America's slid into international bully-for-hire.

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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.

As Hermann Goering, the infamous leader of Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe said while on trial at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity:

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.  That is easy.  All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.  It works the same in any country.”

Those fateful words by one of modern history’s most sadistic mad-men take on an air of prognostication when they are superimposed onto the pre-invasion(s) propaganda of our current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the threat of another in Iran.

The sad reality is that in America this most obvious Nazi-playbook model apparently seems to work.  I don’t quite understand why but it does.  What else can explain the “any-at-all” much less “more-then-a-quarter” of American’s continued support for the Iraq war, a war which has seen ever claim of justification and prediction of outcome fall flat on its preverbal face.

America has a long history of war and just as long of a history of being proud warriors in the face of conflict.  But how can we possibly be proud of using trumped-up-charge bully tactics to go to war only to make already obscenely rich people richer.  This reality flies in the face of everything that America claims to stand for and calls into question the very caliber of us as Americans.

If America doesn’t wake up and stand up to these obvious efforts by the unscrupulous few at using the might of this proud and powerful nation to enrich themselves at the expense of the worlds easy targets, not to mention the lives and well-being of our soldiers – both public and private – then we are a sad, sorry people.  And with that admission we should stop claiming to be the “land of the free and home for the brave” and more accurately start admitting to being the “land of the lazy and home of the sucker”

 

Timothy Cavanaugh is an independent writer specializing in political, environmental and social justice issues (e-mail: twcavanaugh@hotmail.com).

Authors Bio:
My name is Timothy Cavanaugh and I am an independent writer specializing in political, environmental and social justice issues. I regularly submit op-eds to various newspapers and blogs and I enjoy debating my positions with others when I get the chance.

Professionally I'm a customer service, project and call center manager. In addition I also invest in real-estate and own a resume business.

I make my home in Lakewood California where I live with wife and four children.