The Real Reason For the War

How much oil does the whole US military/industrial complex burn? I mean, in all it's gigantic, unholy magnificence? Count all the Lockheed/Pentagon/Raytheon employees, all their commuting SUV's with the little "support our troops" yellow ribbons on the back, all the office towers and factories they work in, all the fuel the whole US work force burns to pay the military budget tax, all the mining and smelting and refining of the precious war metals, all the ships that move the raw materials and the oil from there to here and back again, all the troops and their generals, their military bases, all the machines of war themselves: the aircraft carriers, the submarines, the satellites, the rockets, the planes, the bombs, how much oil does it take to make ALL THAT happen? And how much oil would be saved if we just didn't do ALL THAT?

Some say the real reason for the war is oil, but they have it backwards. The real reason for the oil is war.

Comments

• Yes, today the (our) military needs oil to move personnel and munitions. That of course was not always the case.  In the days before steam-powered ships, the wind brought men to the battle (don

  Posted by  on  05/17  at  01:32 PM

• Correction to previous post:
  Pardon my dyslexia.  The Spanish armada episode was in the 1580’s not the 1850’s.

  http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01727c.htm

  Posted by  on  05/17  at  10:26 PM

• Interesting post Mark, thanks. “Food” is the energy source of the human body, just as oil is the energy source of the machine. Since we now use machines to create our food surplus, it is ominous to consider that our food surplus will “peak” at the same time as the oil peak.

  There’s a biblical passage that I’ve been pondering lately: Isaiah 65: 21-22

  “They will build houses and inhabit them;
  They will also plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
  “They will not build and another inhabit,
  They will not plant and another eat”

  These passages includes the famous line about lions laying down with lambs. I interpret this to mean that there will be an end to the hierarchical system of exploitation that exists today (and has existed for thousands of years). There will be no rich class or rich nation that enjoys the food of another person’s work. Everyone will eat only what they each grow or forage. Just like you say.

  Posted by Editor  on  05/20  at  02:10 PM

• “The lion and the lamb will lie down together” (but the lamb won’t get much sleep!) I’ve searched the Bible sites for that famous Bible passage (without the Woody Allen post script) with no success as to where precisely it appears.  There are a couple of references in Isaiah to lambs and lions but the lamb is always paired with a wolf (11:6 & 65:25).  Funny how many famous Bible quotes aren’t really from the Bible?

  The passages you mentioned, Isaiah 65:21-22, have a distinctly anti-socialist and anti-slavery message. To me it says, “What you work hard for, you will keep.  You won

  Posted by  on  05/22  at  01:19 PM

• Well, I checked it out, and you’re right: Isaiah 65:25 -

  “The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain,” says the LORD.

  The lion and the lamb are not specifically placed together in the same passage, but I think the meaning is close enough. You’re quote by Ugo Betti is a good one, very much what has been occupying my mind lately.

  Posted by Editor  on  05/22  at  02:48 PM