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It’s The Money
by James Glaser September 28, 2015 
It is way past time that the American public realizes all of our wars are about money. They have nothing to do with bringing democracy, or religion to small backward countries. Our wars are not about the proliferation of weapons nor one country attacking another, and they certainly have nothing at all to do with the terrorist attack on our own country 14 years ago. Today President Obama made another statement about how we have to end the rule of President Bashar alAssad, of Syria as he was causing so much violence in his country. Syria is next door to Iraq, a place where the United States under Presidents Bush and Obama has killed over 500,000 Iraqis along with displacing and maiming millions. In Afghanistan, another Middle East country the US has attacked, it has been reported 92,000 Afghans have been killed and 100,000 wounded. If you think back, I am sure you will remember wedding party after wedding party being massacred with US missile strikes. Both the Iraq and Afghan wars could be thought of as revenge wars for the terrorist attack on the United States 14 years ago on 9/11 where almost 3,000 were killed. If it was a revenge attack, it was a costly one with 4,488 American troops being killed in Iraq and 2,229 killed in Afghanistan along with the wounding of 32,222 in Iraq, and 18,675 in Afghanistan. Add to these numbers, the hundreds of thousands of American troops who will suffer for the rest of their lives with PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injuries, neither of which are counted as being wounded. Just a note -the Afghan War is still ongoing. So with numbers like these it is hard to think that alAssad should be removed from power because of the violence he has caused without thinking that the American President should be removed also, because American military might has inflicted way more violence in the Middle East than Assad ever could. How do you think the rest of world thinks about this? So, why these wars? These wars and all the other undeclared wars the United States is involved in now have one purpose. To make money! Millions of American workers get their paycheck because of these wars, and many corporations stay in business because of these wars. Every bullet, every artillery shell, every tank, truck, every helicopter, and jet plane used by the military is a product sold that must be replaced when shot, fired, or used up. All the weapons and equipment we give away to countries who help us in these wars mean additional profit going to the American companies who manufacture and sell them. Think about this. No war would mean no bombs or shells exploding that must be replaced. Equipment sitting and being maintained at a stateside base takes a long time before it wears out, but in a war in the desert or in the mountains vehicles wear out fast or are destroyed in combat. That means a constant profit flow with the sale of replacement equipment. War, it is about money and profit. No wars, no profit. You can’t keep a huge manufacturing plant employing thousands running without constant sales. So to help in the lull of battles we now sell our military arms to countries around the world. That means even if we don’t have an active war going on, other countries do, and our corporations have a steady profit flow. We are selling billions and billions of dollar's worth of weapons every year, and like the US military, the foreign militaries who buy these weapons use them up in their wars and must buy replacements. Most of the countries involved in WWII had their weapons making plants bombed out of existence and the losers were forbidden to make new weapons. However, the United States had the greatest weapons producing process the world had ever seen untouched by any bomb. We had all this ability and technology, and trained labor, and rich Americans realized if they could just keep violence and war and the fear of war going, their profit flow would never end. The Cold War kept profits flowing with the fear factor making the public demand a stronger and stronger military, and as a bonus we kept wars big and small going ever since. Korea and Vietnam boosted sales and profits, and soon the Military Industrial Complex (all those who make money off war) started pushing Washington to have little wars and arm those countries who were on ”our“ side. It is sad and horrible that we have been on a war time economy for seventy some years, but we will never ever get off it and head for peace until we realize what we are doing to keep that war time economy going. Also, we have to understand what a hardship it is going to be to transfer our economy from one that depends on wars to keep profits flowing. Peace is attainable, and many countries in this world enjoy the blessings of a peacetime economy. Peace affords better schools, better healthcare, and jobs at home keeping up infrastructure. Also, fewer of their young people are being killed, maimed, or forced to live a life with constant mental health issues from combat. |
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