By Michael, on August 15th, 2012 
It has been many years since I have read this document. It was released in 1969. It might even still be buried somewhere in your local library. But we need a little history background. This one is a classic.
The Rand Corporation has been around a long time. Rand is a semi-government agency in a way. They research using the world's finest scientists into the deep things behind what we believe to be so. The document I refer to is one of those reports. It was a report on the real causes of warfare on this planet. It was called "Report from Iron Mountain."
It came out at the very worst time for politicians in our history. Right in the middle of the Vietnam War that we were pretending that we were winning when in fact we were losing it big time on all fronts.
We have been presented with an intolerable situation in 1945. For the first time, the ramifications of warfare could and would destroy most of the planet. I refer to the big bombs we know of as "atomic bombs" and the result pollution of radiation that occurs in their aftermath.
It was no longer possible for nations to engage in complete warfare without destroying the entire planet. Yet like a loaded gun in a small room, more and more people had access to the “bomb” and were testing it all over the world. The UN formed a Nuclear Club of nations with this loaded gun.
Rand came up with a solution. The solution was to limit warfare to conventional weapons. Win or lose, no one was supposed to use atomic weapons.
Rand reported that warfare was necessary! They used the same logic of why small forest fires were necessary for the health of a forest. We have evidence that if the deadwood in a forest doesn't get taken out, it eventually destroys the forest in large forest fires. Sound familiar? Well, we have experience with fires destroying homes all over the western side of this country just this year in this drought.
Rand reported that warfare was necessary to destroy the deadwood in our society. It acts as a fulcrum for any dramatic change in the economies of nations. Nothing else acts this dramatically to change the nature of things. Without war, no leader in our history has been able to stay in office for any length of time. That statement alone was stunning to most politicians.
Rand explored many different paths as an alternate to warfare. The nearest most expensive path was space research. It is extremely expensive, generates large amounts of new technology, provides jobs for many brilliant people, and causes the evolution of new ideas.
Exploration of the Oceans was considered as well. It also was expensive but inadequate. Rand reported it to be inadequate to replace warfare.
The nearest confirmation of the theory's validation is recent history. Every President that took us into peace has gone down to defeat in an election. President Bush Sr. comes to mind. He got us out of Iraq with minimal damage. He later went down to defeat in an election. I think that was not lost on George Bush. I noticed after 9/11 we went to war. We have been in a continuous war with someone ever since.
President Obama has continued the war. I think his re-election might depend on our focusing on a War someplace, somewhere.
Part of the problem is buried in our insurance industry. Auto insurance is most expensive for people between the ages of 16-26. This group has the most accidents. By not so much a parallel, that is the age most adults get married, have children, and have the most intense hormones. Most creatures on the planet have a mating season. In this season, they all compete to see who will reproduce. Rand hinted at this as part of the need for people to go to war.
The problem is dead wood. War appears to be necessary to generate the new growth necessary in a society. And that in a nutshell, is what Rand reported.
History shows us involved in a number of wars with conventional weapons since the advent of a loaded gun in a small room. It is like the governments of the world cordoned off part of the room and sent their people to die in these cordoned off places. They took away the loaded guns but allowed them knives to fight with. The winners are set against the winners. Until no one is left.
The problem is this has proven inadequate to remove the deadwood at the top. It is there and has been there for a long time. The one positive thing to come out of the invasion on 9/11 was it woke us up. War has brought new ideas everywhere.
Our Congress is full of representatives that have been in charge for 30-40 years. Our political parties are full of dead wood. Corruption is there. The problem is that the two parties have a monopoly on election day. Legally, new parties find it difficult or impossible to get elected in this atmosphere. The parties work together to keep change from happening. It is written into state laws including the one where I live.
The Tea Party is one exception. It is beginning to look like a new political party on the horizon. But I might be wrong. Obama was supposed to be new ideas with new policies. His party words were to get out of the wars. His actions are quite different. I believe he has read the Rand Report.
The problem is how the dead wood is removed. We need game rules that allow new blood into the Congress. New parties have to form with different ways of doing things. The existing power structure either has to change or it will be removed down the road. That is what Rand was really getting at. It is not something anyone person can change.
One of the ramifications of not removing this dead wood has been massive changes in the economic environment world wide. Rand predicted that in the report as well. The forest fire will arrive. Sooner or later, this is the natural way things will go. The wars have changed the rules. We are currently looking at massive debts. It has happened before. It happened after Vietnam. Right now every government in the world is looking at this change with horror. They are looking at having to actual make decisions that could topple their governments and it is not nice. For years nothing changed. Now a lot of them don't know how to change. Wars do that. Wars are expensive.
The current situation will be solved. It might happen like this: The governments world wide close all the banks. They make it illegal for private citizens to own silver or gold. They declare bankruptcy world wide and start over. People here in the United States conveniently forget Houston in 1988. People in Houston with 150,000 in the banks lost their homes. The same crooks that closed the banks kept them from their funds to pay their mortgages. The bankrupt banks foreclosed on their homes.
I am almost afraid to read what other documents that Rand has come up with. I know one document was research into Health Insurance in the 80s . . . I wonder if the result is ObamaCare. I need to read that document . . .
(Authored By Dave Webb)
