Americas Wars on People

So the war on crime is a war on people.
The war on drugs is a war on people.
And the war on terror is a war on people.

This is an easy argument to understand. It is literally impossible to fight a war on a noun like crime or drugs or terrorism. And it is literally impossible to fight a war on a verb like committing crime, using drugs, and carrying out terrorist attacks.

Each of these wars is a war on real people.

Two of these so-called wars – the war on crime and the war on drugs – are mostly wars on American people. These are the wars that have most harmed American people. Additionally, these wars are mostly being waged against some American people – young, urban black and brown people. To many, this makes these wars worse.

For example, because of the wars on crime and drugs, more than 60% of all our nation’s prison inmates are racial and ethnic minorities. Roughly 3% of all African American males are now in prison, versus 1.3% of Hispanic males and only 0.5% of Caucasian males. And the odds that an African America male in his twenties will be incarcerated are now 1 in 8 on any given day! Because of the wars on crime and drugs, there are more black men in prison than there are in college!

If you support the war on crime, you support a war on Americans.
If you support the war on drugs, you support a war on Americans.

And you support policies that are being used – intentionally or unintentionally – to harm our least advantaged citizens, the poor and people of color.

As for the war on terror, it too is being used to harm American citizens. Just look at the USA PATRIOT Act and President Bush’s executive order creating a secret spying program through the National Security Agency that we now know is being used to spy on American citizens. Just consider President Bush’s executive order allowing American citizens to be declared “enemy combatants” and detained indefinitely without criminal charges and with no due process rights. The war on terror has severely eroded the freedoms that supposedly make us Americans.

So, like with our other wars, if you support the war on terror, you also support a war on Americans.

The good news is that there is a better way to reduce crime, drug use, and terrorism without resorting to war. And you can bet that it does not involve a “fight.” Instead, effective efforts to reduce crime, drug use and terrorism involve lifting people out of the conditions that produce these phenomena and preventing the conditions that give rise to them in the first place.

Such efforts are not politically popular, nor do they provide any immediate returns on our investments. But the research is clear that prevention is far more effective than reacting to problems that already exist by waging wars. So, let’s halt these wars and get serious once and for all about reducing the problems of crime, drug abuse and terrorism.