Four days before Christmas in 1950, unusual events were going on in the world. Joseph Stalin celebrated his 71st birthday as collective farms, schools and factories joined the press is praising the Russian dictator. The son of a peasant shoemaker, Stalin had killed almost ten million of his countrymen before his reign of terror ended. Hattie Caraway, the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate, died at the age of 72. Congress predicted that final passage of the three billion dollar "excess profits tax" would be delayed until New Year's Day due to many members of Congress already away for the holidays. The Senate wanted to reduce the tax ceiling on corporate profits from 67% to only 60%, and also wanted to adopt special "relief" provisions for "growing concerns", utilities, railroads, airlines and "a host of other companies".
In their first 18 days of heavy fighting with Chinese Communist troops, U.S. casualties mounted to 11,964 in North Korea. The toll for November 24 thru December 12 raised the number of American dead, wounded or missing to 42,992 since the outbreak of the Korean War. Other UN units, exclusive of South Korea, reported 1,011 casualties during the same 18-day period. Communist casualties for the same 18-day period totaled nearly 130,000 men.
December 21, 1950 was just another day in the life of most Americans, fatigued from the horrors of World War II, and now already weary of a "military police action" in a tiny country called Korea. Most knew little about the politics of the 'war' - and most didn't much care. Post-World War II babyboomers were being born in record numbers. Automobile manufacturers and home builders couldn't produce product fast enough to meet the pent-up demand of war-starved consumers. Television was taking attendance away from movie theaters. Amana introduced its "Radar Range" for cooking new "tv dinners" packaged and sold in the frozen food section of local supermarkets. Military veterans wanted new carpeting, furniture and household appliances for those young wives who waited for their return from the great war. Advertising became a new medium that tempted families with new gadgets, new experiences, and new "necessities". If your tv commercial could convince them they "needed" it, you could sell a million of 'em!

President Dwight D. Eisenhower was most noted for his creation of the American Interstate Highway system; he was less noted for an urgent warning that he'd impressed upon the public with little fanfare. The giant U.S. military-industrial complex, he said, could become a force that would have a vested interest in encouraging and promoting war. World War II had proven just how profitable 'war' could be; fifty years later, Eisenhower's predictions were startlingly accurate. As the Bush war folly dragged on in Iraq - and then spread to Iran - it was obvious that mammoth corporations were lining up to cash in at the Pentagon's war trough. McDonnell-Douglass, Lockheed-Martin, Sikorsky, General Electric, and a host of other large corporations saw billions of dollars in profits, even from the littlest military skirmishes. After the Korean Conflict, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and Desert Storm, most equipment was left behind to become nothing more than scrap. Pentagon officials brazenly ordered new equipment, commissioned state-of-the-art technologies that often never worked, and kept increasing reckless military spending even in times of peace. "Star Wars" projects during the Reagan years cost taxpayers billions of untold dollars for high-tech junk that never worked. The Air Force would junk planes after a military endeavor, usually scrapping them so that "enemies" couldn't obtain technological secrets. By the time George W. Bush stumbled into the White House, the military-industrial complex was eating up the largest portion of the government's budget.
While Bush slashed spending for education, environmental issues, public safety, health care, parks and recreation, and social welfare programs, military spending went unabated and unchecked. No one dared ask how much was being spent on the war in Iraq. U.S. soldiers saw their pay and benefits decreased; so many were refused treatment for psychological disorders caused by their war experiences that it prompted a Congressional investigation in 2007. Soldiers were cheated out of medical care as part of the Bush administration's cost-cutting programs. Meanwhile, Halliburton received juicy government contracts (often without a bidding process). The company was contracted to build fourteen new, permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq even though the administration kept promising an eventual troop pull-out. By the summer of 2007, many of the GOP leaders were turning their backs on Bush, demanding that he change strategies and start working on a timetable for leaving Iraq to Iraqis. Both Bush and Cheney at times defied Congress by claiming they would not allow that body of politics to interfere with running the war. Since Bush avoided the Constitution when he attacked Iraq, it wasn't surprising that he would not see it as prudent to leave the end result to any other branch of the government.
By the time O.U.T.R.A.G.E. bombs assassinated George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and most members of Congress on January 17, 2008, the war was already off course. Bush swore he would not bow to political pressure. It was becoming obvious to even the most ill-informed that the Bush administration had only two of its own interests at heart: OIL and WAR PROFITEERING. Bush and Cheney were not going to let go until they had secured all rights to all of Iraq's oil, and until their favored government contractors (especially the Carlyle Group and Halliburton, both of whom had direct ties to the Bush-Cheney White House) were handsomely rewarded with outlandishly excessive profits. It didn't matter how many died.
Money, power and influence were