War on Terror Complex

The War on Terror is yet another example of the state using a national emergency to promote its own growth, according to Robert Higgs, a Senior Fellow in Political Economy for the Independent Institute.

“The so-called war on terror has given rise to a huge industry that has emerged almost from scratch during the past few years,” Higgs writes in The Free Market, a newsletter published by the Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
The title of the article, “The Siren Song of the State,” refers to Margaret Atwood’s poem Siren Song. In the poem, Atwood compares herself to the sirens of ancient-Greek mythology: deadly bird-women who sang so beautifully that they could lure mariners onto their island to eat them.

Just as the siren is naturally hungry, Higgs claims that the American government is naturally greedy, inciting wars in order to promote the goals of its leaders. He then applies this theory to the war in the Middle East.
“Foreign policy in the Middle East, driven in large part by financial, industrial, and banking interests, resulted in the ‘blowback’ of terrorist acts against this country,” Higgs stated. “The government then responded as if this emergency had come out of the blue, again enlarging its size, scope, and power ostensibly in actions to deal with the emergency, which in fact its own prior policies had rendered more or less inevitable.”

Higgs has noted that people need only to look back throughout history to see a similar use of war for state gain. One example he gave of this is the American economic warfare against Japan from 1939 to 1941 which he believes Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration carried out in hopes that the Japanese would “make a mistake” by attacking the United States.

His article also points specifically to the ancient Israelites who, after fleeing from captivity in Egypt, appointed a king, Saul, despite the warnings of the prophet Samuel. Saul then proceeded to take them to war with their “enemies on every side.” (1 Samuel 14:47).
It should be noted, however, that the Bible is not clear on whether the wars Saul fought spurred a growth in government or economy among the Israelites.

Amanda Busse is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.