Celebrating the War Machine

I seem to be one of the few people concerned about the militarization of the United States. This weekend – wrapped around Veterans’ Day – has been a love-fest for our military, not just veterans but more so our current service members. I certainly have nothing against veterans (my father and four of my uncles served in WWII, and two friends of mine died (for no reason) in Vietnam), nor against those now serving (though the idea that they are a “voluntary” force is belied by the fact that many if not most “volunteered” because they couldn’t find work anywhere else and were offered the false promise of “training”). But I don’t at all like the exploitation of the military that I see going on in at least the past decade or so. Patriotism is one thing, military empire is another. We are in at least one war that we’ve been in for more than a decade and are supposedly getting out of another (though not very neatly). We have troops stationed around the world in some 150 countries. The sun does not set on our empire. We’ve been in one or more wars for most of the past 150 years. Our economy is a perpetual war economy, the military-industrial-congressional complex being the engine. We spend more on our military (though relatively squat on the personnel, especially when they become veterans) than just about all other countries in the world combined. The current constant celebration of our troops is little more than propaganda that elevates the “sacrifice” of the “heroes” in order to mask the ongoing spread of the war machine. I appreciate and support our troops – I just don’t join in the jingoistic propaganda that exploits the troops for the benefit of the capitalist war machine (which by the way is fueled by the blood of the men and women who are sucked into it, and then ironically celebrated).

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.