Wars are ‘business models’ (1)
Multi-awarded Indian author Arundhati Roy is a staunch critic of the American-centered military-industrial complex. In her writings and talks, she often refers to this complex as the prime motivation for countries to go to war, defining it as “a system where profit motives drive global conflicts rather than security needs.”
Roy is attributed with having said that wars are invented to buy and sell weapons. As she has reportedly said, “Once, weapons were manufactured to fight wars. Now, wars are manufactured to sell weapons.”
Such views lead to the proposition that wars are indeed business models. There are more economic incentives for countries to wage war rather than maintain peace.
As a small, still largely developing country, the Philippines has not dared to initiate a war with another sovereign country, although we have often been provoked by China over the West Philippine Sea. We dared not retaliate, even if we had been humiliated and aggressively harassed by China. Both our previous and present top leaders have not dared to do the same thing that Iran did when both the United States and Israel bombarded it more than two weeks ago, creating a massive global economic fallout.
But our recent history has shown that we used to have a president who had a lot of appetite to wage “wars”—not with powerful countries around us, but with vulnerable and marginalized populations already going through miserable daily lives due to poverty and powerlessness.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte, now in detention at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, has so far been the one who waged two internal “wars.” First, his deadly “war on drugs” targeted mainly poor and powerless urban and rural individuals whose only fault was to be entangled in the use, and in some cases, sale, in small quantities, of illegal drugs. This deadly “war” was said to be the centerpiece of his leadership and is one reason why he gained massive popular support, even if he ended his term without addressing the drug menace even slightly. Duterte himself admitted to not having addressed this problem when he stepped down from office in 2022, although he promised to rid the country of the illegal drug use “within six months” of his term.
If indeed this war was intended to get rid of illegal drug use in the country, why have the huge supplier drug lords not been among those killed in this war? But as many reports have revealed, this drug war was not a genuine desire to help those who have been victimized by addiction to illegal drugs. It was allegedly done to keep money flowing to the presidential family coffers, while projecting an image of a leader who truly had the interest of “protecting the welfare” of the country in mind.
In a study in two provinces of the autonomous region in Mindanao in 2011, the illegal drugs industry was estimated to generate a whopping P2 million a day. The revenues allegedly went into the pockets of the major actors of the drug industry and not to small-time street drug peddlers who end up as drug users themselves.
The second was the five-month Marawi siege, allegedly undertaken to get rid of the Maute Group, a local family-centered “extremist” group, believed to be responsible for the spread of illegal drugs and other “terrorist” activities in Lanao del Sur and elsewhere in the central part of Mindanao. This group was (and still is) regarded as a local terrorist group, allegedly listed among the local counterparts of international groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, sometimes referred to as the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant.
On May 23, 2017, while on a visit to Russia, Duterte ordered the “bombing” of Marawi City, the capital of Lanao del Sur.
The Philippine armed forces staged the “carpet bombing” of the only Islamic city of the Philippines on a daily basis. Such kinetic action destroyed not only the residences of the Meranaw people but also their significant social infrastructure, including a mosque in the heart of the city and several school buildings.
Originally thought of as a “short-term” war to get rid of the 300-strong Maute Group, this kinetic action by Philippine military forces lasted for five months, ending on Oct. 17, 2017.
Both the deadly war on drugs and the Marawi siege required huge budgets for the killing of thousands of individuals.
Such budgets were laced with allegations of corruption within the ranks of the Philippine military forces, involving some members of its top leadership as well as rank-and-file personnel. Illegal drug profits reportedly went to some politicians who were allegedly protecting drug lords and other criminal groups.
(To be concluded next week).
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