Ending War for Profit
Based on the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) recently determined that the Iraq war costs $720 million per day, $500,000 per minute - enough to provide homes for nearly 6,500 families, or health care for 423,529 children in just one day.
AFSC is using ten, seven-foot banners displayed at legislative and congressional offices around the country to illustrate the costs of the war and the human needs that could be addressed with those same resources. The National Priorities Project (NPP) also has a new report on the Bush Administration’s latest $50 billion spending request, which would bring the total cost of the Iraq War to $617 billion.
In addition to these staggering costs, we’re also learning more about how this war has served as a boondoggle for defense contractors, with war profit-making gone out of control. The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill was way ahead of the curve in reporting on Blackwater’s role in the most radically privatized, outsourced war in history. (Last week, Jeremy was asked to testify before the Democratic Policy Committee about his work and reporting–which may well lead to some good reforms. )
The Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy has done important research in this area. Here are some of the more disturbing facts: CEOs of defense contractors are paid more in four days than a general earns in a year; since September 11, CEOs at top defense contractors have received annual pay gains between 200 percent to 688 percent; between 2002 and 2006, the seven highest paid defense contractor CEOs made nearly $500 million - General Dyanmics’ CEO, Nicholas Chabraja, alone was paid $97.9 million, averaging $19.6 million per year. (David Lesar of Halliburton pocketed a mere $16 million per year during that period, and Lockheed Martin’s Robert Stevens has cashed in on stock options to earn over $19 million so far this year.) Many of the CEOs profitted from stock options as their companies’ stock prices soared with the increased revenues from the Defense Department.
Sarah Anderson, Director of the Global Economy Program at the Institute for Policy Studies, and Charlie Cray, Director of the Center for Corporate Policy, suggest that defense contractors’ CEO pay be addressed directly by conditioning contracts on reasonable pay practices. For example, requiring that the CEO not make more than 25 times the lowest paid worker within the company or, alternatively, not more than 10 times the pay of a military general. This could be combined with other eligibility criteria such as no companies that relocated offshore, have a history of significant violations, or do business with states that sponsor terrorism. (Also, the disclosure rules for defense contractors should be broadened. Right now, privately held corporations are not required to make public their executive compensation. Thus, major players like Bechtel and Blackwater can keep their pay figures secret.) But Anderson and Cray believe that CEO pay is a symptom of a much broader problem - one that will only be addressed if we recognize that the entire defense and war contracting system is out of control.
“Companies like Halliburton/KBR and Blackwater are only the tip of the iceberg,” Anderson says. “We now have contractors conducting intelligence background checks, processing Freedom of Information Act Requests, writing the President’s daily brief, helping run prisons like Abu Ghraib, etc.”
After years of almost zero oversight, these broader questions are finally being examined - at least to a degree. Certainly Representative Henry Waxman is doing his part as Chair of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, looking at Iraq reconstruction corruption. And Senators Claire McCaskill and Jim Webb introduced legislation to establish a Commission on Wartime Contracting - a Truman-like Commission - to investigate waste and fraud in contracting. (Anderson and Cray suggest that the mandate for the Commission be broadened to look at the corporatization of war, intelligence, and other inherently governmental functions.) Other common-sense pieces of legislation include: the “Transparency and Accountability in Security Contracting Act”, introduced by Rep. David Price, to ensure that private security contractors like Blackwater are accountable; and two 2006 contract reform bills - Rep. Waxman’s “Clean Contracting Act” and Sen. Byron Dorgan’s “Honest Leadership in Government Contracting Act” - both bills would limit no-bid contracts, provide criminal sanctions for fraud, and address conflicts-of-interest, revolving door and other issues.
It is a systemic problem for a democracy to link corporate profits and war-making, and it has metastasized as this war has been increasingly privatized (there are now more contractors than soldiers in Iraq). Good small-d democrats need to keep watch on current legislation, hold our representatives accountable and and demand that they take bolder action to bring this system to an end.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel is editor of The Nation.
