For the defense industry, dumb wars are the best ones because they create more problems than they solve, assuring future sales of weapons and services. A great example of this bad policy propaganda machine in action occurred in the winter of 2002, when the Taliban had been defeated in Afghanistan and there was a chance to install a credible government. Then the defense industry helped fund the campaign to convince Americans they needed to divert resources from Afghanistan to launch a preemptive strike against Iraq. Eight years later, Afghanistan is in utter chaos, yet think tank scholars assure us that we can still “win” the war as long as we pursue Gen. David Petraeus’ counter-insurgency strategy.
From the vantage of the boardroom of a defense contractor, the Afghan war is a good war. It destabilized much of the Middle East and southern Asia, including nuclear-armed Pakistan. It has created tens of thousands of new enemies for the United States — people who had no beef with us until we invaded their country and killed their relatives. Most of our new enemies are too poor to pose any immediate threat. But they will be targets for recruitment into terror groups, thus assuring future dangers, more war and unsustainable levels of military spending.
Many, including George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower, have warned of the danger to republican liberty posed by massive standing armies and unchecked military spending. One of the most eloquent scholars on this topic, Chalmers Johnson, passed away in November. Johnson warned of the inherent instability of a political system that seeks to combine domestic democracy and foreign imperialism. The final volume of his seminal treatise on militarism is titled, The Last Days of the American Republic. If his analysis is correct, we have no time to waste.
Yet waste it we will as long as there's money in it for the few.
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