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98 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
...the defense sector was recently granted a $607 billion budget by the government...
on edit:
And so is this:
How many have invested in MIC stocks?
The Logical Bipartisan Insanity of Endless War
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-logical-bipartisan-insanity-of-endless-war/
War Pays for Some: “A Hunt for Cash”
That’s something for the leading liberal pundit, partisan Democrat, and converted Obama fan Paul Krugman to reflect on. “War,” Krugman informed New York Times readers last August, “doesn’t pay” anymore, if it ever did for “modern, wealthy nations.” This is particularly true, Krugman feels, in “an interconnected world” where “war would necessarily inflict severe economic harm on the victor.”
There’s truth in his argument if by “war” we mean only major military conflicts between large and industrialized states. Such conflagrations are more than unlikely in our current “ultra-imperialist” (Karl Kautsky’s term) era marked by massive cross-national capital investment and global market inter-penetration.
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-logical-bipartisan-insanity-of-endless-war/
War Pays for Some: “A Hunt for Cash”
That’s something for the leading liberal pundit, partisan Democrat, and converted Obama fan Paul Krugman to reflect on. “War,” Krugman informed New York Times readers last August, “doesn’t pay” anymore, if it ever did for “modern, wealthy nations.” This is particularly true, Krugman feels, in “an interconnected world” where “war would necessarily inflict severe economic harm on the victor.”
There’s truth in his argument if by “war” we mean only major military conflicts between large and industrialized states. Such conflagrations are more than unlikely in our current “ultra-imperialist” (Karl Kautsky’s term) era marked by massive cross-national capital investment and global market inter-penetration.
More on Karl Kautsky:
Marxian, Liberal, and Sociological Theories of Imperialism Author(s): E. M. Winslow Reviewed work(s):Source: Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 39, No. 6 (Dec., 1931), pp. 713-758
To Hilferding imperialism is a policy of capitalism and not a stage of capitalism itself. Kautsky also held this view, but he differed with Hilferding in regarding imperialism as a policy of industrial (albeit a "highly developed"
capitalism rather than of financial capitalism. From the policy viewpoint, regardless of how it expresses itself, capitalism conceivably possesses the power to turn competitive imperialism into a cooperative economic internationalism. Kautsky, indeed, came to the conclusion during the war that imperialism is not inevitable or unalterable under capitalism but may yet attain a still higher synthesis, an "ultra-" or "super-imperialism," under which a peaceful policy may be adopted as in the days of Manchesterism, as the best means of eliminating the wastes of competitive warfare and of insuring uninterrupted profits.36 Hilferding likewise thought such an eventuality possible economically but not politically, because of antagonistic interests between the powers.37
Turning to the radical communist representatives of Marxian thought, we find very little originality, but a vast amount of polemical criticism of the theories of imperialism held by Kautsky, Hilferding, and all center and right-wing socialists. The outstanding example of this sort of criticism is found in Lenin's Imperialism.38 Embittered and disillusioned, particularly by the failure of Kautsky, so long regarded as Marx's direct successor, to go the whole way with violent revolution, Lenin makes him the scape-goat for all revisionist "renegades" from true Marxism.
