The Land of the Lazy and Home of the Sucker: America’s Slid into International Bully-For-Hire
By Timothy Welton Cavanaugh
Not since the middle-ages has the world seen a war as unprovoked and privatized as the one America is currently engaged in in the Middle East. The Iraq war, and to a slightly lesser degree Afghanistan, were and are attempts by privatization forces in our government to not only switch the justification of making war to a preemptive standard but also to transition the human resources we use to wage war to a private-army model.
Everyone knows that wars are profitable – to both the victor and the supplier(s) (of arms, equipment, fuel, soldiers, training, logistics, etc.) of both sides might I add. And when those roles turn out to be the same party as in the case of America’s military industrial complex the riches received by the war-profiteers and therefore the motivations created to replicate this private-preemptive-war model are enormous. As a result there have been numerous attempts since the end of WWII to bring these two conditions – preemptive-wars and private-armies – together. Our current conflicts in the Middle East are but the latest salvos in that campaign. That said they are the closest the profiteers have ever come to realizing their ultimate goal.
The inherent danger of this becoming the new standard is obvious. Private armies do not need the blessing of multiple branches of our government – the primary tool that has limited America’s already length war resume – to be deployed. They are not a state army and therefore need no state approval to engage their “enemy” only the right financial incentive. Sure sometimes they cost as much as ten times more per solider but “dam the expense when profit is to be had” say the war-mongers, and of course the American tax payer always gets the bill anyway.
Also, preemptive wars do not require aggression on the part of the target but can be started anytime it’s convenient for the war-mongers. Iraq hadn’t been aggressive for over twelve years – how could it, its economy was in ruin due to U.S. encouraged UN sanctions – before America’s massive war machine swooped down on that desert nation.
All that is required to go to war today is popular support for the campaign and by now, after years of trial and error, that is almost a foregone conclusion and a mere a technicality. To manipulate a population into supporting your invasion simply requires a plausible reason to invade which as we’ve seen in recent history doesn’t even need to be credible, verifiable or provable. As long as they can get their captive media outlets to report stories favorable to their desired end the war-mongers can have their war and make their profit.
When and if these anti-humanitarian forces who value chaos over stability, death over life and profit over peace succeed American wars will be as common place as corporate IPO’s. In fact, in a perverted sense they will even serve a similar purpose which will be to generate huge sums of wealth for the fortunate few that can afford to buy into the venture. Unlike taking a company public though, with its full disclosure design and built in scrutiny, these ventures thrive on secrecy and hidden agendas. They succeed by manipulating the American populace into supporting their unscrupulous plans and of course eventually into paying the bill.
Although no longer supporting any grand national and/or world need these new, for-profit wars will not loose their public image. There will always be an immanent threat and/or national security crisis used as justification for taking America to war. And while the merchants-of-death structure their “business strategies” this nation under the guise of patriotism will continue using the lives of our disadvantaged yet loyal young man and women to line the pockets of the wealthy and immoral few.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
