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Despite Trillions Spent, the US Military Hasn't Won a Real War Since 1945
(www.commondreams.org)
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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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The people of America did not get the benefit of the iraq war. You can try to use the labor aristocratic rhetoric here, but it falls flat because the surplus labor of the US worker was funnelled directly into defense contractors and then lit on fire. Whatever value was extracted from Iraq simply pales in comparison to what was wasted. The imperialist wars fought in my lifetime have not meaningfully actually served to maintain US hegemony, they've just been pointless wastes of life.
I'm a Houstonian and I watched this city's economy expand significantly during the war's execution.
I know people who personally profited from the Pentagon's spending glut. Haliburton HQ is a short drive from my house and one could argue my mortgage payment on a postage stamp property reflects the enormous real estate price inflation resulting from all that federal money flooding into the region.
Nevermind what Iraq did for the cost of energy, which directly benefits my city's native industry.
Iraq was, in a certain international geopolitical Sense, a labor disciplining war. It guaranteed that energy profits would continue to flow into the West.
One could argue this fight with Russia is a similar exercise in disciplining a rival energy exporter.