peace.

4. We will see how our experience can benefit other nations.

5. Americans will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellow humans.

6. Fear of people (terrorists) and economic insecurity will leave us.

What are we waiting for?