Five Years On: How Many More for War?

"War is the health of the state." -- Randolph Bourne.

"War is the game of kings, and citizens are the dupes of the game." -- Thomas Paine.

     Judging from the recent onslaught of trenchant talk show hosts and my own sadly-misguided brethren, the wine of violence is still flowing madly in the sick parts of the bloodstream of America. This is five years after our government's ill-advised invasion of Iraq, which has now claimed (easily) 4000 Americans -- and hundreds of thousands to millions of Iraqis. And not one of those people had anything whatsoever do do with the 9-11 tragedy!
     For those in the minority who still support this wholesale violation of human rights, I have one simple question: How will we ever know when we have won?
     America is great because we are free. And we are losing our freedoms as never before. This is the real tragedy: all the opportunities we have lost. Imagine what all those now-dead people could have created, or what the trillions of war dollars would have done if they had remained in the hands of the people who earned them!
     But war is the cruelest zero-sum game, making far more losers than winners. And how suicidal! Through free exchange, we can basically get almost anything we need -- but that principle is also being demolished, as the Bush Administration continues to make enemies throughout the world. Have you noticed how "great" the economy is doing?!
     The case is often made that this one (or the next) will be "the war to end all wars." Wasn't that the claim for World War One?
     Yet WW1 actually laid the poor economic foundations that led to Hitler's rise. Woodrow Wilson admitted on his death bed that he had inflicted a great wrong upon America. (His proposed League of Nations later morphed into the United Nations).
     Time and time again we are expected to believe that we will vanquish a certain form of tyranny -- like fascism, Communism, or now "Islamo-fascism." But inevitably you just end up with more of those tyrannies -- fueled by the same people who brought you the first ones -- the well-connected corporate / banking interests.
     Consider 'Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler' by Antony Sutton (you can even read it for free online). The I.G. Farben pharmaceutical cartel was instrumental in bringing about Nazi rule, and through Project Paperclip, it still persists today in a mutated form. 'Paperclip' brought key Nazi scientists to the U.S. and Russia, where they continued nefarious initiatives like eugenics. And twelve perpetrators implicated at Nuremberg war crimes trials, went on to found their own pharmaceutical companies, thus continuing the murderous legacy in a covert way.
     The Vietnam War never ended Communism, but it did enrich Monsanto, creator of deadly dioxin (Agent Orange). Reagan's valiant adventures in Afghanistan to repel the "evil empire" (USSR) gave us an enriched Osama bin Laden. And Al Qaeda (which some call Al-CIAda) was the direct result of our covert involvement. So both sides of many wars are supported (in secret or overtly) -- enriching the well-connected, while the general public's information is strictly managed by "mainstream" media also in the "control group."
     Look at Saddam Hussein's case -- he was trained for fifty years by the CIA. Don Rumsfeld, back in the '80's, even gave him a pair of gold spurs in exchange for his weapons order! Then we endowed him with helicopters and even West Nile Disease weapons (later linked to Cuba). Yet the U.S. government turned away when Saddam poison-gassed Iran.
     More recently (in the year 2000), a Swiss company of Rumsfeld's endowed North Korea with nuclear reactors, and Halliburton did something similar for Iran. (Guess that "axis of evil" isn't quite so evil when your minions are doing business with them!).
     But what of the Iraqi people themselves? At least one million have developed cancer -- due in large part to the U.S. and Britain dumping thousands of tons of depleted uranium munitions there. My brother ridiculously claims that "we are giving them a chance for self-rule"!
     The reality is that we've been bombing and blockading them for decades -- and now we've made their sacred nation, the very birthplace of civilization, inhospitable for millions of years to come. (And don't forget the priceless art and relics that were looted from their museums at the outset of the war).
     Now consider all the Gulf War Illnesses endured by our troops and their families. GW1 saw at least a third of soldiers forced to drop out due to injury and illness. According to Major Doug Rokke, an estimated 70,000 actually died from that war! A toxic cocktail of experimental pills, shots, aggression drugs, and depleted uranium will continue to ravage our forces for many years to come. Suicide levels are at record rates, and homicides (including five on spouses) have also occurred. And all of this has happened while providing full employment for the terrorists of the world!
     If you do support war, why not go fight it yourself? Or failing that, help create a series of billboards on the borders of Iraq: "Come to Iraq: home of the great American shooting gallery. Bring your own weapons!"
     These conflicts will only end when we refuse to put our lives in the hands of monsters, and when we retire those monsters to the tar pits of history. Since they love oil so much, they should be very happy there!