Wars are really about resources and greed, there is no such thing as an ideological war.

[Skidmore]

Yes or no. Even great wars ostensibly fought about religion were really about land and resources. Religion and ideology is a convenient excuse to launch them and to enlist the cooperation of the people to put themselves at risk.

Your thoughts?

[Deja Q]

1. Or to defend one's ideology from another that appears imposing.

There ARE times when war is justified. Otherwise, what would we have done with the British in 1776? Sit them down and share some tea and crumpets and to sing "Kum Ba Yah" around a campfire?!

[Mr Rabble]

4. Wasnt the whole point of that war

to remove ourselves from under the economic thumb of the King?

Of course it was, as was made very clear by the founders again and again.

We didnt fight back because we didnt like the King. We didnt like the King because he was taxing us to death, as stealing our resources. So, we fought back.

Today, it is simply stated that we fought back for "Independence" with almost no mention of what that really means.

[GOPBasher]

2. Resources and Greed are the REAL reasons; they use religion or ideology

to stir up support among the people, who would never support wars just for resources.

[Mr Rabble]

3. Absolutely correct. In the last 100 years..

you would be very hard pressed to find a single example to prove otherwise.

Of course, there are many well meaning people who simply cant think in these terms and will disagree with you and I. I would submit that in those cases, people would simply need to ask themselves one question: Do you really believe the official reasons given for conflict?

If the answer is yes, I would strongly question their judgement.

FWIW, this goes for all power structures, all governments, of all sides of the political spectrum.

[flashl]

5. An there was the idelogical "cold war". n/t

[Skidmore]

6. Which was basically over what???

Which is a better way to use resources?? Capitalism or communism. It was a basically a war over ownership and resources and who controls what.

[flashl]

10. Agree on ultimate goal

It was a clever way to allocate resources for a "war" without warfare from the mid-1940s until the end of the 1980s.

[malaise]

7. Many ideologies are about greed and all are about

the allocation of resources.

[H2O Man]

8. Exactly.

One can say that green has little to do with yellow, and is only about blue. In fact, green is the combination of yellow and blue.

[malaise]

11. Beautifuly stated

:hi:

[undeterred]

9. Thats true now anyway.

Harder to evaluate history. Hitler certainly had some ideology. The real players in todays wars are corporations, not people.

[flashl]

12. Major General Smedley Butler said it best "War Is A Racket "

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.

...

In the World War I a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War.

[YankmeCrankme]

13. It's a catch-22

What comes first the ideology that says that we have the right to take resources and land to further our national economy or does the desire or need for those resources supersede our ideology?

Sometimes ideology drives the desire for land and resources. Several examples can be explained that way. Nazi Germany's desire for land and resources was a direct response of their belief of their superiority and divine right to the land and resources to the east.

The US on many occasions have fought wars over land and resources with the Native Americans and that was also because of the belief that the Native American's were inferior and it was our manifest destiny to control and exploit the land and resources for economic growth and profit.

So, both really apply. It's about economics and ideology, what your belief or philosophy is about how to use or acquire resources. Sometimes one is more preeminent or more conspicuous than the other.

[liberalsoldier5]

14. Every soldier I know

will tell you they're fighting for "human rights", "freedom", and "the spread of democracy", (along with "justice for 9/11" and "national security" to be sure), and NOT for money or oil or conquest. Just saying...

Plus, the conflict of politics is like warfare. Why do we all get involved with politics? For money? Not me. I'm in it because I believe the general idealogy we all follow MUST WIN for the sake of our entire country.

[gratuitous]

15. All War is Sin

And it's astonishing how creative folks can be in coming to resolution of their problems when inflicting violence on the "other side" is ruled out.

But then, arms traffickers and war profiteers don't make a boatload of money, so it's very important to sustain the illusion that war is really about "freedom" or "liberty" or some other such claptrap. We aren't going to war with Pakistan or Myanmar, and those societies are incredibly repressive right now. If launching an invasion was good enough for Iraq, why isn't it good enough for those two countries that don't happen to have large reserves of our oil under their land.

[HamdenRice]

16. I disagree. Consider the Civil War, for example

Wars are fought over ideology, political power and other ideas, as well as greed.

The Civil War was not a resource war, for example. Of course the South wanted to keep their slaves, but the North wasn't threatening their slaves.

It really was about what kind of system would expand into the West, and therefore, whether the North or South would have predominant political and ideological power. It also was about whether the federal government was a voluntary association of states or a permanent union.

[Hosnon]

17. There's a continuum. Not all wars are about resources nor are all wars about ideology.

There are, undoubtedly, other factors as well.