Gex: War profiteering in
the USA
The
9/11 terrorist attack happened 11 years ago, since then the USA has been at
war. As a European citizen who lives in USA, I am quite independent and
open-minded to find out what really was the reason of the war of Iraq. I’ve
always been interested in conspiracy theories, and finding out truth behind a
decision, and I always believed that 9/11 and the Iraq was was nothing other
than the biggest conspiracy in American history. As a research, I will find
what really has been driving the war, focusing on the conspiracy itself, and
how America, especially the secondary sector, benefited from the war of Iraq,
which is nothing else but war profiteering.
The
first war profiteers appear in America appeared during the Revolutionary War. Lots of leading Americans got rich during
the Revolutionary War by selling supplies and equipment to the Continental Army
at inflated prices, and many of them were members of Congress. The biggest war
profiteers were Silas Deane, and Pierre-Augustin
Caron de Beaumarchais. Silas was commissioned so that he’d get 5% of any aide
he could get-plus his expenses. So he got Beaumarchais, who set up a secret front
company, Rodriguez Hortalez, transferring money and goods from France to
America. Beaumarchais got 10% of everything he shipped from the French for the
job. In late 1777, Beaumarchais sent the first bill to the US for $4.5 million
livre, which was pre-signed by Silas Deane certifying to the bill’s accuracy.
In
the case of modern war profiteering during the war of Iraq, it started with the
presidential election in 2000. George W. Bush won the elections. It was a
questionable winning. All the major TV channels projected Al Gore as the winner
of the elections at close to the final calls, when Fox News announced that
George Bush won Florida State, therefore he is the projected winner. To
understand how it was possible, I have to mention that that night behind the
decision-making person, who called the George Bus the winner, was Bush’s first
cousin John Prescott Ellis, and the governor of the questionable state is
George’s brother Jeb Bush. In addition to that, George’s campaign’s chairman
was also the vote-count woman. After this all the major channels called Bush
the winner, and he became the president, although he lost by 543,895 votes.
It’s a good example of how Bush manages his connections in order of success. As
the son of the former president George H. W. Bush it started way before the
elections. To see more a more detailed view about his and his family’s
connection we should go back to 1970s.
After the death of Mohammed bin
Laden, control of the company passed to Salem bin Laden, Osama’s half brother.
The roots of the first known Bush-bin Laden convergence date back to the
mid-1970s, when the two clans were linked by a Houston businessman named James
R. Bath. Bath had befriended George W. Bush in the late 1960s, when they both
served in the Texas Air National Guard. By 1976, when Gerald Ford appointed the
elder George Bush as CIA director, and Donald Rumsfeld (whose name will be
important later) as the 13th secretary of defense, Bath was acting
as a business agent for Salem bin Laden’s interests in Texas. After George W.
Bush lost a bid for Congress, he decided to launch an oil company in Texas in
1979. For $50,000, Bath bought a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath
also served as business agent for several prominent Saudis, including Salem bin
Laden. In exchange for a percentage of the deals, Bath made U.S. investments
for these clients in his own name. Although Bath has said that he invested his
own money in Arbusto, not Saudi money, the fact that he was Salem’s agent at
the time has fueled speculation that Osama bin Laden’s eldest brother was an
early investor in George W’s first oil company, Arbusto. The company, which was
sold to Harken Energy, and George W. got a seat in the director board. Harken
Energy was another company where the Saudi royal family invested their money
in. It was important for them because while W. held a seat in the board, his
father George H. W. Bush was the president of the United States. When George W.
was investigated for selling his shares of Harken Energy, his attorney was
James Baker’s law partner Robert Jordan, who later was the Saudi ambassador
while George W. was the president. James Baker was the Chief of Staff during
George H. W. Bush’s presidency. Going back to Donald Rumsfeld, who was the
secretary of defense during 1975-77, he was also the secretary of defense from
2001 until 2006, while George W. Bush was the president. Rumsfeld was appointed
by vice president Dick Cheney, whose name will be important in the company
Halliburton.
A
year later George W. Bush became the president, on September 11th
2001 America became a victim of series of terrorist attack. The attacks were
dedicated to Osama bin Laden, and the al-Qaeda. The bin Laden family is
intimately connected with the innermost circles of Saudi royal family, which
leads us back to George H. Bush, who held warm relationship with both the Saudi
royal family and bin Laden family. Why? Because one of the biggest investors in
the USA were the Saudi royal family just as the bin Laden family, in the form
of companies, the Carlyle Group, and the Bin Laden Investments. Which were also
investors in George W. Bush’s inefficient, unprofitable company, the Arbusto
Energy. The Carlyle group invested in heavily government regulated industries,
like telecommunications, health care, and mainly in defense. Both Bushes worked
for the Carlyle Group, especially George H. Bush who was Senior Advisor to the Carlyle Asia Advisory
Board from April 1998 to October 2003. The Carlyle group also owned United
Defense, which had George W. Bush as chief commander during his presidency, and
that guaranteed income in case of a defense budget raise. Since the Carlyle
Group was owned by both the Saudi royal family and the bin Laden family, as the
war Iraq started, and the defense foundings were growing, the bin Laden family
gained money from it. This is the family in which one of the member was the
responsible for worst series of terrorist attack in US history-the 9/11
attacks.
