The Fuel of War

Listening to the presidential debate last night on foreign policy, with the bellicose rhetoric and promises of a strong military (and military spending), I couldn’t help but think of our 34^th president, who also happened to be the only military general who became president since the 18^th president, Ulysses S. Grant, and happened to command the European theater in World War II, including the Normandy Invasion, Dwight D. Eisenhower:

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. – January 10, 1946

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. – April 16, 1953

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. – January 17, 1961

Since Ike’s words 50 years ago, it’s become the “military-industrial-congressional complex,” and it’s wholly controlled by the moneyed interests across the world. Capitalism needs industry and growth, the major growth industry is the war machine, and the war machine needs war. No wonder we’ve been at war for virtually all of the past 75 years, that we have troops, aircraft, and ships in some 150 countries, that we are the “world police” or “peace keepers” or whatever euphemism you like for war mongers or empire. We have an economy to fuel, and war – endless war – is that fuel.