All throughout history wars have been fought.
At the beginning it was simple. One group of cavemen attacked another with bone heads because they were competing for a food source that could only support one group. Or because one group took the other's women or stole something.
War was good then As men got more "civilised" they began to form hierarchy in groups. wars were no longer fought on consensus about what was good for the group but increasingly more on the whims of the hierarchy. But still wars had a that level of self determination but along came the empires. Europe's Ceasars, Asias Gengis Khans, Russia's Tsars, Africa's Tshaka's, Middle East's Herods.
That was the end of war as we know it.
War became a device for the upper hierarchy. They could order it on the flimsiest of excuses. The people believing their leaders to be divine appointed followed like sheep to a slaughter house. Singing the horrid war cries till the last man drops.
This trend has become even more pronounced in the 20th and 21st century.
For example WW2, who really benefited from that war? Who were the real sponsors of Germany. Germany after WW1 was economically crippled and the Versailles Treaty only served to make sure the wound remained forever fresh. But Miraculously Germany rose from shear poverty to industrial might in less than 10 years. Recurrent evidence points to the injection of funds from outside Germany at that time. There was nothing wrong with someone investing. What was striking about this huge investment in Germany was the source, these were big companies from the victor nations.
This was odd, from the resolute of the Treaty it was in the victor nations' best interests to keep Germany crippled yet these firms were injecting funds. It seems clear that someone(s?) wanted Germany to rise again, and fast.
Why would anyone want this to happen especially with the fresh memories of the trenches, their foul smell and the putrid stench of pilled bodies. Yet here someone wanted a war again. Who could possibly gain anything by this.
Military industry is the only logical conclusion that can be reached from such data. This, and the striking occurance of senior government officials in the boards of such firms. The very same high level officials who are in charge of making policy about war! This is very bizzare to say the least.
There is clearly a conflict of interest here. everyone knows the darkness of human nature whatever their level of experience. How can a politician, of all people, resist such a temptation to profiteer from such an arrangement.
Take for example Cheney and Bush, they have very deep
ties to Halleberton, which is a huge oil company and they happen to invade countries that have huge oil reserves. Is that a coincidence? Allegedly the Taliban had refused the American oil industry the go ahead to build a pipe line across Afghanistan, certain quarters maintain the real reason was to secure the laying and passage of the oil pipeline. Not true? Well I say no smoke without fire.
Bush asserted that Iraq was invaded because they had nuclear weapons. Well Iran and Korean are openly developing nuclear "capabilities" but NO-ONE is invading them. Is it because there is no oil in Korea, or is the 1950-3 war still too fresh in Bush's mind. Iran may have oil but the real reason they are not being invaded is unlike their ill-fated neighbour they actually have Nuclear "capabilities" and they have a far better army. Maybe it would be risking another Vietnam if they invade Iran, chilling thought.
So it is not surprising that the main oil companies to benefit from the invasion of Iraq have strong ties with the top brass that actually make the decisions to go to war, all for cheep oil.
Even when one looks at the angle of weapons manufacturer the same story echoes. The major manufacturers of gunships jet fighters are implicated and even major construction companies that win rebuilding bids after the destruction of the invasion have dodgy government ties. An example was the saga after the invasion of Iraq about the rebuilding programme.
people might think this is a recent development where war has become a business. But even back in WW2, Hitler allegedly used the
punch card system computers supplied by IBM, an American company. The odd thing about this was that America was at war with Germany to stomp out Hitler. One might allege this was a one stop buy and the company did not support thee Fuhrer bu there is evidence of continuous supply and maintenance visits to keep the concentration camps running.
Business as usual? even if the customer is a mankind's enemy, or one could go as far as inferring collaboration.
Even in African conflicts, there has been evidence put forward that alleges that major powers covertly fan the conflicts and get the parties involved dependent on continuous supply of weapons, in the end perpetuating the weapons companies' profits with the huge sales they make as result. Not to mention which interesting individuals sit on the boards of these companies. One wonders how the wars never stop even though the conflicting parties do not have anything close to a weapons manufacturing factory in their command.
All about the green backs, humans tough luck?
One might argue that it all cannot be about money. I tell you, more probably than not, you are correct.
War or the threat of war creates the Saviour syndrome. Independent or free people cannot be controlled. This is because they have self determination and there are
independent. People will not give up their right if they feel safe.
There is the universal form of war, where one society seeks to control another, this is open war, with an
uncalculated end. This should never be confused with controlled conflict. In controlled conflict the instigators maintain control by the euphoria amoungst the population after the 'victory". Their minds will be set on the event of the win, which is just that, an event. The instigators are then able to consolidate their positions amoungst this short lived euphoria. Even on the "defeated side" control is established by the "i will raise you again" syndrome. Anyone who promises this will gain control of the defeated population.
But right now the instigators have realised that conflict on such a scale has unwanted effect and has high risk of generating random events, something they certainly do not want, they want predictability, something that goes according to plan.
So what should a government or an organisation do to ensure control? give the people something to fear and they will feel
dependent on the said body to
protect or
exempt them from the threat.
In the old days the later, exempt from the threat was the the main one used. This was the classical dictatorship. "If you bow under me you will be exempt from the fear/actuation of the threat. This threat may be torture, disappearance or death.
This works in a non first world country as seem in the eastern block countries, and Africa.
But in countries that masquerade the illusion of democracy like most first world countries. the later will cause the undesired result, which may result in total lose of power of the instigator, as seem in the cases of Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin.
What works with the least risk is the first one,
protection from the fear/ actuation of the threat. This has become the status quo of the first world.
"If you bow to me, I will protect you"
This is seen in the world trade centre situation. Bush come out of the incident with the words to the effect that if you give up your civil rights i will protect you from Osama Bin Laden (the assumed threat). This declaration was represented by the content of the Patriot Act. In the Iraq invasion, the perceived threat were the "nuclear weapons" in Saddam's hand, (which were never found).
Citizens of these said type of countries will only recognise the proposed threat after a
demonstration of the threat. This has to be traumatic but non the less it is a very controlled demonstration. After the demonstration of the threat the citizens are offered the way out by th Saviour, at the cost of civil rights. This in-turn ensures the Saviour's continued dominance of the country. This is very recurrent theme in first world countries.
The threat is usually a perceived far away threat. even though the demonstration of the threat is supposedly by an outside instigator there are always overtones on the Saviour's involvement in the actuation of the threat. this is manifested by the spin of of conspiracy theories that cast a shadow on the "Saviour's shining armour." A resonating example is the Al Quada-CIA-Government links in 9/11.
Citizens of the said type of countries, because there is no direct show of malice from the Saviou to them unlike in the "exempt model", believe their Saviour to be "infallible" and will follow his assertions since he 'protects'. In this case they will readily dismiss the shadows cast on the Saviour.
This is the grim reality of war and all the threats that it presents. Its a means of redistributing wealth against the flow gradient i.e money will move to a very few individuals during a war, this will occur much faster than during normal times and will be to a disproportionately very few people.
War serves as a means of control, either with open conflict, when one society seeks to take over another. Controlled conflict and perceived threat serve to control the Saviour's own population. The observed trend is that those who have more of the money have more of the power. So acquiring the money is not a function of greed but a means of control. If you can control the money this reduces the necessity of actual violence. This is because e even though violence is effective it has an element of unpredictability and had therefore higher risk.
In the end its all about the concentration of money and power the prior serving to propagate the later even more. So the question is: Who has more of it?
Soho Theatre, London