© 2007 The Nation
An excellent article! And it’s not just about the war, either. Just as many corporations in other industries are also waging economic war against individuals, both here and abroad. And the CEOs get paid a lot, primarily to cut payments of wages and benefits to individuals. And, isn’t it ironic that in these Bush years we have watched them raid each year’s Social Security surplus (yes, there is an annual surplus of SS tax collected over SS benefits paid) and give it lock, stock and barrel to corporations–both defense contractors and otherwise?
A Democratic president and Congress in 2008 would keep doing some of it too, but not nearly as much. So we do need that change of control.
all the republican lies are being proven wrong……supply-side, pre-emptive war, deregulation, privitization, et al……but are enough people noticing?
their (corporatist) whole economic platform is anti-competitive and therefore anti-capitalist and plays into the excesses seen in our “privatized” military.
it’s no bid heaven with no oversight to boot……time to empty the cash register (treasury) and bath in ill-begotten loot
It is the number-one job of corporations to make profits for their shareholders. Blackwater makes profit off war, so continual war is in the best interest of its shareholders.
Gee, where has everybody been?
This is no news, just another generation discovering the ugly truth. The only difference is now the control of government is so secure. There is no need to shield the truth.
It’s way too late to reverse the trend.
Just remember :
Outsourced prisons built by Halliburton,
outsourced police by Blackwater(NO was only a start),
etc.
What does Senator Lieberman and his army of acolytes want for the United States of America?
Obviously the extermination of Israel’s neighbors with the financial support of the US. Military interventions are simply obsolete and pathetic proposals to resolve conflicts designed with the duplicitous intent to divide.
I strongly recommend reading “America, Inc. - who owns and operates the US”. This book is a good background for the current corporatist environment. Written as a warning against corporate government, it documents the mindset that has unfortunately prevailed in our society. Copies are not easy to find.
Mintz, Morton and Cohen, Jerry S. “America, Inc.: Who Owns and Operates the United States.” New York: Dell Publishing, 1971. 424 pages.
Morton Mintz, a Washington Post reporter, and Jerry S. Cohen, former chief counsel of the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee, teamed up in the 1970s to write two blockbuster books — America, Inc. and Power, Inc. — on corruption in the U.S. Both cover the same territory: bribery, profiteering, special-interest lobbying, politicians, regulatory agencies, monopolies, concentration of power in the media, white collar crime, lack of accountability, government and corporate secrecy, influence of big money on elections, the national security state, and self-dealing in the professions (doctors, dentists, accountants, banks, unions, insurance). Both also use the same technique of making a point by naming names and giving specific examples culled from news accounts and other sources.
Remember, this was the early 1970s when corruption wasn’t an issue in America. Three decades later the infrastructure is collapsing, the economy is sick, and the shrinking middle class is wondering how their kids will afford an education and be able to buy their own homes. The dollar value of the examples provided in these books provokes barely a yawn these days — after the deficits, savings and loan scandals, junk bonds, and golden parachutes of the 1980s. But Mintz and Cohen saw it coming, and it’s not their fault that no one addressed the issue while there was still time.
ISBN unavailable
And one more item that did not play in primetime:
Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=eed74d9d44c30493706fe03f4c9b3a77
Warning: You may lose sleep over this unless the links and names cited are unfamiliar.
“Sarah Anderson, Director of the Global Economy Program at the Institute for Policy Studies, and Charlie Cray, Director of the Center for Corporate Policy, suggest that defense contractors’ CEO pay be addressed directly by conditioning contracts on reasonable pay practices…..”
TOO LATE the massive damage to America’s economy present and future has been written in STONE…2.5 Trillion in Accrued cost factored over the next 10 years…
“Middle East Looking a Lot Like Europe on the Eve of World War One: A Ticking Bomb” [at counterpunch.com]
By WILLIAM S. LIND
I returned at the end of last week from the Imperial fall maneuvers, held this year in Ostland. His Majesty’s forces prevailed, for much the same reasons that Blue usually wins in American war games. As someone who has led Red to victory in several senior-level games conducted in Washington, I can assure you that isn’t supposed to happen.
I don’t think it possible for any historian to visit the Baltic countries or the rest of Central Europe and not reflect on the catastrophes World War I brought for that part of the world. Communism, World War II, National Socialism, the extinction of some communities and the expulsion of others, wholesale alteration of national boundaries, all these and more flowed from the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914. One pebble touched off an avalanche.
