Events are certainly moving quickly. Some people say we’re headed into World War III, while others say we’re already there. I tend to hold the latter opinion, but what do I know? My crystal ball is in the shop and the mechanic says it might be time to let that clunker go. Nevertheless, I’d like to share a few thoughts.

Back in 1966 when we were protesting the Vietnam War, Charlotte E. Keyes wrote an article titled, “Suppose they gave a war and no one came?” Her title was an instant hit, but only in certain circles, and it didn’t stop the conflict. Between conscripts and volunteers, the armed services have never lacked for manpower. Although the draft was eliminated in 1973, plenty of young men and women continue to enlist.

America glorifies the military. When you meet someone who is or has been in uniform, you’re expected to say, “Thank you for your service.” Monuments are built to those who died in combat. Veterans—that is, those who survive—get low-cost or free health care, money for education, and other benefits. Some people, including several I’ve known personally, enlisted to escape their small towns or for the GI Bill, which pays for college.

Whether we have a poverty draft is debatable. “Poverty draft” refers to the idea that most young people who enlist in the military do so for lack of alternatives for escaping poverty. According to research by Prof. Alair MacLean, we do not. Offspring of the lower middle class are the demographic most likely to enlist, followed by those in the income level just above them. Least likely are the very poor, whose parents had low levels of education, and the wealthy, which suggests a “de facto wealth exemption.”

Nevertheless I question MacLean’s conclusions. Middle class kids didn’t used to have to take out huge loans at extortionate interest rates in order to pay exorbitant tuition costs. They wouldn’t have needed to enlist to get money for college. In other words, today’s middle class are the new poor when it comes to paying for higher education.

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The psychopaths—sorry, national leaders—who start wars, those orgies of mass murder, always seem to think their side will emerge victorious. In pre-industrial times they were called kings, but nowadays they’re presidents, prime ministers, supreme leaders, or just plain dictators.

These so-called leaders always have several strata of support.

Highest and closest is a ring of wealthy oligarchs, whose wealth depends on exploiting labor, including modern-day slavery and child labor. They have no qualms about sending in the troops to shoot strikers at home, or the military to squash rebellions in other nations. In other words, the oligarchs, like the dictators and presidents, are strongly psychopathic but without the dictators’ limitless need for public adulation.

The oligarchs support their nation’s leader, who is often their puppet, as long as his policies continue to enrich them, and will replace him (or try to) when he no longer serves their interests. Sometimes their strategy backfires, as when they lose control of him puppet and his wars turn out to be a national disaster. For example, Hitler attacked France and England to the west in 1940. In 1941, he attacked the Soviet Union, his ally to the east. It’s never a good idea to be fighting in all directions simultaneously.

Depending on which country and era we’re talking about, the oligarch circle may include the owners of:

• Arms manufacturers, such as Krupp in Nazi Germany, and Lockheed Martin today
• Fossil fuel corporations such as British Petroleum in pre-revolutionary Iran or Chevron today
• Agricultural resource extractors, for example the Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company in Congo and United Fruit Company in Latin America
• Mineral extractors, such as De Beers diamond mining company in South Africa, or Swiss and Chinese cobalt mining enterprises in Congo

And many, many others.

The second stratum, just below, consists of the leader’s advisors. They aren’t part of the billionaire class, but the wealth and power they do enjoy comes from their sycophantic support of the dictator. Here in the United States those would include Trump’s cabinet, heads of various departments, and spokespeople. Some of them are at least as psychopathic as he is, or more so. Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem, for example, appear to revel in cruelty.

Propagandists form another stratum. In the United States, owners of media such as Fox News and Sinclair, Inc. are probably part of the oligarch set, but I’d put the pundits who work for them, and the so-called “intellectuals” of the think tanks, on the third level. One of the most despicable think tanks is the Manhattan Institute, which has published papers supporting child labor and income inequality, abolishing the minimum wage, and “getting tough” with those lazy poor. I wrote about them in detail in a previous post.

The lowest stratum—the fourth level—has two segments. The first includes members of the general public who are fine with their leader’s wars as long as they personally benefit. For example, when I was with a group protesting the invasion of Iraq, a man walked up behind us and shouted, “You want to pay $25 a gallon?”

This was a very revealing comment. I’ll give him credit—he knew what the war was about. He didn’t buy the official lie about weapons of mass destruction. Slaughtering thousands of Iraqis was okay, as long as it meant that he was comfortable, as long as he could fill his tank cheaply.

In every empire, in every colonial power, the general public includes people like that man. On the other hand, if the current leader’s policies leave them worse off, they are equally happy to support a replacement.

The other segment of the lowest stratum is comprised of cultists who believe their leader was divinely anointed, and will actually kill and die for him. It is important to remember that they don’t get this idea all by themselves. They hear it from some Christian clergy and, in Israel, some powerful rabbis.  (Not from Muslim religious leaders, however—the idea that a politician is divinely chosen and even speaks for God is heresy in Islam.) In America these days, they also hear it from the upper ranks of the administration, especially from the likes of Hegseth, who apparently actually believes he is leading a “holy war.”

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Personally, I don’t see the Bible as sacred, but rather a mishmash of mythology, history, poetry, and preaching. However, I do take some parts seriously, such as “thou shalt not kill,” and “love thy neighbor as thyself.” I cannot accept–completely reject–the part where God supposedly said to kill all the Amalekites, including their babies and all their animals.

In general I try not to injure any of God’s creatures. I will swat a mosquito if it lands on me, but if an ant walks across the kitchen counter, I’ll direct it onto a piece of paper and put it out in the garden. And if I saw a certain orange-haired mass murderer and an ant drowning in a swimming pool, and I had a choice between rescuing that murderer or that ant, guess which one I’d save.

I can’t abide the term holy war. It’s an oxymoron. Nor do I respect the various Geneva conventions that try to define war crimes.

War itself is the crime–the worst crime of all.