Showing posts with label Military Industrial Compex. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Military Industrial Compex. Show all posts

Sunday, March 13, 2011

F35 boondoogle

So the Parliamentary Budget Office declares that the Harpocrites have low balled the costs of their F35 fighter purchase, which they sole sourced. They say prove it...that's hard to do when the DOD fails to provide the PBO with any cost estimates, being under the cone of silence imposed by the PMO.

The F35 is a white elephant that has not gotten off the runway yet, you want too know the costs of this ,OK that's easy you just have read the press...
The American and International press that is. Something the PBO did while the Harpocrites continue to deny, deny, deny....So what did Lockheed Martin promise the Harpocrites?

After all Lockheed Martin now also does the information collection for Stats Canada as it does for Stats UK.


Ironically the only persons to protest the mandatory census law in Canada and get charged, which the Harpocrites used to justify the canceling of the Long Form census, were Anti-War/ Anti-Lockheed Martin protesters.


Gates Shakes Up Leadership for F-35 - NYTimes.com

McCain Says F-35 Cost Overruns Have Been `Obscene': Video - Bloomberg


The cost overrun on the main engine for the Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-35 fighter jet has grown by $600 million over the past year, despite tough cost-cutting measures by engine maker Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N), a Navy document shows.

The total cost to complete the Pratt F135 engine is now estimated to be $7.28 billion -- $2.5 billion more than the $4.8 billion initially projected for the engine, according to the document, which was first reported by Aviation Week magazine on its website on Wednesday.

That is an increase of $600 million from the $1.9 billion cost overrun that was reported last year by the House Armed Services Committee.

Pratt spokeswoman Erin Dick said she was not familiar with the new number, and emphasized that the company's aggressive cost-cutting measures were taking effect.

Pentagon officials disclosed last week that the F-35 joint strike fighter program so far has exceeded its original cost estimates by more than 50 percent.

These revelations come as no surprise considering the history of this program. The Government Accountability Office concluded that F-35 estimated acquisition costs have increased $46 billion and development extended two-and-a-half years compared to the program baseline approved in 2007.

The price per aircraft projected at $69 million in 2001 is now up to $112 million, according to GAO. The Pentagon plans to acquire 2,443 jets for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. Foreign nations also are expected to buy the aircraft.

A congressional auditor said Thursday that the Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program, "continues to struggle with increased costs and slowed progress," leading to "substantial risk" that the defense contractor will not be able to build the jet on time or deliver as many aircraft as expected.

Michael Sullivan, the U.S. Government Accountability Office's top analyst on Lockheed Martin's jet fighter, also known as the F-35 Lightning II, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing that the cost of the program has increased substantially and that development is 2 1/2 years behind schedule.

The United States plans to buy about 2,400 of the fighter jets for the Air Force, the Marine Corps and the Navy. The projected cost for the program appears to have increased to $323 billion from $231 billion in 2001, when Bethesda-based Lockheed won the deal, according to Sullivan. Eight other countries -- Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway -- also plan to buy the jets.

The cost to build the plane is now expected to be $112 million per aircraft, according to a GAO auditor.



US Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) Hits Afterburners on Cost Overrun


POSTED BY: Robert Charette / Fri, March 12, 2010

The US Department of Defense officially announced that the Joint Strike Fighter aka F-35 Lightning II will breach a Nunn-McCurdy Amendment critical threshold on 1 April - an appropriate day, I think.

The Nunn-McCurdy Amendment says that a major defense program is considered to have incurred a "critical breach" if it exceeds the current baseline cost estimate by more than 25% or the original baseline cost estimate by 50%.

Defense officials told the US Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing yesterday that the estimated cost per F-35 aircraft had risen from $50.2 million to somewhere between $80 to $95 million in 2002 constant dollars. The program has also slipped its schedule by at least two and a half years as well for the USAF and Navy versions of the aircraft (it was slipped by 2 years in 2004 as well).

As a result of the breach, the DoD must certify to the US Congress that the program is essential for national security, which it will, of course; and Congress - which is very unhappy with the program's management (the government's program manager was recently fired) - will continue to fund the F-35 because there is little other choice.

The other eight nations participating in the program - Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey and the U.K. - aren't going to be happy about the cost increases either. I suspect some sweetheart deal will be made to make them less unhappy.

The F-35 program, which has a total life cycle cost of over $1 trillion dollars, was promised to be a "model acquisition program" which would avoid the cost overruns and schedule slips of past aircraft programs like the F-22 Raptor and provide an "affordable next generation strike aircraft."

The JSF website says that, "The focus of the program is affordability -- reducing the development cost, production cost, and cost of ownership of the JSF family of aircraft."

They may want to now amend that sentence.


The Australians are now seriously reconsidering their purchase of the F35

Because the RAAF’s Hornets are aging, Canberra approved the purchase of
Super Hornets as an interim aircraft between the classic Hornet and the
F-35. Aerospace industry and military officials contend that without the
Super Hornet to make the task of integration incremental, the shift
from Hornet to F-35 would likely have become a nightmare of increased cost, complexity and schedule overruns.


And yes Joe and Janey Canuk there is an alternative to this overpriced piece of war machinery...And Japan is looking at buying it....

The F-35, otherwise known as the ball and chain seemingly the entire Western world finds itself chained to, is probably not looking so good to Tokyo right now.

