Once again, we are being lured into war. The last time was in 2002 when beating the drums to go to war in Iraq was all the rage. For months on end, all you heard and read about was how Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and was collaborating with Al Qaeda terrorists and how evil he was. Not a day went by without a White House press release on Iraq’s threat to our national security. In the end, we finally went to war (without a declaration of war, which is Congress’ prerogative). After many months of killing, destroying and searching for weapons of mass destruction and connections with Al Qaeda, nothing was ever found. But we brought democracy to Iraq, so it was all OK.
The amazing part of that debacle was that public opinion went from 0% to nearly 100% in favor of invading Iraq over the course of two years. That huge swing in public opinion was the result of a massive propaganda campaign waged by the White House with the cheerful aid of mainstream media. I say cheerful because the media moguls were ecstatic with the profits gained selling war news and/or the threat of war news. As a result of this propaganda campaign, Americans were lured into a war that was totally unjustifiable, immoral and illegal, not to mention expensive.1 (Then, of course, there was also the matter of the hundreds of thousands of people killed – but we don’t do body counts2. Obviously, human lives don’t matter unless they are our own.)
Now, we are doing it all over again but instead of a relatively weak Middle East nation, we have chosen Ukraine to be the next “playground” for our military. Ukraine just happens to have been one of the 15 republics of the former Soviet Union, is a major player in Russia’s sphere of influence and shares a long border with the Russian Federation, which just happens to have around 6,000 nuclear warheads (each of which is many times more powerful than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and the delivery systems capable of dropping them anywhere in the world. And the song being played sounds exactly like the one 20 years ago, except the lyrics have changed a bit. There are daily White House briefings about the atrocities of the Russians and the plight of the Ukrainians which are amplified and repeated non-stop by the media. Some members of the media are goading President Biden to engage our military in the present conflict3 and the entire body of the media is attempting to lure the American people into supporting it. Note that a year ago this time, virtually no one wanted to go to war in Ukraine. Today, one third of Americans support a “no-fly” zone over Ukraine even if it leads to direct war with Russia, one-third disapprove and one third are undecided4. In a year’s time we have gone from essentially zero to one third of Americans who are supportive of military action in Ukraine. What will the numbers be in another 6 months?
Let’s think about this for a minute. Most people want peace and no one wants war at home, but still, there is a small percentage of our people who are goading us into war in eastern Europe. Who are they?
Clearly, those who produce and sell arms, munitions and war supplies profit from war and have an incentive to encourage war (preferably in some distant country). Politicians can declare threats to national security as a means to distract people from domestic issues and get them to rally around the “leader”. War and/or the threat of war boosts the sale of news, so the media benefits from it. Then there are the professional mercenaries, e.g., Blackwater (now Academi) who contract to fight in foreign wars for money. These people, let’s call them the war profiteers, are a small fraction of the total population, and for them, any kind of war is extremely profitable. However, they must convince everyone else to support the war they wish to engage in. This they accomplish through a massive propaganda campaign using every form of media to spread the propaganda. By presenting real, faked or imaginary foreign threats, the plight of war refugees, and accusations of atrocities by the governments they wish to go to war with, they manage to enrage the public and lure them into war.
By now, you have probably figured our where I am headed with this, but let me put it in order. Starting with the fact that most people want peace, and only the war profiteers want war, the profiteers then convince everyone else that war is necessary through massive propaganda campaigns and then sit back and rake in the profits. But here’s the rub: the war profiteers who beat the war drums (the corporate moguls, the politicians, the media, the professional mercenaries) will all profit from the war, but will not pay for it. Nor will they or their families or friends be exposed to any personal risks by actively participating in the war5. Instead, they will lure others to take all the personal risks and do the actual fighting while they sit back, watch the show and get rich. Then, to add insult to injury, guess who will pay for the wars? Because of an extremely regressive tax system, the government will not have the money to pay for the war. So it must borrow the money for the war which must be paid back with interest at a later time, and the burden of payment will fall on our children and grandchildren. Yes, you got that right. The war profiteers who beat the war drums most loudly will profit handsomely from the wars they succeed in promoting, will not be exposed to any personal risks and will pass the cost of their wars onto future generations – yours and my children, grandchildren and generations that follow.
1 The Iraq war, combined with the war in Afghanistan, Syria and other parts of the Middle East, which lasted 20 years, is estimated to cost nearly $6 trillion – all of which was borrowed and will have to be paid back (one way or another) by future generations.
2 Famously quoted by General Tommy Franks, Commander, U.S. Central Command and subsequently repeated by Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.
3 Numerous comments and questions presented to President Biden and his press secretary during press briefings imply weakness of U.S. resolve to end the conflict in Ukraine using military force. Transcripts of these briefings can be found here.
4 ABC/Ipsos poll taken on March 14.
5 The end of the draft and the all-volunteer military shelters the war profiteers and their families and friends from serving in the military.
PS I would like to propose a law that requires all those who promote war and stand to benefit from it, together with all their family and friends, to be conscripted into the Army at the lowest rank, required to take up arms and deployed to the front lines of battle.