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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: KEEPING THE U.S. ON A PERMANENT WAR FOOTING: The U.S. military-industrial complex has five main pillars Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty." -George Washington (1732-1799), First U.S. President "[The] conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." -Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th U.S. President, Farewell Address. "It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear." -General Douglas MacArthur. In the 1920s, U.S. President Calvin Coolidge said that "the business of America is business." Nowadays, it can be said that the arms industry and permanent war have become a big part of American business, as the offshoot of a well-entrenched military-industrial complex. This is a development that previous American men of vision-men like President George Washington and President Dwight Eisenhower-have warned against as being intrinsically inimical to democracy and liberty. The current Bush-Cheney administration, however, is not afraid of such a development; its principal members are part of it and are instead very busy promoting it. Wars, especially modern electronic wars, are very murderous, but they are also synonymous with big costplus contracts, big profits, and big employment for those who produce the required military gear. Wars are the paradise of profiteers. Wars are also a way for mediocre politicians to monopolize both the news and the media in their partisan favour by whipping up patriotic fervor and by pushing for narrow-minded nationalism. Indeed, to inflame patriotism and nationalism is an old demagogic trick used to dominate a nation. When that happens, there is a clear danger that democracy and freedom will be eroded, and even disappear, if that development leads to an exacerbated concentration of power and political corruption. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were a bonanza for the American military-industrial complex. This was an event, a "New Pearl Harbour," that some had openly been hoping for. The reason? These attacks gave the perfect pretext to keep military expenses-which had been expected to fall after the demise of the old Soviet Empire-at a high level. Instead, they provided the rationale for dramatically increasing them, by substituting a "war on terror" and a "war against Islam fundamentalists" as a replacement for the "war against communism," and the "Cold War against the Soviet Union." In this new perspective, the gates of military spending could be open and flowing again. The development of ever more sophisticated armaments could go forward, and thousands of corporations and hundreds of political districts could continue to reap the benefits. The costs would be borne by the taxpayers, by young men and women who die in combat, and by remote populations who happen to lie under the rain of bombs about to fall upon them and their homes. Indeed, in September 2000, when the Pentagon issued its famous strategy document entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses," the belief was expressed that the kind of military transformation the planners were considering required "some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbour," to make it possible to sell the plan to the American public. They were either prescient or lucky, because one year later they had the "New Pearl Harbour" they had been hoping for. The military-industrial complex needs wars, many and successive wars, to prosper. Old military equipment has to be repaired and replaced each time there is a hot war. But to justify the enormous costs of developing ever more deadly weapons, there needs to be a constant climate of fear and vulnerability. To create and maintain such a climate, strong enough to steer a democratic country on the path of a permanent war economy, takes an alliance of interests between militarists, industrialists, politicians, sycophants, and propagandists. These are the five pillars of the U.S. military-industrial complex. 1. The U.S. military establishment In 1991, at the end of the Cold War, the U.S. defense budget was $298.9 billion. In 2006, that budget had increased to $447.4 billion, and this does not include the $100 billion-plus spent in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It is estimated that American military expenditures represent, at a very minimum, close to half of total world military outlays (48% of the world total in 2005, according to official figures), while the U.S. accounts for less than 5% of world population and about 25% of world total output. As a percentage, the U.S. military expenses gobble up a minimum of 21% of the total American federal budget (2006=$2,144.3 billion). Such a military budget is larger than the gross domestic product (GDP) of some countries, such as Belgium or Sweden. It is sort of a government within a government. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Defense employed 2,143,000 people, while it estimates that private defense contractors employ 3,600,000 workers, for a grand total of 5,743,000 defense-related American jobs, or 3.8% of the country's total labour force. In addition, there are close to 25 million veterans in the United States. Therefore, it is safe to say that more than 30 million Americans receive cheques which originate directly or indirectly from the U.S. military budget. Assuming conservatively only two voting-age people per household, this translates into a block of some 60 million American voters who have a financial stake in the American military establishment. Thus the clear danger of a militarized society perpetuating itself politically. 2. The private defense contractors The five largest American defense contractors are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. They are followed by Honeywell, Halliburton, BAE Systems, and thousands of smaller defense companies and sub-contractors. Some, like Lockheed Martin in Bethesda (Maryland) and Raytheon in Waltham (Massachusetts), draw close to 100% of their business from defense contracts. Some others, like Honeywell in Morristown (New Jersey), have important consumer goods divisions. All, however, stand to profit when expenditures on weapons procurements increase. In fact, U.S. defense contractors have been enjoying big Pentagon budgets since March 2003, i.e. since the onset of the Iraq war. As a result, they have posted sizeable increases in total shareholder returns, ranging from 68% (Northrop Grumman) to 164% (General Dynamics), from March 2003 to September 2006. It also has to be pointed out that private defense contractors play another social role: they are big employers of former generals and former admirals from the U.S. military establishment. 