Now, delays suggest the F-35, another stealthy, state-of-the-art option, will not be available until 2020, which could leave a longer-than-acceptable gap for Japan.

Enter the Eurofighter, which is not as advanced as the F-22 or F-35 _ known as fifth-generation fighters_ but is already in service.

The supersonic aircraft, which made its first flight in 1994, is used by six countries: Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, Austria and Saudi Arabia. Its makers are looking to sell the fighter to Greece, Denmark, Romania, Qatar and India. It is believed to cost about $100 million per aircraft.

A big part of the Eurofighter sales pitch is that it will not tightly restrict the transfer of technology, which means some of it could eventually be built in Japan _ a significant plus for Japanese planners concerned with domestic industry. The U.S. options may not be as generous.

"The Eurofighter group has offered Tokyo lots of sweeteners, including industrial participation," he said. "If the U.S. side can't come up with something equally attractive, then I think it will be difficult for Tokyo to choose a less beneficial deal."

Christopher Hughes, a Japan specialist and political scientist at the University of Warwick, said he believes Tokyo may go for the Eurofighter as a gap-filler, then buy the F-35 once it is ready.

"My feeling is that the Eurofighter might have a chance, but not as the main F-X," he said. "It ticks a lot of boxes and is ready to go, and whilst not cheap, probably nowhere near as costly as the F-35."

Besides budget Hawks like McCain even the Conservative think tank the Hudson Institute is critical of the F35 boondoggle.

Do you know "Cheop's Law"? Named for the Pharaoh who built the great pyramid, and postulated by the author Robert Heinlein, it runs:"Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget." Anyone who questions the wisdom of this maxim should examine the Defense budgets of the world's democracies, apart from the average home remodeling project.

The US should be getting better results for the money it spends. The quality of an F-22 air superiority fighter , for example, is not in question, but if the President and Congress decide that we can only afford 187 of them, compared to a certified need for 380, then something is terribly wrong. The same problem of excessive costs leading to a severely curtailed procurement, afflicted the B-2 bomber: only 21 were bought when the air force needed about 120. Today, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is in danger of being canceled or curtailed due to an estimated overall 65% cost increase since 2002.
The problem with the military projects in the US is that it is their form of state capitalism, which Eisenhower called the 'Military Industrial Complex.'

"Big military contractors, like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or Boeing, have a relationship with the government that is unusual and tight. In some ways, they operate almost as wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Pentagon, which can provide the bulk of their revenues."

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Military Waste


All capital invested in the military is waste as Veblen and Galbraith have pointed. It is the creative destructive aspect of capitalism as Schumpeter called it. Military spending destroys capital, both excess production and workers.

And government waste rises with the increase in investment in military spending. Investment in social programs on the other hand are attacked by the right as spending and waste rather than what it really is investment in social capital.


How much happiness does big money buy the military? A lot less than it hoped.

Even after Liberal and Conservative cash injections, the forces are struggling to rebuild and renew while fighting a very different and difficult 21st century war. Equally worrying for the department, the consensus that led successive governments to boost spending to modern highs is cracking as other political priorities emerge.

Senior government officials and academics confirm entrenched problems aren't evaporating with a budget that will top $18 billion next year, some 27 per cent higher than before 9/11, according to a report released this week.

Its highest since World War II and more than 100 times higher than federal spending to combat homelessness.

While our troops are fighting the war in Afghanistan, the defence department spent $32 million last year on -- furniture


Ah the joy of being part of the NATO Military Industrial Complex.


SEE

The Tory Nanny State

Canada Celebrates Star Wars

The Budget Item Flaherty Forgot

State Capitalism Quebec Style

Defense Lobbyist Now Minister

Derek Burney Voice of America

Contracting Out Is A Crime

Guns and Butter for Conservatives

Liberals Military Heritage

Canada's State Capitalist Success


Job Protection for


Canadian Reservists



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Friday, October 26, 2007

Peak Oil Will Lead To WWIII

From Defense And The National Interest a Power Point presentation in PDF by Robert Hirsch on the impact of Peak Oil and US national security. Don't plan for Peak Oil then prepare for WWIII says Hirsch.

And he is serious as are the folks who published his report.

Welcome to Defense and the National Interest. Our aim is to foster debate on the roles of the U.S. armed forces in the post-Cold War era and on the resources devoted to them. The ultimate purpose is to help create a more effective national defense against the types of threats we will likely face during the first decades of the new millennium.Contributors to this site are, with a few exceptions, active/reserve, former, or retired military. They often combine a knowledge of military theory with the practical experience that comes from trying their ideas in the field.


Peak Oil is now a given reality. And its potential threat to create a crisis that needs a military response is no longer thought of as the rantings of just a tiny fringe group. Instead it is a crisis scenario being seriously discussed by military and security wonks.


10/23/07 World Oil Shortage - Scenarios for Mitigation Planning, by Robert L. Hirsch. "The more you think about it, the uglier it gets." Stand by for World War III. [114 KB PDF]

Background
“…it only requires a relatively small amount of oilto be taken out of the system to have huge economic and security implications.”
Robert M. Gates. Oil Shockwave. June 2005.

“The rate of decline after a peak is an important consideration because a decline that is more abrupt will likely have more adverse economic consequences than a decline that is less abrupt.”
GAO-07-283. February 2007.