Lenin and the communists generally are hostile to the notion that capitalism is capable of adopting a peaceful policy, even temporarily. The fact that capitalism once went through a peaceful stage is regarded as a mere episode in its development.39 Lenin identifies imperialism with the monopoly stage of capitalism and scornfully rejects the view that it is a mere external policy. He looks upon imperialism as "a tendency to violence and reaction in general,"40 and he brands any suggestion that it is otherwise as the talk of bourgeois reformers and socialist opportunists which glosses over the "deepest internal contradictions of imperialism."4I Granting, says Lenin, that capitalist nations should combine into such an "ultra-imperialism" or world-alliance as that visualized by Kautsky and others, it could be no more than temporary, for peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars.42
To Hilferding imperialism is a policy of capitalism and not a stage of capitalism itself. Kautsky also held this view, but he differed with Hilferding in regarding imperialism as a policy of industrial (albeit a "highly developed"
capitalism rather than of financial capitalism. From the policy viewpoint, regardless of how it expresses itself, capitalism conceivably possesses the power to turn competitive imperialism into a cooperative economic internationalism. Kautsky, indeed, came to the conclusion during the war that imperialism is not inevitable or unalterable under capitalism but may yet attain a still higher synthesis, an "ultra-" or "super-imperialism," under which a peaceful policy may be adopted as in the days of Manchesterism, as the best means of eliminating the wastes of competitive warfare and of insuring uninterrupted profits.36 Hilferding likewise thought such an eventuality possible economically but not politically, because of antagonistic interests between the powers.37
Turning to the radical communist representatives of Marxian thought, we find very little originality, but a vast amount of polemical criticism of the theories of imperialism held by Kautsky, Hilferding, and all center and right-wing socialists. The outstanding example of this sort of criticism is found in Lenin's Imperialism.38 Embittered and disillusioned, particularly by the failure of Kautsky, so long regarded as Marx's direct successor, to go the whole way with violent revolution, Lenin makes him the scape-goat for all revisionist "renegades" from true Marxism.
Lenin and the communists generally are hostile to the notion that capitalism is capable of adopting a peaceful policy, even temporarily. The fact that capitalism once went through a peaceful stage is regarded as a mere episode in its development.39 Lenin identifies imperialism with the monopoly stage of capitalism and scornfully rejects the view that it is a mere external policy. He looks upon imperialism as "a tendency to violence and reaction in general,"40 and he brands any suggestion that it is otherwise as the talk of bourgeois reformers and socialist opportunists which glosses over the "deepest internal contradictions of imperialism."4I Granting, says Lenin, that capitalist nations should combine into such an "ultra-imperialism" or world-alliance as that visualized by Kautsky and others, it could be no more than temporary, for peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars.42
But many elites in rich nations, the US (the world’s sole military superpower) above all, still and quite reasonably see an economic payoff in undertaking military engagements in mostly poor and “pre-modern” but resource-rich nations and regions. In a more classically national-imperialist vein, Washington remains committed to the use of military force in pursuit of the control of Middle Eastern oil (and other strategic energy concentrations around the world) because of the critical leverage such control grants the US over competitor states.
The biggest flaw in Krugman’s argument is his failure to make the (one would think) elementary distinction between (a) the wealthy Few and (b) the rest of us and society as whole when it comes to who loses and who gains from contemporary (endless) war, As the venerable U.S. foreign policy critic Edward S. Herman asks and observes:
“Doesn’t war pay for Lockheed-Martin, GE, Raytheon, Honeywell, Halliburton, Chevron, Academi (formerly Blackwater) and the vast further array of contractors and their financial, political, and military allies? An important feature of ‘projecting power’ (i.e., imperialism) has always been the skewed distribution of costs and benefits…The costs have always been borne by the general citizenry (including the dead and injured military personnel and their families), while the benefits accrue to privileged sectors whose members not only profit from arms supply and other services, but can plunder the victim countries during and after the invasion-occupation.”
The biggest flaw in Krugman’s argument is his failure to make the (one would think) elementary distinction between (a) the wealthy Few and (b) the rest of us and society as whole when it comes to who loses and who gains from contemporary (endless) war, As the venerable U.S. foreign policy critic Edward S. Herman asks and observes:
“Doesn’t war pay for Lockheed-Martin, GE, Raytheon, Honeywell, Halliburton, Chevron, Academi (formerly Blackwater) and the vast further array of contractors and their financial, political, and military allies? An important feature of ‘projecting power’ (i.e., imperialism) has always been the skewed distribution of costs and benefits…The costs have always been borne by the general citizenry (including the dead and injured military personnel and their families), while the benefits accrue to privileged sectors whose members not only profit from arms supply and other services, but can plunder the victim countries during and after the invasion-occupation.”