It did so because it occurred, not as an isolated incident, but as one more in a series of crises that rocked Europe in its last ten years of peace, 1904-1914. Each of those crises had the potential to touch off a general European war, and each further de-stabilized the region, making the next incident all the more dangerous. 1905-06 witnessed the First Moroccan Crisis, when the German Foreign Office (whose motto, after Bismarck, might well be, “Clowns unto ages of ages”) compelled a very reluctant Kaiser Wilhelm II to land at Tangier as a challenge to France. 1908 brought the Bosnian Annexation Crisis, where Austria humiliated Russia and left her anxious for revenge. Then came the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911, the Tripolitan War of 1911-1912 (a war Italy actually won, against the tottering Ottoman Empire) and the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. By 1914, it had become a question more of which crisis would finally set all Europe ablaze than of whether peace would endure. This was true despite the fact that, in the abstract, no major European state wanted war.
If this downward spiral of events in Europe reminds us of the Middle East today, it should. There too we see a series of crises, each holding the potential of kicking off a much larger war. There are almost too many to list: the war in Iraq, the U.S versus Iran, Israel vs. Syria, the U.S. vs. Syria, Syria vs. Lebanon, Turkey vs. Kurdistan, the war in Afghanistan, the de-stabilization of Pakistan, Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, and the permanent crisis of Israel vs. the Palestinians. Each is a tick of the bomb, bringing us closer and closer to the explosion no one wants, no one outside the neo-con cabal and Likud, anyway.
A basic rule of history is that the inevitable eventually happens. If you keep on smoking in the powder magazine, you will at some point blow it up. No one can predict the specific event or its timing, but everyone can see the trend and where it is leading.
In the Middle East today, as in Europe in the decade before World War I, the desperate need is for a country or a leader to reverse the trend. Then, the two European leaders most opposed to war, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, were able to do little more than drag their feet, trying to slow the train of events down. That was not enough, and it will not be enough today in the Middle East either.
Where do we see a leader who can turn aside the march toward war? Not in the Middle East itself, nor among American Presidential candidates, only two of whom, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, represent a real change of direction. Not in Europe, whose heads of government are terrified of breaking with the Americans. Not in Moscow or Beijing, both of which are happy to see America digging its own grave. No matter where we look, the horizon is empty.
Where vision is wanting, the people perish. As they did in Central Europe in the 20th century, by the TENS OF MILLIONS.
If KVH wants to end war for profit she should stop supporting Democrats.
Letter Sent to the New York Times
From: John Walsh
Date: September 16, 2007 9:49:05 AM EDT
To: letters@nytimes.com
Subject: Frank Rich’s column
To the editor:
In an otherwise excellent column today (9/16/2007) Frank Rich perpetuates the myth that the Democrats do not have the power to end the war because of an inevitable veto from Bush.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. The war demands funding, and a new supplemental funding will soon appear before Congress. That can be filibustered in the Senate, with only the 41 votes or abstentions required to sustain a filibuster. At that moment the legislation is dead. There is nothing to veto so Bush must come back with an acceptable bill. At the same time the Democrats could submit legislation to bring the occupying troops home quickly and safely. Let Bush veto that if he dares. There is already a national petition drive for this at FilibusterForPeace.org and every Senator has received a copy of it.
In the House one person Nancy Pelosi can accomplish the same thing. She can simply refuse to bring Bush’s supplemental requests to the floor. In this she has veto power as surely as the president does.
So let us not hear from the Democrats that they do not have the power to end the war. Clearly they do. One must conclude that the Democrats support it. They pay for it and so they own it.
Sincerely,
John V. Walsh, MD
Professor of Physiology
University of Massachusetts Medical School
john.walsh@umassmed.edu
The best thing I’ve heard from a person with a chance of being elected was Bill Richardson saying he would bring all the troops home fast.
No residual force.
And Katrina in 2012, please.
> Historical lessons, current events, and rational interpretation of intellegence had normally precluded egotism &; theocracy for major decisions in our republic. Unfortunately, this is not the case now.
