Military Industrial Complex Dominates America at the Expense of Everything Else

24 Thursday May 2012

Posted by xraymike79 in Corporate State, Empire, Military Industrial Complex

Tags

Arms Dealers, Corporate State, Empire, Military Industrial Complex, Privatization of War

When you’re a Hammer, everything is a nail.

“…

RT: What would you say if someone in the Administration told you the US protects its economic interests with the help of military means?

CP: Let’s look at the so-called new pivot to Asia: we are beefing up our military deployments in the Western Pacific. But there is no threat to us in the Western Pacific! China is not going to invade the Unites States, North Korea’s missiles can’t reach the United States, American oil doesn’t come through the Strait of Malacca. So, what is the threat? How is it that this military deployment is protecting our interests? It’s an infatuation with empire, an infatuation with the exercise of power. It’s a legacy of the Second World War and of the Cold War. We have a big national security machine and that machine is powerful politically and our system looks for a way to make itself useful and so that’s what it does. But it is not clear to me that this is in the interest of the United States. The incentives in the system right now are for the production of tradable goods and the provision of tradable services to leave the US. The United States is not pursuing any of the policies necessary to reverse the incentives because its total focus is on geopolitical priorities.

RT: So, it’s all about the US bases and expanding the US military around the globe?

CP: It’s all about maintaining the primacy of the US national security establishment.

RT: At the expense of the US economy?

CP: Yes. …”

Why We Fight is a 2006 prize winning documentary film about the US military-industrial complex. The title refers to the World War 2 era eponymous propaganda movies commissioned by the U.S. Government to justify their decision to enter the war against the Axis Powers.

The film was first screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival on 17 January 2005, exactly forty-four years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address in which he warned the American people of the dangers from the “military-industrial complex”.

According to Jeremy Scahill, best-selling author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army”, there are around 630 companies on the US government’s payroll in Iraq. More shocking are the 170 mercenary corporations operating in Iraq. Despite repeatedly committing criminal violations, these companies have been immune from prosecution and have repeatedly been rewarded no-bid contracts. In the following interview, Scahill discusses the most recent stage of the military-industrial complex’s evolution and the escalating privatization of war.