The Profitability of Wars - even little ones like Libya

Just found a great article by Robert C. Koehler, A Vortex of Death and Wealth, published today at CommonDreams.org He makes a case of how we -and other weapons manufacturing countries - make money off killing and destruction. He writes "And Libya is small potatoes compared to — no surprise — Saudi Arabia. Last year, according to Spiegel Online, the U.S. announced the largest arms export deal in history with the Saudis. The oil-rich kingdom will buy $60 billion worth of U.S. aircraft over the next five to ten years. “Money is no object,” the article informs us, “and the Saudi air force is to receive F-15 fighter-bombers, Apache attack helicopters, missiles, radar equipment and bombs. All together, according to the Wall Street Journal, the order is large enough to guarantee 77,000 jobs at Boeing.” So maybe this is the much taunted "Job Creation Program" of our current administration - let's go to war and sell weaponry - not only use it but also destroy it so we can eventually replace it. Since the US is not producing much else, there is our future. Unending war, unending arms sales. “This” — the Libyan no fly zone — “is turning into the best shop window for competing aircraft for years. More even than in Iraq in 2003,” said Francis Tusa, editor of the UK-based newsletter Defense Analysis, quoted in a recent Reuters article by Tim Hepher. For instance, enforcement of the no fly zone pitted two European-made jet fighters, the Typhoon and the Rafale, against one another for world leaders to view, and France, Tusa pointed out, “is particularly desperate to sell the Rafale.” This is the generally unstated truth about Western intervention in the Middle East and anywhere else in the world. The headline-generating acts of murderous repression by dictators, whether we love or abhor them, are made possible by weaponry and equipment they purchased from us. And then, when the time comes, we may have to attack our former business partners with the same weaponry we sold them." Common Sense apparently has no place in this game unless you apply it to the job creation program. Good luck to all of us.