Progressives are not automatically anti-war, but they are actively anti military/industrial complex

Progressives are anti-military-industrial complex, the grotesque amalgamation of for profit private and publicly owned corporations in the business of supplying weapons to our vaunted military machine that has proved to be every bit as dangerous to the future of this nation as President Eisenhower warned it would be when he first used the term he coined.

For those who cannot see the inherent evil, let me make it real simple.

In order for the military/industrial corporate machine to stay in business and make money for its investors we must make war.

If we fail to do that as a nation, corporations and industries our leaders in DC feel are critical to the interests of our nation (because they are key providers to our military machine) quickly start going downhill with the predictable reactions and results.

First they lay off workers providing instant angry constituent feedback to DC representatives.

If that fails, they threaten to go out of business and deprive our military machine of their critical supplies, services.

Of course it's not all bluff.

Without war keeping many of them profitable, they will go out of business.

Luckily for those businesses they have CEOs who have a vested interest in making sure that doesn't happen.

So they open their coffers to finance one of the largest lobbying efforts in DC.

And what do they lobby for, well ultimately they lobby for the USA to engage in every and any military conflict we can. They don't literally say that. They are not idiots. They know how to say what they mean without literally saying to our representatives in DC that they need a good war to stay in business.

From that reality grows the natural progressive scepticism regarding all wars post-Vietnam.

What some see as a knee jerk anti-war philosophy in the progressive belief system, is a healthy and justified scepticism regarding the outsized and wrong role the corporate war profiteers and their surrogates in the media (neocons, military personnel retiring to a job with them Etc.) in deciding when we should go to war and why.

It's also a result of the fact that many progressives are far more aware than most of the wholesale propaganda effort that plays the entire nation when we are faced with situations like the one in Syria.

Only an idiot would believe any nation goes to war to do the right thing.

Nations go to war strictly to serve their own interests.

Unfortunately in the modern day "our interests" now include the need to keep the corporations that supply our military machine profitable and growing to keep their investors happy.
</i></b> Now that's insane.

It is ludicrous, and purposefully naive to believe any war in the last 30 years has been about national interests, helping the downtrodden, oppressed Etc.,

To NOT see this in the case of Syria is to admit to a particularly serious case of bias in favor war

In Syria there are NO good guys.
 
Syria is in a 4 sided civil war, and NO side is pro-American.

You have the gubment Assad, his history is well-known vs a vs the "rebels" that all too many are making the huge mistake deciding to support intervention simply based on his ruthless regime's history.

People think Assad is so evil (and he is BUT) that they dismiss the need to examine the opposition.

If they did they'd realize there is NO ONE OTHER SIDE.

The "other side" fighting against Assad really consists of at least two competing factions who are fighting their own mini war while simultaneously fighting against Assad sometimes together but usually apart.

Together however they have developed into basically an ALL-Sunni militia that has recast this conflict as a religious war as much as it is a rebellion against an autocratic leader.

Luckily for us a lot of Americans know about this stuff at least somewhat, and that is why not only progressives but over 70% of the nation oppose getting involved in Syria.

Unfortunately, the MI complex has turned on its propaganda machine and has spent the last couple of months painting the FSA Free Syrian Army as our guys, as the good guys.

 We are constantly lied to in the media that they are in charge, but in reality they are NOT in charge.

They consist of a disparate collection of secular SUNNI fighting groups  who do their best to present themselves as a cohesive fighting force against Assad, and because the war mongers on our side need this to be true to push for us to get involved we are presented this lie as the truth.

Not mentioned is a key part of the FSA, the Kurds are refusing to fight with the FSA, and currently are engaged in heavy fighting with the Islamists in Syria (the strong leg of the triad that makes up the umbrella group called the FSA)

The truth of the FSA is truly an abomination.

The best fighting forces in the FSA are Al Nusra Front and Al Qaeda Levant, both fundamentalist Islamic forces that want to turn Syria into a fundamentalist Islamic state ruled by strict Koranic law.

Of the total victories on the rebel side, the vast majority have been won by them.

They hate the USA and everything we stand for as much as they hate Assad as much as they hate the heretical Alawites and Shia minorities in Syria along with the Druze and 10% or so of Syrians who are Christians.

We are being told that the rebels must win for justice to prevail in Syria, but how that will be the result of a rebel victory we aren't told, because it's a lie.

Should the rebels defeat Assad, Al Nusra and Al Qaeda Levant will destroy their much weaker allies in the FSA to eliminate the last of the secular forces in Syria.

About the ONLY WAY such a result from a rebel victory can be prevented is if we the USA have troops on the ground.

And a lot of progressives know that is the real agenda.

Thus the seeming nearly automatic rejection of getting involved in Syria.

It has nothing to do with helping the oppressed win their freedom, because that will not be the outcome of a rebel victory unless we are directly involved with about 100,000 troops long term.

By having troops in Syria we feed the military/industrial complex what it needs to make money for its investors.
Everything we are being told is just a means to make that ends reality.