Killing Children and Making a Profit: The MIC Rolls On

War is a business. And the Military-Industrial-Complex (MIC) profits from it. A lot.

As I have noted in previous posts, my expertise is in the book of Revelation. For the past 25 years, I have been contemplating the nature of the Beast in Revelation 13 and what it means for us today. This has especially been a pressing concern for the past several years. The problem is that the more I consider this, the more deeply I am disturbed.

War is a business: and a very profitable one at that.

Is it okay for people to die so that corporations and weapons manufacturers can profit? No.

But this is precisely what happens.

A report from Brown University notes, “Pentagon spending has totaled over $14 trillion since the start of the war in Afghanistan, with one-third to one-half of the total going to military contractors. More than half of the annual Department of Defense budget is now spent on military contractors, and payments to contractors have risen more than 164% since 2001, from about $140 billion in 2001 to about $370 billion in 2019. A large portion of these contracts have gone to just five major corporations: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman.”

Writing for the Watson Institute’s Costs of War Project, William Hartung of the Center for International Policy recently offered a comprehensive assessment of who made how much over the last two decades. “Corporations large and small have been, by far, the largest beneficiaries of the post‑9/​11 surge in military spending. Since the start of the war in Afghanistan, Pentagon spending has totaled over $14 trillion, one-third to one-half of which went to defense contractors.”

Sahara Sajjadiankhah of the Reynolds Center for Business Journalism reports, “In 2022, Biden secured $816.7 billion to the U.S. Defense Department. Much of the budget, about $389.5 billion, was spent on military contracts to secure weaponry and services from defense contractors, according to the DOD annual report.”

The Reynolds Center for Business Journalism reported, “The current military operation in Gaza is a treasure chest for military contractors whose revenue increases as the U.S. turns to them to replenish their stocks.”

These words should not be uttered. Even if the wars are necessary, if the wars are fully justified, if every bomb is needed to defeat evil and restore justice, no one should be profiting from it!

If there are profits from war, shouldn’t they be set aside for humanitarian assistance once the war ends?

Sajjadiankhah added, “Raytheon’s total revenue for 2022 was $67.1 billion and the U.S. accounted for nearly 40% of that total, purchasing $25.4 billion from Raytheon.”

NB: This week’s Determinetruth Livestream may be one of our most important conversations. On Thursday, August 29, 2024, we will host James McCarty, Professor of the Religion and Conflict Transformation program at Boston University School of Theology, to discuss his book The Business of War.

Sajjadiankhah concludes, “Despite the ethical concerns that naturally come from profiting off war, the weapons industry is still a business and profit is the primary objective of any business.”

Making war?

When there is that much at stake, do you suspect some may find a cause to wage war? Of course, they will. Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute affirms: “The famed military-industrial complex was in trouble in mid-1990. The Berlin Wall had fallen. The Warsaw Pact had lost its purpose. The Soviet Union was tottering. Colin Powell would soon muse that he was running out of enemies. It looked like America could finally pare down the massive war machine developed to contain the Evil Empire, as President Ronald Reagan famously termed the U.S.S.R. But in August Saddam Hussein’s Iraq invaded Kuwait. The emcee at a convention of military contractors publicly thanked Hussein. War again was on the national agenda and the Pentagon could count on increased appropriations, much of which would be funneled to what Dwight Eisenhower famously termed the military-industrial complex.”

A new enemy had been found. A new war was on the horizon.

When the war machine expands its operations overseas

When the U.S. cannot satisfy the greed of the MIC war machine, it looks to include overseas clients.

The U.S. supplied $60 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia during its war on Yemen, which created, at the time, the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

Is it any wonder that the Houthis in Yemen have joined the attack on Israel and essentially shut down traffic through the Suez Canal?

To understand their anger at the U.S., one must recognize that the U.S. proxy war in Yemen created what at the time was the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis: The Reynolds Center reports, “17 million Yemenis struggling with food insecurity and 21.6 million in dire need of humanitarian assistance, according to the World Food Programme. Since 2015, Amnesty has found remnants of U.S. weapons at the scenes of destruction in Yemen, at hospitals, residential homes and mosques.”

As the U.S. military market shrinks, Hartung predicted that firms will look overseas for business. He observed: “An additional cause for concern is the post-war drive of U.S. contractors to seek more foreign clients. Although less lucrative than the flood of U.S. funding for private contractors tied to the Iraq and Afghan wars, the foreign market is growing, and the activities of contractors employed in this fashion has been deeply disturbing. For example, a U.S. firm—Tier 1 Group, which was founded by a former employee of Blackwater—trained four of the Saudi operatives involved in the murder of U.S.-resident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in an effort funded by the Saudi government.”

Could it be that the U.S. looked the other way when an American citizen was brutally murdered, ground to pieces, and flushed down the drain of the Saudi Consulate in Turkey because Saudi Arabia is one of the largest buyers of weapons?

What happens when the MIC controls Congress?

The U.S. political system requires congressional approval to wage war.

NB: Many recent efforts have been achieved to circumvent this, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

Thus, it is incumbent on the MIC to gain influence over those in power to find a just cause for wars and ensure that the public is equally persuaded.

Hartung notes that weapons manufacturers “have spent $2.5 billion in lobbying over the past two decades.” The industry has spent $285 million in campaign contributions since 2001. As if that weren’t enough, over the past five years, weapons manufacturers have employed over 700 lobbyists in Washington, DC. That is more than one lobbyist for every congressperson. The number of lobbyists for diplomacy is far less.

Bandow reports, “Corporate America quickly seized its opportunity for gain.

Boeing Vice President Harry Stonecipher warned politicians not to get between the companies and the cash: “The purse is now open … any member of Congress who doesn’t vote for the funds we need to defend this country will be looking for a new job after next November.”

What happens when the MIC controls the White House?

Do you believe there is a conflict of interest when Lloyd Austin, the U.S. Secretary of Defense, is also a board member for Raytheon, a major arms manufacturer?

What if Dick Cheney, the C.E.O. of Halliburton, a principal defense contractor, stepped down to become the Vice President of the U.S.? Is this a conflict of interest? The fact that Halliburton was awarded contracts worth $billions while Cheney was V.P. suggests that it is.

The White House knew this was a problem, as evidenced by the fact that Cheney’s bio on the White House website while he was in office never mentioned that he was the C.E.O. of Halliburton. You would think that this accomplishment would be prominent on Cheney’s resume.

The U.S. is a war machine. And the U.S. Congress and the White House bow before it.

What is worse: that U.S. corporations profit from war or that we believe their causes are just?

But we made the world a better place!

Really? This is one of the many lies that we are told.

All we must do is ask, “How many radical terrorist organizations are there today whose central aim is to destroy the West and particularly the U.S. compared to 25 years ago?”

Is the world a better place for the millions who have been displaced as a result of our war efforts? Is it a better place for the hundreds of thousands who have died? For their loved ones?

It is undoubtedly a better place for several C.E.O.s.

But that is how the Beast works.

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