Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No, they're sociopaths. They could give two ****s. If they did, their own children would join the military. But no, their kids go to elite schools and let all the minions die for them.
There was a time when the majority of politicians were veterans themselves........
I don't really agree with the general sentiment here; the answer to the question cannot be a general one, but has to be taken on a case by case basis.
Some wars are questionable, others are obviously something that has to be done. And in the latter case, I don't want emotion to cloud needed military decisions.
I've wondered this many times. Sadly, I don't think they do...at least, they don't do it enough.
I would tend to agree, but I don`t think it`s limited to presidents or other national leaders who might be responsible for taking their respective nations to war.
Power is both intoxicating and addictive, and the power to send young men into battle is definitely some of the hard stuff.
When politicians decide to start a war, 99% of the time out of pure greed for themselves, do you think they truly in their hearts feel bad knowing they are sending many to die, do you think they ever lose sleep over it?
In this day and age? I hate to say it, but no. They don't KNOW the people they're sending. Their children, for the most part, aren't serving. I'm not a historian, so some patience please from those who have studied this (like, please don't yell at me!), but I'd venture this goes back to Korea. I think most would agree that it was the case for Vietnam, but folks tend to forget about Korea. I'm not exactly saying it's greed on their part, but rather that it's much easier to send troops when they are not your kids, grand kids, nieces, nephews... .
I don't really agree with the general sentiment here; the answer to the question cannot be a general one, but has to be taken on a case by case basis.
Some wars are questionable, others are obviously something that has to be done. And in the latter case, I don't want emotion to cloud needed military decisions.
In my lifetime (I'm 54) there hasn't been a sane rational one in the whole lot of them. Even going after OBL didn't take a 15 year war now with a country that didn't actually do anything to us.
If I was Bush or Obama I wouldn't be able to sleep at night and that it seems they do, to me, there has to be something wrong with both of them.
That is giving them the benefit of the doubt. Someone like Cheney is simply a psychopath. In another life he could have likely been a serial killer. The guy avoids going himself but is giddy about sending others.
When politicians decide to start a war, 99% of the time out of pure greed for themselves, do you think they truly in their hearts feel bad knowing they are sending many to die, do you think they ever lose sleep over it?
A very ignorant question, IMO.
"When politicians decide to start a war, 99% of the time out of pure greed for themselves,"
I do NOT agree with your premise so, any more comments would be useless.
The largest war the U.S. has ever gotten itself into that was "questionable" by many was the Vietnam War. That was started, or at least greatly escalated, by LBJ. (JFK got it started with "advisors", but it was really LBJ's war.) He felt so bad about it that he decided not to run for re-election... at least that was his claim. (He may have simply been smart enough to realize that he wouldn't be re-elected if he did run.)
Some wars are declared when there seems to be no other alternative, such as declaring war on Japan after the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. U.S. politicians are generally intelligent enough on the whole, so I'd imagine they feel bad about sending troops to their death. Unless they're psychopaths. I don't think that's too common with our politicians either.
I know many people today think all politicians are stupid, greedy psychopaths, but that's really not the case. Some of the most honest and decent people I know are politicians.
Ike started the war. He sent the first "advisors" n 1959.
The Kings, Counts and Earls have never worried about how many peasants are lost on their sacred crusades for god or greed. The underclass are and have always been cannon fodder. At least Richard I, the Lionheart, led his war from the front. He was about the last. That does not mean he cared about his soldiers.
Modern warmongers are far more worried about how much money is being spent in their Congressional Districts than the ideological, religious or moral excuses they use to justify the wars. The profits of the Military industries and the payrolls are the be all and end all of their considerations.
When politicians decide to start a war, 99% of the time out of pure greed for themselves, do you think they truly in their hearts feel bad knowing they are sending many to die, do you think they ever lose sleep over it?
Pure greed for themselves, no. "Lofty goals worth more than life itself," yes. Of course, the issue is whether their lofty goals can be translated to such a lofty goal to those who will sacrifice their lives.
In most cases in the US you can follow the money because one of those "lofty goals" will be some representation of "the chief business of the American people is business."
]American business extends internationally--a benefit generally to all Americans--and it does so riding the back of the power of the US government. So very often, the idea is that what's good for business is good for America, and what's good for America is a lofty goal worth dying for.
When Libya invaded Chad in 1987 the US did nothing, not even economically or diplomatically, even though Libya was well-known at the time as a terrorist nation--the US had even bombed it the year before in retaliation to terrorism. But when Iraq invaded Kuwait (and threatened invasion of Saudi Arabia) the US sprang to war with vigor.
What was the real reason the US rushed to the aid of Kuwait? The petrodollar situation is a case in point. Read that link. The economic entanglements of the US with other nations are very often more convoluted and involving more players operating in more different areas than ever comes across in 140 character Twitter feeds or 10-second sound bites.
To be honest, for a long time--specifically, up to the 1990s to 2000--that kind of thinking worked for the benefit of the average American. What dramatically changes the situation now is the globalization of the wealth of that 1%--and we're talking people far wealthier than anyone holding a federal office.
The transition began collapse of the Bretton-Woods agreement--when the last major world reserve currency (the US dollar) was delinked from gold--and ended with the Internet.
Prior to that transition, national governments had controlled the wealth of the world. That was because wealth was always ultimately tied to something physical--land or gold--and those who maintained the greatest potential for violence could control everything physical. So from the beginning of nations, kings controlled wealth.
By 2000, 90% of the wealth of the world was no longer represented physically, but by 0s and 1s on hard drives--"wealth" was mostly a measure of who was owed the most at a given moment rather than who owned the most at a given moment. The Internet freed that wealth from the control of kings.
Last edited by Ralph_Kirk; 05-09-2016 at 08:08 AM..
When the War Drums sound Mammon grins because He sees the profits coming.
I think our government should protect the domestic investments of our businessmen. I do not think we should be offering the same protection for investments made in other countries. Invest in the US and your investment is protected under our law but invest somewhere else you are on your own. Let the relative prices reflect the actual risk.
We went to Iraq to return the oil fields to American and British investors. We could not install a government, as if it was our job to install governments, that would protect the reprivatizing of those investments. That efforts to protect American investment in foreign countries has cost all of out citizens far more then the value of the profits to be made by the special few that "own" the oil. That is not worth the effort in time money and lives that Iraq and the rest has cost us.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
