The Endgame: Neo-Continuity...

No...




They aren't wrong...




They can't be wrong...




They're too smart for that...
























Fighting war badly is a deliberate strategy, the longer the war goes the more people get used to it, and the more it becomes an accepted part of our culture. Halliburton and The Carlyle Group (Cheney and Bush Sr.) in particular will make record profits, as will Boeing, General Electric, Lockheed-Martin, and thousands of other companies, universities, and other institutions with ties to the military. The army is losing in Iraq, so obviously their capabilities need to be upgraded, especially if America is increasingly vulnerable to foreign threats in an unstable world. It's a simple logical response to a simple logical cycle.

Many of these companies - especially the newly ultra-successful, count those with historic ties to the the CIA and the Republican party among their leaders. This means unlike ex-President Jimmy Carter, who's spent 20 years building houses for poor people, these ex-politicians are getting obscenely rich while maintaing or increasing their substantial power and influence. All of this was set up when they were out of office under Carter and Clinton, a unique cabal emerging from the revolving door of politics and the private sector hell-bent on maintaining elusive global control forever through war-corporatism.

Other big fish in the food chain are profiting enormously: anti-trust laws are ignored as corporations consolidate economic empires; oil companies are making record profits off weak consumers and the war machine; and countries are conveniently re-designed into cheap labor forces for the West after they are destroyed.

It's a video game: you have the biggest weapons and you built a world full of little enemies, so now you fight it out. It's fun.

Make no mistake: they are not that stupid.

There is a plan for post-war Iraq: it's called Iran.

And there's a plan for post-war Iran: it's called Syria.

(And there's plans in case these plans aren't feasable.)

Their famous radical ideology is well-known, almost too well-known, it's the established critique based on a small pool of information and possibilities. It's sold as a strange "Manifest Democracy" militaristic foreign policy that you like or you don't, but it's apparently legitimate. It's biggest defenders claim the idea is to rapidly transform the middle-east and the world into a free-market democratic paradise, which does not sound like a bad goal to the majority of Western audiences.

The problem is civilians managing the military: they don't play to win.

They're politicians: they play to their backers.

George W. Bush is the God-child of the top-rung of modern Republican leadership, and with those same Godfathers (including his own father) working for oil and defense companies or related investment banks, Bush is drafting policy that reflects their specific interests.

Politicians playing to corporate backers is not new, but these particular players are far more politically ambitious than greedy.

Their interests are best served by a quick period of massive profits so their corporations can gain control of the world before the rest of it can react, and that's exactly what this war is doing. If all goes well then financial and miitary control of the world will soon be in the hands of a few men, perhaps eventually even making them strong enough to challenge the ancient hierarchy of banking families.

Also, many are getting old, they made a world full of weapons, and after years of little conflicts they want to see the big show: World War III. Or World War IIII, depending on how you look at the Cold War. I think that distinction just makes it easier to sell the next war anyway: WWI made WWII easier, so if we've had WWIII then why not WWIIII? (They'll just turn into SuperBowls.) Anyone callous about the impact of the war machine is logically okay with the fringe benefits of population control, just another on a list of hegemonic rewards.

It's tough to run a successful business just for the money, so you have to love your job and the products you make. It's no fun making and selling weapons if you never see them used, so historically if you could politically arrange it you have wars for fun. Generals still weigh the costs, but argue individual desires within an interpretive military frame-work. The hawks always win if they know they're not going to be stopped by the civilian President, and with their legendary and yet secretive love of gadgets, strategy, and history, wars are a great place to put theories in action.

Private contractors are a new wrinkle, and while they antagonize average soldiers and even some officers, for those who use them they're priceless. They are above the law, many are from Latin American death squads trained by the CIA, and there are no rules on how to use them outside of secret contracts, so for $1500 a day the U.S. taxpayer buys you one hell of a weapon. The growth of private armies is dangerous on every level: the character of the military is severly compromised, as is that of all major corporations who use them for executive security right now. Their commercial legitimization only stands to eventually provide robber-barons more protection against all enemies and even governments, but especially those who protest the idea of massively profiting off the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive warfare.

Make no mistake: not all the mistakes made are mistakes.

Incomptence can be faked by the best: Iraq is a mess.

All you have to do is look at The Usual Suspects and ask:

"Who is Kaiser Soze?"


(...)


"Qui bono?"

"Who profits?"