The Neverending War

I've tried to avoid becoming caught up in the minutiae and complexities of our disastrous involvement in the Middle East. One reason was because there are plenty of problems here at home that need attention. Another was that the War in Iraq and/or War on Terrorism is simply far too complex to make sense of. Despite application of modern technology, great gobs of money, and tens of thousands of personnel, war remains chaotic in the extreme... far more than unpredictable, it's not even comprehensible, much less controllable, by those in charge of waging it. Just yesterday, reports began appearing from the assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse.

By what stretch of the imagination can one accept the loss (so far) of 2700 American military deaths, 20,000 wounded, and $317 billion spent, with negative results, as anything but total failure? Do you believe that our massive government and military can really be that incompetent? Few people view government incompetence as more inevitable than I do, but even I cannot attribute such results to mere incompetence.

WHY WE ARE AT WAR?

Why did our government invade Iraq and Afghanistan? We were told that the invasion of Afghanistan was to capture Bin Laden and/or remove the Taliban from the control that allowed them to hide bin Laden. Despite several years and mega-bucks, none of that has been accomplished. Why then, Iraq? There are a multitude of responses to that question, depending on whom you ask and on what day. Was it because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or because he was assisting Al-Qaeda? Was it to assist Israel in strengthening their position? Was it to gain control of a source of oil?

The failing War in Afghanistan, plus the failing War in Iraq, were combined and transformed into the amorphous War on Terrorism. Trying to understand anything specific about the War on Terrorism is like trying to talk about a War on Evil. We don't know what terrorism is, or even that it is always bad. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter... and that has always has been true. Our own ancestors, during our Revolutionary War, were considered terrorists (and traitors) by the British, and properly so. There will always be terrorists somewhere, and setting out to destroy them militarily tends to create even more of them. Politically, the beauty of the War on Terrorism is that it can never really be won or lost, and it can realistically be waged forever.

That brings me to my point... the answer to why we are at war. It's a simple answer. It's an answer that we expected and discussed, but seem to have forgotten about amid the complexity of Iraq.

By the end of the 1980's, we had suffered through a nervous 40-some years of Cold War, often "on the brink" of nuclear holocaust, huge spending on offensive and defensive arms, espionage, communists under every rock, "duck and cover", fallout shelters, and many sidestream battles supported by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, each of which could have triggered all-out nuclear war. Korea, Vietnam, Soviet-Afghan, Angola, El Salvador, and Nicaragua... the Cuban Missile crisis and the Berlin War... all hot spots that kept the world in daily fear of "the button" being pushed.

Remember when the Soviet Union fell apart? For 40 years, we had been one of the two big guns on the planet, and suddenly we were the only big gun left. Remember our discussions about "no more enemies"? Our government and our military... our "military industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned us about, had geared up to take on the massive Soviet war machine, and suddenly there was no more Soviet Union... no enemy... no need for all the might we had built up.

There is one inescapable result of war, or the threat of war... growth of government power. Those who work inside government, especially those who make a career of it, love, and profit by, the growth of government power. War scares people, and justifiably so, and when people are scared they're more susceptible to believing what their government says, and more willing to sacrifice anything necessary to avoid war, or to support a war if they're told it's needed.
Herman Goring, the founder of the Nazi Gestapo, explained it very clearly:

"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 tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

There is no other explanation needed for the wars we are currently involved in. Despite all the propagandizing about the need for our Middle East involvement, the simple truth is that war is good for politicians and all who deal with them. Government grows and profits, and firms who supply government grow and profit. The rest of us lose liberties, endure high taxes, and sacrifice our young people as war fodder while those involved with government get wealthy and gain still more power.

"War is the health of the State" said Randolph Bourne. He did not mean the health of a nation, or the health of a nation's people, but the health of the STATE... the health of government and those who deal with it, at the expense of the rest of us.

The people of the United States have again been led down the primrose path, seduced into support for an utterly inexcusable war, and conned into surrendering still more freedom to those we call "leaders". Not just a few "crazies" at the top, but our Congress, which hasn't so much as even raised a serious stink in opposition to the insanity. Why? Because our war has nothing to do with terrorism, and everything to do with two colluding parties maintaining a death grip on control of our nation. They are, together, willing to do anything to insure that government becomes more powerful while the populace quietly suffers. Conspiracy? Damned right it's a conspiracy, of all those benefiting from massive government, and at the expense of those who don't. Which group are you in?