Historic, if true and holds. 60s live?. History is a boomerang.

[Bekah]

Very true or we've missed a whole lot of opportunity in African problems.  

For an interesting (I did NOT say "good") novel on 9/11 conspiracy theories and what's up for "next time"  read "The Shell Game"  by Steve Alton (2009) .  It's a Dan Brown type of thriller using contemporary conspiracy theories - many of them published,  etc.  It held my interest anyway. 

Bekah


On Sep 11, 2013, at 3:53 PM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:

> No. This is not true. Even if you were you to make this argument about the military industrial complex, that includes the government, specifically the congress that spends the money and the president who too often uses the products, the military, the university and research and development business--the little men of science, and the industry and manufacturing of weapons, the defense industry,  The argument fails on several points, not the least is that embracing war to enrich a few industries makes poor the nation. The wealth of nations is not built on war, but is deminished with it. Nor is it built on favoring an industry, be it defense or any other industrial business at the expense of the others. While the industrialists, or any other business group, might, as Smith warned, form a cartel, or corrupt the government, by lobbying for tariffs, wars, etc., these are not money makers, but for a few, and short term, and will be countered by other interests. While we, that is, the US, is certainly driven by money, we are also driven, as you noted, by a general distrust of wars as means to improve the wealth of the nation, and with good reason. War doesn't increase the wealth of nations.  Just look at what the recent crazy wars have doe to he standard of living in the US. It is not about enriching he defense industry. That would be stupid. It would go against the primary force in the economy, self interest. 
> 
> We've not embraced war. But we have engaged in quite a number since we industrialized. There is correlation but not causation. The MIC is one cause of our engagement. But it is not the primary cause. The economy, mostly a domestic service economy, gets little from war. But, for some time now, oil has been essential to our economy. Oil, not defense industry, has been the primary cause of our engagement in these crazy wars. 
> 
> On Wednesday, September 11, 2013, Bekah wrote:
> Our Civil War was so bad we never wanted to go to war again - ever - with anyone.   We lost more men in that war ( 625,000 both sides) than in all the wars from the Revolution to Korea (or possibly later.)
> 
> We stayed out of WWI until Russia removed herself (fought for 18 months out of 4 years).  We stayed out of WWII until we were bombed (fought for 4 years out of 6) .  And when we finally got around to going to war what we really did in both cases was mopped up - Russia had done a lot of the hard stuff.    The French, Russian, English and German casualties (both wars)  put our losses to shame.   Until WWI it was thought that war was a serious detriment to trade - the Civil War had stopped US expansion.   - therefore bad for business.  We were always pro-business.   Then what with the industrialization of war (rather than raw # of troops being the deciding factor)  it was discovered that a few businesses / industries made money in times of war.   We embraced the business of war when it became profitable for the industrialists.
> 
> Bek
> 
> 
> On Sep 10, 2013, at 9:36 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > we embrace it because we havent experienced it. never invaded, under occupation, under siege, etc.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 6:00 PM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>      Al Jazeera America (@ajam)
> >> 9/10/13, 5:31 PM
> >> Commentary: Americans usually embrace war. Their rejection of President Obama's Syria plan is historic alj.am/17UwvC2
> >>
> >> Download the official Twitter app here
> >>
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPad
> >
>