Continuous war and the aggressive expansion of Capitalism have been the hallmarks of the early twenty-first century. In one form or another – military or economic – the US has been engaged in a ceaseless series of wars in the Middle East and around the globe since 1990 with the launch of Operation Desert Storm. With each successive military campaign, in which the US has involved a number of allies including Britain and other EU member states, Western multi-national corporations have increased their share in the oil wealth of the Middle East. As oil prices rise, reflecting the depletion of its sources, the intensity of US military engagement increases. Yet within these supposedly liberal democratic societies of America and Europe public opinion, as with the US war in Vietnam, can have a negative effect on the state’s will to war. The Patriot Act in the US and moves within Britain and across Europe to legislate against press criticism of government are geared towards keeping public opinion behind the endless war effort. Control of the media, in the age of the internet, is now no longer enough to keep the democracy onside in matters of war, especially when the motives for such violence have no more moral defence than simple greed. One way or another, states have been forced to find ever more inventive methods of manufacturing consent. Only with the will of the people can the great democracies plunder weaker nations.
Enter the age of fear. In 1982 Milton Friedman wrote: “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change.” That Friedman opposed the Gulf War was of little consequence; his great idea had grown legs and was fuelling the Western war machine. It is certainly not by accident that the state-friendly media – Fox, Sky, the BBC and others – have produced a staple diet of fear and crisis in the news for a decade. Democratic populations have to be in a continual state of fear and crisis – actual or perceived – in order to produce the ‘democratic will’ desired by the state. It comes as little surprise then to discover that ISIS, the great crisis of the modern world, is being funded by American and British allies – who are themselves in receipt of US and British funds. The US and Britain are creating a crisis and using US and British soldiers to solve it and open the doors in the Middle East to US and allied oil companies. It is a simple formula, but it has proven to be very effective.
Emerald News Network 
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