I've been thinking lately a lot about what is wrong with the war in Iraq. There are thousands of symptoms of how it is hurting our country, but something about the whole situation has been lurking on the edge of my conciouness for quite some time now. Obviously, I am opposed to the war, but there is something about this war in particular that I find just plain offensive.
It finally dawned on me the other day. This war was started to funnell taxes into big business and it continues to serve as an engine for doing just that. There it is. Nothing revelatory, but that is the way this war needs to be viewed and spoken about. Economically.
I think this needs to be explained more fully to the American people. We throw around phrases like 'This war is all really about oil' or 'Of course Haliburton is profiting off the war' and don't really think about the true flow of all the money going to this war.
To claim the war is about oil - and I don't think anyone with facts trys to legitimately make this claim anymore - is to say 1) that is all it is about and 2) That somewhere deep down the administration thinks we as a nation need oil, and this administration is therefore, in a backhanded way, helping us.
This is not the case. There is no interest in helping America involved in this war. This war is about finding creating transactions to transfer money from the federal governmant to different corporations. Transactions that couldn't happen without the war. In the business world this is known as creating new revenue streams.
In business if you want to make money you generally turn to selling something. Whether this is manufactured widgets, cable TV service, or your expertise as a real estate agent is immaterial. In order to sell something you need to have a market - Someone or something with money who wants what you have.
When researching to start a new business or launch a new product line or what have you it is pretty vital to identify your market. Where is the revenue going to come from?
It has long been known that one of the biggest markets in America has been the federal governmant. Garunteed to pay high prices, but in general the contracts the federal governmant gives out are limited in number and bid upon with the best price getting the contract.
But what if there were some way to create a whole new batch of federal contracts. Federal contracts that you could predict so you would have the right product supply on hand and not need to scramble to fill it. I mean, this is highly unlikely, but what if you could create new market growth in the federal governmant that didn't exist. It would be a gold mine.
I know I'm beating this point into the ground, but this is what it comes down to - this war was manufactured to be an engine to siphon taxes back into the hands of corporations. If they could just steal the money it might be more ethical, but they need a paper trail and a transaction to show that they received it all legitimately - so people need to die for them to get to the money.
But that is the rhetoric we need to push to expose this, because as long as people keep talking about national security, foreign policy, etc. etc. etc this war will keep going. The conversation is about the money and who is making it.