Answers?

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There are two obvious specific methods of reducing U.S. government violence:

New laws 1) Make it illegal for any company that sells weapons of war to the U.S. government, or is located in the U.S., to sell weapons of any kind to any other buyer. Weapons manufacture is a high-profit business that eventually causes huge amounts of human suffering. Businessmen would be expected to find some other way to make money besides selling weapons to anyone outside the U.S. who thinks killing is an answer. This should not be a difficult transition for a weapons maker. A company that can make high-technology weapons can make high-technology anything.

At present, when an Israeli kills an Arab with a weapon made in the U.S., Arabs see the U.S. as partly responsible. Also, at present politicians of states with weapons manufacturers sometimes pressure the U.S. government to react in a belligerant way to conflict, because they want to bring money into their states.

2) Make it illegal for the U.S. government to act in secret. The government could collect information secretly, but acting in a hidden way would be prohibited. This would give U.S. citizens the chance to know what their government is doing. Also, the kind of people who work at the lower levels of secret agencies are not the kind of people who are good at making policy. In secret agencies, their mistakes and bad judgment translate into major changes of policy for the entire United States. When someone from a publicly known agency makes a foolish mistake, the agency can openly apologize and make restitution. Everyone who is interested can see that the mistake is not U.S. government policy.

Traditional methods There are many methods of reducing violence that use traditional ideas. Prevention is an answer. Better understanding of other cultures is an answer. Being charitable long before any problems begin occurring is an answer.

Remember that traditional methods of reducing violence require plenty of time, allocation of resources, and creativity. In that way they are no different than violent methods of dealing with violence.

There is often considerable misunderstanding about non-violent methods. They are not weak. One reason to suggest non-violent methods is that they can be extremely powerful. For example, suppose that representatives from the U.S. knew Osama bin Laden's family. Or suppose that the U.S. government understood how money is transferred to Bin Laden. Or suppose the U.S. was so well-liked in the region that Bin Laden had difficulty finding supporters. One of the values of non-violent methods is that literally thousands of them are available. Many of them are more powerful and far, far cheaper than violence.

Scientific methods For more than 20 years, I've studied how to apply truly scientific methods to social issues. There is more to this subject than can be discussed here, but the following ideas suggest the methods:

First, start early. As was just mentioned above, non-violent methods of resolving conflict, like violent methods, take time to research and to have effect. Remember that the U.S. and other countries have spent many years and billions of dollars researching literally thousands of ways to kill people and destroy property. My guess is that one-tenth of that energy put into researching and implementing non-violent methods would reduce violence to low levels.

People usually talk about non-violent methods of resolving conflict after a situation has already become violent. This is not fair to non-violent methods. Countries usually develop their violent methods for many years before engaging in violence. Non-violent methods developed years in advance could compete strongly, would be more moral, and could be much cheaper.

Second, the most powerful non-violent methods use the fact that people are more knowledgeable about their inner reality now than they were in past decades. What I am about to say won't sound realistic for previous conflicts, because it presumes the knowledge that many people have today.

Third, it is extremely valuable to learn what causes violence. Violence, including war, is caused ONLY by a particular kind of mental illness. There is NO other cause. If you understand that, and begin looking for that kind of mental illness, solving the problem of violence is not so difficult. It is still difficult, but not impossible.

People often call the kind of mental illness that causes violence "anger". However, the word anger was invented long before there was good understanding of it. The word is too non-specific to be useful in scientific investigations. It is useful to mention here because everyone has some idea of what the word anger means.

When you understand that violence is caused by errors in brain processing, stopping violence becomes a troubleshooting problem. Stopping violence is a problem of troubleshooting errors in the human bio-computer. This is the kind of work many people know because it is similar to trying to find errors in computer programs.

Skilled computer programmers know how hard it is to find a processing error. They have learned not to be intellectually weak. If it takes 90 tries and two weeks to find an error in a complex computer program, they know that's what must be done.

Fourth, there needs to be recognition of how crazy things are today. A U.S. government official on the September 19, 2001 CBS TV show "60 Minutes II" was interviewed about the 1998 (not 2001) U.S. government bombing of Afghanistan. According to the show, the U.S. sent 60 cruise missiles, each of which cost $600,000 [navy.mil], into a dry mountainous valley where the total value of all the surrounding buildings was probably less than the equivalent of $10,000. According to the local Afghanis on the show, the missiles, that cost a total of $36,000,000, destroyed part of a mosque and killed a few children and adults. (Note that the cost is actually far greater than $600,000 per missile, which is only the cost for one missile without support equipment or installation cost. The CBS TV show estimated $2,000,000 each.)

This particular bombing is a good example because it was so obviously an expression of a desire of a few people to act out inner conflict. Why do I say that? Because $36,000,000 spent on doing good works in Afghanistan might, literally, put someone in a position to be elected president of that very, very poor country. It is likely that, unconsciously, the people who sent the missiles did not necessarily want to solve the problem. It is likely they wanted to act out their own inner conflict, and make more problems so they could do more trouble-making later.

When studying anger, it is useful to know that what actually happens is often what was intended. The people who chose to bomb Afghanistan had logical-sounding justifications. That's another thing to know about anger. A huge amount of creativity is often put into making it sound acceptable to other people.

At the time of the bombing, the official being interviewed on the "60 Minutes II" TV show saw no evidence of anything crazy about spending $36,000,000, or $120,000,000, on bombing a dry, mostly empty, valley. He still didn't, even after being repeatedly questioned during the interview.

The thought mentioned above is worth repeating. People are much more conflicted than they seem to be on the surface. It often happens that a well-dressed, educated man or woman in a leadership position will look into another person's face or a camera, be very clear and logical-sounding, and speak complete nonsense.

Fifth, don't be led astray by common faulty logic. As was mentioned before, the conflict in the Middle East has NOTHING to do with religion. People have been using religion as a way of justifying violence since before Islam existed and before Judaism existed. It's nonsense. There is NO connection. Violence is ONLY caused by mental illness. It's that simple.

Remember, angry people use ANY method that works to justify their anger.

Sixth, it is necessary to recognize that people who engage in violence often have a legitimate complaint. They act out their conflict through violence, rather than resolving their conflict. If someone helps them resolve their underlying complaint, they will feel less conflicted.

Arabs have a legitimate reason to complain. The U.S. has been meddling in the region for years. Saudis, for example, have a right to complain about secret U.S. government influences on their government.

How would you like it if the situation were reversed? Suppose you were an American working for changes in the U.S. government, but the Saudi government was preventing the changes? How would you like it if the Saudis, who were preventing changes, knew little about the politics of your country and didn't even speak the language? Osama bin Laden's methods are completely unacceptable. I don't like Osama bin Laden's long-term vision for Saudi Arabia either, but that part is healthy disagreement.

Conflicts can be resolved with a detailed knowledge of how the brain goes wrong, and with personal relationships and personal understanding. However, implementation is messy. An outbreak of mental illness like a war is composed of many mini-outbreaks. It is necessary to identify the major ones, and each one requires personal attention. Engineering sometimes takes more creativity than developing theory. Implementation of methods of reducing violence often takes more creativity than the study of methods to reduce violence.

The result of resolving each mini-outbreak is that you drain the energy out of the mental illness which causes physical violence, and people go back to just yelling at their kids, and complaining about their neighbors.

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