Dazed Syrian boy — and the American war machine

© 2016 Peter Free

 

20 August 2016

 

 

Remember this photograph . . .

 

. . . attached to Ellie Hunt's Guardian article about the Syrian Civil War?

 

 

Let's inject some cultural context

 

Consider this:

 

 

Escalating anti-Russian rhetoric in the U.S. presidential campaign comes in the midst of a major push by military contractors to position Moscow as a potent enemy that must be countered with a drastic increase in military spending by NATO countries.

 

Weapon makers have told investors that they are relying on tensions with Russia to fuel new business in the wake of Russian’s annexation of Crimea and modest increases in its military budget.

 

In particular, the arms industry . . . is actively pressuring NATO member nations to hike defense spending . . . .

 

Retired Army Gen. Richard Cody, a vice president at L-3 Communications, the seventh largest U.S. defense contractor, explained to shareholders in December that the industry was faced with a historic opportunity.

 

Following the end of the Cold War, Cody said, peace had “pretty much broken out all over the world,” with Russia in decline and NATO nations celebrating. “The Wall came down,” he said, and “all defense budgets went south.”

 

Many experts are unconvinced that Russia poses a direct military threat. The Soviet Union’s military once stood at over 4 million soldiers, but today Russia has less than 1 million. NATO’s combined military budget vastly outranks Russia’s — with the U.S. alone outspending Russia on its military by $609 billion to less than $85 billion.

 

And yet, the Aerospace Industries Association, a lobby group for Lockheed Martin, Textron, Raytheon, and other defense contractors, argued in February that the Pentagon is not spending enough to counter “Russian aggression on NATO’s doorstep.”

 

© 2016 Lee Fang, U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors Russian Threat Is Great for Business, The Intercept (19 August 2016) (extracts)

 

 

This is an example of one of former Lt. Colonel William Astore's criticisms of warmongering lapdog-ism.

 

Do you think that — just maybe — the United States' enthusiastic propensity for profitably lapping up other people's blood may have contributed to escalating Middle Eastern chaos?

 

 

The moral? — Perhaps a spiritual teaching is relevant here

 

Buddhism, more directly than other traditions, alerts its practitioners to the ethical problems raised by entering violence-promoting occupations.

 

The fact that war-profiteering people are thoughtless enough to think that they mean well, is not an excuse for the widespread harm that they do.

 

But, as Upton Sinclair (and probably Jesus) once said: 

 

 

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!

© 1935 Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (reprint, University of California Press, 1994) (at page 109) (according to Wikiquote)

 

Which is exactly Buddhism's point.

 

I am often taken aback at how easily alleged Christians overlook the connection between what we do for a living and what our souls become.

 

The irony of calling fervent Islamists bad people (and terrorist-supporters) becomes obvious, when we look at the maim-enabling harms that we ourselves do.

 

There is a huge ethical difference between (a) preparing reasonable self-defense and (b) predictably sowing the raging mayhem that we will subsequently have to defend against.

 

But — as the Sinclair quote indicates — the promise of a bulging wallet sucks our moral brains out our slime-sitting behinds. Greed is an impenetrable impediment to metaphorical Heaven.