[109625] in Cypherpunks
Re: Profits in the Balkans
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Stewart)
Wed Mar 31 03:09:22 1999
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 23:02:36 -0800
To: Frederick Burroughs <riburr@shentel.net>,
Cypherpunks <cypherpunks@ns.minder.net>
From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: <36FCF702.65359BA8@shentel.net>
Reply-To: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
At 10:19 AM 3/27/99 -0500, Frederick Burroughs wrote:
>WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon intends to sell 50 F-16 fighters to
>Israel for $2 billion. OK... So the Middle East peace process is a
>bonanza for daddy warbucks here in the US. The Pentagon and US defense
>contractors must be coming in their pants over the thought of profiting
>from an "armed peace" in the Balkans. If we play our cards right and
>NATO bites, comfortable retirements are on the house.
>
>Call me dense, but I'm just beginning to understand the incentive for
>preserving the situations we find in Korea, Taiwan, the Middle East,
Same as it ever was, Fred. Who was it that said
"War is the Health of the State"?
Wars put and kept feudal nobility in power, and they did the same
as we entered the industrial age with heavy machinery and mass armies.
As Bismarck said, the fundamental decisions of his age weren't made
through democracies and parliaments, but blood and iron.
Ex-General Eisenhower's speeches about the Military-Industrial Complex
were about as true as you can get from a retiring politician.
Now that we're in a computer-dominated high-tech business climate,
the escalation goes to faster and smarter airplanes and targeting systems,
rather than to heavier and heavier tanks, ships, and planes,
but the new ones are _still_ such an advance over last decade's model
that you've got to buy them, especially since they can be a major
force multiplier to let you take out the enemy's air defenses
so you can do 95% of your bombing with paid-for B52s and dumb iron bombs
unimpeded by radar-guided SAMs and enemy fighters.
(On the other hand, computers make it feasible to follow the money
and provide better surveillance and privacy-invasion technology,
supporting the War On Drugz that's substituting for real wars in
keeping cops and prison-builders happily employed scaring the public and
transparentizing society.
>What had originally been an internal skirmish in a Serbian province the
>size of Connecticut has now widened to include the entire Eurasian theater.
>The Pentagon marketing executives earned a big bonus for this one!
War in the Balkans has been a popular game for superpowers for 100 years,
and just because there aren't any other superpowers doesn't mean we
have to stop playing it. After all, it's been almost decade since there
was a "Saddam of the Month" to blow up to remind everybody that the
military-industrial complex is still (like Al Haig) in charge,
Wag the Dog was long enough ago that it's almost safe to have a war in Albania,
and it gives the Congresscritters a chance to warm up for the
gradual rediscovery that there are COMMIES IN CHINA! COMMIES!
SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!!
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
