War is a racket

[bleubird]

I have been long interested in the lack of real teaching of USA history,particularly the bad stuff.Like the forced used against labor unions.The use of the USA military for economic interest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
War has been about money.
The Bush family has been about war profit from WW2 and on.
On this day we should be sad that so many died not to secure freedom,but to insure the profit of corporations.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Well, yeah, it's about economics.

Shoot at corporations and they sue your bosses, the civilians in the big offices.

Shoot at legitimate military targets, they're probably reinforced enough to shoot back and maybe hurt a guy. Posthumous medals do me no good in a post-enlistment career hunt.

 

[untermensche]

Yes. Many wars have been about the same thing.

Treasure, stolen, not earned.

If people saw every dollar spent on something like the invasion of Iraq as theft then maybe war for profit would end.

 

[Valjean]

People never learn. The history of our follies is routinely swept under the rug, as are what worked -- and didn't -- to fix them.

Power attracts sociopaths, megalomaniacs and authoritarians. They will always try to hoodwink the people to further nefarious ends. They lie, they instill fear and moral panic, they keep the public cowed, anxious and infantalized; eager to sacrifice freedom for a false security.

America has always been an aggressive, military empire, opposing democracy wherever it finds it, and American's have always been like mushrooms -- kept in the dark and fed horse shit.

I find America's current infatuation with the military disturbing. 'Servicemen' do not serve the people, they work for corporations, often opposing the interests of the people they purport to serve. They do not 'defend our freedom.' Their adventurism has led to a police state and paranoid society, and overseas they've opposed democracy (socialism!) at every turn.

American students should be as familiar with Butler's lecture as they are with Lincoln's Gettysburg address.

 

[NobleSavage]

I have been long interested in the lack of real teaching of USA history,particularly the bad stuff.Like the forced used against labor unions.The use of the USA military for economic interest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
War has been about money.

Sometimes, and partially. There is usually a mix of motives. Replace money with resources and it's a little more explanatory. Add in a good dose of religion, ideology, tribalism, morality, racism, xenophobia, etc. Any one can be the spark that ignites the others.

You could make a decent argument that money prevents war through trade.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We'll give you some foreign aid, but you need to use that money to buy American weapons of mass destruction. Our tax dollars, paying for other nation's military!

 

[Nice Squirrel]

We'll give you some foreign aid, but you need to use that money to buy American weapons of mass destruction. Our tax dollars, paying for other nation's military!

No no no no. The J-31 is a totally independent fighter jet. No American plans were stolen...

 

[DrZoidberg]

I have been long interested in the lack of real teaching of USA history,particularly the bad stuff.Like the forced used against labor unions.The use of the USA military for economic interest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
War has been about money.
The Bush family has been about war profit from WW2 and on.
On this day we should be sad that so many died not to secure freedom,but to insure the profit of corporations.

I actually buy the Marxist analysis of war completely. I´m no communist by any stretch. But I do think that war is primarily about a conflict between the elites of countries. The lower/working classes have never had anything to gain from taking part in any war. They take massive personal risks for questionable returns. This is true even if you fight for worthy causes.

But that said, it´s virtually impossible to make a profit from war, even for the elites. People just trading in a market exchanging products and services is always better off for everybody, including those who are at a financial disadvantage. This is true even for the people in the arms industry. The logic goes like this, war drains a countries total resources into destructive investments, ie not investments at all. Simply by being part of a market at peace you still get a big slice of the cake.

Justifying war rests one of two things:

1) The fallacy of, the less you have the more I have.

Like all primates we have an instinct for fairness. So it´s most likely an unsolvable problem.

2) I´m part of something greater. Even if I die in the war, I can still win.

This connects to the meaning of life, and that´s quite the headache to solve.

Feel free to disagree, I probably haven´t given this as much thought as I should.

 

[James Brown]

I can understand the war-as-profiteering argument.

But if I was an American living in 1940 watching Londoners being bombed by the Luftwaffe, I'd want to do more than just figure out "Who profits?" I'd want to enlist and join the fight.

