College of William & Mary Professor and Ron Paul Institute Academic Board Member Lawrence Wilkerson examined, in an interview last week with host Paul Jay on the Real News Network, the connection between war and profits. War brings profits, and this feeds a Washington, DC bias toward war, says Wilkerson.
In the interview focused on the Republican presidential primary candidates, Wilkerson, a former Army colonel who was chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, elaborates:
But there is a group in this country who will put money behind anyone who looks like he’s going to maintain and even push more stridently than before the business or war, if you will. I’ve recently had a person at the highest levels of power in this land say to me, ‘Inside Washington there is a bias toward war.’ That’s absolutely correct. Lots of people made a lot of money off the invasion of Iraq. Lots of people made a lot of money off Afghanistan. Lots of people are still making — did and are still making — lots of money over this politics of fear associated with terrorism and the counter-terrorism associated with it. So this is a very lucrative business, war.
Watch Wilkerson’s complete interview here:
RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul wrote about the Washington, DC bias toward war in his editorial “The New Militarism: Who Profits?” published on April 12. Paul’s editorial concludes with this observation:
The elites are terrified that peace may finally break out, which will be bad for their profits. That is why they are trying to scuttle the Iran deal, nix the Cuba thaw, and drum up a new ‘Red Scare’ coming from Moscow. We must not be fooled into believing their lies.
While some individuals and companies reap great profits from war, for most people war yields net costs, including for some people even severe injuries or death. In July of 2014 RPI Academic Board Member Robert Higgs catalogued some of the costs of war in an informative Ludwig von Mises Institute speech. Read about and watch Higgs’ speech here.
