Clean Hands: Tackling the Truth Behind the Peace We Inherited

All the way back to the 1300s, normal was the Black Death erasing a third of Europe while wars raged over what remained. In the Roman Empire, normal was crucifixions lining the roads like mile markers. In the Bronze Age, entire civilizations like the Hittites, Mycenaeans, and Canaanites collapsed into violence and vanished from history in a single generation. For most of human existence, normal was the one with the sharpest blade, ate that night. Americans, from Baby Boomers to Gen-X, Millennials, Gen-Z, to today, were raised in a rare bubble. A seventy-year window where the most powerful nation on earth fought its major wars elsewhere, kept the violence offshore, and built a middle class that could afford to forget what built it. We didn’t get here through diplomacy. We got here through leverage. Manifest Destiny wasn’t a negotiation. It was expansion backed by rifles and smallpox blankets. The Native population dropped from millions to hundreds of thousands. We don’t call it conquest because we wrote the textbooks. The Panama Canal wasn’t a goodwill project. We engineered a revolution to take the land we needed. Exposed workers died by the thousands. We don’t call it imperialism because we built something useful. United Fruit didn’t just sell bananas. It toppled governments across Central America with Washington’s blessing. We don’t call them coups because they protected “American interests.” The list goes on. Iran, 1953. Guatemala, 1954. Chile, 1973. Nicaragua. Iraq. Libya. The names change. The intent doesn’t. — This is what it boils down to: Every superpower, empire, or dominant nation in history got there the same way: by being more violent and ambitious than their opposition. They expanded until someone stopped them, or until they collapsed from overreach. Rome, the Mongols, the British, the Soviets… Us. Tom Bilyeu recently stated, “The most violent and ambitious will always expand their ambitions until they are met with equal or greater violence.” That’s not cynicism. That’s physics. That’s history on repeat, wearing different uniforms. — I don’t like this. I wish it weren’t true. I wish the world responded to strongly worded letters, economic sanctions, and hashtag campaigns. I wish the arc of history bent toward justice on its own, without someone bending it by force. But wishing doesn’t make it so. The peace we inherited wasn’t given. It was taken. It was held by men who understood what our enemies did also: that violence is the final language, and whoever speaks it most fluently sets the terms. Our animalism manifests. The soldiers at Normandy didn’t secure democracy with pamphlets. The Cold War didn’t stay cold because of goodwill. The reason you can argue about politics on your phone instead of foraging for survival is because generations of flawed, violent, ambitious, right and wrong Americans did hard things so you wouldn’t have to. — So, when we watch another nation do something ugly, perhaps something we’ve done under a different branding, simply be wary of the pedestal we stand on. It doesn’t mean “both sides” are equal, or that morality doesn’t matter. It’s important because self-awareness truly matters when deciding whether to support or combat an issue. You can condemn an action and still acknowledge you’ve benefited from the same. You can still love your country while acknowledging the blood it’s spilled. The bubble is thinning. The world is getting louder, closer, and less predictable. The violence we exported for decades is creeping back, in different forms and from different directions. And any generation raised on the myth of inevitable peace will eventually learn what every other generation in human history already knew: Normal is not normal. It never was. The only question is what we’re willing to sacrifice to keep it.   — Tegan Broadwater spent 13 years with the Fort Worth Police Department, including two years assigned to the FBI working deep undercover inside a violent Crip organization. That operation, detailed in his book Life in the Fishbowl, resulted in 51 convictions. He has since founded Tactical Systems Network, an armed security & protection firm primarily staffed by veterans, is a creative writer and musician, and hosts The Tegan Broadwater Podcast. All book profits benefit children of incarcerated parents. Learn more at TeganBroadwater.com