"Who's Being Naive"

I was extremely surprised about the views that Tim Wise takes in he short article about the naivety of peoples views on war. Mainly because I disagreed with him on many of the points he made. For example, “Those of us who doubt the likely efficacy of such a campaign, and who question its fundamental morality are not only insufficiently patriotic but dangerously naïve” (Wise 193) People are taught in school to challenge and ask questions about certain behavior of the government, especially when it concerns the tax dollars off all the citizens who pay them. Also how does it make a person less patriotic if they don’t agree with a war the government has waged? Patriotism does not have to do with agreeing in everything the U.S. partakes in. Plus according to the popular vote, the majority of the population didn’t even vote for Bush who’s preemptive war Wise is talking about.

Another example is when he says, “To be realistic is to say ‘we tried peace and failed.’ To be naïve is to ask when, exactly did the U.S. try peace: in religion, or specifically in Afghanistan” (Wise 195). If he thinks we realistically “tried” peace he should relearn the meaning. How often has the U.S. been involved overseas in conflicts that weren’t ours and sold weapons to one side to indirectly fight an enemy? In fact, there isn’t much history in the U.S. record books that isn’t full of violence. If we were actually interested in trying peace, we wouldn’t have billions of dollars put in national defense annually or keep hordes of weapons, not only in our country, but dominate the lands of others with our military presence.