Defense Contractors
Reason #96: Low-Balling the Lives of Soldiers
In perhaps the most outrageous sham of all, the government hides the true cost of our wars by drastically low-balling the very value of our soldiers’ lives. When a private citizen dies, government actuaries usually put the “value” of his or her life at several million dollars. But when one of our GI’s dies in Iraq, his family only gets $500,000 in death benefits-a fraction of the usual amount.
In other words, according to Washington DC, the lives of our troops are worth less than the lives of civilians. That’s disgraceful. To add insult to injury, most contract workers in Iraq…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #93: The Iraq War and Wall Street
Regardless of success, our leaders were probably banking on the fact that past wars have been good for American business. Dustin Woodard, Mutual Fund Advisor on About.com, looked at the stock market during our last several conflicts.
World War II: The S&P 500 grew at an annualized rate of 12.1 percent per year.
Korean War: The S&P 500 annualized at 18.9 percent per year.
Vietnam War: The S&P 500 annualized at 3.91 percent per year.
Gulf War I: The S&P 500 annualized at 9.52 percent per year.
But today we’re seeing something funny happen with the S&P 500. Journalist Naomi Klein pointed out that a…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #92: A Planned Disaster - Downsizing the Army to Pump Up Corporate Profits
Rumsfeld and Cheney had planned for a long time to start a “revolution in military affairs.” To them, this meant massively reducing the size of America’s standing army and developing small, high-tech battalions which could be air-lifted to trouble spots to take care of business, either secretly or in the open. But as Colin Powell pointed out before he became Secretary of State, this special-forces approach was exactly the wrong way to invade a country like Iraq. Saddam Hussein, too, predicted that Iraq would absorb the invaders and they’d get picked off one by one.
But Rumsfeld went ahead and downsized…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #91: Halliburton in the Halls of Government
A I’ve discussed, before he got to be our vice president, Dick Cheney was V.P. at Halliburton. He was also CEO of the company for a while. Under Cheney, Halliburton doubled its political contributions to the sum of $1.2 million. Most of that money went to Republican politicians. Not coincidentally, the U.S. government awarded Halliburton several contracts to rebuild oil infrastructure in Iraq, without allowing other companies to bid for the jobs, as the government normally does.
These days, Halliburton remains big in the business of campaign contributions, and 93 percent of this money goes to Republicans. (The Fluor Corporation is…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #90: Destroying Iraq So Halliburton Can Rebuild It
There used to be pretty good government oversight of companies helping the U.S. military … all that’s out the window today.
The biggest army in Iraq isn’t comprised of U.S. troops. It’s a force of 180,000 civilian workers. These contractors, who include construction contractors like Bechtel and Parsons Delaware, as well as security forces like Blackwater, have been hired to rebuild the country. But the word “rebuilding” is a stretch. There’s an awful lot of waste-and that’s a charitable term for war profiteering.
War is big business; the corporations do very, very well when it’s raging. Consider that while GI grunts get…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #86: Weapons of War - Our Last Domestic Product
For most of our history, we didn’t have much of a weapons industry in this country. When we faced a war, domestic industries and manufacturers would simply stop making ploughshares and other peacetime goods and use their factories to produce the arms and military equipment we needed. As Eisenhower pointed out in his farewell speech, though, all of that changed after World War II. Numerous manufacturers that had switched to arms making during the war simply kept at it. And many, many more defense firms sprung up to supply our endless appetite for arms to fight the Cold War.
Worst of…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #85: Arms for Hire - How our Government Helps Defense Firms Peddle Weapons
With the Pentagon spending more than half a trillion dollars every year-over 5 percent of our GDP-arms manufacturers in this country are making an absolute killing. Companies like Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon rake in piles of the country’s tax revenue. But our IRS checks are just the beginning for the arms makers. The government helps them make even more profits by sending foreign business their way as well.
An office in the Pentagon called the Defense Security Cooperation Agency works tirelessly on behalf of the U.S. arms industry, promoting American-made products and helping foreign governments get the best deals on American-made…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #83: The Military-Industrial-Political Complex
Eisenhower originally intended to add the word “Congressional” to his “military industrial complex” phrase. He crossed the word out at the last minute, but he should have kept it. Congress and the rest of our political establishment are deeply ingrained in our role as World Boss.
Every year, our legislators happily allocate half a trillion dollars for “defense.” Hundreds of billions go straight into the pockets of giant weapons manufacturers like Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon-not to mention companies like Halliburton that feed and house our troops or firms like Bechtel and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) that come in to rebuild the cities…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #82: The Military-Industrial Complex - Ike Warned Us!
When I was a young 2nd Lieutenant stationed at Camp Gordon in Georgia, a friend and I snuck onto Augusta National Golf Course and I introduced myself to President Eisenhower. I still remember the thrill of meeting Ike, the sense, lingering to this day, that I was the luckiest man alive. The former general was congenial. He greeted us warmly, saluted us (we were in uniform), then gently sent us on our way.
In my opinion, Eisenhower was our last truly independent president, as he was not beholden to particular factions or special interests. What was best for America was best for…
August 28, 2008 | Read More
Reason #40: Hired Guns
Over the years since the invasion of Iraq, network news outlets have consistently trotted out so-called “military analysts” to break down the events in the Middle East. These supposedly objective experts are usually retired generals or admirals. More often than not, they present a favorable assessment of the war. There’s a reason for that. As it turns out, these guys aren’t objective commentators. They’re nothing but good corporate employees acting as government shills.
The networks have been caught - again! - passing off government propaganda as legitimate news.
In April of 2008, the New York Times revealed that dozens of these former generals…
August 26, 2008 | Read More