IEA: There’s Trouble

•“The recent apparent surge in oil and gas investment is illusory, because costs have soared. Real investment in 2005 was barely higher than in 2000.”

•“This energy future is not only unsustainable, it is doomed to failure," because of underinvestment.

•"... we are on course for an energy system that will evolve from crisis to crisis…”
•Excess capacity and demand converge in 2012 (Peaking).


See:

Technocracy Inc. Predicted Oil Crisis Over 50 years ago

Canada Reaches Peak Oil In 2020

Peak Oil: France and Canada Agree

Ontario Succumbs to Peak Oil Crisis

Impeach Bush.....Over Peak Oil

The End of the Oil Age

Caspian Oil

Capitalism Creates Global Warming


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Monday, September 17, 2007

Stating The Obvious Redux


"the Iraq War is largely about oil." Allan Greenspan.


And all the U.S. media and pundits are all agog over this confession. Well duh, what did you think it was about? The funniest was to hear Chris Matthews on Hardball refer to Greenspan's analysis as Marxist. Hey I said that here.

Matthews: "So if you're in the European left and never liked Bush, to start with, now you got his Fed chairman say it's all about oil, you love it, right? This is the old Marxist analysis."
Yet some folks in the White House continue to live the lie, and remain in implausible denial.

In the book, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," Greenspan writes, "the Iraq war is largely about oil." The comments, released before publication, put Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the defensive as he made the Sunday talk-show rounds following major recommendations on war policy last week.

"I know the same allegation was made about the Gulf War in 1991, and I just don't don't believe it's true," Gates said, appearing on ABC's "This Week."

But it was as much about oil then as it was being the first high tech war declaring the New World Order of the 21st Century. Just as this war was about oil and revenge.

Jill Zuckman, Chicago Tribune: "I think this is one of the reasons why what Greenspan says has so much resonance because this is the Texas oil crowd in the White House and so-"

Matthews: "The oil patch crowd."

Zuckman: "-people assume that a lot of what they do is motivated."

Matthews: "Okay let me ask you this. Exxon, Mobil, making tens of billions of dollars in profits this year. So the war worked out well for them right?"

Zuckman: "Yes and we can pay crazy amounts of money at the pump."

Matthews: "Should we put Exxon signs up over Arlington Cemetery and Mobil signs up there, like they have at baseball stadiums?"

And Halliburton, Bechtel and Blackwater too.



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Friday, August 31, 2007

Bad News For Bush

Business as usual in Iraq. Surge or not.


Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report.

"While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved." "Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised.

Iraq needs $100-150 bln for reconstruction: Finance minister

AMMAN (Reuters) - Iraq needs at least $100 billion to rebuild its shattered infrastructure after four years of violence and lawlessness following the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, Finance Minister Bayan Jabor said on Monday.

"The country is devastated and we are in need of at least $100 billion to $150 billion to restore infrastructure -- from sewerage to water to electricity to bridges and basic needs of the country," he told Reuters in Amman.

He said about $4 billion had been spent on infrastructure projects so far this year, more than in all of 2006, when internal violence and the limited capacity of the Iraqi private sector meant only about 40 percent of $6 billion allocated in the budget was used.

"What happened last year was ... a failure in the government's ability to execute," Jabor said.

Health and humanitarian crisis in Iraq

The billions of dollars planned for reconstruction are going unspent as the situation on the ground has spelled suspension for reconstruction efforts. While the coalition forces had not predicted the downward spiral that ensued - predicting a peaceful transition from one regime to another - investments have been mainly made in reconstruction efforts and in comparison, next to nothing, has been set aside for humanitarian assistance.

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction

July 30, 2007 Quarterly and Semiannual Report to Congress (Highlights, All Sections and Appendices)


Asset Transfer
SIGIR produced another audit on the asset-transfer process,
looking at how completed projects are transferred to
Iraqi control. During the course of the audit, SIGIR found
that the Government of Iraq (GOI) has failed to accept a
single U.S.-constructed project since July 2006. Although
local Iraqi officials have accepted projects, the national
government has not. Moreover, SIGIR learned that the U.S.
government is unilaterally transferring projects to Iraq. The
failure of the asset-transfer program raises concerns about
the continuing operation and maintenance of U.S.-constructed
projects.

First Focused Financial Review
This quarter, SIGIR completed the first in a series of
focused financial reviews of large contracts funded by
the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund (IRRF). These
reviews will meet the “forensic audit” requirement
that the Congress imposed upon SIGIR last December
through the Iraq Reconstruction Accountability Act of
2006.

This initial review examined the work performed
by Bechtel under its Phase II IRRF contract. SIGIR’s
findings from the Bechtel audit are emblematic of
the many challenges faced by contractors in the Iraq
reconstruction program, including insufficient oversight,
descoping, project cancellations, cost overruns,
and significant delays in completing projects. SIGIR has
announced the next round of focused financial reviews,
which will audit the largest contracts in the Iraq reconstruction
program over the next year.

Anti corruption
The Embassy made progress on several fronts to address the endemic corruption in Iraq, which SIGIR views as a “second insurgency.” This quarter saw the inception of the Iraqi-created Joint Anti-Corruption Council (JACC), comprising the three main anticorruption organizations in Iraq, as well as other governmental representatives. A SIGIR audit this quarter identified continuing challenges to the implementation of a coherent anticorruption effort, including the absence of a program manager with the authority to coordinate the overall anticorruption effort and the lack of a comprehensive plan that ties anti corruption programs to the U.S. Embassy’s Iraq strategy.

