Sending out good vibrations.

Poor children go fight in rich men’s wars. This phrase is familiar, or if not, maybe I just made it up. It turns out that most US Americans tend not to think of themselves as rich or poor, even if they are. Thus, this phrase has little influence on most of our emotions. You may have lost a loved one in a recent war, or nine times more likely, you may have a loved one seriously wounded by said war. If you are an Iraqi or Afghani, you are four hundred and seventy three times more likely to be killed or seriously injured. Historically, the ratio was closer to 1:1 in a more even match.

It’s easy to fight other countries now. The United States has become Billy Badass. In the world wars, one of the most dangerous professions was pilot. Pilots were brave men who flew behind enemy lines, fighting other pilots and dodging anti-air weapons. This has totally changed. Now, the countries we fight do not have sufficient equipment to even touch our airplanes. Thus, pilots rarely get shot down. Most of our aircraft deaths result from mistakes or malfunctions. The occupied population has really only one option for defense at their disposal: insurgency. This is accomplished through the use of various small explosives, usually disguised. The results are more and more wounded US soldiers, along with lots of wounded and dead children and women.

We haven’t won a good war in years. The last one that the government convinced me was to legitimate, was Iraq War, Episode 1. I watched and believed what I saw on CNN, which showed it live on TV, and it reminded me of Star Wars. I like star wars, so I was glued to the TV screen. I just wished my playstation controller could guide a bomb to it’s lucky target. What fun! That was the last military operation that I was almost OK with. The Gulf War, as its officially called lasted about 100 HOURS. That’s just over 4 days. The times of short wars are over, but why?

Defense contractors are making a killing, and man are they stoked about the prospect of our War on Terror. See, the WoT never ends. Obama just said: we will fight the WoT until al-Qaeda has no safe haven. He has simply changed the name of the WoT. It turns out that a member of al-Qaeda can live just about anywhere on planet earth. War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. When we fight perpetual wars, all the defense, intelligence and mercenary companies make perpetual profits. Do you think Boeing and Blackwater made political contributions, and employ lobbyists? You betcha! All of this means that the government is perpetuating a cycle of keeping very few people in power, profiting greatly, killing millions of civilians, and fooling the American people. Mission Accomplished.

As the government wants to keep you ignorant, they use a calculus I didn’t learn in grad school. To see a more realistic accounting for federal war expenditure, you have to search a little deeper. In 2009, the US government spent 1.45 trillion on war, both present and past. That is over half of your federal income taxes going to killing and repressing foreigners. This is why the US is broke, our infrastructure is crumbling, and our taxes are still high, despite living in a fiscally conservative country, with a vast amount of wealth, controlled by the few.

War is now, and has been since at least world War Two, a profitable business for a fortunate few. Some people were able do things like hold the vice presidency and still be a board member at Halliburton, making political decisions then directly profited from them. Well played, sir. As for the middle and lower class Americans, our wars have made us losers. We lost our soldiers, our money and our respect for our leaders. As we go forward, be very mindful of the total costs and benefits of war, as these benefits are no longer for us.