2. Responsibility

I once had the company of an elderly retired professor from California, who came to my monthly discussion party several times around 2006.  He sometimes quickly described himself as "Iranian," (he didn't look like most Iranians I knew, but always perfectly dressed and his home was immaculate...like the others).  When you got to know him better, he'd explain he was Bakhtiari, one of the nomadic "Grass" people, and I once showed his movie "Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life."

The ongoing War in Iraq was universally condemned by my entirely Democratic-President-voting (though, including Libertarians and Republicans) circle of interlocutors.  We universally blamed George W. Bush for starting and continuing this terrible, illegal, and entirely unjustifiable war.  One friend says George W started the war "because my Daddy."

But the elderly professor was having none of it.  "You are responsible for the War in Iraq."  He said to me.  "The war is being waged by your country, the USA.  Therefore, You are responsible for it."

Feeling angered, I replied, "But I didn't vote for George W. Bush.  Prior to the war in Iraq, I marched in two massive Antiwar rallies.  I worked against it, how can you say I'm responsible?"

"Because it's your country," he replied.

I think there is a kernel of truth in what each of us was saying.

I tend to think of these things in terms of cause and effect, quantitatively if possible.  So in fact a lot of things "contribute" to something happening, in a greater or lesser degree.  Perhaps some things work against something happening, but it happens anyway because of other prevailing forces.

So, in my calculus, I might be innocent of the war in Iraq if I did as many things against it as I did for it, such as being a working citizen.

It's pretty clear to me, despite my argument above, that probably I did more to support the war the war in Iraq by being a citizen than I did against it by protesting (and voting against the most pro war candidates, or so I thought, though that became unclear later under Obama, who ramped up the wars and did more bombing than anyone).

I could have and should have done more against the war.  OTOH, it was probably going to happen anyway.

But what my dear Bakhtiari professor was trying to tell me, I think was something a bit different.  The government of the USA operates in my name, as a citizen of that country, I axiomatically bear responsibility for it, and not for the governments of other sovereign countries.  If my government is wrong, it is my "responsibility" to fix it, a special responsibility shared by me and other citizens.

Either way, I bear some if not more than a little responsibility for the mass violence and deaths of the War in Iraq.  Then and today I am responsible for the destruction and provocations of both US and US proxy forces and US client states as well.  This is US Imperialism, the most violent and deadly force in the history of the last 80 years.

Therefore, it is the "mote in my eye" that I must remove before I can honestly help other countries with the "specs" in their eyes, as I described in the previous essay, Ethics.