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Military Industrial Complex

Lockheed And Raytheon – Today’s ‘Masters Of War’

March 19, 2022 Betsey Piette, Workers World. , , , , ,
That the U.S./NATO-instigated war in Ukraine could result in a third world war is of major concern for all of humanity, especially workers and oppressed people who ultimately bear the brunt of any war. Yet for some global billionaires — today’s ‘masters of war’ — this conflict is seen as an opportunity to further boost profits. Among those already reaping gains are companies involved in the production and sale of weapons, planes and other military hardware. This includes 14 of the world’s 20 largest “defense” companies headquartered in the U.S. Topping this list are Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Raytheon Technologies, which had combined arms sales in 2019 nearing $100 billion. On Feb. 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, the stock value of these arms manufacturers soared. Raytheon and Lockheed officials openly told investors the Ukraine conflict was “good for business.”

US War Lobby Fuels Conflict In Russia, Ukraine, And Syria

January 10, 2022 Aaron Maté, The Grayzone. , , ,
Douglas Macgregor, a retired US Army Colonel and former Pentagon senior advisor, analyzes the US-Russia standoff in Ukraine; the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan; Trump’s failure to act on 2016 campaign anti-interventionist rhetoric, only to surround himself with neocons; and the ongoing, overlooked US military occupation of Syria after the decade-long CIA dirty war. “The Military Industrial Congressional Complex,” Macgregor says, “seems to be more powerful than anyone who occupies the office of the presidency.”ffice of the presidency.”

On Contact: America’s War Machine

December 19, 2021 Chris Hedges, RT. , ,
Chris Hedges discusses with Andrew Cockburn his new book, ‘The Spoils of War – Power, Profit and the American War Machine’. Cockburn’s book lays bare the naked lust for profit that is behind America’s endless wars and bloated military budget. The American war machine, he writes, can only be understood in terms of the “private passions” and “interests” of those who control it – principally, a passionate interest in making money.

How Congress Loots The Treasury For The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex

December 7, 2021 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, Popular Resistance. , , ,
Despite a disagreement over some amendments in the Senate, the United States Congress is poised to pass a $778 billion military budget bill for 2022. As they have been doing year after year, our elected officials are preparing to hand the lion’s share - over 65% - of federal discretionary spending to the U.S. war machine, even as they wring their hands over spending a mere quarter of that amount on the Build Back Better Act. The U.S. military’s incredible record of systematic failure—most recently its final trouncing by the Taliban after twenty years of death, destruction and lies in Afghanistan—cries out for a top-to-bottom review of its dominant role in U.S. foreign policy and a radical reassessment of its proper place in Congress’s budget priorities.

Students Are Pushing Colleges To Sever Ties With Military-Industrial Complex

November 9, 2021 Ngakiya Camara and Kya Chen, Truthout. , , ,
The violence wreaked by U.S. wars since 9/11 has been immense — more than 929,000 total deaths, including an estimated 380,000 civilian deaths. And the U.S. has spent a staggering $14 trillion in Pentagon expenditures since the Afghanistan War in 2001, up to one-half of which went directly to defense contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon. While these facts are outrageous, they aren’t surprising in a country built on colonial violence — a country whose power and expansion are derived from war-making, with such militarism being grounded in every institution arising from the state, including education. Students and young people are witnesses to the ways in which the U.S. education system is deeply complicit with war and militarism, and in increasing numbers we are demanding change.

Bellingcat Funded By Contractors That Aided Extremists In Syria

October 10, 2021 Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone. , , ,
Since its launch in July 2014, the self-styled open-source investigations website Bellingcat has cemented itself as a darling of mainstream Western media, with its dives into alleged Syrian government chemical weapon attacks and Russian intelligence operations showered with praise, puff pieces, and glitzy awards. While vehemently insisting that it is independent of government influence, Bellingcat is funded by both the US government’s National Endowment for Democracy and the European Union. CIA officials have declared their “love” for Bellingcat, and there are unambiguous signs that the outlet has partnered closely with London and Washington to further the pair’s imperial objectives. Now that the media consortium has obtained access to high-tech satellites capable of capturing 50cm resolution imagery of any place on Earth, it is time to place these connections under the microscope.

Let’s Take The Profit Out Of Wars

August 31, 2021 Sam Pizzigati, Counter Punch. , ,
In the 21st century, many of us are used to the murderous mass violence of modern warfare. After all, we grew up living it or hearing about it. The 20th century rates as the deadliest in human history — 75 million people died in World War II alone. Millions have died since, including a quarter-million during the 20-year U.S. war in Afghanistan. But for our forebears, the incredible deadliness of modern warfare came as a shock. The carnage of World War I — with its 40 million dead — left people scrambling to prevent another horror. In 1928, the world’s top nations even signed an agreement renouncing war as an instrument of national policy. Still, by the mid-1930s the world was swimming in weapons, and people wanted to know why.

America’s Impressive History Of Bioweapons Attacks Against Its People

July 10, 2021 Lee Camp, ScheerPost.com. , , ,
The Biden Administration, the mainstream media and pretty much all the politicians in our country continue to throw fuel on the Sinophobia fire initially stoked by former President and current Mar-a-lago “fungineer” Donald Trump. (Word to the wise, “Sinophobia” means anti-China hatred, not anti-cinema hatred as I had thought. So I apologize to all the people who posted a movie review for Fast And Furious 27 and noticed a response comment from me reading “GODDAMN SINOPHOBE!” Under the circumstances, that was an odd thing to yell.) During the Trump Administration, the Wuhan lab leak theory was called a ridiculous conspiracy that blossomed out of Trump’s racist brain — which it did. It absolutely did. And he should get some credit for that because anyone can be racist but Trump is a racist inventor. He comes up with new and exciting ways to be racist. So he deserves some credit for his innovation.

