Public Is Catching On, U.S. Economy Is War Based
Wars are deadly adventures orchestrated to keep the domestic economy churning, but the public is not suppose to suspect it. The seemingly spontaneous, overwhelming negative public response to President Obama’s campaign to bomb Syria is as encouraging sign that some are catching on. America’s grass roots war resistance has been slow in coming, long after many European politicians, goaded by their own constituencies, refused to play the U.S. Administration’s war-game in Syria.
It is significant that few if any of the hundreds of diverse groups resisting war are doing so in support of the Assad dynasty; at best, President Bashar al-Assad is looked upon as the better dictator; at worst, as a naked tyrant. My most unique source, Karriem Shabazz, was, for the safety of his young family, recently forced to leave his adopted Syria and a satisfying life he had built there as an English teacher for 15 years. Dr. Shabazz recently stated in an interview, “Why doesn’t America know this and mind its own business? Don’t we have enough expensive problems? Are we going over there with drones and increase the collateral damage that may kill as many or more women and children as Bashaar al-Assad has done?” (1)
President Obama billed the attack that did not happen as a punishment for Bashar al-Assad. We will teach him a lesson he will not forget, is the twisted rationale for starting another killing war-game. It is not unlike an imprecation practiced by some branches of Talmudic Judaism that loads all of a group’s sins on a scapegoat or chicken, and then slaughters the sacrifice to get rid of the sins. Mr Obama would blame the sins of the Middle East on Bashar al-Assad and bomb the Syrian people to punish Assad. What can his real reason be? Why are we always in the process of going to war with a country C that seems totally insignificant, while we are still bombing and droning country B, and while our 10 year old war with Country A is only now winding down?
Bombing a people as punishment for their leader is not a new excuse. In the desert of Kuwait in 1991, George Bush Sr. destroyed most of the Iraq army of 20 year old’s who were there because they needed jobs. We were falsely told Saddam Hussein raided a hospital in Kuwait City and stole the incubators, tossing the babies on the floor to die. There was not a word of truth in the story, which was later proved to be a paid Madison Avenue publicity promotion to induce the U.S. to destroy Kuwaiti’s enemy. And our military and political leaders were in on the lie. It was Saddam Hussein we were supposed to be punishing in Iraq, and it was Osama Bin Laden we were pursuing in Afghanistan, but countless civilians’ and children’s lives were destroyed. Long after doing so, Hussein and Bin Laden were found and executed by the winners.
Presidents George Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush, and Barack Obama have all imprecated leaders who just happen to own something desirable under their turf, like oil. Unnecessary wars have dragged on for 23 years against non-enemies incapable of real resistance or counter-attack. What is the real reason for our serial wars against weak imaginary foes, if it is not to punish evil and promoted democracy? This is the question that no one answers, or even asks.
In the neo-American political system. “war” is an activity engaged in as the cover for creating obscene amounts of money that is distributed through banks to war industry businessmen and “defense” contractors… money that trickles down to us in the illusion of prosperity. Some of our children fight in unnecessary wars. This answer to the question, “why does our President want to bomb Syria,” is too simple, too direct, and too obviously evil for many Americans to believe. We want to think there is a grain of decency in our leaders. Who wants to disturb his peace of mind by accepting the premise that warmaking is our country’s unofficial national economic policy? The real explanation of all warring acts for 95 years, must be covered up at all cost. Our once greater society has degenerated morally because we have fallen under influence of a war-based economy. And our economy in its present configuration cannot survive without the money generated by either preparing for war, fighting a war, or rebuilding after the cessation of one. Wars has lots of rewards for those who start them, but do we benefit?
Understanding serial warfare is a “Eureka! experience.” Once discovered, one must decide whether to try to forget it or struggle with it. Aside from the immorality of war, there is a good economic reason we must not forget it. Our federal government is about $17 trillion in debt…war is expensive! It is axiomatic that when our warmaking leaders are forced to stop bombing and looting, as just happened to President Obama, our economy will begin to crumble from the top down, and will continue to fall down upon us unless we as a people uproot the institutions that give us perpetual war for the not so endless prosperity. Maybe we too would like to look the other way… but can we?
I hope this conclusion is as self-evident to you as it is to me. In our film, Christian Zionism, the Tragedy and the Turning, Part 1, we began with a bold statement that we made no effort to prove. A war scene was displayed, and the moderator begins with words I wrote many years ago: “America is a war-based economy…” I believed then and now, that any real discussion humanitarian problems must start with this self evident problem.
