the opinionist

You never quite grasp how spoilt your children are until you try walking, quite precariously, from the staircase to the kitchen in the dark in the wee hours of the morning without stepping your cold bare feet on a pointy Lego brick or one of Cindy’s blessed miniature cooking utensils. In other words, the after-effects of one’s excessive affections and materialistic love can bite you in the ass, in so many ways!

Perhaps this also applies to the U.S. and how it is truly seen by the world versus how it might see itself? With a less-than-zealous appetite for criticism, for I’m sure I’ll receive it in spades, I wonder if a fair chunk of the problems we see in the world today were brought on and exasperated by the U.S. itself? I never thought I’d say such a preposterously self-hating statement until I stumbled across a terrifying yet fascinating source of information (from the Federation of American Scientists) that quite literally displays the scale of death and destruction the U.S. has brought, and is quite happy to continue bringing the world through the transfer of arms, military-spec weaponry and a plethora of terribly useful but fairly-deadly technologies.

One can argue quite easily that the quagmire that is Iraq, the Iranian ‘threat’, the failed Israeli peace-accords, the Taiwan / China defiance, and so on and so forth are results of the contradictions in the U.S. foreign policy across multiple administrations since World War II.

If it didn’t sound so ludicrously conspiratorial it might appear as if U.S. foreign policy is dictated by the amount of arms we can sell and damn the consequences.

Perhaps … the military machine reviews its sales figures - looking for an underperforming region for the quarter? Perhaps it’ll pick a nasty looking region with flagrant issues, then proceed to kick over the two biggest ant nests. Decide which side looks a little bit less evil and then proceed to sell them all manner of military goodies … at intriguing prices (credit available of course!) and then wait to see what happens. If oil is involved - then all the better! Build a national-security argument into the fray and all bets are covered!

Sometimes other smaller weapons suppliers, Germany, the U.K., France included, might scuttle in during or after the U.S. has engorged itself and will pick at the few tasty morsels of carrion. Sometimes the United Nations - such a glorious paper-tiger - might issue a declaration of concern but more often that not, a few subtle resolutions will keep ‘em quiet.

This approach to making friends and influencing people may have worked last century but it’s clearly biting the U.S. in it’s ass now.

Other nations don’t appear to be willing nor able to see, with such remarkable clarity, the ‘less evil’ nations of the world and they are selling vast quantities of weaponry to whomever they please. Will Russia please raise its hand!

Take a look at Russia’s state-run arms exporter - RosoBoronExport - and their fascinating catalogue of death. It looks like something Victoria’s Secret might publish and stuff into the letter boxes of dictators and despots in the most fashionably-dangerous regions of this increasingly treacherous world.

Russia’s sexy catalogues : army | navy | airforce | air defense

According to the Bush Administration’s “National Security Strategy” document of March 16, 2006, the United States “may face no greater challenge from a single country than Iran.” This is the first sentence in the terrifyingly detailed (51 pages) report by the Congressional Research Service entitled “Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses” updated on January 5 2007.

Yet Russia’s President Putin - a ranch dude of U.S. President Bush - is quite content with the sale of air-defence rocket systems to the Mullah’s in Iran - for example. Nice, huh? For a whole plethora of reasons the U.S. decided Iran was an ‘evil dooer’ and even placed it in a whole new sexy category - ‘Axis of Evil’ - just to clarify the point. WTF, one might ask!

Yet there is humanity somewhere inside the dark dark heart of the vastly vast U.S. military establishment. Israel, those poor buggers surrounded by nations intent on its annihilation - is rewarded with an annual bounty of free military hardware and expertise. Under the auspices of a terribly friendly law - the Foreign Assistance Act - the U.S. military can throw its cast-offs to friendly nations for free … if such weapons are appropriately labeled as ‘EDA: Excess Defense Articles’.

EDA is described as “Under section 516 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (P.L. 87-195, or the “FAA”), as amended, the U.S. government has the authority to transfer surplus military equipment to foreign security forces.”

In other words; when U.S. taxpayers have paid for the latest most awesome killing machines known to man, the older models (like TiVO 1, Windows XP, the Ford Focus, and the Rubiks Cube) are given to little brothers or sisters for nothing more than a friendly hug.

When I say ‘older models’ I’m not referring to rusty old scratched toys big brother has kicked, left in the dirt or crayoned on!. I mean stuff like:

- 170,000 H708 35mm subcaliber light antitank weapon rockets
- 64,744 Colt M-16A1 rifles
- 50 F-16C/D Block 50/52 aircraft;
- 50 AN/APG-68(V)X radars
- 510 5-ton trucks, various types; vehicle parts, howitzer parts

This is why Israel has only paid something within the range of $11.2 billion for U.S. weaponry since 1992 where as those rich neighbors, and all round nice guys - the Saudis - have paid $36 billion.

It is big business and the U.S. is at the pinnacle - armed (excuse the effortless pun) with a just slightly-evident conscience.

In his farewell address in 1960, retiring President Eisenhower warned us about the excessive growth of the military machine. He said, “In the counsels of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought by the military-industrial complex. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”

The military-industrial complex is the United States administration. They are one and the same. Generals, departmental secretaries, and former advisors don’t retire from public service and fade into obscurity! They either run for President or they become board members of the corporations that define the nation’s military machine.

In 2006, General Myers, formerly the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was elected to the Board of Directors of Northrop Grumman Corporation, the world’s third largest defense contractor.

In 2004, Admiral James O. Ellis, Jr., formerly the Commander of United States Strategic Command, was elected to the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin.

General John Malchase David Shalikashvili, formerly the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff up to 1997 is on the Board of Directors of Boeing.

I’m not a making a vast but blinkered conspiracy out of the retirement income of former military folks; for they certainly deserve to retire in comfort. But they weren’t hired just for their ability to apply boot polish when needed! They are connected to the decision-makers inside the Federal Government.
They have access to a military budget of the United States of America - which in 2006 was $470 billion.

Split this money across corporations like these … whose primarily bread’n'butter comes from the U.S. Government … and have a serious business to feed and groom:

- AAI Corporation
- BAE Systems
- Boeing
- Carlyle Group
- Colt’s Manufacturing Company
- General Atomics
- General Electric (through GEAE)
- General Dynamics
- Honeywell
- Lockheed-Martin
- Northrop Grumman Corporation
- Raytheon Corporation

To put that in some scale, the 2006 budget for the Department of Education for the United States of America - and its wonderful ‘no kids left [that far behind]‘ program was $88 billion. The board of directors for OfficeMax does not include former generals nor chiefs-of-staff.

Have fun with more comparisons on federal expenditures across government departments and social security obligations.

Put one last way; according to the think-tank - GlobalSecurity.org - total worldwide military expenditure in 2006 was $950 billion. The United States spent $466 billion (or just left than half) on its military-industrial complex.

When President George W Bush gets up in the morning, does he step on a few tanks as he walks bleary-eyed into the Oval Office? A silly metaphor I know - but it’s been said before and I’ll say it again, WTF?

sources include (attached) : Official Whitehouse Budget 2006 (excel spreadsheet)

Posted on January 22nd, 2007 under 2008, Arms Trade, Budget, Bush, Conspiracy, Education, Eisenhower, Iram, Russia •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback