I'm well aware of Butler. But what he said is what I'm saying: War is a Racket.
I don't agree with this at all. War is a huge profit boost, but the threat of war or fear of attack is just as good. The United States made a shyt load of money selling shyt to Saddam in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Don't forget Iran-Contra as well, or supplying/funding the fighters in Afghanistan. Then, the US and defense companies made a shyt load of money protecting the Gulf States vs Saddam in the early 1990s. I don't think people truly understand how profitable selling weapons/defense technology is to the United States. If it was cut off completely tomorrow, our economy would collapse.
shyt, look at Vietnam now. Vietnam is in the pockets of the United States' corporations and defense contractors, probably the same ones that made a killing during the 60s/70s.
I agree with you that defense contracting is a massive portion of the economy in the united states, and the government does indeed use fear mongering for profiteering purposes... The people behind the scenes are extremely sick who use war to produce profits... Most of these wars are indeed a racket and they are planned way ahead of time. General Wesley Clark called out all of the nations we were going to be invading ahead of time.
Even though these wars are planned and companies are garnering immediate profits, they are also creating extremely volatile governments all across the middle east. I'm sure Iran with potential wmds wasn't in their original game plan. They are pumping a lot of money into the military industrial complex short term, but did they really plan for what they are creating in the middle east, whereby they are spending trillions on wars, but ending up with a government that is even worse than the one they just toppled?
We're toppling over all these governments and as soon as we leave, highly anti-American, Islamic theocracies rise in their place. Would they rather have had a democratic Iran now or the theocracy on the verge of getting very dangerous weapons? Would they rather have had Saddam still in place or would they rather deal with ISIS and these warring Islamic groups, which could result in an even more Anti-American government eventually being instituted?
The real problem is that we're in countless debt from all of these wars we're waging, and yet we're being financed in large part by China, who also produces most of what we consume, and yet they are no ally of us. Now we're kicking up dust in Ukraine with Russia? Putin can keep on twisting that thumbscrew because we're in a very fundamentally weak position. I've read that all of this was planned ahead of time to collapse the US, and honestly, I'm thinking that it's true.