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WWIII ahead: Warfare defining human life by 2020!
Commentary: 'Mother of all national security issues: desperate wars over food, water, energy'.
By Paul B. Farrell
Aug. 24, 2010

World War III is coming. Iraq and Afghanistan? Just warm-up acts. Foreign-policy blunders with huge economic consequences: Massive domestic debt handicapping future generations. But still just warm-up acts.

The main event: WWIII will engulf America in a "New Age of Warfare" with trillions and trillions and trillions of new debt, year after year after year. Yet we're silent, in denial. Nobody's talking about all this new debt ahead.

Iran unveils combat drone!

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveils the prototype for an unmanned drone bomber - the latest in a string of new military hardware announced by Iran as tensions mount over its nuclear program.

World War III: The Pentagon warns of "the mother of all national security issues ... By 2020 there is little doubt something drastic is happening," military officials told Fortune. "As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies would emerge ... warfare is defining human life." This is a real game-changer, a paradigm shift, a turning point in human history, altering civilization. Listen closely:

WWIII: 'The mother of all national security issues'!

Still you're in denial? Can't see, hear, believe? You hope we come back?
WWIII: 'By 2020 there is little doubt something drastic is happening'!
More denial. We think short-term, this quarter, this election cycle. It'll work out.

WWIII: 'The planet's carrying capacity is shrinking'!

And yet still you refuse to listen. It all sounds too eco-freak lefty.

WWIII: 'Desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies'!

Still you dismiss it as hype, propaganda, brainwashing from the Pentagon war machine.

And, yes, historians and shrinks agree you will stay in denial ... till it's too late.

Proof? Remember Jeremy Grantham. A savvy investor managing $100 billion in assets. Listen to his take on the 2008 meltdown: "Several dozen people saw this crisis coming for years. It seemed so inevitable and so merciless. Yet the bosses of Merrill Lynch and Citi, even Paulson and Bernanke, none saw it coming."

Greed blinds us. So we will be unprepared, miss the next disaster, meltdown, catastrophe ... the coming WWIII.

Why can't we open our eyes? Wake up before it's too late? Why don't we learn the lessons of history? Sadly, centuries of history prove we never change ... till it's too late.

Proof? Remember "This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly" by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, two brilliant economists. They warn: "The lesson of history is there will always be a temptation to stretch the limits. One common theme, excessive debt accumulation -- whether government, banks, corporations, or consumers -- often poses greater systemic risks than it seems during a boom. We merrily roll along for an extended period, when bang ... confidence collapses, lenders disappear, a crisis hits. History does point to warnings signs that policy makers can look to access risk -- if only they do not become too drunk with their credit-bubble-fueled success and say, as their predecessors have for centuries, 'This time is different.'"

We're addicts, more is never enough, we ignore history lessons!
Humans are addicted to greed, success, wealth. More is never enough: "The lesson of history is there will always be a temptation to stretch the limits." Leaders always stretch the limits, like gamblers who just can't go home till they lose everything.

Besides, that "mother of all national security issues won't happen till 2020?" Too far in the future, so our short-term brains dismiss it. ... So what if "the planet's carrying capacity in shrinking?" ... So what if "an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies is emerging?" ... So what if "warfare defines human life?"

So what else is new? Wars: WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan. Think positive. Wars create new economic opportunities.

The "green revolution." Job growth. Commodity deals. Innovations. Think positive. Technology will solve all future problems. Have faith. Trust. Wait. Enjoy life now.

Yes, WWIII is coming. And in 2020 we may wake up and remember we were warned about the disastrous consequences of invading Iraq back during the invasion when Nixon advisor Kevin Phillips wrote in Wealth and Democracy, warning: "Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant, wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning themselves out."

The real reason ... we love wars, it's a macho ego thing!

Now shift from the lessons of history to the lessons of psychology. Forget everything the Pentagon says. It's a distraction. The real reason WWIII is coming is not because "they" are attacking "us." ... Not because the GOP, Tea-Party, Reaganites and their beloved Reaganomics all love a crisis. ... Not because the Right believes it's written in Revelations ... Not because a secret conspiracy of the superwealthy believe wars are great for economic recovery.

