Afghanistan. Iraq.
Libya. What nation will we bomb
next?
Who are the people who support these wars? They are not the majority of the public. A recent CBS News poll showed that 53% of adults nationwide said we "should not be involved" in Afghanistan.
They are not our elected officials, either. Just as a nation cannot go to war on an empty stomach, neither can a president or a Congress actually go and fight the wars themselves. They also need to find a way to persuade a public sometimes wary of the idea of war.The president does not frame any choice as between peace or war. Peace would always win! So President Obama recently justified our intervention in Libya as "humanitarian," President George W. Bush warned us of (non-existent) weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, etc.
Sander Hicks, author of The Big Wedding 9/11, the Whistle-Blowers and the Cover-up, once said that "history shows us that when the [U.S.] rulers decide to go to war, they 'create' a reason." That they can decide to fight before they reason suggests that our leaders are prepared to start war at all times.
So who wants war?
There is a machine keeping the drive for war alive. The machine is composed of those who benefit the most from the decision to go to war. There are the companies that make the weapons, like Boeing, the companies that provide support to the troops, like Halliburton, the generals that live for war, the people who own stock in the defense contractor companies and others who believe that the United States must defend itself against non-existent threats.
This group of people has interests that supersede those of the rest of us. They impose their interest in war in different ways. The defense contractors contribute money evenly to both major political parties and pay heavily to lobby Congress for favorable laws and policies, the generals offer advice to the politicians about the need to fight and the stockholders put their money before their patriotism.
They are the War Party. Democrats and Republicans bow to them. To oppose this party means less campaign money, less support and a lingering suspicion that one is "soft on defense." Have you ever heard of a candidate for office talk about the need for a "weaker defense?"
Our next wars have already been planned for us with justifications designed to obfuscate the truth just like all of our previous wars. The only way to stop the War party is to de-fund those who benefit from war until they can adequately defend our need to go there.
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