According to Romesh
Ratnesar journalist’s article the “Richard
Clarke, at War With Himself” in
the Times magazine, one day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, president George
W. Bush called Richard A. Clarke, the former National Coordinator, into the
white house, asking him to find connection between the terrorist attacks and
Iraq. Although the white house announced that this conversation never happened,
Richard Clark talked about it on an exclusive interview on 60 minutes on the CBS News. Since America attacked Afghanistan
first it could never be proved. Only two years later the war was moved to Iraq,
but before that something remarkable happened.
Six months before the
invasion of Iraq started, according to the article “Bush’s Pre-War Iraq Oil
Deals Alarmed BP”, there was an agreement between George W. Bush, Tony Blair,
and the big oil companies, such as Exxon, BP, Shell, and Total. This deal was
about dividing the oil field in Iraq since they know it’s going to be overtaken
and it is the world’s second biggest reserved oil field, which shows
that war of Iraq is also about oil, and war profiteering. Juan the writer of
this article says, “Companies such as
BP and Exxon-Mobil are desperate for new fields to exploit and fearful for the
future if global oil production has peaked or is about to do so. Iran and Iraq
hold most of the likely big reserves of unexploited oil known or suspected to
exist in relatively easy-to-get-at regions”. The involvement of Blair shows how other countries profited from the war of
Iraq.
Frank Barbaro in his
journal "War
Profiteering" mentions the two companies that made huge profits
of the war of Iraq. The companies are the perfect example of war profiteering.
One of them is ExxonMobile. The company reported the biggest profit in US
history over the war. In 2005 they had a total income of 173 billion dollars.
Profit from it was 59 billion, where 23 went for taxes, and the total net profit
was 36 billion dollars. Now that’s a great example how profitable was the war
of Iraq for the USA. Since U.S. gained 23 billion dollars of taxes over only
one company. Barbaro says, “At
a time when American citizens can't get health insurance and 39 million have no
access to medical care, it is, indeed, "disgustipating" to learn that
Lee Raymond, Exxon's retiring chairman, received nearly $400 million for his
retirement package -which equates to $143,000 for every day he served as
chairman and CEO of Exxon.” The other company in Barbaro’s article is Halliburton. This company won
several no bid contracts with United Defense, and become the biggest defense
contractor of United States. According to Peter Elkind and Joan L. Levinstein’s
article “The Truth About
Halliburton” in the Fortune
magazine, Halliburton won two major contract, needless to say no bid contracts,
one was about restoring the oil infrastructure in Iraq which payed them 2.5
billion dollars. The other big deal was
called Army-support contract called LOGCAP, for Logistics Civil Augmentation
Program. It was about 8.5 billion dollars. That contract was mainly serving the
military with everything over the war in Iraq. Both of these contracts were
payed by taxpayer, and made a fortune for 270 other companies, and sub
contractors, over an 18 months period of time. Elkind and Levinstein say, “In an age of ugly
symbols, a handful of companies have
come to serve as shorthand for what's wrong with corporate America. In 2004,
Halliburton moved to the top of the roster.” But how could Halliburton
win such no bid contracts? From 1995 till 2000 the CEO of Halliburton was Dick
Cheney, later Vice President during George W. Bush’s presidential period.
The biggest defense
contractor company is currently Lockheed Martin, right before Boeing. These two
companies have a long history in defense contracting, since they have always
been raced against each other. Every product, which was ordered by the
government during the mid-east wars, was ordered from both of these companies,
and who ever came up with the better solution won the contract. In this case
the products are jet fighters. Over the years Lockheed became the bigger
contractor. In 2008 Lockheed made 30 billion dollars of defense contracts,
while Boeing was right after it with 29-29 billions. The total budget of the
department of defense in 2008 was 481 billion dollars, which is more than 11
percent increase compared to budget in 2007. This means that the two largest
defense contractor companies earned as much money together as an average year
cost in the war of Iraq, and that’s how war profiteering works for the
secondary sector.
The war profiteering
during the mid-east wars started before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I would say
it started with the presidential election in 2000, and unfortunately haven’t
ended in 2008, when George W. Bush’s presidential period expired. The way
defense contractors make huge profit shows us how war can be used as an income
source for the sector of defense contractors. It points out that how war is the
main source of income for this sector. In a modern capitalist country,
like USA, the private or citizen sector is not profitable anymore. The sector
is overfilled with big and small companies; therefore the prices are lowered to
the minimum, so there is hardly any profit on products, or services anymore. So
the only sector that still makes profit is the defense contractor, and subcontractor.
