From Earth To Space, There’s No Biz Like War Biz

From Earth To Space, There’s No Biz Like War Biz
Friday, 22 April 2005, 12:38 pm
Opinion: Douglas Mattern

From Earth To Space, There’s No Biz Like War Biz

Douglas MatternEvery gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. President Dwight Eisenhower in a speech delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16,1953

The latest obscenity in the war business is the decision by the Bush Administration to sell F-16 Fighter Jets to Pakistan. The administration has offered to sell the same jet fighters to India, always a potential adversary. But selling weapons to both sides of a conflict is standard policy. In 1999, the U.S. supplied weapons or military training to parties in 39 of 42 active conflicts.

Data compiled by the Federation of American Scientists shows that since 1992, the U.S. exported over $142 billion dollars worth of weapons to states around the world. The data also reveals this macabre world market is dominated by the U.S., which accounted for nearly half of all weapon sales in 2001, more than $12 billion dollars for U.S. manufacturers. The Center for International Policy estimates that about 80 percent of U.S. arms exports to the developing world go to non-democratic regimes.

For 2006, the administration is requesting $419 billion for the military, with the real total actually $440 billion when adding funds for nuclear weapons that are contained in the Department of Energy budget. The U.S. military budget is nearly equal to the military budgets of all other countries combined.



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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0504/S00215.htm

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.