- Over 801,000 people have died due to direct war violence, and several times as many indirectly
- Over 335,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting
- 37 million - the number of war refugees and displaced persons
- The US federal price tag for the post-9/11 wars is over $6.4 trillion dollars
- The US government is conducting counterterror activities in 80 countries
- The wars have been accompanied by violations of human rights and civil liberties, in the US and abroad
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
"The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t [in love with me], because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy, but we're getting out of the endless wars."
It doesn’t seem like either leading candidate has taken a position on the military-industrial complex.
>He then mentioned missiles, rockets and tanks, saying: “What we had were great people in the military, but they weren’t given the right equipment, so now they are. Two and a half trillion dollars. … We’ve invested the $2.5 trillion
Of course Trump is like the infinite monkey matrix. Wait a bit and he'll adopt your political position.
"VICE PRES. DICK CHENEY: My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3080244/ns/meet_the_press/t/transc...
It happened in Vietnam, and it's happening today in the Middle East. In both cases, the government knew early on that "total victory" was not possible, yet administrations kept pressing on. As long as leaders fear the political fallout of such major decisions, they will act in their best interest, even if it costs thousands of young lives.