The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism Paperback – June 26, 2007

I read this book and wrote a review on it for a class, so I thought I'd share the concise conclusion portion of it, instead of going too much into details and giving you too much information.

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh's The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (2006) exposes the more legitimate and dangerous forces at work influencing US' unilateral militarist policies around the world, but especially in the Middle East. It addresses the influential military-industrial complex's critical role and those of associated businesses, who've stood to gain and profit from war and military expansion. This first occurred almost immediately after WWII and it changed and overthrew the approximately 150-year long-established relationship between the supply and demand for arms and war equipment. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and fearing the threat of peace, the military-industrial complex sought new forms of threats and enemies to exploit to justify not only the maintenance, but also the increase in military spending. It found new enemies in "rogue states," "Islamic militants," China, weapons of mass destruction, etc. From this emanated the military-industrial complex's alliance with their Zionist counterparts, creating the informal military-industrial-Likud alliance-the primary reason behind the provocation and instigation of conflict, war, violence, bloodshed, and so on, in the region. The author also talks about the two prevailing imperialist approaches toward US foreign policy (Trilateralists/multilateralists vs unilateral militarists) and their (at times) contentious struggle, over decades, to guide and control the course of US foreign policy. Ultimately, a lot of groups and individuals not only stand to gain and profit from the war economy, but are dependent on it for sustenance, including the American people. Hossein-Zadeh concludes that in order to bring about the end of the industrial-military-Likud and the industrial-military complex, the eradication of the profit motive from the arms industry and warfare needs to happen.

I loved it. It's packed with explicit information on the tight relationship and revolving door between war profiteers and government officials--they're often one and the same--naming names and providing dollar amounts and sources of information. When you study this book, you will gain an understanding of what motivates the neocons to start wars. Money makes the world go around: you will learn a great deal about why the current US administration bombed Afghanistan, then Iraq, and now appears to be aimed at Iran. Why would anyone want never-ending war?

Hossein-zadeh points out that it is the industrial part of the military-industrial complex that is most problematic because it is driven by the profit motive.

I happen to disagree with Hossein-zadeh in that I think the oil transnationals also want wars in the Middle East. (He says these entities prefer stability.) This difference in views detracts nothing, however, from his analysis of the military-industrial aspect of these conflicts.

I'm a writer and use this book as a reference.

I hope it comes out in paperback so more people can afford it.

most comprehencive ,well documented,well researched book exposing the essence of our heartless government subserviant to the demands of giant corporations sacrificing the ones it is elected to protect.

Good

An amazingly thorough but extremely depressing book on the Military Industrial Complex in the US. This book suggests that the American political-economic system is totally submitted to the Military Industrial Complex, and that there is no easy way out. To anyone familiar with Seventh Day Adventist teachings about the US as the second beast of Revelation 13, the one that looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon, this book will ring true.

The only flaw is that it seems to omit the role of international finance in fomenting wars. Nations will go into almost unlimited debt to pay for wars that they view as matters of life or death, and the bankers exploit this and finance both sides of the conflicts.

Here is an excerpt from a letter sent to a local Congressman about this very problem:

Dear Representative Miller,

.... Finally, ever since watching Aaron Russo's 2006 documentary, America: From Freedom to Fascism, I have been studying the history of the Federal Reserve Banking system (FRBS). This has enabled me to attain a level of understanding that was withheld from me when I studied economics at Harvard in the late 1970s. Now I am very concerned that Congress has relinquished its control over our nation's monetary system to a private cartel of secretive international financiers called the "Federal Reserve". (This was perhaps the first - and most fateful - act of privatization in US history, and patently against the Constitution.)

Of particular concern is that the FRBS collateralizes our money supply with interest bearing Treasury Bills. This means that all annual increases in our GNP are forfeited to pay interest on money that the FRBS prints "for us." The consequence of this is that the average US citizen realizes no increase in his or her personal prosperity, since all growth in the national economy must be surrendered to pay the T-bills held by the private banking elites who run the FRBS. Indeed the inexorable laws of compound interest mandate that this system actually guarantees the constantly increasing pauperization of our society. One does not have to be a PhD in Economics to perceive this. A proficiency in high school level mathematics will suffice to enable you to comprehend the appalling reality that each year a constantly increasing percentage of our national wealth is diverted from the private citizen to pay the mounting debt burden held by the FRBS as reward for monetizing "our economy."

Along with millions of other patriotic Americans, I demand that Congress dismantle the FRBS and resume its Constitutionally mandated authority over our monetary system! In our opinion, the FRBS is the root of our current economic crisis, and indeed of every economic crisis that has faced this country since the FRBS's inception in the early 20th century. In fact, many of us believe that the FRBS is responsible for virtually every social upheaval that has afflicted not only our nation but the world in the last 100 years. We do not believe it is a mere "coincidence" that, since the authorization of the FRBS by US President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 (a decision he later lamented was the worst decision of his political career), the world was plunged into two catastrophic world wars, a great depression, an economically ruinous arms' race and cold war, proliferation of conflicts globally, and the current economic disaster facing the US along with the entire global economy.

Wars, and huge military budgets such as is required by the US Pentagon, are avidly promoted by the FRBS because countries will go into virtually unlimited debt in order to finance wars that they perceive are vital to their national interests. The evidence proves that the international banking system, of which the FRBS is just one part, finances both sides of every conflict. Like a casino, the banking houses always win, regardless of which side prevails in any particular war.

Many of us believe that the US ceased to be a sovereign country when it surrendered control of its monetary system to the FRBS. Ever since Woodrow Wilson's fateful decision, the US has functioned as a corporation, that has to borrow its "own" money from private usurious bankers, rather than as a free and independent nation-state.

If you really are serious about saving America , it is imperative that you act immediately to shut down the FRBS, exactly as President Andrew Jackson did so valiantly 177 years ago to the National Bank, which he called a den of vipers intent on devouring the fruits of our nation's labor. Otherwise no economic recovery plan, no matter how ingenious, possibly can restore our nation's dignity, integrity, and prosperity.

But if you are not willing to take these steps, then perhaps we simply should dissolve our democratic institutions and revert to a military dictatorship. That at least will save us all time, expense, and the heartache of having our "representatives" mislead, deceive, and ignore us. And if Congress willingly has subverted the Constitution by turning a blind eye to the FRBS, then America de facto no longer exists anyway and already has become a dictatorship of the international bankers, which means that your mailings are simply an eloquent but ultimately futile waste of time.

Sincerely,

Michael Korn