Why Does War Always Win in America?
Answering a Question from a Reader
Hello Readers: I thought I’d highlight an excellent question from a reader and my attempt to answer it succinctly. Please use the comments section to chime in.
Dear William, starting from the assumption that you are substantially right in your arguments, what I ask myself is why, from 1945 to the present day, there has never been a lasting reversal of course in the history of the United States, but only brief anti-war flare-ups against the foolish and bloody choices of military interventions abroad? I mean, what is it that we don’t know about the American people that justifies the MICC [military-industrial-congressional complex] always managing to assert its kleptocratic, racist, colonialist, supremacist, and megalomaniacal designs? I believe that the American people are mostly made up of good people, willing, respectful of family and clan values, and lovers of cooperative living together. There are totally different groups, but to my knowledge, they are strongly in the minority and substantially ghettoized. It is the presidents or politicians of the moment who open the doors to these groups of rowdies. So I ask myself: what are the main factors that determine the success of the MICC? I await your reflections to delve deeper into the topic. WR Rocco Santoro
Answer by Bill Astore
Hello Rocco: that is a very big question. Threat inflation by the MICC is part of the answer. So too is the fact that both political parties, Democratic and Republican, are right-wing, pro-war parties. See this recent article by Caitlin Johnstone:
The power of propaganda is strong. Americans are told “our” troops are freedom-bringers. We’re taught we’re the exceptional nation, inherently good. We’re taught we’re not imperial.
As Ike said, only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel and control the MICC, and we are neither. The MICC is shrouded in secrecy, and Americans in general are not knowledgeable about our own history, let alone what the MICC has been up to for the last eighty years (since the end of World War II).
Those who seriously question it, and especially those who seriously resist it, are denounced as misguided, or unpatriotic, and in some cases they are arrested and put in prison.
Perhaps the biggest reason is that Americans no longer think of themselves as citizens with a right to knowledge. We’ve been reduced to passive consumers. Meanwhile, we’ve been sold the idea “our” troops are warriors and warfighters. We’ve come to believe and accept that being constantly at war is normal, the health of the state, when it’s actually the death of democracy and liberty.
The other part of this is that Americans are kept divided, distracted, and downtrodden, making it very difficult to act en masse against an entity as powerful and wide-reaching as the MICC.
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That was my initial answer. I must add the enormous amount of “legal” corruption in the U.S. government. Effectively, money equals speech in America, meaning that most Americans have no say in their government.
Obviously, powerful corporations have deep pockets and thus plenty of say. Weapons makers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman also help to determine policy, exercising influence over Congress and also through propaganda. Corporations control what is shown on our mass media. The mainstream media in America is almost entirely pro-military and pro-war.
The Pentagon has so much money that even academe in America is highly cooperative with the national security state, even as Americans are told to fear a Marxist, “radical left” academic establishment! Consent has been manufactured in America to support a state that’s constantly in a state of war or in preparations for the same.
Perhaps the best source for understanding how and why this has happened is George Orwell’s “1984,” and especially his book within a book that details how a permanent state of war can be maintained in what is ostensibly a republic but which is actually a militaristic empire.
Within the U.S., militarism is a form of cancer, and we are at Stage 4. That cancer is represented by the MICIMATT(SHV) and the penetration of most sectors of society by military imperatives and war. So, to define the awkward acronym: military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think-tank, plus sport, Hollywood, and video gaming. All these are throughly invested in, infested by, militarism.
The Trump administration’s answer to Stage 4 militarism is to give the Pentagon and the national security state another $500 billion, accelerating the cancer further.
The “cure” is deep cuts to the Pentagon’s budget, a dramatic downsizing of empire, and a return to being “a normal country in normal times.” It’s Stage 4 cancer, so radical surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation will take their toll. The cure will hurt. But the alternative is death. Death of the republic, and perhaps of the world in the case of widespread nuclear war.
Back in 1963, Senator George McGovern put together a sound plan to return America to a saner path, a less militarized one, citing Ike’s military-industrial complex speech in 1961. McGovern’s plan included the conversion of military production back to civilian purposes. But his ideas, supported by many prominent democrats back then, were dismissed as a major war with Vietnam was ginned up in the stated cause of curbing communist aggression.
The MICC will always have a war, a reason, to continue to expand. War on terror. War on Iran. Chinese expansion. Russia. Even communism again. Even a war within against “radical leftists.” Against “illegal” immigrants.
More than anything, the American people need to reject this fear-mongering. We must remember that “fear is the only darkness.” That “fear is the mind-killer.” We must reject the mindset of war and embrace the possibilities of peace. But that is very difficult when the drums of war sound so loudly, and when America’s leaders are so eager to buy even more war drums and to amplify them yet further.
Readers, what do you think?
By some accounting, the U.S. has been involved in conflicts or wars for a minimum of 210 of its 250 years. As a colonial / settler society (it's difficult to accept and recognize that), conquest is in the very bones of our culture and national psyche.
Most of the national symbols relate to conquest or heroic military action (e.g., Iwo Jim flag raising). Popular culture reinforces it - except during brief periods when some truths are leaked out; now made worse by active participation (and required approval) of the DOD (screw Hegseth, that's its real name).
I recall the controversy over the Vietnam Veterans Memorial - which was derided as a hole in the ground as it didn't properly celebrate the U.S. fighting the commies in a 'noble cause'. But it's the most important monument, as those names staring back at you - some you know - shows what war really is.
I'd like to be optimistic and hope that over a generation (that's how long it would take), education in the real history of the U.S., as an ongoing struggle to overcome the many mistakes and crimes, could be taught and understood by everyone. But we are so divided and stratified, with the ruling class only interested in keeping everyone deluded, it's difficult to believe that any such history would be possible - and likely that would be fine with a plurality of the populace.
That is a great answer, Bill. I truly believe that propaganda and fear play huge roles in most people's understanding of the world. Yet, most North Americans don't want to believe that they have been told lies about their nation for their entire lives. When I look at my own journey, I remember the fear I felt when I first learned (and believed ) that the US are not the "good guys." Yet, the fear quickly turned to anger at the power that the ruling elite hold over everyday folks. We everyday people have the force of numbers, but we are plaqued by the fear instilled in us since birth by our capitalist system.