Politics: War..Then and Now

As seen on Wimp.com
Politics

In ancient Rome it was well known that, in order to achieve the highest office, a prospective Consul needed to lead an army into war and return victorious. If the enemy were dangerous enough, and the threat real enough, a Consul, whose office lasted for only one year, might get himself proclaimed dictator. This would last until the threat was eliminated.

Empires are built upon fear. There must always be an active threat to the citizens or subjects of the empire. The standing professional army must be kept busy against enemies, or else they would become idle or worse...turn on the people they were paid to defend.

The army at war generated business and brought plunder into the economy. Merchants made fortunes, and traders followed the armies into new lands and made even greater fortunes. Soldiers were not only paid their wages, they were allowed to share in the plunder and they were satisfied. They came to love war and hate peace. There was no profit to be had in peace. The merchants and traders also found that wealth walked hand in hand with war. The tools of war had to be made and sold. The spoils of war meant even greater profits. New markets opened up with every conquest and money poured into Rome.

Not much has changed over the years. Today we have the military, with huge budgets to spend, handing out fortunes to companies to build the engines of war. Companies, like Haliburton and Boeing, Westinghouse and General Motors, make billions of dollars manufacturing for the military. The life blood of manufacturing is oil, and the security of that oil is being purchased by the military at the cost of lives.

The government, populated with and influenced by the servants and leaders of big business, now functions solely in the interests of the economy. The military, whose generals retire and then find employment with the companies they have channeled billions into, must always be busy preparing to fight and destroy the next great threat...and there will always be one.

All one big happy family.

"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."
Dwight Eisenhower