NP? the real business of the War

[pynchonoid]

A perspective from another position on the political
spectrum, an angle not usually considered by folks
brainwashed by Bush & Co. propaganda:

The Costs of War and Some Who Benefit
by Richard M. Ebeling, April 11, 2003

War is never profitable for either the victor or the
vanquished nation.

[...] But doesn’t war generate prosperity for many in
the economy? War is profitable for the defense-related
industries that will have to replenish the $1 million
missiles and the $50,000 bombs that are being dropped
on the opposing country. War is also profitable for
the companies supplying the uniforms, equipment, and
weaponry for the armed forces in the field or the rear
areas, as it is for all those supplying the food and
amenities provided by the government for those in
combat. 

[...] When this war ends and the U.S. government goes
about the enterprise of remaking Iraqi society, huge
expenditures will be forced on the American taxpayer
to cover the costs. Already, according to various
newspaper accounts in the United States and Europe,
the private vultures are circling the government
procurement offices to devour their portions at the
public trough. The global social engineers in
Washington are finishing the details on a $100 billion
postwar reconstruction project for U.S.-occupied Iraq.


Iraq’s major public sectors will be rebuilt by
American companies given the government contracts to
do the work. Some lucky firms will have the contracts
to restructure the Iraqi public school system — but as
public schools, not as private educational
institutions. And within a year of the end of the war,
4.2 million Iraqi students will receive U.S. Aid for
International Development (USAID) “student kits” to
teach them to be good citizens according to a
curriculum designed with the approval of the U.S.
government. 

Some fortunate American corporation is to receive the
government contract to design and implement a national
health-care system modeled more or less on the British
system of socialized medicine, to be eventually
managed by an Iraqi government ministry of health.
This will include more than 100 hospitals to be built
or restored under separate contracts to various
American companies. The U.S government will pay for
five rebuilt or new government-owned airports in Iraq,
three for domestic and two for international flights.
The U.S. military will run all air traffic control. 

And selected American companies will be contracted by
USAID to make every Iraqi a believer and practitioner
in U.S.-style democracy. Iraq, according to the
blueprint, is to be divided into 18 regions, in which
hired legal experts will prepare the institutional
changes and the groundwork for future political
elections. The chosen private contractors will, in
cooperation with U.S. “local military commands,”
proceed to “train Iraq’s traditional and civil society
leaders” in the “fundamental process of democratic
government.” 

Yes, the aftermath of war will be profitable for those
privileged companies, corporations, and private
experts that are given lucrative contracts at
taxpayers’ expense to make a new and better socialized
sector for the Iraqi people. Because if these reports
are correct, that is what the United States will be in
the business of paying for, and all from an
administration that says it values the private sector
over “big government.” Clearly what is meant is using
taxpayers dollars to hire privileged private companies
to “build socialism” in faraway lands liberated by
American armed forces. 

Another name for the planned use of selected American
companies to do the actual work of nation building in
Iraq is “corporate welfare.” And the use of this term
should make it much clearer that what will be at work
will be large-scale income redistribution from the
U.S. taxpayer to the privileged few in the corporate
world who are wise enough and well-connected enough to
obtain the multi-billion dollar contracts from
Washington. 

Some will benefit from war through the largess of
government spending during and after the military
conflagration. But like all other forms of government
redistribution, it will be at the expense of many
others in society and will in the long run make the
vast majority in the nations affected poorer than they
were or ever had to be. [...] 

<http://www.fff.org/comment/com0304h.asp>




"Don't forget the real business of the War is buying
and selling. The murdering and the violence are
self-policing, and can be entrusted to
non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is
useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as
diversion from the real movements of the War. It
provides raw material to be recorded into History, so
that children may be taught History as sequences of
violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared
for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a
stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to
try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still
here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of
markets."
Gravity's Rainbow, p. 105

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