World peace is ideal. We all want it, but we've never had it. The recent war on ISIS brings up a slew of emotions, thoughts and opinions, and I think many people wonder why. Why is it that the world has never had permanent peace? Is it human nature? Greed? Are we just bad people? Many people, myself included, are left continually wondering: Why are there civilian casualties? Isn't technology at a point in which we should be able to nail targets from miles away?
Humans naturally want to make money. Money drives us. Its what wakes us up in the morning, and keeps us up at night, Americas GDP is around $19 trillion. The US defense budget is $600 some billion, and is the highest in the world. $33 billion is spent on just arms sales alone, to foreign countries. The US defense budget is $600 some billion, and is the highest in the world. At least $100 billion of which is made up by defense companies like Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin. One would expect an almost civilian casualty-free war.
The other side of this story lies in the large corporations that manufacture and sell ammunition and arms. Just one Hellfire missile costs around $115,000. A Tomahawk cruise missile on the other hand, can cost upwards of $1.5 million. In Americas 3 year participation in the war against ISIS, analysts, when estimating conservatively ,believe that the US has dropped over 60,000 bombs/missiles combined. If each missile/bomb dropped was a APKWS 2 (costing $20,000 each), then the US would have expended almost $2 billion dollars. (As one can see, these numbers are EXTREMELY conservative). This does not account for the guns, ammunition, and other supplies sent to Syria and Iraq.
I would be okay with these figures if the US was fighting a civilian casualty free war. But their not. A video released by the US coalition shows an airplane blowing up an ISIS "car bomb factory". The only problem was that it was not a bomb factory. It was the combined two houses of Iraqi civilians, that were awoken in the middle of the night to have their large families cut down to only a couple people, which then were quickly transported to hospitals for surgery. Yes, casualties do happen and civilians are killed in war zones. Yes, sometimes a civilian (without knowing) drives towards the site of a newly deployed bomb, or enters an active war zone accidentally. The US estimates these deaths to be at around 500. The deaths of the family in the "car bomb factory"? Categorized as ISIS deaths. What disturbs me about this war campaign is that it is being called a transparent campaign. It's not. The US often drops bombs and moves to take out "ISIS" strongholds often prematurely, often off of hear say and what they believe the be , not off of intelligence gathered.
This leads me to think: What if guns and bombs and missiles and attack helicopters all stopped being used? What if companies like Browning, Smith and Wesson, Mossberg, and Colt stopped making guns and bullets? What if Boeing only made commercial air liners and Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman only made satellites? If no weapons were available, were would our world be?