U.S. working to keep up with surging weapons demand abroad

Pretty clear to anyone who has been following the situation that this is the real terror.

Pretty clear to anyone who has been following the situation that this is the real terror.

And the real end-game - making more money for the Military Industrial Complex. They've done a great job of distracting us from their profits by making us focus on Muslims.

Telling that most people are unable to clearly see the situation for what it is- http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/we-created-islamic-extremism-those-blaming-islam-for-isis-would-have-supported-osama-bin-laden-in-the-80s/

Perhaps funding could be shifted to the Pentagon from supplementary nutrition programs for the young and poor. Priorities, after all.

The Bush family and their close friends the Bin Ladens must be over the moon with their investments in the defense industries. I wonder if they had much to do with starting wars?

Look at you, Military Industrial Complex. What are you, stuck in the 1940s?

Do you think it went away between then and now or something?

Do you think it went away between then and now or something?

No, it didn't go away. But shouting "MIC" whenever the subject of military action comes up usually indicates a pretty shallow understanding about how procurement and military budgeting works. It's also often used as a sprignboard to trumpet conspiracy theories about how "the man" is stirring up conflict to increase arms sales (see this thread).

People seem to think that "going to war = big profits for the MIC" as if it were some sort of block. Actually fighting a war is expensive - it doesn't enrich the state, and while budgets increase, where money goes gets shifted around, so it's not like the entirety of the "MIC" as you call it, benefits. In fact, defense companies working on big ticket projects like next generation fighters or tanks are likely to see those programs stalled or cancelled as money is shifted to pay for soldiers, ammo, and supplies. If you are a big defense company, what you really want is not a war, but for people to be afraid of a rising China or a resurgent Russia, soviet-union style, in order to get the government to funnel big bucks into R&D for next generation hardware. Fighting Muslims, on the other hand, is considerably less profitable because insurgents are low-tech enemies.

If you are a big defense company, what you really want is not a war, but for people to be afraid of a rising China or a resurgent Russia, soviet-union style, in order to get the government to funnel big bucks into R&D for next generation hardware

There's long been plenty of activity to feather nests between major conflicts:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and 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 benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might 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.

USMC Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, Common Sense magazine, November 1935

SenseNotSoCommon,

But now you aren't talking about the "MIC," you are talking about capitalism in general, and you are using a quote from a vastly different era in which geopolitical and economic conditions were very different. No one is arguing that conflict doesn't potentially create profitable opportunities for corporations, but if you think that the conflict in, say, Syria being driven by "greedy capitalists" out to corner the Syrian markets, then, well, you are pretty out of touch with what's going on.

But now you aren't talking about the "MIC," you are talking about capitalism in general

Since when were they mutually exclusive?

an informal and changing coalition of groups with vested psychological, moral, and material interests in the continuous development and maintenance of high levels of weaponry, in preservation of colonial markets and in military-strategic conceptions of internal affairs

Pursell, C. (1972). The military–industrial complex. Harper & Row

if you think that the conflict in, say, Syria being driven by "greedy capitalists" out to corner the Syrian markets, then

Rival foreign geopolitical interests: competing pipelines to supply oil, be it the US's Iraq-Israel pipe, Iran's pipe to Europe through Syria, or Qatar's pipe to Europe, also through Syria.

Why didn't the Democratic Republic of Congo's conflict (1996 - present; up to 5,000,000 dead) dominate our headlines?

Wars ratchet up tensions and destabilize regions, which creates demand. That's the path to profit.

In any case it's already been elaborated on numerous times by insiders, not even an issue for debate (unless one is desperate to persuade others for the sake of one's livelihood or personal worldview).

SenseNotSoCommon,

Cast your net wide enough and you can catch anything, but the definitions you are using rapidly become so broad as to be meaningless.

For a specific example, you site an oil pipeline at a time when oil prices are low and fracking has made the US largely energy independent.

Of course "geopolitical interests" are at stake. Are these concerns somehow illegitimate? Does the US not have a security interest in defeating ISIS, or removing Assad for that matter? Removing hostile Middle Eastern dictators is something the US has been concerned with for a long time, as has limiting Iranian and Russian influence. Fighting the root causes of terrorism is high up on that list. And yet you want me to believe that the "real" motivation behind all this is an oil pipeline and a shady cabal of arms merchants?

"Removing hostile Middle Eastern dictators is something the US has been concerned with for a long time"

While enabling/supporting amiable dictators.

Why?- Because it's not about "justice," or being "a force for good" (witness the tens of millions killed/displaced by the US military after 1945).

It is about power and money (for a select few), and therefore all about things like the pipeline and arms sales

LegrandeRio,

There are many sorts of power, and lots of ways to make money. Your myopic focus on a very select number of these prevents you from seeing the larger picture. Thus the conspiracy theories.

This must be the New World Order.

Triumvere,

As has been well-established by numerous observers/insiders, the war machine is very intertwined with power and money, I mean at this point unless you've had your head in the sand it really goes without saying-

http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/john_pilger_there_is_no_war_on_terror_there_is_a_war_of_terror/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRKEBAE_P5U

For a specific example, you site an oil pipeline at a time when oil prices are low and fracking has made the US largely energy independent

Is the US the only market for oil?

Of course "geopolitical interests" are at stake... Removing hostile Middle Eastern dictators is something the US has been concerned with for a long time

I searched "middle east dictators removed by US" but couldn't find any on the first page. I did see this Christian Science Monitor article, Six ways for US to reset relations in the Middle East:

No. 1. Come clean about US historical support for dictators

Stop treating residents of Arab nations like they were blind to US policies. Although stifled for decades, these citizens know of America’s support for their oppressive autocrats. Blanket statements today in support of liberty ring hollow and sound like opportunism. Worse yet, supporting dictators abroad and democracy at home has made us look hypocritical and undermines our standing in the Arab world.

But let's test that hypothesis about the US removing hostile (to oil interests) Middle Eastern leaders:

Democratically elected Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli, opposed to the Pan-Arabian Pipeline, was overthrown in a US-backed coup d'état in 1949.

Iran's democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, was victim of an MI6/CIA coup in 1953 on behalf of what we now know as BP.

Visiting Saddam Hussein in December 1983, (Donald)

Rumsfeld suggested that if U.S.-Iraq relations could improve the U.S. might support a new oil pipeline across Jordan, which Iraq had opposed but was now willing to reconsider.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0323/Six-ways-for-US-to-reset-relations-in-the-Middle-East/Come-clean-about-US-historical-support-for-dictators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shukri_al-Quwatli https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld

U.S. companies and some foreign countries have expressed growing frustration in recent months about delays in arms sales approvals. They argue that the U.S. government has not expanded its capacity to process arms deals despite a big spike in such transactions.

Just shoot me.

As has been well-established by numerous observers/insiders, the war machine is very intertwined with power and money,

No one is disputing that. What is being disputed is the idea that you are putting forward war is only or primarily about the economic interests of an elite few, and has little to nothing to do with legitimate security concerns or geopolitical imperatives.

Good morning, Triumvere.

What is being disputed is the idea that you are putting forward war is only or primarily about the economic interests of an elite few, and has little to nothing to do with legitimate security concerns or geopolitical imperatives.

Allow me to give you the majority analysis from the rest of planet Earth:

"war is too often about the economic interests of an elite few, using fabricated security concerns or seemingly geopolitical imperatives masking the pursuit and maintenance of competitive economic advantage."

Let us warn our children, and forget this at our peril.

SenseNotSoCommon,

Sigh. Next you will tell me that "corporations are bad" or some other pearl of majority analysis.

Triumvere,

Reds under the bed?