War, You Can Bank on It

All wars are instigated by and fought for an elite few, since they know better! You say what about American War of Independence? Sure, it was extremely important to protect the huge profits of the American traders against British taxation to help support the extravagant lifestyle of the common puritan on the street. Where would we be if Thomas Jefferson had died in poverty without impregnating the slaves, or the writing of the constitution, or such. Oh, the Civil War? It provided rich and satisfying jobs to the freed slaves in the coal mines of the North, with an opportunity to match the color of their lungs to that of their skin at no extra cost.

So it is a forgone conclusion that wars have a beneficial effect for the common people: when the hunter makes a kill, the dog gets to chew on the bones. Looking at my dog, I know the bones are tasty and worth dying for!

All wars are fun. Especially the modern ones, with the nicest fireworks ever. But if you are like me, you would enjoy the clean version of the spectacle on the TV. A lot of times I just prefer to see the profits rolling in. That's the best spectacle of them all. I like the ones when our military beats up on the little ones, like those nations in central and south America. We teach them respect, we fumigate the suckers to keep the drug prices reasonable for the common American and their children sick for our pharmaceuticals, the profits keep coming, and the cost of the operation is low. It keeps my conscience cool when profit yield is $100,000 or more for every dead or maimed U.S. Soldier. I generally do not worry about what happens to the psychotic animals on the other side, as long as the little ole American moms do not get to see it on the TV. I do not know why these vermin nations keep opposing our will when their 12-year olds could be making a whole $1 a day working for us.

Sometimes, it is the relatively dispossessed elite that starts the war to change the status quo. It is kind of exciting, just a tinge of fear if you would stay on top. The two big European wars (otherwise known as the World War I and II) initiated by the rouge states (axis powers?), fall in this category. They were too late to the colonial empire building game. It was their own fault, if you ask me. Excluded from the party, the Germans and their friends had the temerity to crash the gates with guns not once, but twice. Their form of government was inferior, their soldiers were more witless than ours, and while God like a good industrialist or politician was helping both sides with praying pastors, he blessed us more. So we won the day. We also had the seemingly endless resources derived from our colonies, including ample supply of gun-fodder like the British Indian Army, that practically guaranteed our success in a long war of attrition. And the profits were good! DuPont made 950 percent more in the first. Neat.

How did we treat our soldiers in the "war to end all wars?" We got them out of their miserable farm life. We put shirt on their back, shoes on their dirty broken feet, and gave them a chance to travel the world. All we asked of them in return was to secure our colonies and profits by killing heathens, the ones who had thrown us out of Europe in the first place. It burns my heart when renegades like General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marines try to spoil the party. Look how bitter he sounds ("War is a Racket," 1935):

"Thus, having stuffed patriotism down [soldiers'] throats, it was decided to make them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a month.

All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when they could get it) and kill and kill and kill . . . and be killed.

But wait!

Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly taken from him to support his dependents, so that they would not become a charge upon his community.

Then we made him pay what amounted to accident insurance -- something the employer pays for in an enlightened state -- and that cost him $6 a month. He had less than $9 a month left.

Then, the most crowning insolence of all -- he was virtually blackjacked into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days. We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back -- when they came back from the war and couldn't find work -- at $84 and $86. And the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds!

Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too. They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly -- his father, his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his daughters. When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken, they suffered too -- as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the bankers after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond prices. And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and still paying."

How petty!

It is fitting that the winning elite imposes its will on the vanquished. Sure, common people are killed and maimed on both sides of the war. It is the less fortunate G.I. Joe who contracts rectal cancer by sitting on depleted Uranium tank structures (serves him right for sitting on his duff when he should be out killing the heathens) or the lung cancer by breathing in radioactive Uranium dust form shattered bullet-tips. But hey, they get to fight for the lofty principles. They fight for their religion. They fight for democracy. They fight for their Fatherland. They fight for equality and the dictatorship of the proletariat. They fight for truth, beauty, and justice. For me, I like the more practical things in life: money, power, and prosperity of my progeny.

You must have seen all those great-spectacle war movies, haven't you? The ones where the heroes and the kings lead their armies to war. They are always at the head of the warring column till the action begins. What are the chances of survival of the soldiers and that rare stupid king who manage to stay at the front line? None, you say. How come the leaders always escape the onslaught unharmed? And how come, if the King dies in the battlefield, the common soldiers dissemble, throw their arms, and would rather accept slavery than die? Dim soldiers! Do the loftier goals of truth, beauty, and justice die with the king? I am glad the modern wars are much more civilized. The elite and the leaders are never put in the harms' way. They rake in the profits to keep the torch of democracy alight, to build great monuments to the dead, and to buy flowers for the graves. Three hurrahs for the truth, beauty, and justice.

The results of the study whether chanting "God Bless America," "United We Stand," and "Support Our Troops" helps reduce pain, sickness, and suffering of the 19-year old Marines and their mothers are classified. But it must, it helps the war machine.

So the 300 or so million people question is: how come there isn't more fervor and outcry to start new and bigger wars? There is a world of heathen animals out there that must be subjugated for truth, beauty, justice, and profit.