May 2004, Volume 11 Nr. 11, Issue 132
  
War Anonymous.  
Recognizing and Going Beyond Addiction

Jozef Hand-Boniakowski

Billions of people worldwide are affected by humanity's violence and their country's warmaking policies.  The following questions are designed to help you come to the conclusion that your country has a problem with an addiction to war.  

1. Do you worry about how much and how often your country goes to war?

2. Do you, your family or any member have money problems because of your country's warmaking?

3. Does your country tell lies to cover up the horrors of war and the reasons for going to war?

4. Do you feel that if your country cared about you as a citizen it would stop sending your children to war for corporate profit and greed?

5. Does your country create a perpetual enemy of one kind or another?  

6. Do your country’s war making policies frequently get you upset?  
   

7. Does your country's war making make meal-time an unpleasant experience?

8. Does your country's warmaking compel you to threaten others such as, “If you don’t support the war, then get out of the country" or "Love it or leave it?".

9. Does your country encourage you to secretly spy on those who don’t support war?

10. Do you fear the country will go to war against you if you do not support your country's war?

11. Have you been hurt or embarrassed by your country’s war making behavior?

12. Has your country spoiled holidays and gatherings because of its war making?

13. Has your country created the fear that your children may be drafted and sent to yet another war?

14. Does your country encourage you to find new enemies in other countries and encourage you to accept going to war with them?

15. Does your country ask you to willingly and without question offer up your children to the commander-in-chief for making perpetual war?

16. Does your country's warmaking compel you to refuse social invitations out of fear of meeting people who may not agree?

17. Does your country consider you a failure because you cannot or do not participate in warmaking? 

18. Does your country project that if it stopped making war your reasons for supporting it would disappear?

19. Does your country's warmaking encourage you to hurt anyone while showing support for making war?

20. Does your country's warmaking have you feeling angry, confused or depressed most of the time?

21. Does your country foster a patriotism that everyone should always support any war it makes?

If in conclusion these questions determine that your country is addicted to war, then in typical 12-step fashion the following suggested steps for weaning the country off of the military-industrial-complex addiction are offered.
  

1. We admit we are powerless over war -- that our lives and well-being have become unmanageable by the resource-sucking war machine..
     

2. We now come to believe that there is no power greater than ourselves that can  restore sanity to the warmakers.
     

3. We make a decision to turn our commitment and our actions over to the elimination of war as national foreign policy and as a means of conflict resolution.
     

4. We make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and why we are so attached to the excitement of war.  
       

5. We admit to humanity and to each other the exact nature of warmaking.
     

6. We are entirely ready to remove all these defects of human character in us.
     

7. We humbly ask the victims of our war making to forgive our shortcomings.
     

8. We make a list of all persons our warring has harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all.
     

9. We urge our country to make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
     

10. We continue to take personal inventory of our warmaking tendencies and when we are so inclined to  promptly admit it.
      

11. We seek to enhance peace through personal contact with humanity seeking the knowledge and personal empowerment needed in creating a more peaceful world.
      

12. Having had a consciousness awakening as a result of these steps, we try to carry this message to warmakers and to practice these principles in all our domestic and international affairs.

© 2004 Jozef Hand-Boniakowski