Officer overseeing Iraq reconstruction projects urges patience

Brig. Gen. Michael J. Walsh, commander of the Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division in Baghdad since Oct. 14, 2006, is responsible for overseeing the bulk of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects in Iraq. Earlier this summer, Government Executive senior correspondent Katherine McIntire Peters interviewed Walsh when he was in Washington during a brief leave from Iraq. The following is an edited transcript:

Q: You've been in Iraq more than eight months now. How have things gone with reconstruction during that time?

A: The security issue had an impact on about 12 percent of our projects when I got there, and now it's up to about 19 percent. Certainly part of the requirements in building, whether in the United States or Iraq, is to make sure you get the skilled labor, the equipment and the materials you need. In Iraq, you also need to make sure the security piece is taken care of, and then make sure the politics are OK with the local tribes and the provincial leadership. If any one of those four or five things is not in alignment, then you have to slow down or stop a project.

About 60 percent of our contracts are now with Iraqi firms. If an Iraqi principal or an Iraqi senior worker receives a cell phone call threatening him or his wife, he may not come to work. That's what we call an impact to the construction schedule. There also have been some attacks on particular project sites. Some small percentage have been damaged beyond repair. So far, we've completed 3,200 projects. I would say probably less than 1 percent of those have been destroyed. It's a very small percentage.



Troops Confront Waste In Iraq Reconstruction

Maj. Craig Whiteside's anger grew as he walked through the sprawling school where U.S. military commanders had invested money and hope. Portions of the workshop's ceiling were cracked or curved. The cafeteria floor had a gaping hole and concrete chunks. The auditorium was unfinished, with cracked floors and poorly painted walls peppered with holes.

Whiteside blamed the school director for not monitoring the renovation. The director retorted that the military should have had better oversight. The contract shows the Iraqi contractor was paid $679,000.

Americans who report Iraq corruption pay a price

Corruption has long plagued Iraq's reconstruction. Congress approved more than $30 billion to rebuild Iraq, and at least $8.8 billion of it has disappeared, according to a government reconstruction audit.

Yet there are no noble outcomes for those who have blown the whistle, according to a review of such cases by The Associated Press.

William Weaver, a professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and a senior adviser to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, said, "If you do it, you will be destroyed."

Investigating an Outsourced War

The United States government detained Donald Vance just outside Baghdad for 97 days. They hooded him, interrogated him ruthlessly, and blasted his cell with heavy metal music. He was accused of selling weapons to terrorists. His real crime appears to be telling the FBI about corrupt contracting practices in Iraq. Vance is among a select group of state enemies: whistleblowers.

We know this because of an Associated Press story that uncovered Vance’s ordeal. Vance, suspicious that the contractor he worked for was supplying weapons to insurgents, started supplying information to the FBI back in the States. But he was soon detained by Army Special Forces and brought to Camp Cropper for his 97-day stay.

The story also reported the fate of other whistleblowers who have tried to halt the massive boondoggles still ongoing in Iraq: they have been “vilified, fired, and demoted.”

Bunnatine Greenhouse, a high-ranking civilian in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who testified about the corrupt practices of a Halliburton subsidiary now “sits in a tiny cubicle in a different department with very little to do and no decision-making authority, at the end of an otherwise exemplary 20-year career.” Julie McBride testified about the same Halliburton company’s cost exaggerations and skimming. What happened? “Halliburton placed me under guard and kept me in seclusion. My property was searched, and I was specifically told that I was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. I remained under guard until I was flown out of the country.”

Pentagon auditors investigating alleged Iraq contract fraud

Mike Rosen-Molina at 7:13 PM ET

Photo source or description
[JURIST] The US Department of Defense will send an investigative team headed by Pentagon Inspector General Claude M. Kicklighter to Iraq to probe allegations of fraud and corruption related to military contracts, a DOD spokesman said Tuesday. The team will concentrate on incongruities concerning weapons and supplies bought by the US and intended for the use of Iraqi forces. As of last week, 73 criminal investigations were underway into contracts valued at more than $5 billion, Army spokesman Col. Dan Baggio said Monday; 20 military and civilian figures, including an officer who worked closely with Gen. David Petraeus , have already been indicted. The New York Times reported Tuesday that multiple federal agencies, including the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are conducting their own investigations into the matter.


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The Rip-off in Iraq: You Will Not Believe How Low the War Profiteers Have Gone

Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up.


Humanitarian disillusions

On August 28th, Al-Jazeera English broadcast a report that the Salvadorian contingent of the MNF-I will be renewed in Iraq, highlighting their “reconstruction and humanitarian assignment”. It’s not the first misuse of the humanitarian concept. Everyone is aware of the existence of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps fewer people know that some Private Security Companies (PSCs), that are often compared to mercenary companies, justify their presence through “humanitarian” reasons.

For example, the British Aegis, well known in Iraq for the video broadcast by its personnel showing them firing at civilian vehicles with Elvis Presley as accompanying background music. As one of the largest PSC worldwide they have created the “Aegis Foundation”, which has been active across Iraq since 2004 and “has completed a wide range of projects assisting communities in urgent need, from providing clean drinking water for schools and inoculations against water-borne diseases to supplying hospitals and medical clinics with generators and essential equipment.” The International Peace Operation Association (IPOA), which, at the exact opposite of what its name suggest is a trade association of some of the most prominent PSC and has rules of engagement in its Code of Conduct, doesn’t hesitate to talk about the “benefits of military in humanitarian role” in its newsletter.



