While The Political Elite Play War Games, People Are Dying & Being Displaced

By Arjun Walia | The Pulse

Anytime geopolitical issues escalate into full blown war, it can be a terrifying situation for onlookers and those who become the sacrifice of the political elite. War and conflict is something necessary for the military industrial complex to thrive.

While bullets are flying and bombs are dropping, legacy media outlets typically use a tremendous amount of propaganda to sway public perception with regards to what’s really happening. We’ve seen this in the past with conflicts in the Middle East. Countries have been completely destroyed, with tens of millions of innocent people either losing their lives or forced to flee their homeland in search of a new life. All of this was done under the guise of good will, while countries claiming to be going after terrorist groups like ISIS, for example, were caught funding, arming and in many ways, creating them.

The US alone has displaced between 38 and 60 million people across eight countries since 2001. Keep this in mind the next time you hear US government officials pledge to defend “international law,” “human rights,” or “sovereignty and territorial integrity” abroad, or any government for that matter.

When international conflict arises on such a scale to the point where people fear the use of nuclear weapons or the beginning of World War 3, finger pointing begins and the citizenry becomes divided, not united. When this happens, is it necessary to try and decipher what’s really going on?

I would argue yes, because you can’t solve a problem without properly identifying the real issue. Legacy media has long been unreliable for serving the public in this way. Often times their work does the complete opposite – make people more confused. That being said, a part of me would also argue no, because politics has become such a large cesspool of corruption that nearly all ‘political elite’ can be implicated in atrocities and human rights abuses. In this case, perhaps both Russia and Ukraine.

But imagine a country that is self-sufficient that wasn’t taking part in the globalised world as we know it. What if ‘the powers that be’ decided they wanted to take it over for no reason. What is this country supposed to do? What other options would it have? What if the invading countries create lies & propaganda to justify what they are doing, because their own citizens would not stand for such a reckless act of aggression and power grabbing? What can counter this?

What’s unfortunate about these ‘political games’ and war mongering is that innocent people are always the ones to suffer and not the political elite. If nuclear war was to begin, these elites would be sitting cosy in their massive and highly advanced “bunkers” while the citizens of the world suffer.

I published an article yesterday that goes deep into a discussion about what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine. Even after that, I’m still confused. It’s become near impossible to trust legacy media, and presenting multiple perspectives, especially ones that legacy media continues to ignore, is vital to even attempt to understand what’s really happening.

But I ask myself, again, is this even necessary? I’ve grown tired of trying to present views that the masses in the western world seem to condemn, yet I feel it’s necessary to present a holistic view of a conflict given the fact that we are so inundated with propaganda and a one sided perspective. The greatest tool used against the population is the manipulation of human consciousness via information warfare. It’s become nearly impossible to decipher what’s really happening.

People may be divided in their views of what’s happening, but seem to be united in one thing: we don’t want war and conflict, we are tired of watching innocent people suffer, lose their lives and homes due to the continuation of politics by other means (war).

Some of us seem to want to create a human experience where everybody can thrive. And humanity has so much potential to do this. But politics, big business and corruption continue to plague mother earth to the point where I wonder, what role is government really playing in our world?

Some argue the world would be in chaos if government as we know it did not exist. But what do you call what’s happening today?

Why do we keep relying on governments to make change? Why do we continue asking them? Why do we allow them to participate in such atrocities and how can we change it?

I don’t have the answers, but I know keeping my mouth shut isn’t part of the solution. Day by day efforts to silence those who expose the destructive actions of various governments continue to grow. These days, if you present information, evidence and even opinions that call into question what your government is doing, you are censored, ridiculed, and may even be labelled a terrorist or an enemy of the state.

Just look at what’s happened with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange.

A favourite quote of mine when referring to what’s happening with Assange comes from Nils Melzer, Human Rights Chair of the Geneva Academy of Int Humanitarian Law and has served as UN Rapporteur on Torture and Other Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

“How far have we sunk if telling the truth becomes a crime? How far have we sunk if we prosecute people that expose war crimes for exposing war crimes? How far have we sunk when we no longer prosecute our own war criminals? Because we identify more with them, than we identify with the people that actually expose these crimes. What does that tell about us and about our governments? In a democracy, the power does not belong to the government, but to the people. But the people have to claim it. Secrecy disempowers the people because it prevents them from exercising democratic control, which is precisely why governments want secrecy.” – Nils Melzer

No matter what our beliefs are, I’m sure everyone can agree that aggression such as war does not sit right, and there is no justification for it. Pointing fingers and claiming one side is “good” and the other is “bad” seems to be useless. War should simply not be an option, no matter what.

Is it enough for us to simply understand the ‘truth’ behind what’s happening in these wars? Or are we being asked to inquire about larger questions? Why do wars really happen? Who is behind them? What stories within our worldview uphold the idea of “mine” and “yours” that cause us to fight over things? Are we truly separated? Or are we actually connected in a way many of us have forgotten, and perhaps a return to those ways of thinking will help birth a new world and an end to this type of conflict?

“It is our earth, not yours or mine or his. We are meant to live on it, helping each other, not destroying each other. This is not some romantic nonsense but the actual fact. But man has divided the earth, hoping thereby that in the particular he is going to find happiness, security, a sense of abiding comfort. Until a radical change takes place and we wipe out all nationalities, all ideologies, all religious divisions, and establish a global relationship – psychologically first, inwardly before organizing the outer – we shall go on with wars. If you harm others, if you kill others, whether in anger or by organized murder which is called war, you, who are the rest of humanity, not a separate human being fighting the rest of mankind, are destroying yourself.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti

This article (While The Political Elite Play War Games, People Are Dying & Being Displaced) was originally published on The Pulse and is published under a Creative Commons license.