But some of the reasons his spokespersons provide do make you wonder.

Why would we risk instability in the Middle East, the possibility of World War III, and tens of thousands of American casualties? Why would we change a successful low-cost strategy for containment and deterrence of Iraq?

Why, in the name of "a war on terrorism," would we want to weaken the global alliance needed to fight it by alienating our allies?

Why would we aid Al Qaeda's recruitment efforts by further angering the Arab world, thereby increasing the probability of terrorist attacks?

We wouldn't.

No, there have to be other reasons. Ones he hasn't told us. Don't fault him for that. This isn't the first administration to spew spin, secrecy, hype and lies from the bully pulpit, and it won't be the last.

The real reasons for going to war may not be savory, but at least they’re more understandable than the totally bonkers line we’re being sold.

One reason, of course, is oil. Americans love low-mileage SUVs and air conditioning. An administration of oil men has little incentive to educate the citizenry about the budgetary, military and environmental savings from renewable resources. Iraq sits over the world’s second largest oil reserve.

If we can steal it fair and square, so much the better for oil executives’ stock options and our stock cars. Enough said.

The other reason is more honorable: The expected payback to defense contractors for campaign contributions.

You may not have noticed, and it’s nowhere written into law, but the return on a $1000 political campaign contribution is supposed to run around $2 million dollars. (That’s why meaningful campaign finance reform is as impossible as it is important.)

The payback may come in a tax benefit, subsidy, bailout, tariff or other trade restriction, government granted monopoly, trade promotion, profits from national forests or other public lands – or a defense contract. It’s all a matter of public record. Check it out.

The defense industries have always been quite generous, averaging around $10 to $15 million in contributions – personal, PACs, and soft money – every election cycle. In 1998, of 435 House members 369 received over $15,000 each; 82 of the 100 senators each received over $25,000.

When it comes to lobbying expenses the industry’s even more generous: $60 million in 2000 alone ($53 million the non-election year before).

Given the Washington 2000:1 formula, it would be dishonorable to take that much money and give nothing in return.

The global challenge of Al Qaeda, it turns out, is not so much destroying them as finding them. And that is more of a job for intelligence officers and police than the military.

What to do?

Start another war. One that can consume the stuff defense contractors design, build and exchange for taxpayers’ money with the help of their purchased representatives – sometimes even over the protests of the Pentagon.

President Bush proposed a 14 percent increase in defense appropriations – much of it for defense contractors’ products. That creates a defense budget greater, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than at the height of the Vietnam war.

The defense contractors contributed $10 to 15 million and got back $20 to 30 billion. That’s exactly how the formula is supposed to work. How could a president be more honorable than that?

President Dwight Eisenhower was not the only one to warn us this would happen.

“Do you want to know the cause of war?” an American capitalist asked. He continued, “It is capitalism, greed, the dirty hunger for dollars. Take away the capitalism and you will sweep war from the earth.”

It was Henry Ford -- who also built my first car, a Model A.

What the world needs now are capitalists -- and elected officials -- with the candor and courage to forgo the profits from death and "sweep war from the earth."
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Nicholas Johnson formerly served as director of the War Shipping Authority and now teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law.