Persuasive Speech

The “Forever” War

Our country was built upon the foundation of violence. The Revolutionary War gave us our freedom. The Civil War gave us our rights. World War II roped us into the arms race, and the Cold War brought us McCarthyism. These wars have shaped America into what it is today: a strong, independent nation built on the ideals of a democratic society. But they are also an indication of our audacity– our affinity for brute force and bloodshed over formulating a diplomatic approach. While violence has worked to our favor in the past, the times of declaring war in the name of any quandary are over. The battles of our past were all fought with a clear enemy in sight. We faced up against Britain to gain our freedom and the Confederates for our rights. However, we are now faced with a multitude of ambiguous enemies that cannot be defeated by force. We have thrust ourselves into battle by declaring the “War on Drugs” and “War on Terror.” The reasons behind drug use and terrorist are intangible concepts, yet we as a country keep trying to eradicate the physical symptoms that leak out of these metaphysical diseases. Because of this, the underlying problems of rising drug culture and radical ideology are left intact, leaving us in a state of perpetual war.

In 1971, drug culture was ubiquitous in America. The most common drug of the time was the hallucinogen LSD, more commonly known to us as “acid.” The amount of people using this drug skyrocketed to new heights, forcing President Nixon to announce a full-fledged war on drugs. According to Emily Dufton, a journalist at The Atlantic, “Nixon launched a drug war that framed drug users not as alienated youths whose addiction was caused by… a fundamentally inequitable society, but as criminals attacking the moral fiber of the nation, people who deserved only incarceration and punishment” (Dufton). As stated in this quote, most drug problems arose from societal pressures, whether it was from one’s peers or the exhilaration of adding color to one’s otherwise routine daily lifestyle (“A Brief History”). However, instead of addressing this underlying cause of drug culture, Nixon went down the physical route and called for mass incarceration and increased search and seizure (Regino). While it can be argued that Nixon’s efforts were a success due to the drop in LSD usage, drug culture remained intact. We are currently facing the highest rates of death by drug overdose due to the increased usage of opioids, and we are still using the same physical approach of increased arrests and regulations to the metaphysical war on drugs that has previously been attempted and thought to be a “success” (Regino). Because of this pattern of failing to acknowledge the underlying problem of drug culture, we find ourselves reliving the same moments in history, stuck in a state of perpetual war.

In addition to the war on drugs, we have also managed to get ourselves entangles in the never-ending war on terror. After 9/11, the Bush administration launched this campaign with the idea to take down all forms of terrorism worldwide. This was evident when he said, “‘Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda… but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated’” (Amadeo). The “War on Terror” campaign started the Afghanistan war, which is still going on today. We invaded Afghanistan to take out al-Qaeda, but even when they left, we stayed, ready to inflict war on terror. We are still there today, stuck at an impasse, as we are incessantly trying to battle the ideology of the Taliban regime with firepower (Wescott). Bush’s goal was to rid the world of terrorists so that we could live in a state of fulfilled justice and peace (Bush). Because of the appeal of a world without terror, many people were quick to jump on board with this ideal and believe in its power. While terrorism is an evil that must be diminished, it is not a tangible enemy but rather a concept that must be removed from the minds of the extremists who attempt to justify their actions through their beliefs. Therefore, it is not worthwhile to keep up this war, draining our resources when we could be coming up with a more permanent solution that takes the idea of terrorism off the grid completely.

The state of perpetual war we are left in is comparable to the society created by George Orwell in his novel, 1984. The totalitarian country of Oceania is constantly in a state of war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. Since the citizens have no knowledge about these two shrouded countries other than the propaganda fed into their heads by the party, the enemy to them is ambiguous and constantly changing. The party used this ambiguity to conceal the fact that they were the real enemy, and to give their citizens a reason to unite with the party as one to fight back (Orwell). The idea that the enemy is purposely made to seem ambiguous can be translated back to the respective wars on drugs and terror. In fact, it can be argued that when it comes to these two wars, there is a clear enemy that we would never admit to the public with the fear of being branded a racist. Before the war on drugs, the first anti-opium laws were directed at Chinese immigrants while the first anti-cocaine laws were directed at black men. The drugs commonly used by a white majority were kept legal. An example of this was marijuana, which remained legal until it became more populous amongst the Mexican immigrants that were pouring into the country (“A Brief History”). This was the unofficial start to the war on drugs. The so called “ambiguity” of the war on terror is an attempt to conceal the fact that we are really waging war on Muslims (Sides). While the movements passed that started the “War on Drugs” and “War on Terror” advertised more desirable reasons for these campaigns, a clear enemy can be argued to have surfaced out of America’s most fatal flaw: racism (Sides).

The state of perpetual war we find ourselves in is a direct result of the lack of acknowledging we are no longer in a physical war but a metaphysical one. When our enemy resides deeply rooted in a society, no amount of guns or bombs can destroy it. Instead, we need to go straight to the source and battle the conceptual wars with a change of concepts that lead to a drug and terror free reality.

Works Cited

“A Brief History of the Drug War.” Drug Policy Alliance, Drug Policy Alliance,

www.drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war.

Amadeo, Kimberly. “War on Terror: Facts, Costs, and Timeline.” The Balance, 9 Oct. 2017,

www.thebalance.com/war-on-terror-facts-costs-timeline-3306300.

Bush, George W. “Text of George Bush’s Speech.” The Guardian, 21 Sept. 2001,

www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/21/september11.usa13.

Dufton, Emily. “The War on Drugs: How President Nixon Tied Addiction to Crime.” The

Atlantic, 26 Mar. 2012,

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/the-war-on-drugs-how-president-nixon-tied-addiction-to-crime/254319/.

Orwell, George. 1984. Signet Classic, 1950.

Regino, Alec. “The Problem With Wars on Drugs, From Nixon to Duterte.” The Diplomat, 31

Jan. 2017,

https://thediplomat.com/2017/01/the-problem-with-wars-on-drugs-from-nixon-to-duterte/

Sides, John, and Kimberly Gross. “Stereotypes of Muslims and Support for the War on Terror.”

The Journal of Politics, vol. 75, no. 3, 29 May 2013, pp. 583–598.,

www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1017/s0022381613000388.pdf.

Westcott, Ben. “Afghanistan: 16 Years, Thousands Dead, and No Clear End in Sight.” CNN, 31 Oct. 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/08/21/asia/afghanistan-war-explainer/index.html.

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