>
> The current administration is manipulated by ego, war profiteers, the energy cartel,& the radical religious right wing to extents never before experienced in our history. The ill conceived invasion of Iraq, the plans to provide arms to some Middle East Countries, current suggestion to invade Iran, & the dreadful war on our environment are only some examples.
>
> The current use of private mercenaries by this ill guided administration only adds to the dangers they pose against our republic.
>
> Unless Americans begin reacting to logic rather than rhetoric, and take back our country from this illegally placed administration now, the rights that we have enjoyed for two centuries may evaporate–and Americans we can blame themselves for this
>
>
Why can’t we just apply the farm subsidy system to our military industrial monster? We pay big agriculture billions NOT to grow stuff every year - why not cut out the middleman, war, and just pay defense contractors NOT to build death delivery devices? Since all they care about is profits anyway, and they’re going to raid our Treasury bi-annually whether we like it or not, let’s just hand them the check and have them shut the factory doors. War for profit: ended.
Ah . . . . but there’s also the OIL and the conquest of the Middle East . . . . perhaps even a bit of a Christian Crusade?
And all those bombs to be used up and replaced —
new editions of bombs, missiles to be hurled and judged and lied about –
War Profiteering isn’t much heard in MSM –
nor any other useful discussions –
Daniel David September 29th, 2007 12:45 pm
“And, isn’t it ironic that in these Bush years we have watched them raid each year’s Social Security surplus (yes, there is an annual surplus of SS tax collected over SS benefits paid) and give it lock, stock and barrel to corporations–both defense contractors and otherwise?
A Democratic president and Congress in 2008 would keep doing some of it too, but not nearly as much. So we do need that change of control.”
The Democrats have been just as bad about raiding the Social Security trust fund as the Republicans have.
And let’s not forget that the Democrats now control congress and thus the purse strings with no change in the raiding.
Lobo Gris
Missing Iraq $$$ - Rules for Palmocracies
By Craig Johnson aka cognitorex
Basic Palmocracy Do’s and Don’ts
My Mother often tells the story how, some 60 years ago, a local small town official, to explain politics to her said, “When it comes to politics, its like this. Spit in one hand and put money in the other and see which way their head starts tilting.”
Think of the upturned palms in Washington. Think of the K Street money machinery. Think of the billions we hand out to dictators and despots worldwide wide who align with us or at least give good lip service.
The proper term for this form of government is a “Palm-ocracy.”
The goal in Iraq was to form a ‘palmocracy’ with Chalabi as the bursar in chief. It’s the American way. Why then does everybody from Rep. Waxman, the Nation magazine and its liberal sisterhood and the blogosphere go ape because a few billion $$ are missing in Iraq? It makes no sense to me. The $$ failure in Iraq is not that a truck load or two of $$$ are missing but that BushCo failed to to find a home for this moola which had any sustainable political or military weight to it. If it’s ten billion a week to fight the war and accrue dead troops, what is the fuss that a few days cash flow went missing in a hemorrhaged buyout?
This thinking gives rise to the following timeless lessons encapsulated in “Palmocracies, Foreign & Domestic” the remorsefully edited edition, ‘Wolfowitz Cheney Press.’
Never invade a country to promote aligning interests unless you can, with certainty, determine who you can effectively bribe.
Also, never attempt to occupy a country with two Popes.
Yes, end the war profiteering and end this spate of illegal irrational wars.
Zoya (2:19 pm) is on target. The #1 responsibility of corporations is to make profit for their shareholders so continual constant war feeds their corporate need and starves We the People — murders the common folk, too: blood money.
Yes, demand the end of war profiteering, succeed, and peace will have a chance.
War for profit is so American. Bottom-line, who honestly thinks we would be in Iraq if they did’nt have those huge oil reserves. Everything eles is just smoke and mirrors. That being a given, means the America I grew up in and the patriots that stood guard over the Constitution are gone!
The constitution was and always will be not worth the paper it’s written on simply because it just gave the autocrats in Europe the chance to move their operations over to a new region. Where was the constitution for the Black people nowhere to be seen and is still a dream. The constitution which all American children are indoctranated with is a very useful tool to instill false pride. We’re are fortunate we have a constitution is the cry forgetting of course it didn’t help the disadvantaged nor will it, it helps the advantaged just like any true autocracy.
