I want to share with you another salient portion of Alex Krainer’s book, Grand Deception: The Browder Hoax. As many of you have discovered, Amazon refuses to sell the book. I found my copy on Apple Books. This attempted censorship is quite revealing. Krainer’s words represent a direct threat to the corporate interests that profit from war. As you read Krainer’s analysis of how much of the U.S. economy depends on preparing for war you will understand why the merchants of death who profit from building grossly expensive weapon systems want to hide these facts from you.
The following is a lengthy quote but it illustrates the gems that fills Krainer’s important work.
“To continue to prosper the military-industrial complex and their financiers depended on a steady supply of enemies, existential threats and fear. During most of the second half of last century the designated enemy No. 1 has been the international Communism in general and Soviet Union in particular. Douglas MacEachin, director of CIA’s Office of Soviet Analysis described in the 1980s the importance USSR’s role as the America’s enemy No. 1: “The Soviet Union is so fundamental to our outlook on the world, to our concept of what is right and wrong in politics, to our sense of security, that major change in the USSR is as significant as some major change in the sociological fabric of the United States itself.”
When the USSR finally collapsed, the American security establishment designated international terrorism as the replacement enemy to justify further increases in military spending and a series of limited wars in the Middle East and parts of Africa. But as the American public grew weary of the multiple, never-ending, unwinnable terror wars in the Middle East, the emergent thinking among Western think tanks shifted in favor of a great war against a major power.”
“The RAND Corporation, an influential member of the military industrial complex, published a report in 2008 advocating war against a major power as a way to stimulate the U.S. economy.[193] The report did not specify the target, but at the time the main candidates were thought to be Iran, Russia, or China. Accordingly, the media and public relations industry close to the MIC launched a subtle marketing campaign to generate public consent for this new and improved idea.
In October 2010, Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote how a war (with Iran) would help solve the economic crisis in the U.S. In 2012, Council on Foreign Relations, another powerful pro-war think tank published an article by Matthew Kroenig, titled “Time to Attack Iran.” [194] Plans to attack Iran seem to have been shelved for a time, but Russia has meanwhile graduated to the spot of the new greatest enemy and most existential threat to the United States. In April 2014, historian Ian Morris penned an article in Washington Post with the preposterous title, “In the long run, wars make us safer and richer.” The article was featured on the Post’s web site with a picture of a nuclear bomb blast with the caption, “War is brutal. The alternative is worse.”[195]”
“Amazingly, Washington Post would have its readers believe that while going to war would be awful, not going to war would be even worse! Not to be outdone, the New York Times gave its own contribution to the worthy cause in June of that year, publishing Tyler Cowen’s article, “The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth.” Cowen strained to convince his readers that warfare isn’t as bad as it used to be, including in his article a chart showing how much battle-related death rates have fallen since the 1950s:”
“As you can see, by 2010 battle related deaths – soldiers plus civilians caught in crossfire – fell to only three persons per million. These compelling figures prove that waging war is now safer than driving cars, giving birth or inhaling secondary smoke. Undeterred, Cowen carries on intellectualizing how, “It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily.” Yes, please let’s not dismiss this splendid idea quite so easily.[196] George Orwell was certainly correct in pointing out that “political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”
“Understanding why Western elites long for another World War is not complicated. The U.S. is the world’s greatest debtor nation. Presently,[197] federal Government’s debt is well over 100% of the gross domestic product (GDP) with additionally some $200 trillion in so-called unfunded liabilities. These liabilities are related to government’s obligations like federal employee pensions, care of military veterans, Social Security and Medicare. They represent the absurd sum of over $640,000 per man, woman and child in the U.S. and more than $1.7 million per taxpayer. These obligations could never be honored even if the economy was registering solid growth. But since the 2008 financial crisis and the resulting economic recession, U.S. economic recovery has been the weakest on record in spite of unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulation that has raised the total credit market debt to 360% of the GDP. These levels of debt have become an impediment to economic growth and made the nation vulnerable to grave social tensions on multiple fronts. Public and private pensions across the U.S. are severely underfunded and hundreds of thousands of retirees are already discovering that they need to continue working in order to sustain themselves in their “retirement” years. Meanwhile, the younger generations are facing a weak jobs market and those of them that attended universities collectively accumulated $1.4 trillion dollars in debt.”
I confess that I was not aware of the RAND report advocating war as the ultimate economic aphrodisiac and the cheerleading by David Broeder to attack Iran in order to boost the lagging U.S. economy in 2010. I initially wondered if these were Babylon Bee articles (Babylon Bee is a satirical website that specialized in skewering the rich and powerful) This was not the product of a weird, perverse comedy sketch by Monty Python. these so-called respectable men were dead serious. Kill thousands in order to create value for shareholders. Sheds new light on the aphorism that “The love of Money is the root of all evil.”
Politics and defense spending are intertwined in ways that most people do not appreciate. I gained some insight into the corruption of this process thanks to my neighbor (when I lived in one of the Washington, DC suburbs). My former neighbor is 15 years younger than me and owns the largest defense lobbying firm in Washington, DC. His job entailed signing up major and minor manufacturers of weapons and military equipment. They paid him hefty monthly fees. In turn, my neighbor–let’s call him “Mr. D”–would wine and dine key members of the House of Representatives and the Senate. He was the man the legislators wanted to see because he could host “dinners” that raised money that was poured in turn to the bank accounts of those members of Congress. Buying influence in Washington is a multi-million dollar business that generates billions for the Defense Industry and has inflicted misery, suffering and death on millions of foreigners.
I am afraid that tomorrow’s election in the United States will not alter the defense incest that dominates Washington, DC. The corrupt system will have to be broken by an outside force. What worries me is that the United States, in a moment of hubris, will find itself in a war with Russia or China and will discover the hard way that the expensive weapon systems will fail or be destroyed quickly on the battlefield. Like an alcoholic at the end of his ropes, the system must hit bottom and admit the addiction. Only then is reform possible.
By Via https://sonar21.com/is-the-love-of-money-and-war-is-the-root-of-all-evil/