The "War on Terror" is merely a substitute for the Cold War. [View All]

The ruling class in the United States correctly perceived the spread of Communism as a threat to their entrenched power structure in the U.S. They saw the ruling classes of Russia and then China, two very large nations, toppled by Communism and figured if they didn't fight it, they would be next. This was the real motivation behind the Korean and Vietnam conflicts - the U.S. ruling class trying to protect themselves and their power by stamping out the spread of Communism wherever it might pop up in the world.

At the same time, a faction of the ruling class (the Military-Industrial complex) discovered there was money to be made by the cold war - big money, in fact. Most of the big defense contractors made huge profits in the Cold War - how many missiles did General Dynamics build and how much profit did they make - and how many missiles were ever actually used? Lockheed, Martin Marietta, Rohr, Boeing, Teledyne, Raytheon, Northrop, Litton, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, SAIC, GTE, TRW, Motorola, Halliburton, and on and on. (Many of these corporations have now merged.) These corporations made huge profits from the Cold War. When the Cold War ended, the ruling class of the U.S. breathed a huge sigh of relief - "ahhh.... we won... capitalism is safe at last... break out the champagne."

But not long after, the end of the Cold War resulted in military downsizing, and reductions in pentagon budgets, and less money for the defense contractor industry. The faction of the ruling class which profited from the Cold War military buildup soon realized that when those kids were tearing down the Berlin Wall, they were also tearing down at the defense contractor's profits - putting them dangerously close to going out of business. (Quite a few people I knew here in San Diego who had worked for General Dynamics for years were either forced to relocate or else just change to other careers.) What to do about this? Well, naturally, we need a new enemy -> new wars -> new military spending -> new profits!

Terrorist attacks such as the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City gave them their answer: the War on Terror! It's the new Cold War. It's a direct threat to our way of life in America! (Let's not muddy up the argument with the fact that the odds of the average American being attacked by a terrorist while on U.S. soil are miniscule). The whole "War on Terror" is a giant profit-making industry for the defense contractors, that has been packaged and sold to the American public. It does not represent nearly the threat to the U.S. ruling class that Communism represented, but there sure is a lot of profit to be made in it.

This is one reason why there is no particular effort to get the U.S. out of Iraq or get that situation resolved. And even when Iraq is finally resolved, the "War on Terror" just moves onto another front. It's a huge money-making machine for the Republicans and their donors in the defense contract industry, and has replaced the Cold War as the "justification" for it. Probably everyone on Democratic Underground who read this knows all this stuff anyway, but I'm looking to strengthen this piece for posting on some other sites including the right-leaning ones.