SEE:

Military Industrial Complex

The Cost of War

U.S. Supplies Iraqi Insurgents With Weapons

Surge Blackout

What He Didn't Say

Iraq; The War For Oil

Look In Your Own Backyard

Iraq Inspector General

Another Privatization Failure

Conservative Nanny State

Another Privatization Myth Busted

Halliburton

Privatization of War

Privatization



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Monday, August 27, 2007

Military Industrial Complex

The most significant pronouncement of the 1960's which literally created a new perspective on Post War America for the radical Left and Right. And it is not only relevant today but continues to be the basis for a coherent oppositional critique of the neo-con agenda of American Empire and American Exceptionalism.

The irony is that the those on the New Left like the SDS accepted Eisenhower's assessment of the dangers and used as a critique of American State Capitalism while those from the Old Left embraced it during the cold war as 'anti-Stalinists', and became the founders of the Neo-Con movement in America today.

It was the SDS that inspired the emergence of the libertarian left and the left libertarian critique of this model of State Capitalism.


Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation
January 17, 1961

"Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"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.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

EISENHOWER: SOLDIER OF PEACE

HE was a soldier who loathed war.

He was a politician who abhorred politics. He was a hero who despised heroics. Yet there was nothing inconsistent about Dwight David Eisenhower. As much as any other American of today or yesterday, he was the storybook American. A man of luminous integrity and decency, of steadfast courage and conscience, he embodied in his wide smile, high ideals and down-to-earth speech all the virtues of a simpler and more serene America.


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. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower's challenge from 40 years ago is more relevant today than ever, and he seemed to know it would be. ''Down the long lane of the history yet to be written, America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.... Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.'' Such words are rare in Washington today, but tomorrow their echo can still be heard.

Mega-contractors such as Halliburton and Bechtel supply the government with brawn. But the biggest, most powerful of the "body shops"—SAIC, which employs 44,000 people and took in $8 billion last year—sells brainpower, including a lot of the "expertise" behind the Iraq war.


The War Business

And so, for the private contractors that increasingly make up the infrastructure of our armed forces, fortune has arisen from tragedy. During the first Iraq war, in 1991, one in a hundred American personnel was employed by a private contractor. In the second Iraq war, that ratio is closer to one in ten. The Washing ton Post reports that as much as one third of the rapidly expanding cost of the Iraq war is going into private U.S. bank accounts.

The original point of this massive outflow of federal dollars was to save money. In Donald Rumsfeld's vision, privatization would bring the unbending discipline of the marketplace to bear on war itself. In 1995, well before his return to Washington, Rumsfeld presented to America his "Thoughts from the Business World on Downsizing Government," a monograph informed by his experience as both a White House chief of staff and defense secretary (under Gerald Ford) and a CEO of two large American corporations (General Instrument Corp. and G. D. Searle). "Government programs are effectively insulated from the rigors of the marketplace, and therefore are denied the possibility of failure," he wrote. "Sometimes, nothing short of outright privatization can restore the discipline of a bottom line."



Eisenhower's Farewell Warning Was Meant For Our Time


To be sure, there isn't really such a corporation: the Omnivore Group, as it might be called. But if there were such a company—and, mind you, there isn't—it might look a lot like the largest government contractor you've never heard of: a company known simply by the nondescript initials SAIC (for Science Applications International Corporation), initials that are always spoken letter by letter rather than formed into a pronounceable acronym. SAIC maintains its headquarters in San Diego, but its center of gravity is in Washington, D.C. With a workforce of 44,000, it is the size of a full-fledged government agency—in fact, it is larger than the departments of Labor, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development combined. Its anonymous glass-and-steel Washington office—a gleaming corporate box like any other—lies in northern Virginia, not far from the headquarters of the C.I.A., whose byways it knows quite well. (More than half of SAIC's employees have security clearances.) SAIC has been awarded more individual government contracts than any other private company in America. The contracts number not in the dozens or scores or hundreds but in the thousands: SAIC currently holds some 9,000 active federal contracts in all. More than a hundred of them are worth upwards of $10 million apiece. Two of them are worth more than $1 billion. The company's annual revenues, almost all of which come from the federal government, approached $8 billion in the 2006 fiscal year, and they are continuing to climb. SAIC's goal is to reach as much as $12 billion in revenues by 2008. As for the financial yardstick that really gets Wall Street's attention—profitability—SAIC beats the S&P 500 average. Last year ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, posted a return on revenue of 11 percent. For SAIC the figure was 11.9 percent. If "contract backlog" is any measure—that is, contracts negotiated and pending—the future seems assured. The backlog stands at $13.6 billion. That's one and a half times more than the backlog at KBR Inc., a subsidiary of the far better known government contractor once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, the Halliburton Company.

