Wars are ‘business models’ (2)
On Jan. 17, 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower, as the outgoing United States president, gave his farewell address to the nation. It was remarkable as a farewell address of an outgoing president since he did not praise the armed forces of his country. Instead, he criticized it through warnings about the possible abuses of the “military-industrial complex.”
In his farewell speech, Eisenhower issued a stern warning of the “growing influence of a permanent armaments industry and a large military establishment on American democracy.” More specifically, he said that in the different levels of government, “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
Eisenhower defined this complex as the “conjunction of a massive military establishment and a large arms industry.” He also urged the American people to be “vigilant” in checking the possibility of top government officials being engaged or entangled in this military-industrial complex that could lead to the “disastrous rise of misplaced power [that could] persist…”
There is one interesting footnote in this landmark farewell speech of an outgoing American president. Eisenhower originally wanted to use the term “military-industrial-congressional complex.” This was to highlight that lawmakers play a significant role in the process of defense budgeting and spending. He reportedly omitted this so the congressional leaders who were among the audience of his farewell speech would “not be offended.”
A month ago, the present conflagration initiated by one of Eisenhower’s successors—Donald J. Trump—has manifested exactly what he warned about in 1961.
As many truths about Trump’s (and Benjamin Netanyahu’s) war on Iran have been slowly unraveled over both social and mainstream media, many American lawmakers have dirty entanglements with the powerful “military-industrial complex” that Eisenhower had warned more than seven decades ago. Many American lawmakers are reported to have strong ties with billionaires who are part of this complex, both as contributors to the campaign of lawmakers during their candidacies and through strong lobbies to proliferate the arms industry in the US. A few are even believed to own stocks in this military industry.
The American perspective on the promotion of “democracy” was proliferated quite widely in different nation-states created after World War II. And the Philippines is among the staunchest supporters of the American-style “democracy” that grants various “freedoms.”
Such a perspective has been highly criticized as hypocritical, especially when the definition of promoting this type of democracy excludes nation-states that continue to assert national sovereignty and nationalize their national patrimony, especially of high-value resources like oil and natural gas. And Iran has stood consistently in doing this, despite all the economic and political sanctions imposed by a “democratic” champion like the US government. This is why Iran has become a challenging target for the American government and its military-industrial complex. Largely, it is also because Iran is a competing military-industrial complex country.
The American government’s efforts to build up its imperialist power were carried out mainly through the establishment of military bases in more than 70 countries all over the world. These huge military bases house sophisticated fighter jets, drones, and various forms of war munitions, all of which were manufactured by companies of the military industrial complex. These bases are stationed in strategically located countries that have become dependent on American military and social development assistance. In return, the leaders of these newly created democracies in the American capitalistic model agree to host these bases.
Later, these humongous structures have become mini-enclaves of American sovereignty in a foreign country. This also makes the host countries targets of the “enemies” of the American government, like “hostile” countries in the so-called Middle East: Syria, Iraq, Libya, and now Iran.
As the fiery and highly destructive bombings in Iran and in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries rage on, we are seeing how the American-centered military-industrial complex continues to rake in high revenues from the sale and manufacture of more deadly munitions. All these are mainly because wars are actually manufactured to create wars, as author Arundhati Roy once said.
Creating wars pushes countries to continue ordering war munitions, and the manufacture of such generates revenues that flow to the coffers of billionaires who hold major stakes in these military-industrial complex companies.
Wars indeed make good business. Peace, on the other hand, will only raise minuscule or even zero revenues compared to millions of dollars in waging wars.
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