adminONE way of posing the question of who we are in these times of war is by asking whose lives are considered valuable, whose lives are mourned and whose lives are considered grievable.
We might think of war as dividing populations into those who are grievable and those who are not.
An ungrievable life is one that cannot be mourned because it has never lived, that is, it was never counted as a “life” at all.
We can see the division of the globe into grievable and ungrievable lives from the perspective of those who wage war to defend the lives of certain communities and to defend them against the lives of others”.
Judith Butler — When is Life Grievable
Many will recognise this phenomenon from the events of the past weeks.
French lives are publicly grievable; friends throughout the world cover their Facebook picture with the tricolour. We recognise as human beings the tremendous loss and grief of the families of those who died.
Sadly, however, there was no such response to the hundreds who died in Lebanon, Iraq, Cameroon, Mali and Nigeria. No one covered their faces with the flags of these countries.
These are the ungrievable, the other, not like us, so less important. War, however, has another side that allows capitalism to benefit out of the intense misery of ordinary people, in the name of defending ordinary citizens.
Last year alone, more than $14 trillion was spent on international wars — about 13 percent of global GDP and the total value of the economies of the UK, France, Germany, Canada, Spain and Brazil!
These calculations have been made by the Institute for Economics and Peace — a global think tank in Australia, which works to focus world attention away from war to peace, as an alternative social and economic system.
The US Department of Defence says the total cost of operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria since August 8 last year is $5 billion, $11 million for every day for the 450 days of operations.
Although Russia does not advertise its military costs, reliable investigations put average daily cost for its air bombardment of Syria at roughly $4 million.
In the UK, there are rumblings of a possible military coup should the new leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn, ever become prime minister. The immediate reasons for these open military threats are twofold: Corbyn is an avowed anti-war campaigner and has promised to scrap the £100 billion Trident plans, the British nuclear deterrent programme the Conservative government is hell-bent on carrying through.
David Cameron, Conservative Prime Minister, is beating the war drums for more money to be poured into Britain’s military adventures in Iraq and Syria.
Corbyn has correctly argued that he does not believe spending £100 billion on a new generation of nuclear weapons taking up a quarter of the British defence budget is rational and moral.
Rather, he believes Britain should honour its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and lead in making progress on nuclear disarmament.
In South Africa, to date no one can give an accurate figure of what the infamous “Arms Deal” actually cost. When the government announced the controversial deal in 1999, it stated that the purchase of helicopters, submarines, frigates and fighter aircraft would cost R29,9billion.
At the time this amount was more than that spent on HIV and Aids treatment, bursaries for tertiary education students and low-cost housing combined. And South Africa neither faced any military threat of any kind (then and now), nor did it by any stretch of imagination need these extremely expensive military toys.
Today, 16 years later, research and investigations put the full cost of the arms deal at between R70 billion and R90 billion, and counting.
Perhaps the most disconcerting fact is that Barack Obama, who campaigned and won his first presidential term on a platform of withdrawing US troops from wars, including in Iraq, has turned out to be the most expensive US president in terms of defence budgets.
Obama’s average defence budget, from 2010 has been $663,4 billion per year, higher than any of the past 11 US presidents since 1948.
All together, US military spending today at a whopping $1,3 trillion per year is larger than the rest of the nine largest militaries in the world combined (China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, UK, France, Japan, India, Germany and South Korea). Incidentally, this is also about 13 percent of US GDP.
War is big, global business.
The world’s war economy nestles at the heart of the global capitalist system. Unimaginably massive profits are available in the global war industry from manufacturing basic military combat firearms to research and the production of the most sophisticated, hi-tech manned and unmanned military planes.
All world governments are involved in the global war economy.
What is usually missing in all discussions about war is the fact that war is one of the most lucrative global markets for private gain.
Today the US capitalist national economy is anchored on its national war industries. Banks, universities and the media collude to provide finance, research and publicity for the global capitalist war economy. All other industries — mining, food, clothing, construction, chemicals, energy and communications — bend to the dictates of the world’s war economy.
In very simple terms, killing is a capitalist industry, which offers the highest possible rewards in massive profits. To a capitalist, producing guns and warplanes is just as good business as producing milk and honey — both are simply commodities to be exchanged and sold for profits.
Persistent absence of war, just like a shortage of dead bodies to a private funeral director, means loss of profits and possible ruin. On a world scale, the global military market is essential to the survival of the world capitalist system.
Once this commoditised, private profit side of war is fully grasped, it is easy to understand why the violent deaths of more than 17 500 Nigerians who have perished in the ongoing Boko Haram violence against the Nigerian government is underplayed against the 130 people who died in the French IS-inspired attacks.
France is a big player in the world capitalist war economy. It reaps the fourth largest rewards from the world’s war economy.
It has triggered the expansion of the global war economy by seeking greater EU participation in attacks on IS and has managed to cause the UN Security Council to pass a resolution in support of a World War against IS — all in just under 10 days after the attacks in Paris.
One would have thought that post Cold War, the world would have become a safer place for human beings, but we have seen instead the emergence of new sources of growth of the world war economy, for which “terrorism” has become a powerful stimulus and the greatest source of business confidence.
After the Paris attacks, we now are fully embarked on a World War Against Terror.
Yet no sane person believes one can win the war against terrorism from whatever source by bombs and any other military means.
Unless human beings learn to seek out and isolate the real interests behind every human thought, idea and behaviour, they will always be victims of deception. War is big business. It powers the global capitalist economy. Those who want peace, therefore, must ask how they are going to achieve peace without first destroying the foundations of war today — the world capitalist system.
The conscious sections of the world’s working class don’t take seriously the crocodile tears of political and organised religion’s leaders of today’s capitalist governments and societies.
We know very well how these men and women profit both directly and politically from all wars.
Nor is the conscious section of the world’s working class fooled by the teachings of all organised religion.
We know all too well that apart from hiding behind this or that “god”, all capitalists worship only one true god — their god of private property, of profits.
The simple and only solution to this cruel and deadly madness of the global death economy and the suffering it exacts: is called “Socialism”, a social and economic system that establishes true human values, eliminates racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, prejudices of all kinds and rebuilds the lost connection between all human beings by destroying all the gods of private profits and private property.
To achieve real peace, we need to educate ourselves about the world’s war economy, how this war economy is linked to the entire global capitalist economy, and how governments and private companies collude to enrich a minority at the expense of our well being, security and lives. — Pretoria News.
Online Reporter