It should be called ” False Hope ” clearly demonstrated in New Orleans very recently.
When I drive around Florida, a State which is prone to the ocassional hurricane there is not one public shelter with the required amenities. Thousands upon thousands of mobile homes aptly named because of their tendency to move in a strong wind.
“Transparency and Accountability in Security Contracting Act”…. “Clean Contracting Act”….. “Honest Leadership in Government Contracting Act”?
They all sound very impressive, especially the ones which would provide criminial sanctions for fraud. Would one of those sanctions include imprisonment for fraud or are we talking about a slap on the wrist?
Another question: If this legislation is passed, will Congress guarantee enforcement or is this another case of fooling the people with legislation that will never be enforced due to a lack of funding?
when this administration and all of it’s unpunished war-criminals finishes dismantling the constitution and plundering the treasury, what is going to be left to the common man besides the ruins of what once was a great nation?
In his article, Lind says, “Then, the two European leaders most opposed to war, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, were able to do little more than drag their feet,”
This is patently FALSE as Fischer’s book detailing “Germany’s Aims in the First World War” amply describes the run-up to what the Kaiser saw as a race war between the Teutons and Slavs for control of Europe (I posted about this once before). Lind also states, “This was true despite the fact that, in the abstract, no major European state wanted war,” which is also false as proved by the above source unless one substitutes “major European state” with “the majority of Europe’s people.”
Lind is supposedly a “professional” historian, but his undergraduate errors make his essay fit only for the recycling bin.
Stop War for Profit…lets get back to waring for fun like we used to.
This nation has only one presidential candidate the status quo advocating for a dismantling of our Constitutional Republic really does fear - and his name is Dr. Ron Paul.
The Democrat and Republican Party “aparatchiks” were handily run over and co-opted in the neo-con-artists’ government coup d’etat back in 2000.
Quit falling into the trap of repeating silly slogans… or reflecting on party labels… while holding to your false beliefs… that no longer reflect reality.
Paul’s no savior; but he’s the last best hope we have in this quiet period before the perfect storm… to mitigate the damage from the necessary restructuring… after it’s sure to rain all hell upon us.
Unless thinking Americans like you and me snap to immediate attention… there’s just no stopping the widespread calamity and suffering this train wreck will cause…
… So take this as a warning… and a wake-up call.
The fallout from Peak Oil, expansive exploitable resource wars, and a falling dollar has forced the invisible hand of desperate super-rich capitalists and the big bankers to tighten their grip over the rest of us. By idly fiddle-faddling around, and wasting words, believe you me, we’ll simply become their victims.
Your way of life and everything you once thought was good and true about this world is in imminent danger of disappearing forever.
And this nation-state must fall if we’re to have a prayer of saving it… or ourselves.
Keep a sharp eye peeled… and your ears open… for the insidious little tricks the MSM plays to marginalize this ten-term Congressman into obscurity.
Every one of you has the capacity to help yourself and not be fooled by these chattering talking heads anymore!
I found these very words sky-written in the deepest recesses of my little ol’ pea-pickin’ haid - too dumbstruck to shout it from the rooftops.
But you too have choices to make… and promises to keep… after all’s been said and done - don’t you?
Please… do your homework… forget about rearranging the deck chairs… and prepare for the worst.
Read up on Ron Paul.
Lark
We have no way to really know, but it’s likely that we have private combat forces because our Chiefs of Staff communicated to Cheney/bush that their oaths of office were to protect and defend the Constitution and that they had a DUTY to decline to obey illegal orders, ie, murder any Iraqi who resisted the takeover of the oil infrastructure/corporate state by the multi-nationals. They had to leave that to State Dept and contractors. It seems to involve some very elaborate rationalizations for the Chiefs to keep their forces in the field at all, considering current conditions. Lots of lies. Lots of death.
With 6 years and all the money, we could have created an alternative energy world and freed these middle-easterners to pursue more traditional occupations. But the Oil Elite preferred the great game and delusions of Empire.
Useless delay.