It is a simple fact of life these days that, owing to a deliberate decision to downsize government, Washington can operate only by paying private companies to perform a wide range of functions. To get some idea of the scale: contractors absorb the taxes paid by everyone in America with incomes under $100,000. In other words, more than 90 percent of all taxpayers might as well remit everything they owe directly to SAIC or some other contractor rather than to the IRS. In Washington these companies go by the generic name "body shops"—they supply flesh-and-blood human beings to do the specialized work that government agencies no longer can. Often they do this work outside the public eye, and with little official oversight—even if it involves the most sensitive matters of national security. The Founding Fathers may have argued eloquently for a government of laws, not of men, but what we've got instead is a government of body shops.


Port Huron Statement

of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962


The Military-Industrial Complex. The most spectacular and important creation of the authoritarian and oligopolistic structure of economic decision-making in America is the institution called "the military industrial complex" by former President Eisenhower, the powerful congruence of interest and structure among military and business elites which affects so much of our development and destiny. Not only is ours the first generation to live with the possibility of world-wide cataclysm -- it is the first to experience the actual social preparation for cataclysm, the general militarization of American society. In 1948 Congress established Universal Military Training, the first peacetime conscription. The military became a permanent institution. Four years earlier, General Motor's Charles E. Wilson had heralded the creation of what he called the "permanent war economy," the continuous use of military spending as a solution to economic problems unsolved before the post-war boom, most notably the problem of the seventeen million jobless after eight years of the New Deal. This has left a "hidden crisis" in the allocation of resources by the American economy.

Since our childhood these two trends -- the rise of the military and the installation of a defense-based economy -- have grown fantastically. The Department of Defense, ironically the world's largest single organization, is worth $160 billion, owns 32 million acres of America and employs half the 7.5 million persons directly dependent on the military for subsistence, has an $11 billion payroll which is larger than the net annual income of all American corporations. Defense spending in the Eisenhower era totaled $350 billions and President Kennedy entered office pledged to go even beyond the present defense allocation of sixty cents from every public dollar spent. Except for a war-induced boom immediately after "our side" bombed Hiroshima, American economic prosperity has coincided with a growing dependence on military outlay -- from 1941 to 1959 America's Gross National Product of $5.25 trillion included $700 billion in goods and services purchased for the defense effort, about one-seventh of the accumulated GNP. This pattern has included the steady concentration of military spending among a few corporations. In 1961, 86 percent of Defense Department contracts were awarded without competition. The ordnance industry of 100,000 people is completely engaged in military work; in the aircraft industry, 94 percent of 750,000 workers are linked to the war economy; shipbuilding, radio and communications equipment industries commit forty percent of their work to defense; iron and steel, petroleum, metal-stamping and machine shop products, motors and generators, tools and hardware, copper, aluminum and machine tools industries all devote at least 10 percent of their work to the same cause.

The intermingling of Big Military and Big Industry is evidenced in the 1,400 former officers working for the 100 corporations who received nearly all the $21 billion spent in procurement by the Defense Department in 1961. The overlap is most poignantly clear in the case of General Dynamics, the company which received the best 1961 contracts, employed the most retired officers (187), and is directed by a former Secretary of the Army. A Fortune magazine profile of General Dynamics said: "The unique group of men who run Dynamics are only incidentally in rivalry with other U.S. manufacturers, with many of whom they actually act in concert. Their chief competitor is the USSR. The core of General Dynamics corporate philosophy is the conviction that national defense is a more or less permanent business." Little has changed since Wilson's proud declaration of the Permanent War Economy back in the 1944 days when the top 200 corporations possessed 80 percent of all active prime war-supply contracts.


The Return of the SDS


During the late 1960s, when students all over American were practicing direct democracy on campus by waging massive student strikes and taking over their university buildings, the three essays collected here for the first time were among the most widely read pieces of student radical literature. Their author, Carl Davidson, was national vice-president and inter-organizational secretary of the SDS. Starting from the sociologists' conclusion that modern universities are "knowledge factories" designed to serve the Military Industrial Complex, Davidson, in these essays, explored various analogies and connections between students and the working class and outlined a theory of student syndicalism that characterized a critical phase in the development of SDS. Drawing not only on classical Marxism but also on IWW and anarcho-syndicalist ideas as well as on newer revolutionary currents such as the Dutch Provos and French Situationists, these writings were among the most original and influential documents of the American New Left in its dynamic first decade, and remain an unexcelled "how-to" manual for insurgent students seeking to gain some measure of control over their lives. In a new afterward, the author situates the rise of student syndicalism in its historic context, while reflecting on the meaning of these writings for today.

The SDS of the sixties had its roots in the League for Industrial Democracy, a socialist organization with credentials. The League included Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair, and Jack London. In the early 1960’s the youth branch of the league clashed with the old establishment and created Students for a Democratic Society. In the early sixties SDS was small, and disorganized because of an understandable aversion to centralization and a belief in localized participatory democracy. SDS involved itself in the civil rights movement and quickly grew. The strength of the SDS, and probably the reason it grew so quickly was that it had no official ideological line. It was certainly radical, but it made no policy naming it Anarchist, Marxist-Leninist, Democratic Socialist, or anything else. Instead it incorporated all of these, and the liberal students too. By creating unity among radicals in general where factionalism once existed the SDS became the biggest, most effective, and most known radical organization of its time.

Especially notable was the preference for community organizing among SDSers. Though many of these campaigns weren’t successful in accomplishing their goals, the idea was the right one. Any radical student organization must be an organization of action, of union organizing, and of protest organizing. Because these actions were so visible, they further contributed to SDS’ growing numbers, and as the organization grew they began to implement all the right actions that gained public attention and in some cases real change. The SDS organized boycotts, direct action, civil disobedience, and also did teach-ins and propagated ideas of class-consciousness. At its height the SDS was able to organize huge marches on Washington, and even gained the qualification of a true radical organization: interference by the FBI.