What We Know About Bombs Being Dropped In Our Name

June 14, 2021 Danaka Katovich, World Beyond War. , , ,
At some point before the summer of 2018, an arms deal from the US to Saudi Arabia was sealed and delivered. A 227kg laser-guided bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of many thousands, was part of that sale. On August 9th, 2018 one of those Lockheed Martin bombs was dropped on a school bus full of Yemeni children. They were on their way to a field trip when their lives came to a sudden end. Amidst shock and grief,  their loved ones  would learn that Lockheed Martin was responsible for creating the bomb that murdered their children. What they might not know is that the United States government (the President and the State Department) approved the sale of the bomb that killed their children, in the process enriching Lockheed Martin, which makes millions in profits from arms sales every year.

A People’s Guide To The War Industry: Portfolio Of Conflicts

June 4, 2021 Christian Sorensen, Consortium News. , , ,
Without looking at military adventurism through the lens of the corporation, analysts are bound to produce error-filled studies. For example, one analyst contended in an interview on The Real News Network, “Military force is almost never going to achieve your political aims. The Americans learned this in Vietnam. They’re learning it in Afghanistan. They’re learning it in Syria… So [President Barack] Obama supporting the Saudis and Emiratis in Yemen is a sign really of incoherence on the part of the United States.” Far from incoherence, the behavior actually is quite rational. A variety of conflicts, disparate and some seemingly futile, is precisely the aim. Conflict itself — producing untold mountains of profit for war corporations and Wall Street — is the goal.

A People’s Guide To The War Industry: The New BOSS

June 3, 2021 Christian Sorensen, Consortium News. , , ,
To make more money, more and more aspects of life must be pulled into capital. This is why we see everything in civilian life being commodified, including food, housing, land and water. And this is why corporations take over many military functions. A given corporation now in charge of what was once a governmental job needs to get a layer of profit out of the task. To obtain that profit the corporation ends up over-charging, cutting jobs, polluting, and/or harming unions. Corporate America is in charge of the tasks that keep a military installation up and running. They call it “base operations support services,” or BOSS — one of the many business sectors of war. Corporations selling BOSS usually provide a combination of facility management, fire and emergency services, grounds maintenance, janitorial services, pavement clearance, pest control and waste management.

For Memorial Day, Here Is How We Stop All Wars

June 1, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
For Memorial Day week, Clearing the FOG speaks with David Swanson, the cofounder and executive director of World Beyond War, an international organization that is working to abolish all war. World Beyond War will hold its annual conference virtually from June 4 to 6. The conference, called "From Weapons Fairs to War Zones: Unraveling the War Machine," will bring activists together to share how they are stopping weapons corporation exhibitions, divesting from war, closing foreign bases and more. They will discuss what type of world they are working to create. David also speaks about his recent book, "Leaving World War II Behind," that debunks the myth of that as "the last good war."

Disrupt Land Forces Week Of Action Begins

May 30, 2021 Andy Paine, Disrupt Land Forces. , , ,
It was Thursday afternoon peak hour in South Brisbane, soundtracked as usual by trucks rumbling down the busy thoroughfares of the area. But these were not the usual trucks, and the response to them was not the customary indifference we give to our surroundings on busy city streets. Two trucks began to pull into the Brisbane Convention Centre. On the trailer of each were small military vehicles. One was an “Autonomous Combat Warrior” made by Rheinmetall. The company describes the vehicle as the “next generation of land vehicle systems warfighting capability”. Essentially it’s a giant remote controlled car with off-road wheels and guns. The trucks were headed for the Land Forces Defence Exposition, an arms industry sales event which will take place from June 1-3.

A People’s Guide To The War Industry: Bribery And Propaganda

May 29, 2021 Christian Sorensen, Consortium News. , , ,
Congress does not exercise effective oversight of the military-industrial-congressional complex. The average congressperson is clueless about the intricacies of war, espionage, and peace. The average congressperson on Armed Services or Intelligence committees is more aware, but their views are carefully circumscribed by a capitalist imperative for profit and the information that armed bureaucracies selectively divvy out. War corporations hire professional lobbying firms in order to influence federal policy. War corporations regularly spend millions on lobbying Capitol Hill. This is an effective, straightforward method for corporations to get their way. Jimmy Williams, a former lobbyist explained the system: “Years of legalized bribery had exposed me to the worst elements of our country’s political workings.

The Real Danger Of The Pentagon’s New Indo-Pacific Plan

March 30, 2021 Simone Chun, Counterpunch. , , ,
The Pentagon recently asked Congress for an astronomical $27 billion budget increase to support a massive military buildup in Asia  as part of its new Indo-Pacific plan, which calls for a substantially more aggressive military stance against China. With the US already ranking first in military spending worldwide and holding more than 290 military bases in the Asia-Pacific region alone, this aggressive buildup is being proposed at the most financially precarious moment in US history. According to the Congressional Budget Office report released this month, federal debt is projected to reach 102% of GDP by the end of 2021 before surpassing its historical high of 107% in 2031 and going on to nearly double to 202% by 2051. According to Doug Bandow, “Uncle Sam is headed toward insolvency.”
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