On the Iraq war, author and journalist Naomi Klein said on Democracy NOW:
And one of the things that I think is most important for progressives to challenge is the discourse that everything in Iraq is a disaster. I think we need to start asking and insisting, disaster for who [?], because not everybody is losing. It’s certainly a disaster for the Iraqi people. It’s certainly a disaster for US taxpayers. But what we have seen—and it’s extremely clear if we track the numbers—is that the worse things get in Iraq, the more privatized this war becomes, the more profitable this war becomes for companies like Lockheed Martin, Bechtel, and certainly Blackwater. There is a steady mission creep in Iraq, where the more countries pull out, the more contractors move in...Do you know how many American troops are currently stationed in Iraq? Answer: 160,000
Do you know how many Blackwater-soldiers-for-hire (aka mercenaries...not all BW) there are in Iraq? Answer: 180,000 (highlight to see answer... so you can guess) ...source.
And guess how many Blackwater mercenaries have been prosecuted for crimes in Iraq? Answer: 0!
Moral implications aside (like how the war has cost probably over 1 million Iraqi lives), let's try to bring this back to the economy. Francis Ferguson, phD economist, explains his view:
As the US slides into recession, economists wonder why the massive government spending on Afghanistan and Iraq provides so little economic stimulus. World War Two brought an immediate end to the Great Depression, yet a current $600 billion dollar defense budget (not counting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) does little to stop the emerging recession. Part of the minimal effect results from the fact that we were already spending well over $300 billion on the military prior to 9/11, whereas the US defense budget was trivial prior to the beginning of World War II. The other reason for the minimal economic stimulus lies in the fact that so much of the expenditure goes to fund wages and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so much flows as excess profits to American corporations rather than into the pockets of American workers who would have a greater tendency to spend those earnings here. Finally, even the portion of war spending that does flow to American workers has, today, a very high probability of being used to buy imported consumer goods, providing stimulus, ironically, to our friends the Chinese—the very people who fund our wars (but that's another story).So why do I bring this up today? Well it's still quite relevant, and I think people should be concerned about it and the effects upon the country and world. But the New York Times actually brought me back to this important issue in their 11/29 article entitled "One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex"--which places special emphasis on the media's role is fueling the MIC. It's long, but important... please read. Thanks.
