WAR: Who Really Benefits?

I feel morally obliged to do my part in avoiding the dawn of a new dark-age or, less dramatically, to at least invite an open and public discussion on some very worrying “trends” that are becoming acceptable in our society.

Foremost among them is the trend of our democratically elected governments and public officials to lie to the public and press and even fabricate completely false information to manipulate public opinion to their advantage.

My concerns are strictly based on a rational analysis of publicly available facts verifiable by anyone independently and not on some fringe conspiracy theories going around the web. I’m not the kind of person to resort to theories of “massive conspiracies” when other rational and obvious explanations are available.

Therefore, allow me to present my case  and I leave it up to You to be the judge whether my concerns are legitimate or not.

Kill to Save
Since childhood, I was taught to question without fear! It is my firm belief that the hallmark of a truly free and open mind and consequently a free and open society is its courage and ability to question openly without fear.

Taking a brief look at our recent history, we see that just when the 20th century had reached a point where the concept of war seemed obsolete, things suddenly changed. The last part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century are seeing the re-emergence of violence as a means to achieve peace!

A War for Peace!  Doesn’t it sound a bit strange? But this oxymoron has been so successfully sold to us that I see some highly educated people faithfully believing in this nonsense. I do not need to write here a list of all the wars we are fighting today in the name of peace, you are all well aware. Nor do I wish to discuss the legitimacy, or rather the illegitimacy, of these wars.

What concerns me most is the fact that to gain public support for each of these wars, our elected governments seem to feel no hesitation at all in circulating completely false and fabricated information to their employers, i.e. to You and me, through numerous media and online channels, thereby tricking us into supporting them.

Once again, the question that we need to ask is, WHY? What motives could they have for lying to us? Who would benefit from such lies and How?

We elect our governments and entrust immense power in their hands, power to decide the future and fate of not just us but of our generations to come, believing firmly that this power will only be used to our benefit, never to be  employed directly against us to misinform and manipulate.

But over the past decade, our governments have been caught so many times lying to us that one has to start wondering whether our trust in the democratic system of today is justified or the system has somehow been compromised? After-all, all systems are vulnerable to hacking and democracy is no exception! Could it be that there are concrete, real-life individuals and organizations out there hacking the democratic system and using it to achieve their own goals?

Before we delve into analyzing and answering these crucial issues, let us remind ourselves of some of the most blatant lies circulated by our governments and media with the most devastating consequences for the peace, stability and well-being of our western civilization.

Saddam Hussein – President of Iraq

1. Saddam Hussein was a dictator piling up WMDs.
I don’t think I need to say much on this one. If you still don’t know it was an outright fabricated lie intentionally circulated among us by our elected trusted governments, you must be living in a cave. I do, however, wish to point out a lesser known fact. Far from being the worst dictator in the Arab world as the media had us believe, Saddam Hussein was actually an arch-enemy of all fundamentalist Muslim states and organizations, including al-Qaeda, and was publicly known to be the most secular, pro-democratic and pro-liberty leader in the whole of Arab world, with the possible exception of Muammar Qazzafi of Libya, but we’ll come to that later.

The only thing he was not was pro US-regime. Was that the crime he was made to pay for? And if so, did it in any way benefit an ordinary American citizen? You be the judge!

2. Removing Saddam Hussein from power would “liberate” the Iraqi people and allow them to live safely and peacefully.
There is a mountain of publicly available evidence proving that nothing could be farther from the truth. While there is no doubt Saddam Hussein committed many acts during his presidency which cannot be applauded (which government has not?) the one thing he did provide to his people was solidarity and a peaceful, moderately prosperous life. That is, until the US-backed “economic sanctions” were imposed which practically starved the Iraqi people, and the only purpose of which seems to have been to force Saddam into submission and allow for US military bases and preferential treatment as an oil client (as in most other oil-rich ME countries). Inflicting war on Iraq based on a false premise and killing Saddam Hussein with almost all his family has clearly achieved nothing for the Iraqi people except making their lives miserable and a constant nightmare that seem to have no end in sight, at a cost of trillions of dollars and over one million innocent civilians killed!

Is that what the American people wished for the Iraqi people?  I strongly doubt!
What than induced the American regime to commit a barbaric act of such colossal proportions? Once again, we have to ask who benefited?
The Iraqi people? No.
The American people? Certainly not!
Then WHO? We’ll come to that in a short while!

Muammar Gaddafi

3. “Arab Spring” was a grassroots movement for democratic change instigated by the young people of the Arab world using social media channels.

This is a claim I heard disreputable politicians make repeatedly with a smug face, especially Hillary Clinton, and the media naively accepting and propagating this myth without any investigation into it and without ever raising any doubts or asking questions as would be expected of unbiased forthright news-organizations and journalists.

Allow me to point out the absurdity inherent in this claim.

An “armed revolt” is not a democratic process, sorry to disappoint, and any change brought about by such a revolt is not democratic change by any definition of the term.

Though one could argue that if no other means are available to bring about change, an armed revolt, while not democratic, is still an acceptable solution to clear the path for a democratic change which would eventually benefit the people and the nation. This sounds like a very potent argument so long as you don’t dwell too deep upon the “if no other means are available” part and take it for granted that no “outside intervention” takes place.

I do not negate that real life is sometimes murky and it is the end that justifies the means. Taking this view, we can try to also justify our “foreign involvement”. Fair enough, so lets take a look at what “ends” have been achieved.

Egypt: A moderate and secular president ousted and “Islamic Brotherhood”, an organisation with plans to inflict Sharia law on Egypt, takes over. There can be no doubt that relations with Israel as well as with the secular world will deteriorate. Is this the result we sought?

Aisha Gaddafi with children

Libya: Yet again, a moderate, secular and hugely popular leader murdered together with most of his family including babies and toddlers by NATO bombs, i.e. the bombs for which You and Me paid. For what? To improve the life of the Libyan people? So, has the life of the Libyan people improved? Even if it had, (which it hasn’t) would it be enough to justify the extra-judicial killing of some 30,000 innocent civilians by us? I’m not sure!

But the fact that never at any time in its recent history was the Libyan nation so devastated and ordinary people so much suffering as today leaves no doubt as to the utter and complete falsehood of the claim that the end can justify the means. We destroyed Libya! As simple as that. Looking further, one can only see yet again fundamentalist Muslims coming to power in Libya. Quite a co-incidence, or is it?

Bashar-al-Assad with wife Asma

Syria: Bashar-al-Assad is pretty much the last pro-peace and non-fundamentalist leader in the middle-east. But once again, we see France, UK and the US openly calling for a regime change! Not only “calling” but now openly and actively arming the militants many of whom belong to al-Qaeda. As a grotesque result of which, dozens of innocent civilians are getting murdered every single day.

And yet, our government and our media have us believe the exact opposite, without a shred of evidence! The same al-Qaeda fundamentalists who were the incarnation of pure  evil in Iraq and Afghanistan are suddenly “freedom fighters” again! Other Islamic fundamentalist gangs who adhere to the same barbaric principles as the Taliban are suddenly good guys and our friends. How? Why? Is it conceivable that in the event of the fall of Bashar-Al-Assad’s government the Islamic fundamentalists would take over? I think so! Is that yet another co-incidence?

And some now even speak of an open war with Iran, but that is something I’d like to leave for another post.

I made some pretty drastic claims at the beginning of this post comparing the current world scenario to the dawning of a new dark-age and what I have only done so far is raised a few questions.

Now I shall attempt to answer those questions and in doing so, the exact nature of the crisis I refer to would be revealed.

In fact all of the issues I have raised so far can be simplified into three main questions:

1. If we are to believe that our democratically elected governments are willfully and knowingly lying to us while following some hidden agenda of their own, rather than following the will of the people, why are they doing it and what could that agenda be?

2. Is it possible for powerful individuals and/or organizations to hack the democratic system and use it to further their own agendas?

3. Who, if anyone, has benefited from all the “wars for peace” so far and stand to benefit even more if there were more wars in the world?

Now that we’ve been able to formulate concrete questions, it’s not all that hard to see which way they lead. But let’s go ahead and spell it out, shall we?

• Let us assume there is a group of people who manufacture and sell a product.
• Let us also assume that this product has enjoyed huge demand for most of known history making the manufacturers extremely rich and powerful. Some say power corrupts!
• Let us further assume that a very good argument can be made linking the safety of our nations with the continued research, improvement and production of the product.
• Now, let us assume that suddenly towards the end of the 20th century, the apparent need for the product starts to diminish, the world over.

What do you think would be the reaction of the mega-rich billionaire industrialists manufacturing the product?

• Would they, in the greater good of humanity, simply shut down their industries and go looking for a job?
• Would they not, like other normal businessmen, do all in their power to reverse the trend, even if that means spending billions on buying politicians and entire media networks and hacking the democratic system?
• Would they not, like other normal businessmen, try to save their businesses by pumping up demand and trying to create new foreign markets?
• Would they not, like other legitimate business, use all available media and online channels, including social networks, to promote the use of their product or create conditions which will create demand for their product?

None of these require us to resort to fancy “conspiracy” theories! Quite the contrary, these are the most obvious, simple and practical answers to the questions we raised.
So what is the product we’re speaking of? I think we all know the answer very well.
WEAPONS!

If there was going to be peace all over the world, who is going to buy weapons? This might not sound so bad, but how about this: what is the one key factor which grants a country its Super Power status?

The size of its economy? The richness of its culture? The standard of living of its citizens? OR

The WEAPONS it posses and sells and the political clout that comes with it? You got it!

And therein lies the argument with which entire governments, think-tanks and even highly regarded intellectuals can be bought.

For the rest 99% including You and Me, all it takes is a new bogeyman each time around to convince us of the need for another war, and with trillions of dollars in budgets and control over the biggest news and media organizations in the world, you’d be surprised how easy it can be to turn anyone into a bogeyman.

But I believe there is a bit more to the story than just weapons-sales. All major events in history take place when there is a confluence of interest of various powerful parties. This requires no pre-meditated “conspiracy”!

If the removal of a certain leader presents itself as an attractive solution to a number of players involved, to each for their own selfish reason, it would be acted upon by all sides.

Suppose there were four power-groups:

The first seeking the spread of its fundamentalist ideology to guarantee a place in paradise,
The second obsessed with its defense and occupying the “promised land”,
The third ready to build on any opportunity that necessitates use of its products,
The fourth keen on getting control of all wells of a precious natural resource,

all with virtually unlimited funds available,
all find a common solution in the ousting of a certain leader or a regime-change,

then

whether that is the will of the 99% or not and whether it makes the world a safer place or a more dangerous place, it will be done!

And that, my friends, is the crisis we are facing!!!

The democracies we live in have been hacked! Our opinions and voices have no value at all anymore.

For all practical purposes, we are enslaved!!!
As our weapons keep becoming better and better, human life, it seems, is getting cheaper and cheaper.

In the face of weapons and the power they represent there are no courts no laws and no one dare judge.

If you have lived at least 25-30 years already, take a look around. Is the world you see a safer place as a result of all our wars or is it a more volatile and dangerous place than ever?

Is toppling foreign governments and capturing their natural resources resulted in a better more prosperous life for the masses or more people are job-less than ever?

Has the billions spent on the wars and the billions earned by sale of weapons enriched our economies or bankrupted them?

With our democracies hacked, our right to choose our fates taken away from us, I cannot help but wonder what type of world I’m helping to create and leaving behind for my children, either by doing what I do or not doing what I ought to.
And time is running out…

___________________________________________________________________

Do you have an opinion or a comment and want to take part in the discussion ?

Please use the form below to have your say! I’d love to hear what you think.