By Philip Girardi
www.antiwar.com
One of the unique pleasures of living near our nation’s capital is to sit down with the first morning cup of coffee, open the Washington Post, and flip through the full-page ads placed by defense contractors. The ads almost always feature dedicated young soldiers, fierce bald eagles, and American flags. They extol our heroic warriors and note how they, the contractors, are on the front line defending freedom and the American way. They do not mention that the ads are paid for by the taxpayers, courtesy of the huge profits generated by unneeded defense spending. Their CEOs and shareholders must smile when they see the ads. The rest of us shouldn’t.
This is not to suggest that defense contractors don’t do a lot of good in the world. They support armies of lobbyists and contribute to congressmen who otherwise would have to find real work. They make sure that the pundits and ideologues who promote a vigorous defense of American interests at home and abroad are well-funded through their contributions to think-tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, and Frank Gaffney’s ubiquitous Center for Security Policy. They hold gala dinners and invite Bush administration hacks and blue dog Democrats to speak, paying them generous honoraria to make sure they have comfortable retirements. They sometimes show incredible ingenuity, figuring out how to make gasoline that costs $1.13 per gallon in Kuwait cost $8 when it arrives in Iraq a day later. They produce ships and planes and missile systems that America doesn’t need, but doing so surely keeps workers in their factories in key congressional constituencies from having to file for unemployment. It’s a win-win.
And defense contractors know how to make people afraid and keep them that way. The next war, against Iran, will no doubt be prepped by claims that Tehran was involved in 9/11 and that it is the principal supporter of al-Qaeda. Those Persians are "killing our soldiers." And nothing much changes when you flip from Republican to Democrat. Even if the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is now being referred to as Overseas Contingency Operations, there has been no shift in how Washington approaches the terrorism problem. Overseas Contingency Operations are just as big a business as was GWOT; they are designed to make money and create good jobs for a lot of people. If one opens that same Washington Post featuring the full-page self-congratulatory ads and turns to the employment pages, the few jobs available in this recession-wracked economy are in the quarter-page listings for defense contractors. Squeezing money from the taxpayers or borrowing it from foreigners appears to be the entirety of Washington’s local economy.
Keep Reading...
Punditman says...Oh yeah, that's why we're here. This article is a great reminder of why punditman created punditman in the first place: The so-called war on terror and its complementary propaganda and the military industrial complex and its complementary propaganda and how they work in tandem—for profit. There are those who still can't see this connection or who refuse to. They prefer a much simpler narrative, like "They fight for our freedom." Perhaps some of these lost souls pop by here once in a while and learn a thing or two that changes their consciousness. One can hope.
Peacenik talks a lot about economic decline, doom and disaster. That's fair game, but then Philip Girardi summarizes the ever-present, incestuous connection between the US defence industry lobby and the highly leveraged Global War On Terror—and he nails it. There always seems to be money for the war makers even if the war is a fraud and everyone else's money is in tatters. Always. Unless you're talking Russian Revolution and WW I, or later, how the money the Soviet Union wasted on the arms race, war in Afghanistan, etc. contributed to its collapse. Surely the US is not immune to a similar fate...I think.
www.antiwar.com
One of the unique pleasures of living near our nation’s capital is to sit down with the first morning cup of coffee, open the Washington Post, and flip through the full-page ads placed by defense contractors. The ads almost always feature dedicated young soldiers, fierce bald eagles, and American flags. They extol our heroic warriors and note how they, the contractors, are on the front line defending freedom and the American way. They do not mention that the ads are paid for by the taxpayers, courtesy of the huge profits generated by unneeded defense spending. Their CEOs and shareholders must smile when they see the ads. The rest of us shouldn’t.
This is not to suggest that defense contractors don’t do a lot of good in the world. They support armies of lobbyists and contribute to congressmen who otherwise would have to find real work. They make sure that the pundits and ideologues who promote a vigorous defense of American interests at home and abroad are well-funded through their contributions to think-tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, and Frank Gaffney’s ubiquitous Center for Security Policy. They hold gala dinners and invite Bush administration hacks and blue dog Democrats to speak, paying them generous honoraria to make sure they have comfortable retirements. They sometimes show incredible ingenuity, figuring out how to make gasoline that costs $1.13 per gallon in Kuwait cost $8 when it arrives in Iraq a day later. They produce ships and planes and missile systems that America doesn’t need, but doing so surely keeps workers in their factories in key congressional constituencies from having to file for unemployment. It’s a win-win.
And defense contractors know how to make people afraid and keep them that way. The next war, against Iran, will no doubt be prepped by claims that Tehran was involved in 9/11 and that it is the principal supporter of al-Qaeda. Those Persians are "killing our soldiers." And nothing much changes when you flip from Republican to Democrat. Even if the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is now being referred to as Overseas Contingency Operations, there has been no shift in how Washington approaches the terrorism problem. Overseas Contingency Operations are just as big a business as was GWOT; they are designed to make money and create good jobs for a lot of people. If one opens that same Washington Post featuring the full-page self-congratulatory ads and turns to the employment pages, the few jobs available in this recession-wracked economy are in the quarter-page listings for defense contractors. Squeezing money from the taxpayers or borrowing it from foreigners appears to be the entirety of Washington’s local economy.
Keep Reading...
Punditman says...Oh yeah, that's why we're here. This article is a great reminder of why punditman created punditman in the first place: The so-called war on terror and its complementary propaganda and the military industrial complex and its complementary propaganda and how they work in tandem—for profit. There are those who still can't see this connection or who refuse to. They prefer a much simpler narrative, like "They fight for our freedom." Perhaps some of these lost souls pop by here once in a while and learn a thing or two that changes their consciousness. One can hope.
Peacenik talks a lot about economic decline, doom and disaster. That's fair game, but then Philip Girardi summarizes the ever-present, incestuous connection between the US defence industry lobby and the highly leveraged Global War On Terror—and he nails it. There always seems to be money for the war makers even if the war is a fraud and everyone else's money is in tatters. Always. Unless you're talking Russian Revolution and WW I, or later, how the money the Soviet Union wasted on the arms race, war in Afghanistan, etc. contributed to its collapse. Surely the US is not immune to a similar fate...I think.