That Saddam Hussein had a rape room didn't make me want to enlist and be shipped to the Middle East, but I know of some Congresspersons who thought differently. Not that they themselves wanted to enlist and ship out, but they felt better about supporting others to do so.

 

[untermensche]

....But that said, it´s virtually impossible to make a profit from war....

Impossible for individuals?

 

[dismal]

Not impossible for foundations:

Under Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure -- derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) -- represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House.

...

In all, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by Clinton’s State Department have delivered between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family, according to foundation and State Department records

http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foun...als-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187

 

[NobleSavage]

I can understand the war-as-profiteering argument.

But if I was an American living in 1940 watching Londoners being bombed by the Luftwaffe, I'd want to do more than just figure out "Who profits?" I'd want to enlist and join the fight.

Yep, and the civil war is another one. I'm sure there are a lot of us who would have joined the fight against slavery.

 

[DrZoidberg]

....But that said, it´s virtually impossible to make a profit from war....

Impossible for individuals?

Because the same profiteers who got rich from the war would most likely have been able to make even more money in the peace in that same period.

Here´s a slightly different way to look at it. I saw some numbers on the German governments gains from seizing Jewish property during Nazi Germany. As the argument goes, the motivation for this was greed. They simply wanted the money from the Jews and they took it. But you have to calculate the loss of taxes from those same Jews, as well as loss of exchange production from Gentile/Jewish trade. As it happens all gains from taking Jewish money was gone in a few weeks. After that seizing Jewish property was a net loss almost immediately. The same pattern repeats itself in any country that expels an ethnic group, be it whites from Mozambique or Indians from Uganda.

War is such a colossal drain on an economy and catastrophic waste of resources that everybody is worse off, even those who profiteer directly from the war. It+s counter-intuitive. But the numbers work.

 

[coloradoatheist]

War actually seems to be a flaw in human nature. We've had war since since pretty much human socieities started forming, so it isn't just about corporate profit.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Not impossible for foundations:

Under Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure -- derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) -- represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House.

...

In all, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by Clinton’s State Department have delivered between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family, according to foundation and State Department records

http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foun...als-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187

Looks like Halliburton made a bundle on the cheap.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

But isn't wealth a comparative thing? If I have more money, but everybody else equally also has more money, doesn't that leave me right where I started?

 

[Valjean]

Not really, JP, if you view money as an exchange medium for food, housing, health care, &c, rather than as a marker of relative social status.

 

[bilby]

I have been long interested in the lack of real teaching of USA history,particularly the bad stuff.Like the forced used against labor unions.The use of the USA military for economic interest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
War has been about money.

Sometimes, and partially. There is usually a mix of motives. Replace money with resources and it's a little more explanatory. Add in a good dose of religion, ideology, tribalism, morality, racism, xenophobia, etc. Any one can be the spark that ignites the others.

You could make a decent argument that money prevents war through trade.

That argument was certainly considered compelling in the years leading up to 1914. When people expressed concern about the build up of armed strength in Europe, it was repeatedly pointed out that the huge mutual benefits of international trade on the continent had rendered war unthinkable, and that there was nothing much to worry about.

 

[untermensche]

Impossible for individuals?

Because the same profiteers who got rich from the war would most likely have been able to make even more money in the peace in that same period.

The makers of bombs?

Here´s a slightly different way to look at it. I saw some numbers on the German governments gains from seizing Jewish property during Nazi Germany. As the argument goes, the motivation for this was greed. They simply wanted the money from the Jews and they took it. But you have to calculate the loss of taxes from those same Jews, as well as loss of exchange production from Gentile/Jewish trade. As it happens all gains from taking Jewish money was gone in a few weeks. After that seizing Jewish property was a net loss almost immediately. The same pattern repeats itself in any country that expels an ethnic group, be it whites from Mozambique or Indians from Uganda.

There were many individuals, mostly in the US, that made a fortune during WWII.

You can't get completely destroyed like the Germans and expect to come out on top.

 

[Valjean]

War actually seems to be a flaw in human nature. We've had war since since pretty much human socieities started forming, so it isn't just about corporate profit.

Good point. We seem to like the excitement and tribal solidarity. In our civilized societies we replace our tribal skirmishes with Friday night football skirmishes.