War is a Racket.
General Smedley Butler.
Two time CMOH recipient, but he’s not as intelligent as the FR NeoCon brigade.
Most often it is.
It’s just “greed,” 100% unadulterated “greed.”
Then come the fake justifications. Those serve to get the people behind the greed. You can’t just say, “hey, I wanna blow these people up because I want wants XYZ.”. That wouldn’t go over well.
So you tell them stories about democracy, freedom, human rights, mad-men, sovereignty... You tell them that God himself wants you to go kill these people (if you can get away with it).
Few wars are “just wars.” They exist, but they are the rare exception. It is the role of the politician and media pundit to tap into people’s emotions and connect a just cause to any expeditionary and economic motivated campaign today. The political elite and main stream media really just represent various economic interests.