War is an activity in which the profits are accounted for in dollars and the losses in lives. War benefits only a very few at the expense of many. Only a few people make huge fortunes during war. How many rich people and politicians do you know that have ever carried a rifle in defense of our Nation? How many of them ever dug a foxhole? How many of them know what it means to go hungry in a vermin infested foxhole? How many of them ever suffered under extreme heat and numbing cold? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, dodging bullets? How many of them actually faced an enemy in combat? How many of them have been wounded or killed in combat? The bill war extracts is horrible; freshly dug graves; mangled bodies; traumatized minds; broken hearts and broken homes; national economy devastated; oppressive taxation for generating to come.
The President, Congress and all those of the military-industrial complex are once again beating the war drums. These mad dogs are on the loose trying to convince us, and the world, that we need to conduct military operations against Syria. Another war that might well cost us billions and billions of dollars and who knows how many American lives. How many more of our young men and women should be lost this time and be killed, physically maimed and mentally tortured? Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit. Fortunes are to be made. Millions if not billions of dollars will be made, but only for the select few like the bankers, the manufacturers, the speculators, those that supply the military with all its needs. They will fare well. Yes, Washington is getting ready for another war and why shouldn’t they? It pays great dividends! But what does it profit the men and women who are killed? What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits? What does it profit our Nation? The cost of these wars and military adventures are always paid by we the people, who never profit from war.
We haven’t paid the bill for the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our children will pay it, and our grand-children will still be paying the cost of these military operations. But those politicians and businesses that profit from war don’t care. They say ‘The U.S. has lots of money; let’s get some of it.’Of course, they don’t say that openly and publicly. They disguise it in speeches and patriotism, love of country, and security and safety from the terrorists, and all the while the profits rise steeply and are quickly put into their bank accounts. And, if anyone enjoys the cream of the profits it is the big banks and the Federal Reserve who finance all these wars and reap a tidy profit just off the interest.
But the men and women in our armed forces pay the largest portion of the bill. If you don’t believe me, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields overseas. Visit Arlington National Cemetery. Visit any of the veteran’s hospitals where you will see destroyed men who were once the very best this nation had to offer. Many, way too many, of these fine men and women have been destroyed mentally and physically by war. Look at the number of our soldiers who are committing suicide. But the politicians and the military-industrial complex do not care about our young men and women. They see their sacrifices, their misery and their suffering as just part of the bill.
The war propaganda coming out of Washington is so very malicious. They make it seem that we must attack, we must conduct military operations, and we must go to war to make the U.S. and the entire world safe. But they are not telling you that our American soldiers might be killed by weapons that were made right here in America. Weapons that the U.S. government has and is now providing to the rebels in Syria. Some of these same Syrian rebels just happen to be part of the same terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11. This is madness!
Craig Kleinsmith reside in Hamburg.