Ask for Phil in Wealth Management.
They now work together at UBS -- which received uncounted billions in bailout money -- to specialize in some kind of "Weath Management."
Instead of celebrating, these warmongering turds should fear indictment on all manner of charges.
From the UBS home page. Ugh...
They want our grandchildren. 
Bastardized version of Sparta
Where is the world's Athens to Counter?
Miserable Present Needs Desperate Fixing. Drives People to Drink
oh... oh...
My Age is Showing
KA-CHING: The Company Getting Rich Off the ISIS War
For the Middle East, the growth of the self-proclaimed Islamic State has been a catastrophe.
For one American firm, it’s been a gold mine.
by Kate Brannen
08.02.15
The war against ISIS isn’t going so great, with the self-appointed terror group standing up to a year of U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
But that hasn’t kept defense contractors from doing rather well amidst the fighting. Lockheed Martin has received orders for thousands of more Hellfire missiles. AM General is busy supplying Iraq with 160 American-built Humvee vehicles, while General Dynamics is selling the country millions of dollars worth of tank ammunition.
SOS International, a family-owned business whose corporate headquarters are in New York City, is one of the biggest players on the ground in Iraq, employing the most Americans in the country after the U.S. Embassy. On the company’s board of advisors: former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz—considered to be one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq—and Paul Butler, a former special assistant to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld.
The company, which goes by “SOSi,” says on its website that the contracts it’s been awarded for work in Iraq in 2015 have a total value of more than $400 million. They include a $40 million contract to provide everything from meals to perimeter security to emergency fire and medical services at Iraq’s Besmaya Compound, one of the sites where U.S. troops are training Iraqi soldiers. The Army awarded SOSi a separate $100 million contract in late June for similar services at Camp Taji. The Pentagon expects that contract to last through June 2018.
A year after U.S. airstrikes began targeting the so-called Islamic State in Iraq, there are 3,500 U.S. troops deployed there, training and advising Iraqi troops. But a number that is not discussed is the growing number of contractors required to support these operations. According to the U.S. military, there are 6,300 contractors working in Iraq today, supporting U.S. operations. Separately, the State Department is seeking janitorial services, drivers, linguists, and security contractors to work at its Iraqi facilities.
While these numbers pale in comparison to the more than 163,000 working in Iraq at the peak of the Iraq War, they are steadily growing. And with the fight against ISIS expected to take several years, it also represents a growing opportunity for defense, security, and logistics contractors, especially as work in Afghanistan begins to dry up.
“It allows us to maintain the façade of no boots on the ground while at the same time growing our footprint,” said Laura Dickinson, a law professor at George Washington University whose recent work has focused on regulating private military contractors.
CONTINUED...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/02/the-company-getting-rich-off-of-the-isis-war.html
Has Corporate Owned News broadcast this story: REGULATING Defense Contractors?
As one who's been interested in this guy's comblicking companions in and out of government, including the cough Pentagon and cough cough cough CIA Wall Street Swiss banks cough Wendy Gramm of a combover War Party cough cough cough AKA BFEE whose husband was mentioned above in regards to Glass-Steagall, I hope they do. The traitors and warmongers who lied America into war may yet be held to account and face Justice.
As one who's been interested in this guy's comblicking companions in and out of government, including the cough Pentagon and cough cough cough CIA Wall Street Swiss banks cough Wendy Gramm of a combover War Party cough cough cough AKA BFEE whose husband was mentioned above in regards to Glass-Steagall, I hope they do. The traitors and warmongers who lied America into war may yet be held to account and face Justice.
Funny how the MIC's latest beneficiary is ISIS. 
(Yes, I watch their propaganda videos and am probably on a list, you got to know that they're not against the evil empire, they themselves want to be an evil empire. In the end they're against western culture, society, ethics, and morality.)
