War is nothing personal, its just business
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How do we know what is important, who to vote for, or what to think about a popular issue? How much of what we believe about the world around us actually comes from our own thoughts, much less our own thoughtful analysis, and how much is shaped by external influences?
Many of us have likely heard of the three levels of information.
There are the "known-knowns," the things we know about and know well (for example, one's profession, favorite passion, or a field of expertise).
There are the "known-unknowns," the things we know exist, but either don't know much about or don't know well (for the average person, advanced physics or mathematics, or how an unfamiliar industry operates might fall into this category).
Then there are the "unknown-unknowns," the things we are not even aware that we are not aware about.
The latter encapsulates the vast majority of information. No matter how smart one may be, the majority of collective knowledge or information will fall under the category of "unknown unknowns."
What we, the public, must be cautious about is how others are using information we do not even know exists, or about which we know very little, to shape our thoughts and channel our perspectives in ways that benefit them.
Ironically, it is often the very people whose job it is to present the public with information who are the most responsible for this concern. This is exemplified in the two following examples on how support for or opposition to a cause can be drummed up by playing on people's desire to seem knowledgeable, even when they are not.
If we look back at the build-up to the war in Syria — or rather the build-up to the desire for war in Syria — we see an example of an unknown being translated to the general public as a known-unknown, that they sadly began to believe was a known-known. Let me explain.
Before approximately 2012, the name Bashar al-Assad was unknown to the majority of people in the Western world, apart from a few whose job it was to be "in the know" regarding Syrian or Middle-Eastern politics. However, in 2012–13 and then again in 2014, 2017, and 2018, that name became well-known to much of the general public.
In fact, during the height of the push for intervention in that nation, many people who only knew what they did from a media apparatus that would soon be discovered to peddle heavily in "fake news," considered their information on that man and that country as a "known-known." If asked about the region, their answer would have been "al-Assad is a bad man who gassed his own people and we need to do something about it."
People who hadn't even known al-Assad existed before those dates — or in many cases hadn't known the nation of Syria existed — all of a sudden were experts on "what must be done" to deal with both. And when asked, they simply repeated the talking points fed to them by their preferred media organization.
Image Credit: Google Trends
The reason this matters is because this wasn't the first time it happened.
In the 1930s the Nye Committee, a Senate Special Committee led by Republican Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, investigated the influences of special financial interests involvement in the decision of the United States to enter World War I.
The committee was investigating widespread suspicions that big financiers and munitions makers had pushed the nation into the war for their personal benefit, and might do so again.
One of these interests, JP Morgan had been involved in the funding of the war from its beginning, extending the "largest foreign loans in Wall Street history," to the French and British governments, and making money as the exclusive purchasing agent of US munitions for those governments (one of the most lucrative single contracts in US history).
What makes matters more interesting is that it was JP Morgan who pressured the US government to guarantee those same loans. Meaning if the British and French lost the war, the US government would be on the hook to repay every loan extended to them by the Wall Street banks. This was a drastic step toward drawing the US into the conflict, as the US suddenly became very interested in ensuring a French and British victory, thereby avoiding responsibility for the loans.
To pressure the US government, however, is no easy feat. Morgan, Dupont and others did so by financing the National Defense League, essentially a Super PAC that funded the opponents of isolationist and anti-war politicians.
In addition, JP Morgan bought up 25 of the most influential newspapers and staffed them with editors would push for greater US involvement in the War, as was noted in the record of the 64th Congress (1917) when Congressman Oscar Callaway from Texas explicitly accused Morgan of running a media campaign to drum up support for entering the war.
The committee found that the financiers were not solely responsible for US entry into the war. However, they maintained that the pressure on the US government, by these companies, over "opportunities for private profit from war and preparation for war ... made the task of keeping the United States out of war more difficult."
Oh, and JP Morgan, along with other banks, got the contracts to rebuild Germany after the war.
Millions of Americans went to a war that many distinguished historians and thinkers have since noted should have never been fought, based on propaganda paid for by those with much to gain.
As you can see, this happened before, it's happening today, and it will happen again in the future.
This method of feeding (mis)information to the public, and then repeating it over and over until they believe it, in order to create support for or against a policy, is a practice so common that I can guarantee we have all fallen for it; likely many times. And we've done so because it works.
We must be careful before jumping on trends. We need to be aware that, just like a sales clerk might hold back certain information that may undermine the sale, our media, politicians, and even prestigious international organizations might do the same with information that they believe might undermine the "sale" they’re trying to make.
It may come in the form of calling any attention given a "conspiracy theory." It may come in the form of flat-out lies. But the evidence will always betray the lie for those who are willing to look.
If I want a war, will I give you all the information you need to make an informed decision? Or will I give you the information I want that will convince you of the perspective I want you to have?
To this day, if children are taught any WWI history they are taught the sinking of the Lusitania was what brought America into the war; just like they're taught the Invasion of Poland started the next, COVID began in a Chinese "wet market," and Putin's invasion was unprovoked. The inconvenient details of what led up to these events are left hidden in boring academic journals on which the sun rarely shines.
So, history hidden becomes history repeated. After all, until the majority of the public learn the secret of the magician's trick, he can keep them thinking it's actually magic.
Oh ... by the way, you'll never guess who magically got the contracts to rebuild Ukraine. Of course, they aren't the only ones playing this game.
Welcome to the world of "known-knowns."
Arthur is a former editor and consultant. Born in India to missionary parents, he spent his early career working in development for NGOs in Asia, Central America, and Africa.
Arthur has an educational background in history and psychology, with certifications from the University of Oxford and Leiden in the economics, politics, and ethics of mass migration and comparative theories in terrorism and counterterrorism. He is currently launching CivWest, a company focused on building capital to fund restorative projects and create resilient systems across the Western world.
International jewish cabal was behind of both world wars. It helped to start them and financied ALL sides of war. 🤔🔯😈
All Wars Are Bankers Wars