One major problem with writing political commentary is that it’s often difficult look at something that seems … well, crazy … and find a rational explanation for it. It’s easier to just write off what looks like craziness as craziness and move on. But in the real world, there is in fact method to most people’s madness. This applies even to politicians who have apparently gone off their badly-needed psychiatric meds.
So, when a global empire which has come to grief in Asian land wars twice in one decade appears to be going all-out to get itself into a third such war — this time with a country more militarily advanced than, and with three times the population of, either of the locations of the previous two debacles, and at least tentatively allied with three world powers (Russia, China and India) — one must resist the temptation to jump to a conclusion along the lines of “okay, so, US President Barack Obama has gone completely off the deep end. Fruit loop. Nutter. To the booby hatch with him.”
The difficulty in avoiding such a conclusion should be obvious: Open war between the US and Iran is a crazy idea, and not just mildly so. It goes well beyond “dumb as a box of rocks” and easily pings the “murderously insane” range. Not only is it crazy at the level of military strategy, it’s completely disconnected from reality in terms of putative casus belli: Every even semi-objective assessment of Iran’s nuclear program indicts the claim that Iran’s government is either close to producing a nuclear weapon or especially interested in doing so.
In order to explain Obama’s indisputably insane actions without concluding personal insanity on his part — that is to say, in order explain a sane man’s insane position — we have to place him in the iron grip of an institutional insanity reaching back more than half a century.
And hey … that’s something we can do.
Since World War Two, that segment of America’s political class which we’ve since come to know (thanks to Eisenhower) as “the military-industrial complex” has been in the driver’s seat. The military exigencies of that war put it there; the post-war national security state was created to keep it there.
The primary activity of the US government since 1941 — first due to those military exigencies, and later as a matter of policy — has been to ongoingly transfer as much wealth as possible from the pockets of America’s productive class to the “defense” establishment.
And it’s a big business. The direct transfers, not counting the stuff hidden in line items other than “defense,” are the US government’s single biggest budget item, coming to about 25% of federal spending. Big business indeed, and keeping that big business in business requires a constant diet of “wars and rumors of wars.”
As long as the Soviet Union held out, that was a fairly easy order to serve up: Korea, Vietnam, Grenada and so forth, with “Cold War” filling the gaps. But since 1990, the “defense” establishment and its political shills have had to drum up new bogeymen on an ad hoc basis to keep the government contracts coming in for new guns, new bombs, new aircraft, new bases to build and newly destroyed cities to re-build.
Their approach comes down to a prescription attributed to neoconservative “foreign policy specialist” Michael Ledeen: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”
Unfortunately, those crappy little countries tend to be more trouble than they’re worth. Sure, they reliably turn into long-term quagmires, but the profit margins quickly become petty cash. Who wants to run mess halls and PXes for occupation troops, when the big money is in replacing expensive consumables like large bombs (and if the enemy is helpful, the very expensive aircraft which carry them)?
With the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles winding down, America’s military-industrial complex is tired of “crappy little countries” and on the lookout for a big score. And their friends in government, who have staked their careers on 70 years of constant “pro-defense” propaganda, are happy to help them find one.
Enter Iran: Plenty big and sophisticated enough to knock down some US aircraft — hell, maybe even a carrier or two! — but probably not powerful enough to land a few divisions on the Maryland shore and burn Washington. It has all the makings of a long, expensive conflict, with 30-odd years of mutual belligerence to help the pill slide easily down the American electorate’s throat. Exactly what the doctor (Doctor Strangelove, that is) ordered.
What could possibly go wrong?
Citations to this article:
- Thomas L. Knapp, If You Have to Ask Why, the Answer is Usually “Money”, Antiwar.com, 02/10/12
- Thomas L. Knapp, If you have to ask why, the answer is usually “money”, Dhaka, Bangladesh New Age, 02/10/12
What's really funny is watching David Gergen clutch his pearls when anyone suggests it's about money.
My recent post New Book in the Works
Well stated, Tom! Most definitely the US government – and most others everywhere of every size – are in a constant propaganda campaign to convince their area's residents that war is right around the corner, that horrendous attackers are waiting to take advantage of a slip in defense measures. And of course we know from history (most often revealed later though not at the time) that the government leaders were not above manipulating events and people to bring about attacks so as to whip the populace into a frenzy of hatred a desire for revenge. Who and what groups profited monetarily from such manipulations in the past…. not different in kind – and maybe even biological and/or political or corporative ancestors of those at the receiving end now. But that's not an essential point to pursue, just that it did and is still happening.
Now the plans of all these government manipulators would fall flat if the pawns in all this – those who have generally been willing to believe the propaganda and sign-up as military enforcers – said: "NO WAY! We'll defend our own homes/property/family/fiends against an actual attack but will NOT initiate physical harm on others!"
US military enforcers are largely letting themselves be used as pawns by the US government. (Events show that some smaller number do want to do physical harm and the designated "enemy" is mostly acceptable.) However it is within the capability of each of them to say NO to being a pawn! And it is even easier for anyone who is still at the stage of considering whether to go into the military for whatever reason they might use – training, GI education benefits, no other job, esprit de corps, etc. Whether already in or just thinking about joining the military, one can evaluate what is taking place and reach the same conclusion you and I have come to: the US government is the major harm-causer in the US and the world. "Do I want to be a part of such an organization?? As an actual enforcer or even in only a support position?"
The same type question ought to be asked by everyone: "As a parent/spouse/sibling/friend/etc. do I want my son/daughter/spouse/brother/sister/relative/friend/etc. in a position of initiating physical harm or even providing support action for such harm?"
Technology enables you, Tom, and me and the majority of people today to learn about what is actually taking place behind all those words uttered and written by government word-mongers. We can also let others know – as you have done – our assessment of what is taking place. This is a far cry from the situation pre-WWII (and of course earlier) when all sorts of manipulation and distortions of previous events took place to maneuver the German people into taking part in attacks on their neighbors (and even fellow Germans who were "different" in some way) and then eventually most all the other countries' peoples into supporting their respective governments in a massive frenzy of killing/maiming/destroying.
I'll keep on pointing out what is going on – the emperor has no clothes; the wizard behind the curtain is manipulating information; governments seek to maintain and increase a pawn mentality in the populace.
And I'll continue to say what logically follows: individuals can keep themselves from being pawns of government in any capacity, especially domestic and military enforcers. Those who are currently military pawns can STOP being pawns!
For what it’s worth, with the resources, materials and know how Iran has at hand, it could make a dirty bomb in a week or so or a fission bomb in on the order of a year. But the former would be hard to deliver and wouldn’t provide a knock out punch, and the latter would involve diverting the resources, materials and know how from making cost effective nuclear reactors for power generation to cheap and nasty reactors that cut safety corners, had brief operating lives, and were optimised for breeding fissile materials rather than generating power. Still, Iran really wouldn’t have much work to do to get there, as it’s just the enrichment path to fission bombs that would need a great deal of time, capital and effort (which in turn means that path isn’t much of a proliferation threat).