It has long been true that war is a racket. The purpose of war is to convert human lives into profit for financiers and arms dealers. While neocons led the US into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the new left is maybe worse when it comes to warmongering. Consider recent history. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton essentially took bribes to approve massive arms deals. From a San Francisco Chronicle article about it:
The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that gave to the Clinton Foundation. That was a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. The 143 percent increase in U.S. arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors compares to an 80 percent increase in such sales to all countries over the same time period. American military contractors and their affiliates that donated to the Clinton Foundation — and in some cases, helped finance speaking fees to Bill Clinton — also got in on the action. Those firms and their subsidiaries were listed as contractors in $163 billion worth of arms deals authorized by the Clinton State Department.
These arms deals made it impossible for me to ever consider voting for Clinton. And the Democratic Party's embrace of Clinton permanently alienated me from that party. Trump was a maniac, but he at least didn't get us into any crazy overseas military quagmires. The Biden Administration, however, wasted no time in escalating the Ukraine situation from a regional conflict to an international arms bonanza. And now, after being subjected to a year of pro-Ukraine military propaganda, mainstream democrats are sounding every bit as bloodthirsty as the neocons once did.
There are No Good Guys
When the US bombed the Nord Stream pipelines, it effectively declared war on both Russia and Germany. In public, the Germans have so far refrained from attempting to hold us accountable for that. The media has mostly been ignoring the story for weeks. But blowing up national infrastructure isn't the kind of thing people forget about.
Part of what this implies is that Russia now has unambiguous justification for attacking US interests. And if such an attack were to happen and result in the loss of even one American life, the US government would almost certainly respond with disproportionate force, and with the overwhelming support of average citizens. A scenario like that isn't merely plausible. I'd call it somewhat likely.
Even when it doesn't make the news, our military is always making moves. Since 2008, the US has supported at least nine coups in five African countries. And we're already supporting Ukraine with everything short of ground troops and air strikes. While the combat theater is currently confined to one European nation, that could change very quickly if an American aircraft was shot down by the Russians or if something comparably significant happened.
My general opposition to war is ethical. It's wrong to convert human lives into profit with violence. But I also oppose escalating the US role in the Ukraine conflict on practical grounds. It's exceedingly unlikely that foreign troops would ever attempt to invade or anything like that. But state-sponsored cyber attacks would inevitably target US networks, which would range from inconvenient to nightmarish, depending on the system targeted.
On a more nuanced level, I feel like the US may be on the wrong side of the new global order that's emerging. BRIC nations seem to want fair trade and sound money. The US and Europe favor the current economic regime, because it unfairly favors them. As an American, my self-interest might appear to lie with preservation of the old regime. And yet, I don't feel like it will stand forever, no matter what I think about it.
The problem with being against war is that the war machine itself is inaccessible. None of us can influence this machine in any meaningful way. But I'd like to imagine that at some point, a critical mass will be reached, and society will just decide not to do wars anymore. This probably won't happen tomorrow, but maybe in my lifetime.
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS and as a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.