The American Student Movement of the 1930s

Poster, Declaration of the Rights of American Youth, American Youth Congress
The modern American Student movement began in the 1930s, when the National Student League joined with the Student League for Industrial Democracy to form the American Student Union (ASU). During its peak years, from spring 1936 to spring 1939, the movement mobilized at least 500,000 college students (about half the American student body) in annual one-hour strikes against war. The movement also organized students on behalf of an extensive reform agenda, which included federal aid to education, government job programs for youth, abolition of the compulsory Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), academic freedom, racial equality, and collective bargaining rights.

The Student League for Industrial Democracy was the student affiliate of the League for Industrial Democracy (LID).

There were two distinct groups called the Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID) in two different periods - one existed from 1931 until 1935, the other existed from 1945 until 1960.

The first SLID was formed when radical student members of LID left in 1931 and formed the New York Student League (which was renamed the National Student League a year later). In response to this new group, LID formed SLID in 1931. SLID existed until December of 1935 when, like the student members of LID in 1931, it became too radical for LID, and split off from LID. SLID joined with the National Student League (NSL) when it split from LID, with SLID and NSL combining to form the American Student Union.

The reincarnation of SLID is the more well-known one. In 1945, LID decided to recreate SLID. SLID was a small and fairly moribund group throughout the 1940's and 1950's, much like LID which now was more liberal and anti-communist than socialist. In 1960, SLID renamed itself Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) so as to have a more wide appeal among college students. SDS would become the largest and most influential left-wing student group in American history.

League for Industrial Democracy (or LID)

At Port Huron, Tom Hayden clashed with Irving Howe and Michael Harrington over perceived potential for totalitarianism. Hayden said, "While the draft Port Huron Statement included a strong denunciation of the Soviet Union, it wasn’t enough for LID leaders like Michael Harrington. They wanted absolute clarity, for example, that the United States was blameless for the nuclear arms race...In truth, they seemed threatened by the independence of the new wave of student activism..."

By 1965, SDS had totally divorced itself from the LID, and it became a publishing front for the followers of Max Shachtman, who had dominated the organization since the late 1950s. To this day, the post office box of the Shachtmanite legacy group Social Democrats USA is held under the name League for Industrial Democracy.

League for Industrial Democracy (LID)
"The league was established in 1905 to educate students and other members of society about socialist principles of democracy and labor. Over the years it lost its progressive orientation and by the 1950s became involved with the CIA in efforts to combat communism." Now dominated by anticommunists, its board is composed primarily of neoconservatives associated with the Social Democrats USA and the international institutes of the AFL-CIO.
"Included among LID ranks are Sol Chaikin, Eric Chenowith, William Doherty, Evelyn Dubrow, Larry Dugan, Jr., Norman Hill, David Jessup, John T. Joyce, Tom Kahn, Jay Mazur, Joyce Miller, Albert Shanker, Donald Slaiman, John T. Sweeney, and Lynn R. Williams. Penn Kemble and Roy Godson, a specialist in labor and intelligence theory, are also LID directors. The league received a NED grant in 1985 "for a study on the interrelationship between democratic trade unions and political parties, with special emphasis on socialist and social democratic parties, to examine their attitudes toward U.S. labor, foreign-policy, [and] economic issues.""






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Whose Economic Policy

It is not only the political process in Iraq that is a failure due to American hegemonic influence. It is also the Iraq economy that is suffering from America's hegemonic policies. And as usual America failed to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi's before making its puppet government apply its economic agenda.

An economic expert said that the political change in Iraq was accompanied by a change in principle of Iraq's economic vision, but details of the economic reforms are not yet complete. He noted that community involvement in the formulation of economic policy requires a democratic approach be followed by the State, involving concerted efforts of the concerned community of civil society organizations, university professors, the private sector, economic specialists and others in drafting of an economic vision.

Manaf Al-Saiyigh, expert at the Iraqi Center for Economic Reform, added that in the absence of this interaction between society and government any policy will suffer from a lack of understanding in society, and could lead to opposition and rejection.

Al-Saiyigh noted the existence of other policies with significant economic impacts such as privatization, reform of governmental supports, and implementation of the investment law, which doubtless will arouse strong reactions.

IMF advises Iraq to shore up reconstruction, oil investment

For the first time in 25 years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has advised Iraq to increase the pace of reconstruction and investment, mainly in the oil sector.

"Directors commended the Iraqi authorities for keeping their economic programme on track by strengthening economic policies and making progress in structural reforms, despite an unsettled political situation and a very difficult security environment," said the IMF in a statement Tuesday summarizing its Executive Board assessment on Iraq's economic performance.

"The expansion of oil production is lagging, and that inflation, while on a downward path, remains high, reflecting in large part continued shortages, notably of fuel products," added the statement.

Oil majors to meet with the Iraq Government at the world's leading energy summit for Iraq

All attending Iraqi Ministries will be outlining the requirements for their relevant sectors in front of the senior corporate audience, before holding private consultations with some of the pre-eminent operators within the global energy sector.

