Warmongers IIIn my first exploration of this subject, I could not figure out what motivates the warmongers in America. I thought about the usual suspects, money and power, and the revolving door in the District of Criminals, where today’s politician is tomorrow’s CEO, but I rejected them as rational explanations. That was my mistake. The warmongers don’t live in a rational world. Once upon a time I subscribed to a neocon newsletter because I was curious about their supporting arguments. I discovered that it was pretty much nonsense written by aging armchair warriors missing the old testosterone, so I dropped my subscription. Imagine my surprise when one of these newsletters arrived in my mailbox today! It consisted of several long rants against the evil Saddam and it demanded that America initiate a war against Iraq. Nary a rational argument existed. Let’s think about this. America’s allies in Western Civilization are opposed to attacking Iraq again, excepting Toady Blair, of course. America’s allies in the Middle-East are opposed to attacking Iraq. America’s trading partners in the Far East are sitting calmly with folded hands and smiling at a joke they’re not sharing with us. So what are we doing? Is America on the verge of making a Very Bad Mistake? Just for fun I looked up the median age of Middle-Eastern populations and found that it consists largely of fighting-age young folks with plenty of testosterone. By comparison with American fighting-age young folks, the prognosis for an all out war in the region doesn’t look good, even with smart bombs, although the warmongers are calling for nuclear bombs instead, and that might work. But then the question arises, who is going to fight in this war? True, the Baby Boomer generation has been remarkably silent about the warmongers’ activities over the past decade, and some pollsters claim they will continue to shut up and pay, but this time it’s their kids who will be drafted for cannon fodder, their kids who are just graduating from college and starting families and new careers, their kids who will die at the hands of the warmongers. Are they going to stand for that? Maybe. It’s too much to ask of this generation that they connect the dots between the Federal Reserve, the stock market crash, the Pentagon and its contractors, the Patriot Act, the November elections, and the suddenly urgent need to start World War Three in the Middle-East, but when the body bags start coming home, they might get the message. The time to stop the warmongers is NOW.
Robert Klassen [send him mail] is a medical technician and writer. Here's his web site. Copyright © 2002 Robert Klassen
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August
10, 2002