Thursday 21 April 2016

Who makes wars ?

Who makes wars ?

I am sure none of my friends who are reading this post would really like wars to happen . And perhaps that’s the way common folks around the world must be thinking. Yet we find  wars and hostilities  occurring and happening continuously round the year . And this is not country specific . It is a global phenomena . All around the world , full blown wars or covert hostilities between nations, races , religions , territories are happening at every minute of the day .
This raises a very pertinent question – If everyone believes that peace and love are the only ways forward for mankind , then why do wars  happen ?
Maybe because even though we abhor war , it is a profitable venture for some people. And these people have a vested interest in keeping the flames of wars burning . To them war is no more than a racket for their own benefit.  The loss of thousands of lives are justified for this benefit . This is also probably the ultimate truth of modern capitalism .
If we care to dig deep into the functioning of the military industrial complex structures of different countries and their linkages with the economy and  politics through the channel of defence contractors , it will be clear that the control is in their hands , whatever the form of government it may be , democratic , despotic or even monarchy . We may scoff at the pernicious and intimate relation but the fact remains that it is very , very difficult to dismantle the existing structure . And this has happened for ages . Every warlord , each chieftain , all  rulers , however strong he may be, had to be dependent on the moneybags and had to respect their interests  , throughout history.
We may not realise  but the military-industrial complex has now branched out from their primary job of simply manufacturing weapons to promulgating think tanks and other forms of opinion building through legal and tax-exempt NGOs that purport to be  impartial ,  writing editorials and policy proposals that support the agenda of the military-industrial infrastructure, and often adopted as policy with the support of people in different countries. Unknown to us we may end up opposing ideologies , groups or people just because our collective thought process is channelized to dislike and hate them on the grounds of religion, nationalism , ecology , language or territory. And with the all pervading and instantaneous reach of the digital age , news hits us unfiltered and does the damage before  the source is verified with a rational examination .
This is the tragedy of our times and this is more the reason why wars will not stop till we are extinct or evolve into a different  species altogether  , whichever is earlier.