Some have described the nation hooked on serial wars and printed money inflation as similar to being hooked on heroin. The comparison is not quite accurate but it is close, for most heroin users do not manufacture or sell it, making a handsome living by doing so; most are victims who are kept poor by their habit. Those who promote war do indeed profit from it, which is why they are hard to get out of our government. There is a war making establishment that does very well, if it were not so, conflicts would end.
In the 1961 President Eisenhower referred to the war lobby as
“The Military Industrial Complex,” which he warned about it in his final speech, but he did not mention the most prosperous beneficiary, those bankers for the war-making establishment, operating through their incestuous connections with the Federal Reserve System.(2)
A giant war weapons show called the Defense And Security Trade Show (DSEI) took place in London this week, featuring companies who make everything from tanks to high tech surveillance equipment. Participants bemoaned the slowdown in Afghanistan and the reluctance of US and UK to strike Syria. The Financial Times titled its Sept. 11 coverage, Defense Searches For Bright Spots. Carola Hoyos reported that the industry is looking for new markets to replace the declining U.S. market, lamenting that it looks like a war in Syria is all but dead. She observed that defense companies executives, supported by military brass, were busy
“hawking their wares in Asia and the Middle East because of the decline in war business in the U.S., as we close out hostilities in Iraq and throttle down in Afghanistan.” She concluded correctly, “this, the most cyclical of industries, is once again, on its way down.” (3)
Financial Times is right, but the war industry is fighting back; it wants war in Syria and Iran badly. Those who wonder why our anti-war President was so bent on the bombing can stop wondering. Obama may not have known this when he started his political career, but he knows now that if he is not to be known as the depression president of the 21st Century, he needs to start a series of limited actions that must lead to a bigger war in order to postpone the economic decline that began in the first six or seven years of this millennium.
The State of Israel and its lobby group, American Israeli Public Affairs Council (AIPAC), as well as its church lobby group, Unity Coalition For Israel (UCFI), and its surrogate step child, Christians United For Israel (CUFI), will put on what AIPAC calls a “full court press” for the bombing of Syria. Israel has surely broken cover in openly asking Congress to demand a strike on Syria. According to one report, AIPAC officials will field some 250 Christian leaders and its activists will storm the halls on Capitol Hill to persuade lawmakers that Congress must adopt the war resolution or risk emboldening Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon; they are expected to lobby virtually every member of Congress.
What must be done if we are to end our war-based economy? First, we must correct the one and only grass roots supporter of wars in the Middle East, Christian Zionism. I refer you again to our 32 minute video, Christian Zionism, The Tragedy And The Turning,(4) in which we state “Ours is a war-based economy, and the principal grass roots support for those wars comes from Christian Zionists.”
World Zionism is the cheerleader for war, demanding that the USA bomb Israel’s neighbors, the independent Middle Eastern countries, one by one. Only Christian Zionists in the U.S. obey Israel’s rhetoric for war as a religion, and they are a very large number. We cannot change AIPAC and UCFI, but we can and must change our friends who are Christians supporting Zionism. They have as much to lose as we do, but they do not know it. America’s churches have the organization and numbers, and the moral imperative to turn the war based society around. The call for peace is finally starting in mainline church. – CEC
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POST SCRIPT, Sept, 19th, The World Council of Churches (WCC) urged its Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican member churches to lobby their congregations and national governments to support a political solution to the war in Syria.(5)
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(1) Military Action in Syria: The Congress and You
(2) “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”¯ Dwight D. Eisenhower (other quotes)
(3) Defence searches for bright spots (Video)
(4) Christian Zionism: The Tragedy and The Turning, Part I (Video)(Full Documentary)
(5) Christian leaders urge churches to back Syria peace plan
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Charles E. (Chuck) Carlson is a pro-peace activist. He grew up on a South Dakota farm, was conscripted and served twice in the US Army, is former Denver and Phoenix businessman, and is grandfather of six. Chuck was a Baptist Deacon before learning he was raising his family in a war based economy where the next conflict was only a election away. He also learned that most churches fail to teach Jesus' call for peace. With the help of several close friends, Carlson organized We Hold These Truths (whtt.org) in 1996, and phased out his business interests thereafter. A new generation website is under construction.
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Article published here: We Hold These Truths. Photo 1: Forever Until the End. Photo 2: BagNewsNotes
URL: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2013/09/26/public-is-catching-on-u
