Tulsa Peace Fellowship

There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Ben Franklin

War Profiteering, the U.S. Defense Industry, and Merchants of Death (1930s term for them)

It's a big topic.  Let's just jump in where it's relevant to today's news.  The feds are planning to send up your tax-dollars in smoke, if they can start a war as a favor to the defense industry suppliers.

excerpts from a longer article:

How Much Will the Defense Industry Make from a Missile Strike Against Syria?

By Ray Downs

13 Sept 2013

In December, the Pentagon paid Raytheon $254.6 million contract for some fresh Tomahawks, just six months after the company had gotten a $337.8 million contract for yet more missiles. That’s nearly $600 million of government moolah in just the past 15 months, and with Tomahawks expected to be the weapon of choice in Syria, Raytheon could to turn even bigger [war] profits.

And then there's JSOWs. Raytheon’s website describes JSOWs as “low-cost, air-to-ground weapons.” By “low-cost,” the company means $285,000 per missile. In July, the Pentagon wrote Raytheon a $80 million check for more of the little guys; depending on their effectiveness, Raytheon will probably get another order for more next year.

In June of 2012, Lockheed Martin, proud maker of the JASSM, got $241 million for 221 of the long-range missiles.

The missiles cost more than their price tags would suggest. In addition to transporting the missiles and paying service members to maintain and deploy them, the military has to invest in the extensive and expensive tech support these weapons require. That could be the part of the reason that on August 28, one week after US intelligence claimed Assad’s regime used Sarin gas on civilians, the Pentagon awarded a one-year $24.8 million contract to Northrop Grumman to provide some military tech-support services.

A report about the potential costs and risks of striking Syria from the RAND Corporation, a government think tank, says “hundreds of sea- and air-launched cruise missiles” would be needed for an attack if the aim was to take out Assad’s air force, and General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has written that the military could “strike hundreds of targets at a tempo of our choosing.”

An attack on the scale that Dempsey describes would likely mean hundreds of millions in new revenue for defense contractors.

full article:

http://www.vice.com/read/how-much-will-the-defense-industry-make-of...

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