Who Controls The Wars?
(Editorial)

Photo Source: Public Domain

One of the few things that make people think twice about war is the fact that you can get killed. That is a pretty simple way of stating the case, but a true one. War is not what it seems to be. Most wars go down in history as being fought by one nation, or another for the stated reason of defense, or to stop inequities, or some other such reason. The truth is that most wars are controlled by powerful companies and people that have an agenda. Most of the time that agenda is money. One has only to look at the rich munitions manufacturers to see what I am talking about. War is in their best interest, because they sell arms that will be used up and new ones needed. Take our country, the U.S. This country has participated in roughly 200 wars since it was founded and we are a fairly new country. Could we have really need to fight all these wars? I am not saying that some were not necessary, but I am saying that others were not.

Another reason that wars are started is to gain resources. At our level of understanding we have no way of knowing the true role that the giant oil companies played in our invasion of Iraq for example. We do know that billions of dollars were spent by our government on their favored contractors, many of which over charged by huge amounts and performed shoddy workmanship. When some of these companies were caught over charging billions of dollars they had to pay it back, but were allowed to continue to provide services. This was one of the biggest travesties of justice in recent history and nothing was done about it. I have to ask, when a Ex-Vice President has his former company supplying services to the government while he is the Vice President and they overcharge and cheat us and yet are allowed to continue to carry out contracts, could this be a form of corruption?

Just how much control do companies have over our government? We know that the present system of lobbying and lobbyists has corrupted the democratic system. Everyone in the know, knows that this is true, but they can't figure out what to do about it. Sure you will hear the rallying cry of getting rid of the lobbyists, but nothing is ever done. Remember that all lobbyist do not represent companies, many represent foreign countries that try and manipulate us for their purposes. Look at it this way, why have to fight a war if you can get the U.S. to fight it for you? I think if it ever was proven how many times this has happened, the people of this country would be in a state of shock.

These behind the scenes people, the ones that profit from war, sometimes even supply both sides of a conflict with weapons. An example of this is all the Russian Rocket Propelled Grenades Launchers there are in the third world. They seem to be everywhere. This is certainly not to say that we have been saints when it comes to weapons supply. As a matter of fact the U.S. is said to be the world's biggest weapons supplier. If we go back in history, even before the U.S. was around, we see that weapons suppliers were behind many wars. Once in a while however, a despot would come along and cause a war. Someone like Napoleon, or Hitler was more than glad to start the killing.

Today we are getting into the position where robots will be doing most of our fighting in the future. This will happen both in the air and on the ground and probably on the seas and in space. Oh, I know that some of you will say that I am crazy, because there are treaties that prevent space war. I would like to remind all those people that there have been treaties throughout history and yet wars happened. In the beginning it may be the U.S. robots against humans, but as time goes by, it will be robots against robots with civilians caught in the middle. Will this make war even more likely? You can bet that the military industrial complex will want to sell expensive robots that will be destroyed and have to be constantly replaced. Eisenhower warned us not to let the military industrial complex get too strong and that is just what has happened. I would like to ask a question at this point. Why is it that we always seem to have an enemy? I know that I can not remember a time in my life, where some country was said to be the enemy of the United States.

One of the problems today is that war is more dangerous than ever. Even a small country with a few nuclear weapons can cause untold devastation. It would be even worse if a madman got a few nukes. I have heard it said many times that our enemies are manufactured to allow the arms industry to keep selling their wares. It is one thing to be prepared, but an entirely different ball game to be buying billions of dollars worth of junk that doesn't work, such as the anti-ballistic missile system, with the promise that it will be perfected on the run. This has never happened by the way and the system is a farce. The laser that is supposed to shoot down ICBMs is now said to have to be 100 times more powerful to be able to operate correctly, leaving us with only the short range laser mounted in a plane.

The world has become a very dangerous place and it is time for us to stop running around declaring that this country, or that is an enemy. We should be trying to get along with all countries. China is a good example of a country that we should try and negotiate with. The truth of the matter is that our military is far superior to theirs, so we would be negotiating out of strength. When one looks at the map of the world, there are only a few countries that could be potential enemies and these should be worked on. Having said this I realize that Iran is a huge problem along with North Korea. There is probably no stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons short of a military strike, but it is still well worth the effort. The same goes for North Korea. When we developed nuclear weapons, we let the genie out of the bottle. Nuclear weapons became not only a weapons of mass devastation, but also a status symbol. Some countries want them as weapons of blackmail. Others just might want them to sell.

It is a tricky world we live in and all those people that believe in some sort of secret society that is controlling the world could be right. I think that instead of the words secret society, we have to substitute powerful people and rich corporations. We think that we are controlling things by voting in new people from time to time, such as senators and representatives, but it doesn't seem to take very long until they also fall under the thumb of the lobbyists. The problem is if you do away with them, the same deals will be taking place in back rooms everywhere. It just might turn out that human nature will be the downfall of the entire world. I don't know how far things go in Washington, but it could be that if the new senators and representatives don't play ball, their fate will be sealed one way or another.