These best-in-breed operators and companies will be represented at board level in order to build the relationships that will be crucial to the future of the Iraqi energy sector and include the likes of BP, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Lukoil, Statoil, Marathon Oil, Total, Shell, Kuwait National Petroleum, Annadarko, Schlumberger, ABB, ONGC, General Electric, Cummins Power, Mitsui, Aegis, ArmorGroup, Janussian, Control Risks Group, Unity, Hart, Olive Security, GardaWorld and Triple Canopy.


All attending Iraqi Ministries will be outlining the requirements for their relevant sectors in front of the senior corporate audience, before holding private consultations with some of the pre-eminent operators within the global energy sector.

These best-in-breed operators and companies will be represented at board level in order to build the relationships that will be crucial to the future of the Iraqi energy sector and include the likes of BP, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Lukoil, Statoil, Marathon Oil, Total, Shell, Kuwait National Petroleum, Annadarko, Schlumberger, ABB, ONGC, General Electric, Cummins Power, Mitsui, Aegis, ArmorGroup, Janussian, Control Risks Group, Unity, Hart, Olive Security, GardaWorld and Triple Canopy.


Analysis: Kurd oil law drives Iraq oil

The KRG has already signed contracts with small companies to explore for and develop its oil and gas, a move derided by Baghdad for allegedly overreaching its authority. The Kurds are also keen on breaking the nationalized oil sector open to a free market, a prerogative so controversial it is a major stalling factor of the federal oil law and a move the oil unions have threatened to strike to prevent.

To ensure passage of the constitution, its authors left parts vague. Arguments over the federal oil law are in many ways rooted in the mixed interpretations of the constitutional articles applying to Iraq’s oil, which are the third-largest reserves in the world. It calls for the central government to work with the oil-rich regions and provinces in “the management of oil and gas extracted from present fields” and “formulate the necessary strategic policies to develop the oil and gas wealth in a way that achieves the highest benefit to the Iraqi people.”


Iraq lowers light crude oil price for USA and increases it for Asia and Europe

An Iraqi official announced that Iraq lowered the official selling price of Basra light crude oil destined to be exported to the USA. In the meantime it raised the same which is destined to be delivered to Asian and European countries.


George Bush was correct. America is not Nation Building in Iraq and it is doing a lousy job of colonialisation as an Empire.

MR. RUSSERT: Richard Engel, I, I quoted your conversation with Prime Minister Maliki to Senator Warner, saying that Sadr, the leader of the Shiite militias, is of the same school.

MR. RICHARD ENGEL: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: Joe Klein in Time magazine wrote this, that “US Ambassador Ryan Crocker” said, “‘The fall of the Maliki government, when it happens, might be a good thing.’” And then Klein asks, “But replace it with what?” Half of Maliki’s Cabinet has abandoned his government. Are his days numbered?

MR. ENGEL: His days are certainly numbered. This government is going to collapse. The problem is, it’s going to take several months to form a new government. And there’s a very likely and real possibility that you could have a series of unstable governments that come and then collapse, sort of like a parliamentary system you may have had in Italy in the 1980s. And that weak political structure is not one that is suitable for Iraq’s problems. I think we need to totally change the, the rules of the game and change the political structure in such that the president or the prime minister has much more authority. This idea of a power-sharing government, while it may be the pinnacle of democracy, is not one that is strong enough to get the—help Iraq get over its very real problems.

MR. RUSSERT: Tom Ricks, you write this, and we’ll end on a literary note. “Shakespeare’s tragedies have five acts, and I fear we have not yet seen the beginning of Act IV.” What’s Act IV and V?

MR. RICKS: Well, Act III is the Petraeus phase. Act IV, I think, would be the spreading of the war, the next phase, maybe the post-American phase. And Act V will be the regional consequences. I think the point is Iraq, I think, is going to be much more difficult for this country than the Vietnam War was.

MR. RUSSERT: Why?

MR. RICKS: Because we could walk away from Vietnam. And it was bad for the Cambodians, bad for many Vietnamese, but we could wash our hands of it. I think Iraq is not going to be so easy to get out of. We have stepped into something in the middle of a economically vital region for the entire world.

Because America's Military Industrial Complex is attempting to privatize a State Capitalist economy in order to pay off it's war debt.

Iraq Resconstruction Teams Struggle to Sustain Grassroots Projects

As security improved in Anbar province, U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) -- some military-led, some commanded by State Department specialists -- moved to restore Ramadi's connection to the national power grid. Now 80 percent of residents have regular power, according to Col. John Charlton, an Army commander in the province.

The electricity somewhat benefited the area's state-owned businesses -- cement is the major product -- but widespread hirings failed to materialize, according to Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin, senior commander in Anbar. "The biggest employer is still the army."

Despite disappointing results, PRTs like those in Ramadi remain at the forefront of the U.S. and coalition strategy in Iraq. All told, there are dozens of reconstruction teams: Their number has doubled since the beginning of "surge" operations in December. PRTs in safer areas include just a few people, others in more dangerous regions are manned by hundreds of soldiers with heavy weapons. The idea is to work with local employers and government officials to shore up basic infrastructure and institutions and get people working, in hopes that grassroots improvements might somehow spread and trickle up to the higher levels of Iraqi government, where sectarian squabbles have resulted in gridlock.

"Decentralization of [Iraqi] government services is one major area of emphasis for us," Reeker says.



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