No, WWIII is coming because Americans love war; it's in our psyche, genes, DNA, blood, our cultural mythology. Deep in our souls we are greedy war-mongers, war-profiteers ... we love wars.

WWIII is coming because America needs a war to prove that we really are still "king of the hill," the world's sole superpower. That we're not falling second to China and the rest of the world. Forget economics, politics, ideologies: WWIII is a macho ego thing.

We want to revive the days when John Wayne, Patton, "The Dirty Dozen," "Apocalypse Now" defined us; we were a nation of war heroes. Now our "heroes" are corrupt Wall Street fat-cat CEOs who lose billions and still retire rich, con men for Treasury secretaries, bought presidents, governors who resign early, lie to grand juries and walk the Appalachian trail, ad infinitum. We have lost face, lost faith in our heroes, in our world. Unlike thousands indicted after the S&L and Enron disasters, our dark heroes "get away with murder."

Destiny knocks ... the Righteous Right will lead us into WWIII!

WWIII is coming because America needs a war, another great war. Admit it. We all sense it at a deep level. Yes we hate to admit the truth. It hurts too much to admit our moral weakness: America's losing power, swagger, mojo, cohones. We don't like feeling impotent, weak, vulnerable. So the bullying Right, the insecure, defensive and full-of-hate, dark side of the Party-of-No-No has decided to be the champion-of-the-return-to-the-glory-days ... and they are itching for new wars.

First: before WWIII we prepare with internal civil wars. The Right attacks the Left, spewing lies, feeding rage everywhere like the angry high school bully who lost the election for class president because his future was pure self-serving narcissism. Now ego bruised, second-best, he's consumed by hatred and revenge. Anything to regain the throne, no matter how immoral, corrupt, mean-spirited -- the end justifies the means.

WWIII is coming because once the Right gets back in power -- and they will soon -- a new Righteous Right White House will act swiftly to reestablish its sole superpower role. Remember "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran?" Under the laughter a hidden agenda. Some foreign-policy pundits agree we'd already be at war with Iran (and Islam) if the Bullying Right won the presidency.

When they win back the commander-in-chief role it will happen again, a repeat of the Cheney deceits that drove America into the Iraq-Afghan Wars.

WWIII will be intoxicating ... but will bankrupt the drunk's soul!

Chris Hedges captures America's bizarre collective addiction to war. In "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning" this former war correspondent describes how a "communal march against an enemy generates a warm, unfamiliar bond with our neighbors, our community, our nation, wiping out unsettling undercurrents of alienation and dislocation."

He reminds me of my days going off to the Marine Corps and Korea. As one reviewer put it, Hedges looks "at what makes war so intoxicating for soldiers, politicians and ordinary citizens," the "outbreaks of nationalism, the wartime silencing of intellectuals and artists, the ways in which even a supposedly skeptical press glorifies the battlefield and other universal features of war." Yes, yes, we love war.

WWIII is coming not because we have terrorists, dictators and evil men wanting to destroy and depose us. Not because "they" are attacking "us." WWIII is coming because we have surrendered the fight, surrendered our honor, our integrity, our values, our moral compass as a democracy. We have surrendered to a new god, to the almighty dollar, the new Invisible Hand that controls not just capitalism but our nation's very soul.

Bottom line: We are at war with ourselves. Split souls, a hero, a demon. But we do not like ourselves, can no longer face ourselves in the mirror. Why? Our dark side is winning. The other has surrendered. We have lost our "self" in denial. Now the Righteous Right is bullying us with hope of redemption. False hope. That's suicide.

Still we are waiting to start World War III. And if the wait is too long, the Right will start to "bomb, bomb, bomb" someone and trigger WWIII. It's a macho "ego thing." They got a lot to prove. Don't care if they destroy America in the process ... because they know they are Right. Yes, folks, the real "mother of all national security issues" is within us.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/righteous-right-leads-us-straight-to-wwiii-2010-08-24?siteid=nwhfriend