William Astore presents seven reasons why we go to war. I’m sure you won’t agree:
1. We wage war because we think we’re good at it — and because, at a gut level, we’ve come to believe that American wars can bring good to others…
2. We wage war because we’ve already devoted so many of our resources to it. It’s what we’re most prepared to do…
3. We’ve managed to isolate war’s physical and emotional costs, leaving them on the shoulders of a tiny minority of Americans…
4. While war and its costs have, to date, been kept at arm’s length, American society has been militarizing fast. In militarized America, forceful criticism of our military or our wars is still treated as deviant and “un-American.”
5. Our profligate, high-tech approach to war, including those Predator and Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles, has served to limit American casualties — and so has limited the anger over, and harsh questioning of, our wars that might go with them…
6. As we incessantly develop those force-multiplying weapons to give us our “edge” (though never an edge that leads to victory), it’s hardly surprising that the U.S. has come to dominate, if not quite monopolize, the global arms trade…
7. And don’t forget the seductive power of beyond-worse-case, doomsday scenarios, of the prophecies of pundits and so-called experts, who regularly tell us that, bad as our wars may be, doing anything to end them would be far worse…
and the #1 reason for going to war?
it fills the coffers of the military/industrial complex.
As Ike said during his 1961 farewell speech:
“”In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
I can hear Cheney guffawing.
I surprised defense or oppression has not cracked the top eight.