Antinuclear

Eisenhower warned on the influence of the military-industrial complex

Just like the people of mediaeval Italian city-states, taxpayers today are having their money siphoned off into the business of war.

In 1989, I picked up a magazine for the arms industry. Its editorial was headed ”Thank God For Saddam”. It explained that since the collapse of communism and end of the Cold War, the order books of the arms industry had been empty. But now that there was a new enemy, the industry could look forward to a bonanza. 

And now the same war drums… are beating for an attack on Iran. …In the 14th century it was the church that lived in symbiosis with the military. Nowadays it is the politicians.

14th century take on war thriving today, The Age, Terry Jones, December 8, 2011 When politicians and the arms industry get close, an evil genie is freed. IN THE 14th century there were two pandemics. One was the Black Death,
the other was the commercialisation of warfare.

Mercenaries had always existed, but under Edward III they became the mainstay of the English army for the first 20 years of what became the Hundred Years War.  Then, when Edward signed the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360 and told his soldiers to stop fighting and go home, many of them didn’t have any homes to go to They were used to fighting, and that’s how they made their money. So they simply formed freelance armies, aptly called ”free companies” that proceeded around France pillaging, killing and raping…..
The nightmare had begun. ….It seemed as if the genie had been let out of the bottle and there was no way of putting him back. …. The Pope made the mistake of paying off the mercenaries with huge amounts of cash, which only encouraged them to carry on marauding. Warfare had suddenly turned into a profitable business; the Italian city states became impoverished as taxpayers’ money was used to buy off the free companies. And since those who made money out of the business of war wished to go on making it, warfare had no foreseeable end.

Wind forward 650 years or so. The US, under George Bush, decided to privatise the invasion of Iraq by employing private ”contractors” like the Blackwater company, now renamed Xe Services….And this year the Obama government agreed to pay Xe Services a quarter of a billion dollars for security in Afghanistan. This is just one of many companies making its profits out of warfare……
Just like the people of mediaeval Italian city-states, taxpayers today are having their money siphoned off into the business of war. Any responsible company needs to make profits for its shareholders. In the
14th century the shareholders were the soldiers themselves….. they
looked around to create markets for themselves….

In 1989, I picked up a magazine for the arms industry. Its editorial
was headed ”Thank God For Saddam”. It explained that since the
collapse of communism and end of the Cold War, the order books of the
arms industry had been empty. But now that there was a new enemy, the
industry could look forward to a bonanza. The invasion of Iraq was
built around a lie: Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, but the
defence industry needed an enemy and the politicians duly supplied
one.
And now the same war drums, encouraged by the storming of the British
embassy last week, are beating for an attack on Iran. Seymour Hersh
writes in The New Yorker: ”All of the low enriched uranium now known
to be produced inside Iran is accounted for.” The recent IAEA report,
which provoked such outcry against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he
continues, contains nothing that proves that Iran is developing
nuclear weapons.
In the 14th century it was the church that lived in symbiosis with the
military. Nowadays it is the politicians. The US government spent a
staggering $687 billion on ”defence” in 2010. Think what could be
done with that money if it were put into hospitals, schools, or to pay
off foreclosed mortgages.
The retiring US president, Dwight Eisenhower, famously used his
farewell-to-the-nation address in 1961 to warn his countrymen of the
danger in allowing too close a relationship between politicians and
the defence industry.
”This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large
arms industry is new in the American experience,” he said. ”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.” It exists. The genie is out
of the bottle again.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/14th-century-take-on-war-thriving-today-20111207-1oj4z.html

December 10, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized