Wars Are for Making Money or Gaining Power

Wars Are for Making Money or Gaining Power
'All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.'
- Ayn Rand, Russian-American writer and philosopher (1905 - 1982)

No doubt the pivotal word in Ms. Rand's quote is "moral." Every leader who proposes war--who advocates violence of any kind to others--does so on moral grounds. "It's the right thing to do under the circumstances before we have big problems." Moral response to offensive physical force always has a religious connection. Seldom is the more secular ethics explanation (excuse) given for revenge.
Islamists--not Muslims, but former Muslims who perverted the words of the Prophet and the Qu'ran to something political and violent--claim that everything and everyone they don't like is a threat to Islam or an insult to the Prophet. Few (if any) of such claims are valid references to the Qu'ran, most are concocted lies designed to deceive the innocent (who never check the facts) into committing acts of violence, including suicide bombing and killing that solidifies membership in such perverse groups as the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
Former US President George W. Bush went to war with Afghanistan and received support from American people and the governments and militaries of many countries by claiming that revenge was necessary after the events of 9/11. The undercurrent of his revenge speeches always pitted Islam against Christianity in the USA. Though both the Taliban and Al Qaeda have continued and flourished since the war began, not a single act of violence is known to have occurred since September 11, 2001 on US soil. Precautions were taken to prevent them, which could easily have been done without beginning a war. Will Mr. Bush's oil investor friends profit when a pipeline is run over Afghan soil from oil-rich former Soviet states to the sea from where it may be shipped to any part of the world? Certainly.
President Bush also took his country to war with Iraq (with less support than for Afghanistan) by claiming it was morally right to attack a country that had Weapons of Mass Destruction (which the US had sold to Iraq, but which Iraq had used up in its war with Iran). He claimed that it was the moral duty of Americans and any right thinking people of other countries to eliminate the repressive regime of Saddam Hussain (remember the Axis of Evil?). He could have made that claim about any Arab country, as we are now learning, but most of the others do not have huge oil reserves underground.
Though the Tutsis and the Hutus of Rwanda had lived together in tense harmony since the departure of German imperialists, the minority Tutsis ran the government while the majority Hutus were considered (by the Tutsis and the Germans before them) inferior and incapable of being employed in government service. Hutu leaders pleaded moral outrage at the prejudice against their people. When war between the two began, it was brutally violent. It turned into a genocide because the Tutsis did not have the power to fight back with equal measure. The Tutsis eventually gained allies and weapons sufficient to bring the war to a close in a stalemate. It was the moral claim by the Hutus of prejudice and repression by the Tutsis that fired up what became the genocide. Nearly a million people died, countless survivors will never get over the emotional scars.
A more recent example of genocide happened in Kosovo where the Christian Serbs were morally outraged at the Muslim Albanians for [insert the excuse that suits you, the Serbs used many, none of which were valid--it was a religious war and everyone knew it except the Serb fighters].
Americans still claim that everyone in their country would be speaking German if the US had not entered the Second World War in 1941. As unsupportable as this claim is--such language migrations have never happened successfully in history--it was moral infuriation of Americans against Hitler that resulted in the declaration of war. World domination would not succeed any better for Hitler, if he had been left to his own plans, than it had for the British with its empire that encompassed nearly one-quarter of the land mass of the planet, or the Roman Empire or the empires of any self-appointed world emperor because military domination requires far more cash than any country can produce no matter how many allies it might have. (Big empires cost too much to support--see the history of the USSR.) But the fear of Hitler brought moral rectitude into play until enough countries destroyed Hitler and his Nazis.
Since its creation Israel has received enormous financial help from the US. Conspiracy theorists claim this happened because of the huge influence Jewish industrialists and media barons have over the US government. While this theory is largely unsupportable (no one claimed the Jews were taking over the US when they controlled the garment industry, for example), it continues to exist for reasons that are mostly based on religious prejudice. The US supports Israel due to guilt over its not taking action against the Nazi genocide of Jews, which results in millions of deaths in Europe. Guilt always has a religious (moral) base.
While many people die and more suffer in any war, on both sides, a few always become rich (or richer). Those few always lead the charge of moral outrage against the enemy they intend to plunder. While Germany and Japan lost the Second World War and neither had any oil to speak of, both were physically destroyed in war and rebuilt later into economic giants as a result of investments and loans from wealthy people in the "winning" countries.
In today's world, those with money have power. While this has been the case throughout human history, it is more true today when rich people can buy influence over elected decision makers. The wealthy don't need to hold power when they can buy it.

Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want their children to grow and develop in all ways necessary, not just intellectually and physically. Social problems in our cities (and the taxes they cause) demonstrate the urgent need for change.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/

Who Can You Trust?

The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe, American author and slavery abolitionist (1811-1896)

Surely truth is all around us. Our newspapers as well as our radio and television newscasts are filled with truth. Actually, they are filled with facts, many of which have been edited to give the one-sided impression to readers and viewers that the media owners want us to believe. Beyond that they express opinion, often supported by nothing more than fictional "information."

We elect politicians to work on our behalf, to represent us in the governments of our country, our state or province and our municipality, then to return to us the truth about what is going on at their respective legislative levels. But bridges collapse due to neglect, people get fired or resign regularly for corruption or unacceptable social behaviour and some corporations become obscenely wealthy from government contracts.

Sometimes our political leaders distort the facts enough--then preach them as truth--that we support going to war over them. Osama bin Laden is still at large in Afghanistan's eastern mountains and Iraq is anything but a settled democracy. So much for the truth about weapons of mass destruction (other than the ones the United States gave to Saddam to use against Iran) and the rapid disappearance of the Taliban.

Television brings us truth in its documentaries. Sometimes. Again, producers edit the facts to convey the impressions they want us to believe. For example, how many well fed people have you seen in documentaries filmed in Africa? When they conduct campaigns--such as about global warming--opposing points of view rarely receive due consideration so that we can get a balanced collection of information on which to base an informed opinion ourselves.

Mostly they give a one-sided opinion, albeit with an overload of facts to support their opinion, and leave us to believe it's the only conclusion possible.

Fortunately we have our places of worship to turn to as refuge from the onslaught of hype and distorted facts. Then again, no two churches, mosques, synagogues or temples preach similar versions of truth about their respective religions. And opinions vary within each about what is right and what is not, though the minorities are usually silenced quickly.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the quote that began this article, was one of the most influential authors--mostly through her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin--who moved governments on both sides of the Atlantic to abolish slavery. (Her sister was the motivator who encouraged Harriet to write a novel because of her "talent with a pen.") Yet even she has been accused of wanting to keep freed slaves poor and submissive, like Uncle Tom.

Mrs. Stowe submitted that truth is the kindest thing we can give to people. With the amount of lies, propaganda, distorted facts and opinions masquerading as facts that surround us, we must wonder if we could recognize truth if it jumped up and slapped us in the face.

Even at the most personal level we have come to believe that "white lies" are acceptable in certain situations in order to be tactful or polite. Women apparently don't want to know the truth about their new dress or weight gain or hair style any more than men want to know about their personalities, their neatness or their future job prospects.

Do we deserve the truth?

Do you deserve the truth from others? Do you want the truth?

Do you tell the truth at all times? If not, you have no right to expect it from others. And--count on it--you won't get the truth from them.

In a world where everyone's wrong, it's hard to know who or what might be right.

Let's start a revolution. Let begin telling the truth, as best we can, as best we know it. Like the domino effect of people smiling at each other--very effective, by the way, as lots of research shows--we may find others doing the same.

Imagine a world where you could trust others to tell the truth. Imagine being able to believe what you heard or read. It could happen.

Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to begin programs of truth-telling with the children they teach so that they will grow into a world they can trust.
Learn more at http://billallin.com