America's Perpetual War: Six Questions(5)

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There are also three way traffic swing doors, namely the corporation-Pentagon-thin tanks. Some of the key members of the Washington war camp work for war corporations, the Pentagon and think tanks. In this dynamics, CSIS is often implicated.

The bribery system and the swinging-door system of policy making invite necessarily the culture of corruption.

"Corporate America as a whole was also corrupting hearts and minds numbing the public with entertainment and deluging with commercialism." (Sorensen: p.60)

5. What are the Negative Impacts of the American Wars?

There are internal and external negative impacts of American wars. The internal negative impacts of the American wars include human cost and economic cost.

The human cost of American perpetual war is high. Nobody knows how many Americans are killed or wounded. But some estimates say that as many as 50,000 Americas have been wounded in addition to tens of thousands of GIs who have been killed due to the perpetual wars.

"There is no honest accounting of the where how and why we are killing-how United States citizens are being protected and what security benefits are actually accruing to the United States in continuing perpetual war." (William M Arkin: nesweek.com/why-america-cant-end-its forever-war-1592749)

The economic costs are high. The destruction of the country's potential economic growth is attributable to insufficient investments in education, health and infrastructure facilities.

The U.S. invests almost $1.0 trillion a year for the perpetual wars forcing each American to contribute $2,200 a year to finance the wars.

The opportunity cost of American wars is high. The opportunity cost means investments which have been avoided due to the wars.

Here are some examples of opportunity costs: $70 billion to fight poverty; $42 billion to repair 43, 586 deficient bridges; $10.6 billion for the proposed program for the Center for Disease Control; $11.9 billion for the Environment Protection Agency; $17 for children who are starving.

Besides, Washington needs money to save 100,000 Americans who die every year from drug overdoses Washington must find way to eliminate street killings which happen four times every single day.

More than 10 % of American is not covered by medical insurance. Even those who do have medical insurance, the insurance cost is beyond the reach of the majority of Americans.

Another serious internal negative impact of the war is increasing public debt. In 2023, the U.S. public debt is $ 31 trillion as against $ 27 trillion for its GDP. This means that public debt is14.8% more than GDP.

A good part of this debt is due to wars. In fact, the Iraq war produced U.S. public debt of $3 trillion.

This is a very dangerous situation, because with this kind of public debt, the country's fiscal policy becomes utterly useless.

Now, as for the external negative impact of American wars, it is impossible to have an idea. Almost 1.3 million people were killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone. Millions of refugees were produced.

Over the years, the perpetual American wars have ruined national economies; they have undermined religions and traditional values; they took away the hope for better life of the people of the countries which have been the targets of American wars.

What is really disturbing is this. The American wars are supposed to promote and keep world safer. But, in reality, the American wars have instead worsened the world safety.

"After two decades of fighting, in fact, not one country in the Middle East - not a country in the world - can argue that it is safer than it was before 911. Every country that is now a part of the expanding battle field of perpetual war is a greater disaster than it was than decade ago." (newsweek.com ibid).

So, who are benefitting from American wars? Sorensen offers an answer.

"The only people who ultimately benefit from militarized drugs war are perfidious flag officers, the D.C. regime executives, war corporations and a few native American elites." (Sorenson: p. 298)

I may go further. I say that the beneficiaries are the members of the APWC.

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