And they make a huge profit. The military is like a civilization. It needs
workers, food, healthcare, fuel, development, etc.…! Which in this case is
supplied by Halliburton. It needs a lot of money, and that money is financed by
the taxpayers. So these contractors, who supply the military, are making a huge
profit, and therefor these companies offer jobs for people. So during wars
employment will rise, which raise the number of taxpayers, and brings an
economic rise. There is also one more thing that does the same thing. War needs
soldiers, so the number of unemployment will lower more, and the taxpayers will
rise. Although it’s a huge cost to pay the soldiers, but it’s nothing compared
to the cost of the whole war, especially when those people are financed by
taxes. In other words taking billions away from the poor, and giving it to the
rich. These are the major reasons why war is a good decision for the secondary
sector.
After
considering everything I could gather about war profiteering in America, I had
one question: How is it possible? How is it possible that America is doing war
profiteering when it supposed to be a democratic free country? The answer is
more complicated than I first thought. First, American people suffer from
patriotism. I use the word suffer because, it gives them a bit close minded
thinking about the country, and what’s really going on behind it. Since
patriotic Americans worship their country, they will not believe that certain
people use them and their country to earn as much money as they can possibly
imagine. Second, the people who are sent to wars are mainly 18-25 year old
young people with hardly any life experience, and zero knowledge about the
economy. After high school they join the workforce, or go to an academy, where
they cannot gain life experience, neither knowledge about what really drives
the wars. They are trained to complete the given task without questioning it.
Therefore the chance to stop the war or prevent from starting it depends on
these young adults who have don’t have enough knowledge about global politics,
or the economy.
On
the other hand, these young adults argue that they are fighting for a better
future, and to make America free. They say they have to go there and fight the
enemy. They don’t see that there is no enemy, or if there is, then it will be
found in the government and the secondary sector, who sacrifices American lives
for their wealth. They don’t see what
really drives the wars. Just like the working sector, they don’t see where
their tax really goes. Since they don’t want to live under terror they would
also argue that war is good, because it’s for USA’s freedom. The only people
don’t argue against war profiteering are the people who enjoy this
redistribution of wealth. As Frank Barbaro says, “The rich are getting so much richer and the poor so much poorer.”
In
conclusion the war of Afghanistan and Iraq divided America. On one side there
are the taxpayers who finance the war. On the other side the upper class, who
owns defense contractor and subcontractor companies, which already gained a
fortune thanks to the wars. It’s like a new from of Marxism, where there are
two groups of society. The group of workers, who work to pay taxes, and the
group of owners of defense contracting companies. How could it happen? The
people who live under social myths, unquestioned rules and beliefs that they
follow and live by, but they don’t even know they are following and acting
upon, and the 9/11 conspiracy, which was the perfect reason to start a war,
made it possible. George W. Bush, his father, and everybody who gained
advantage from political connections, set up their own way of income, by lying
to American people, and also sacrificing American lives in the name of war,
which is nothing else, but their contracting playground. In other words it is
nothing else but money laundering, because the taxpayer’s money is transferred
into a legal income for the people in the secondary sector and the people who
govern USA.
With
my research I have shown that as long as America is at war, the secondary
sector will make a huge profit out of it. Since the budget of the department of
defense is raised every year, the defense contractors’ profit will also grow.
War profiteering started more than two hundred years ago with the revolutionary
war and it hasn’t stopped yet. The Iraq war is a perfect example where war
profiteering can be shown with actual facts and number. Only way to put an end
to war profiteering depends on the next generation workers and soldiers. They
need to be open minded and skeptical enough to question and understand what
really drives a war, and on what cost are they going there to fight the
“enemy”, then they will be able to see that their only choice is to say no to
war.
Works
Cited
Scaramella, Mark. “Our
Founding War Profiteers.” Calling Tom Paine February 2007
Moore, Michael. dir. “Fahrenheit
9/11.” Lions Gate Films, 2004, Movie
Ratnesar, Romesh. “Richard Clarke, at War With Himself.” Time
U.S. 25 March 2004
Barbaro, Frank. "War
Profiteering." OC Metro (2006): 16-21.
Elkind, Peter, and Joan L.
Levinstein. “The Truth About
Halliburton.” Fortune 151.8 (2005): 190-208.
Juan. “Bush’s Pre-War
Iraq Oil Deals Alarmed BP.” Energy, Environment, Iraq, Iraq War 20 April 2011.
Wiles, Rick. “Bush’s
Former Oil Company Linked to bin Laden Family.” American Freedom News.com 2001
Ayres, Chris. "Carlyle
Group." The Times May 31 2001.
Wheat, Andrew. “The
Bush-bin Laden Connection” The Texas Observer 9 Nov. 2001
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