When the Uniformed Victims Come Home

      Even the most piddling life is of momentous consequence to its owner.

                               – James Wolcott

Nowhere is the insanity of the war system more evident than in the dead and broken bodies, along with the emotionally demolished souls, of those who have been sacrificed to it. We often see images of the psychopathic nature of warfare (e.g., the famous photo of a screaming, naked young Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack in 1972, or the video of an American helicopter gunship machine-gunning a dozen Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters’ journalists). More often, what we do not see are the shattered and disintegrated spirits of men, women, and children who physically survive this well-organized and well-financed collective lunacy, but whose inner sense of being must be regarded as casualties. In between, are the countless numbers of people left blind, legless or armless, mindless, or otherwise in a vegetative state to be cared for by family members.

These erstwhile human beings make up much of the dispirited detritus that gets beached throughout America. Many politicians see their obvious plight as an opportunity to exploit for their own ambitions in getting elected to office. Their proposals usually take the form of creating government programs that will provide dollars to care for such persons. But, as with all politically-based thinking, such an approach fails to ask the right questions. trying to maximize income but to minimize costs. Those who control and direct the state’s war-making system consist of what are referred to as the “military-industrial complex.” These are the business firms that both design and produce weapons systems – at a hefty profit in doing so – as well as help to direct the foreign policies of the United States in order to ensure desirable levels of international conflicts upon which their economic interests depend.

There are enormous financial costs such firms must bear in order to secure the right mix of governmental policies that will advance their purposes (e.g., defense spending, foreign policy commitments). Substantial amounts of money must be contributed to politicians (e.g., campaign contributions, multi-millions of dollars for speaking fees) as well as lobbyist fees and public propagandizing advertising expenses. The costs of paying for injuries received by soldiers are, on the other hand, like so many of the unwanted costs of our behavior, simply imposed upon others. A factory that spews smoke onto the lands of neighbors, or dumps industrial wastes into rivers or underground water systems; or the sports teams that insist upon taxpayers paying for the construction of stadia; or the corporation that calls upon the state to use its powers of eminent domain to obtain land without having to negotiate with an owner, are the better-known examples of what economists so appropriately refer to as “socializing the costs.”

But living life responsibly necessitates actors bearing all of the costs of their actions – and, as a corollary, enjoying all of the benefits thereof. Wounded soldiers are an inevitable cost of the war system. Efforts are made to shift this expense to taxpayers who, in any political society, are the default debtors of all state action. Wars that are generated and maintained so that weapons manufacturers, banks, and other corporate-state interests can profit from the carnage, incur costs that, in a world that likes to talk of “responsible behavior,” should be directly borne by those who benefit from this deadly racket. Just as the farmer who sets fire to last season’s crop-stubble is required to compensate his neighbor should the fire escape onto the neighbor’s land and burn down his house, so too, should those who profit from sending other people’s children to war be obliged to pay the costs of helping the returning soldiers to heal. If those who profit so greatly from promoting the slaughter of others were required to internalize these costs, their pro-war incentives would be reduced.

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