“War? What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!”
— Edwin Starr 1969
Well, Black vocalist Edwin Starr in his hit Vietnam-era recording, got some of it right. After a ghastly toll in American and Asian lives, the puppet government in South Vietnam collapsed in short order once our troops withdrew.
Outside the ranks of conscientious objectors, most would probably agree the wars against Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito were justified by their outcomes.
And yet, both the peaceniks and the war hawks missed the bigger picture. War has always been very, very good for business. To the extent the priorities of governments — both authoritarian and nominally democratic — conform to the interests of their “defense” industries, wars of one kind or another will, unfortunately, be inevitable. It is important to remember Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell speech as he left the White House: beware the growing power of what he described as the “military-industrial complex.” And this from a conservative, Republican farm boy from Kansas.
Consider. For its sale of napalm during Vietnam, Dow Chemical received $45 million each year. For its role in our Middle East quagmire, the notorious Blackwater was awarded $220 million by the Obama administration for providing security in Afghanistan alone. Add to that what the mercenary army of up to 100,000 armed men were paid for its involvement in Iraq and we’re talking serious money.
And yet this is all chump change compared to the $39.5 billion paid to then vice-president Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, for its Iraq war “federal contracts.”
How much did all the private contractors combined receive from performing services in Iraq heretofore performed by men and women in uniform? A cool $138 billion. That’s a lot of zeroes and would have bought a lot of new bridges, highways and school houses right here at home.
These few examples of businesses reaping huge profits from war should come as no surprise. War profiteers have always been with us and I expect they always will.
With this awareness, what I’d like to offer is a proposal which could place the real cost of war where it properly belongs — in the laps of those who stand to profit the most.
As the United States goes from supporting one brutal Latin American or Middle Eastern dictatorship after another, I think inquiring minds can sweep the self-serving illusion of wars to “make the world safe for democracy” into the dustbin with all other smug, self-righteous delusions about why we go to war. Ask Sitting Bull or Geronimo.
If wars, then, are really fought for geopolitical hegemony and access to raw materials, new markets and cheap labor, why pass the massive financial burden to taxpayers and the horrific human cost on to the poorest of our citizens?
In the turbulent years of my coming-of-age — the years of “never trust anyone over thirty” — it was satirically argued that “war should be fought by old, white men sitting around American board room desks”. Ever since the first military draft ordered by Lincoln, our major wars have always ended up with sending unwilling young men to violent death and dismemberment.
Not a bad idea but I’d like to see it carried further. Let all future wars be waged by armies marching behind the banners of their multi-national masters and fighting each other for dominance. Let them pay their soldiers whatever the market demands, let them buy the weapons, ammunition, and bear the costs of transportation and the feeding and care of thousands of young men they put into the killing fields.
And after the war has ended? Let the corporate masters pay for their own G.I. Bill and maintain their own medical support staff and doctors to provide longterm care for those wounded in body and mind in their foreign adventures to control world markets.
Iraq and Afghanistan provided vivid examples of what Russia is now demonstrating. Mercenaries — whether Blackwater or the Wagner Group — strip the façade from holy wars and lay bare the harsh reality. Wars are promoted by those who stand to gain the most.
My suspicion is that, from their own resources alone, corporate giants and their consortiums would be far less willing to plunge the world into war.
McGehee, a lifelong activist, settled here in 1973 and lives in Palouse with his wife, Katherine. His work life has varied from bartender to university instructor to wrecking yard owner.
