…a big war, a global war, with the US, the NATO artifice, and tiny Israel against the rest of the world. Who can deny that this is the fantasy of many in the US government, and in the governments of the poorly-led socialist states in Europe?
In their imagination, this war could be satisfying, could “set the world straight,” would enrich and restore US and European global influence.
There are voices warning against this, from the left and right, the libertarian and the entrepreneurial, the faithful and the unfaithful. But these voices of truth are small in number.
Their arguments for peace are being picked apart, condemned, and crushed by the mob in DC. Meanwhile, the great and benevolent United States vetoes cease-fires and prohibits peace in two sacrificial lambs, Ukraine and Israel/Palestine.
Yes, even Israel will be sacrificed in this next war. Not because of Israel’s wrongheaded greed for land, water, and control, but, as many Israelis already realize, because of the US.
Past empires ended in dry sheaves with no grain. Their endings do not nourish our imaginations, and their endings do not teach us. All the agreed upon sins – envy, greed, gluttony, lust, rage – well, we like all those things. These sins guide and shape our foreign policy. Pride, as well, infects major capitals of the western world, with their arrogance and megalomania. The Most Important Western Leaders of the world include a dick-waving Ukrainian comedian, a doddering child- molesting grifter in Washington, the well-dressed kings and queens of Marxist Europe, and the “crime minister” of the Israeli state. All of them, have fostered schemes of war for years, and are doing it now, and all of them are oh so proud of themselves.
How can the lust for war be restrained? The history of empires doesn’t inspire us in this direction – anyhow, we are now democracies and republics, we have no emperors, they say. Appealing to the better nature of mankind doesn’t seem to work, not when there is other people’s money to be scammed and enjoyed, as the centralized cronies of the state in defense, media and pharmaceutical industries all know very well. Outward and onward.
The world may be filled with too many useless eaters – perhaps the devils that rule us are on to something after all.
So I say, let it happen, let loose the dogs of war!
But before we let those dogs out, here’s a little thing that we might consider, notwithstanding that constant and continual war is the very core of our society. Constant war feeds many in the west, and subsidizes their lifestyles.
Imagine if a war might be fought – and then – unpredicted by any of its proponents – there is a clear loser.
That losing side will be blamed for the war – they always are. Winners write the history, and losers pay all costs, both morally and economically. We, in the arrogant assumption that we will be victorious, are writing that history now, even before the war is fully engaged: US leadership has publicly and repeatedly identified those who are “starting it.”
What if western armies and navies and air forces and space forces, in their very special arrogance, fail, are damaged far from home, become buried in the mountains, the sand and the oceans where they are operating? What if, in the face of overstated and over-promised might, the US adds to its world record of two – when its politicians panic and its diplomats fold – and makes a third use of a nuclear weapon?
It is the United States that studies and teaches the idea of winning a nuclear war, but what if that very instruction is on par with the rest of the US military – where ships bump into each other in the night, and F-35’s lose their pilots and become lost for days in our own airspace, where our next generation hypersonic program is bust after bust, and our soldiers, airman and sailors are mostly overweight, unenthusiastic, and housed like vermin by the world’s “largest and most powerful” military?
Let us play a little game. Assume that the US heads of state didn’t get the word that there is no more ammunition, our military is fat and in disarray, our computing systems and AI unreliable, our generals idiotic, our own borders completely open and undefendable, our cities filled with criminals and collapsing industries, our food production systems made vulnerable by centralization, subsidy and socialism.
Apologies to all at Winterfell, I ask, “Do you deny it?”
Assume the US heads of state, and its NATO and Israeli counterparts proceed as if it is “opposite day,” and threaten the world, see enemies where none exist, and fire it all up.
Some of the wisest minds and observers and historians are predicting this, cycles of empire predict it, 20th and so far, 21st Century American policy predicts it.
Imagine we lose this war. Not like I and II, where we were the victors, the saviors, and the post-war landscape shapers.
This time, it is we who will be shaped, punished, tried in international courts, imprisoned, enslaved, made to pay for many decades for the damage we inflicted, promulgated, caused – because, as we all know, once vanquished, it is the loser who is wholly responsible for the war, the loser who pays the piper.
It is not true that all sides lose in war, even nuclear war. There will be a named loser. The US/NATO and Israel – all suffering from a contagion of repeated strategic mistakes, all fiscally bankrupt, with a persistent and willful inability to maintain a military that functions, all failing to preserve their native human industry or their borders – will lose the next big war.
And the losers will be made to pay dearly. The United States as we know it – surely dysfunctional as a Republic – will be carved up and for many years, impoverished, vilified, and punished by a new world order.
I suspect our political leadership and the neoconservatives who design our foreign policy of aggression already know this – the kindest thing I can say, and something I am sure they hope for themselves, is that they perish in the next war – because what comes after that war is lost will be, for them, unbearable.
It will also be mostly unbearable for the rest of us, and for Europe – but we, those of us who survive it, will indeed bear it. We will bear it, pay for it, and die in debt to those who won that war, as will our children and grandchildren. But don’t worry, maybe Joe Biden and his excellent team of grifter diplomats and chickenhawks will figure out a path to peace. All we need for peace to happen is for the US government and its massive integrated war and propaganda team to simply pause. Stop. Retract. Look inward. Meditate. Pray for humility. Pray for wisdom.
I suspect this is not going to happen, of course. Our government is addicted to war. We have no idea how to stage an intervention, there is no 30 day program that will work, and when our addicted government finally commits suicide, it will be a bloody mess.