In 2013, when Tom Kelly, the deputy assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Political Affairs was asked during a Congressional hearing about whether the Obama administration was doing enough to promote American weapons exports, he replied: “[We are] advocating on behalf of our companies and doing everything we can to make sure that these sales go through. . . and that is something we are doing every day, basically [on] every continent in the world . . . and we’re constantly thinking of how we can do better.”
“Significant parts of the government,” notes military analyst William Hartung, “are intent on ensuring that American arms will flood the global market and companies like Lockheed and Boeing will live the good life. From the president on his trips abroad to visit allied world leaders to the secretaries of state and defense to the staffs of U.S. embassies, American officials regularly act as salespeople for the arms firms.” Furthermore, he notes, “the Pentagon is their enabler. From brokering, facilitating, and literally banking the money from arms deals to transferring weapons to favored allies on the taxpayers’ dime, it is, in essence, the world’s largest arms dealer.”
The military contractors are adept at delivering millions of dollars in campaign contributions to needy politicians, employing 700 to 1,000 lobbyists to nudge them along, claiming that their military production facilities are necessary to create jobs, and mobilizing their corporate-funded think tanks to highlight ever-greater foreign “dangers.” The US government is well filled with war-mongers. Secretary of Defense James Mattis (a former board member of General Dynamics); White House Chief of Staff John Kelly (previously employed by several military contractors); Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan (a former Boeing executive); Secretary of the Army Mark Esper (a former Raytheon vice president); Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson (a former consultant to Lockheed Martin); Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Ellen Lord (a former CEO of an aerospace company); and National Security Council Chief of Staff Keith Kellogg (a former employee of a major military and intelligence contractor).
The greatest single weapons market remains the United States, for this country ranks first among nations in military spending, with 36 percent of the global total. Trump is currently in the process of approving a 13 percent increase in the already astronomical U.S. military budget. In 2016, Lockheed’s weapons sales rose by almost 11 percent to $41 billion, and the company is well on its way to even greater affluence thanks to its production of the F-35 fighter jet. Today, estimates by military analysts as to the total cost to taxpayers of the 2,440 F-35s desired by Pentagon officials range from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, making it the most expensive procurement program in U.S. history.
Lockheed Martin and other “merchants of death” to continue profiting from war.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/02/the-merchants-of-death-survive-and-prosper/
No comments:
Post a Comment