3. The political establishment In the U.S., President George W. Bush, a former oil-man, and Vice-President Dick Cheney, former chairman and CEO of the large oil service company Halliburton in Houston, Texas, epitomize the image of politicians devoted to the growth and development of the military-industrial complex. Their administration has expanded the military establishment and they have adopted a militarist foreign policy on a scale not seen since the end of the Cold War and even since the end of World War II. Indeed, under the Bush-Cheney administration, the arms industry has become very profitable. Multi-billion-dollar contracts to sell planes and tanks to various countries in an increasingly lawless world are going full swing. Close to two-thirds of all arms exports in the world originate from North America. Congress, for its part, is indebted to defense corporations that operate military plants in each congressman's district or senator's state, besides owing some gratitude to the lobbies that provide funds and media support in election times. 4. The "think tanks" establishment The brain-trust and the sycophants behind the war-oriented economy form an interlocking network of Washington-based so-called "thinktanks" that are financed by the rich tax-exempt foundations which have billions of dollars of assets, such as, for example, the John M. OHn Foundation, the Scaife Foundation, or the Coors Foundation. Among the most influential and representative think-tanks, whose mission is to orient American foreign policy, one finds the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Heritage Foundation, the Middle East Media Research Institute, the neoconservative Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, the Center for security Policy, the Jewish Institute for National security Affairs, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and the Hudson Institute. Such think-tanks serve a double purpose: they provide government officials with policy papers on various topics, usually on the very conservative side; and they serve as incubators for government departments, supplying them with already trained personnel and providing employment for public officials who are out of office. The same revolving door that exists between the military establishment and defense contractors is also observed to exist between the Washington-based think-tanks and U.S. government departments. 5. The "propaganda" establishment The pro-war economy propagandists are to be found in the fundamentally rightwing American media industry. This is because the selling of war-oriented policies requires the expertise that only a well-oiled propaganda machine can provide. The most potent propaganda tool is television. And there, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Network is unbeatable. There is no American media outlet more openly devoted to the neocon ideology and more committed to supporting new American wars than Fox News. CNN or MSNBC may sometimes try to emulate it, but their professionalism prevents them from even coming close to Fox News in being biased toward war and in unabashedly promoting U.S. global domination. Fox's propaganda efforts are closely coordinated with other Murdoch-owned print media, such as the Weekly Standard and the New York Post. The Washington Times, which is controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, the neoconservative New York Sun, and other neo-con publications such as the National Review, the New Republic, fhe American Spectator, and the Wall Street Journal complete the main pro-war propaganda infrastructure. In conclusion, it is the conjunction of these five pro-war machines-the bloated military establishment, the large American arms industry, the neo-con pro-war administration and Congress, the pro-war think-tanks network, and the pro-war media propagandists-that constitutes the framework of the military-industrial complex.
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#1. To: 2big2fail (#0)
It is better to be hated for what you are, than loved for what you are not. - Tommy The Mad Artist.
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
And you can bet they'll want their greasy slice from the publicans when the kenyan and his party get clobbered. Heaven help us.
I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves. Thank you. - Roman Moroni
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
They'll get a tax cut, and their overlords at Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics and whatnot will get bundle of contract courtesy of us. How long can they milk this cow before it keels over?
I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves. Thank you. - Roman Moroni
How long can they milk this cow before it keels over? I once worked for Martin, years ago, and they were milking the cow back then, during Ikes time.
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
Ah, so now we have a blueprint on how to collapse the MIC. The author’s conclusions are on target, save for one very important central item - ZOG. It is ZOG that has a death grip on congress, and when coupled with global corporate interests, the force becomes so powerful that anyone who dares to identify this power is marginalized in all of the usual ways. They control Congress and largely determine who becomes president and to whom he or she will be beholden. They also determine when we are going to have a war to advance their interests at the expense of the average American. The shifting series of rationales offered for the Iraq war - rationales pimped by the entire MediaIndustrialComplex - supports this conclusion, since none of the reasons for war were based on fact. Saddam Hussein was not engaged in terrorism against the United States, and there was no reason to be in Iraq except to advance the international interests of ZOG who will stop at nothing to control the oil upon which they and the government policies they paid for have kept us dependent. Now that we have this blueprint, let's get busy grinding the MIC into dust. (/sarcasm)
the neolibs are no different. they're all warmongers. absolutely no difference afa foreign policy.
A+
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one.
"[The] conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." -Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th U.S. President, Farewell Address. "It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear." -General Douglas MacArthur What's taking so long to get a daily stock report on the businesses of the war profiteers and propagandists, at least in the alternative media? That surely ought to be regularly reported online by now.
------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
Flint. Here are the five pillars of the MIC. If we can grind these into dust, we'll be on the road to fiscal sanity. Any ideas on how we can get these points on a billboard? A bumper sticker? Even if we can kill two of the five (collapse the standing military & pull the plug on the MSM) I think we'll be on our way. I'll toss in $100 for the billboard, maybe some others here can think of innovative ways to make the rest of this mess disappear. Thanks for listening, and chill up the brew for March.
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