{"id":128390,"date":"2014-06-28T20:12:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T20:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gregpalast.com\/?p=9545"},"modified":"2014-06-28T20:12:43","modified_gmt":"2014-06-28T20:12:43","slug":"happy-birthday-world-war-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/happy-birthday-world-war-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy birthday, World War One!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Greg Palast in Sarajevo, near where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot, tracing the trail of rogue financier ‘Goldfinger.’ (Photo: Richard Rowley for BBC-TV. The first ten readers to find Palast in the photo, will get a free copy of the film of this story<\/em>, Vultures & Vote Rustlers<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Happy birthday, World War One! Walking the mortar-cratered streets of Sarajevo, Bosnia, I was reminded that World War I started here, and World War II and World War III, World War V and VI and the current World War IX. Here in the city where the ghosts of Muslim, Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish victims outnumber the living, as I hunted another corpse-chewing financier, it became clear to me that the endless parade of war is not about a clash of civilizations, but the CASH of civilizations.<\/p>\n

Before the Panzers rolled into Poland, they rolled into<\/span> Krupp’s profit projections. Before each of the seven invasions of Iraq, the oil reserves of Basra were tagged for the balance sheets of Anglo-Persian Corp (“BP”). And the atrocities and battles that bloated the balance sheets of J.P. Morgan led to the finance vultures I’m hunting from the Congo to Sarajevo; the last in the parade of the war profiteers, the clean-up crew, tasked to pull gold teeth from the wounded bodies of destroyed nations.<\/p>\n

While earlier imperial wars promised booty for nations, World War I industrialized and privatized war profiteering. So long as conflict remains a profit center, war will never die. So happy birthday, World War Infinite, you’re a hundred years young today.<\/p>\n

* * * * * * *<\/p>\n

While I am still working without a right diaphragm \u2013 thanks to the arrogance of “the best medical care in the world” \u2013 I am growing stronger, thinner and more cunning each day, preparing a report for Al Jazeera that will blow the lid off the latest, ugliest vote-theft scheme. And Thursdat, another birthday flew by at high speed. Don\u2019t know how I feel about another year tossed into the dumpster of mortality. But as Hugo Chavez once sang to me (while wearing my fedora):<\/p>\n

“Si arrastr\u00c3\u00a9 por este mundo<\/p>\n

la verg\u00c3\u00bcenza de haber sido<\/p>\n

y el dolor de ya no ser,<\/p>\n

bajo el ala del sombrero<\/p>\n

cuantas veces embozada<\/p>\n

una l\u00c3\u00a1grima asomada<\/p>\n

yo no pude contener.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Si cruc\u00c3\u00a9 por los caminos<\/p>\n

como un paria que el destino<\/p>\n

se empe\u00c3\u00b1\u00c3\u00b3 en deshacer;<\/p>\n

si fui flojo, si fui ciego,<\/p>\n

solo quiero que comprendan<\/p>\n

el valor que representa<\/p>\n

el coraje de querer.”<\/p>\n

Claro.<\/p>\n

– GP<\/p>\n

* \u00a0* \u00a0* \u00a0* \u00a0* \u00a0*<\/p>\n

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times<\/em> bestsellers Billionaires & Ballot Bandits<\/em><\/a>, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy<\/em> and Armed Madhouse<\/em> and the highly acclaimed Vultures\u2019 Picnic<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Get Palast’s latest film Vultures and Vote Rustlers<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n

HELP US FOLLOW THE MONEY. Visit the Palast Investigative Fund’s store<\/a> or simply make a tax-deductible contribution<\/a> to keep our work alive!<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Palast’s\u00a0Newsletter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcasts<\/a>.
\nFollow Palast on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

www.GregPalast.com<\/a><\/p>\n

ShareThis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greg Palast in Sarajevo, near where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot, tracing the trail of rogue financier ‘Goldfinger.’ (Photo: Richard Rowley for BBC-TV. The first ten readers to find Palast in the photo, will get a free copy of the film of this story, Vultures & Vote Rustlers.) Happy birthday, World War One! Walking the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-128390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}