War, Our Nature And The Military Industrial Complex

There is no denying human nature. Have you ever wondered why group sports are so popular? Think about it for a second. Now think about why some types of video games are so popular. The reason is both are wars. If we watch American football or even soccer we see two opposing teams (armies) facing off against each other. Some of the most popular video games have to do with fighting and killing which is also just a substitute for war. We humans have war in our blood. It goes back to the early days when we had to hunt and kill for a living. Now that genetic memory has been discovered it is most likely we might even have this desire for war in our genes. The good news is most of us get this satisfaction out of the way by watching sports or playing games. Could there be alien life on other planets which developed entirely without this desire and wouldn’t understand it if they came across it?

There are a few people who believe team sports were developed to try and quell our desire for war and it has worked to some extent. You don’t see many people outside of the government standing around on street corners calling for war anymore. Most of us realize real war is a terrible thing and with the weapons we have now such as nuclear missiles and bombs, machine guns and all sorts of deadly flying weapons it is even more deadly than it has ever been. I am sure if you went into the street and stopped the average person there and asked him or her if we should start a war with China or Russia they would say absolutely not. The same might not be what you would hear if you could ask the same question of some of our higher government officials. There are other reason for this than just the desire for war however.

War has become a way for companies to make vast sums of money, along with banks and others. Making weapons, especially in America where we pay far more for them than anyone else, is a very lucrative business. It is one which the companies have to balance with the chance of being wiped out in a war that is why we never seem to go to war against anyone with the capability to hurt our homeland. Look who we warred against in the last 60 years. We fought against Vietnam. They didn’t have much of a chance of invading us or even launching weapons against us, so this was perfect for the arms dealers and weapons developers. This war stretched on for 18 years, far longer than World War II. All during this time we needed weapons. The next war we fought was the Gulf War, it was not so hot for the military industrial complex because it only lasted 6 months, but we fought against Iraq who had no chance against us. Next we jumped into the Bosnian War which lasted about 2 years and 8 months. This was a nice little war for the arms suppliers and again there was no chance of us getting hurt.

The sentiments of the military industrial must be these are perfect wars for them. The Kosovo War lasted only 3 months but was never a threat to us as we fought in it. In 2001 we entered what was a perfect war for the military industrial complex and it is still going on today, they must love this. I am talking about the war in Afghanistan which has cost us a fortune. Then there was the Iraq War which was fought from 2003 to 2011 this was a great war for these guys. The Iraqis never had the weapons we had assigned to them but we attacked them anyway and smashed their country but we kept the military industrial complex chugging along raking in the profits. It never seems to be enough for these guys so we invaded Libya but that was short lived and was probably only good for a couple of billion dollars.

We seem to have run out of countries to attack so we decided there were groups which needed war conducted on them such as ISIL and others. This is still ongoing. I have to laugh we I think about this because we are throwing our huge forces against what looks to me like a street gang, but of course we have built it up by making all sorts of claims about how dangerous it is, but you never hear much about its numbers. They didn’t even have many weapons and had to rely on what they could capture. It wasn’t as if we were fighting a country’s army. There were also other tiny invasions such as Haiti, Panama and Grenada in that time.

Why do we keep fighting these wars? We fight them because lobbyists press congress and spread millions of dollars around to get legislators thinking the way they want. When it comes to the military industrial complex the way they want congress to think, is to think about war so they can sell more weapons at exaggerated prices and continue to make fortunes on the backs of US citizens. I often wonder if this wasted money was put to good use such as making the US an even better country to live in by helping the citizens more and doing away with hunger and poverty, what things would be like. I heard something the other day about why something in Washington wasn’t be investigated and the reason was a certain senator’s wife was the head of a billion dollar company which was involved.

Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont knows the score and talks about these inequities whenever he has a chance. Perhaps the reason he is so outspoken is the fact he is an independent. It is nice to see a person not taking a party line. I only wish more in Washington would speak out about the inequities so they could become common knowledge. Getting back to war and profits, Eisenhower knew about this and when he was leaving the office of president he said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”