Top defense firms spend $1B on lobbying during Afghan war, see $2T return
With the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the Talibans return to power, the unwinnable nature of the U.S. war in Afghanistan is increasingly obvious to Americans across the political spectrum. Thats probably one reason why over half of Americans support Bidens decision to withdraw from Afghanistan even while disapproving of the handling of the withdrawal, according to a Pew Research poll released on Tuesday.
There will be inevitable finger-pointing for why three successive U.S. presidents continued the war in Afghanistan despite public reports and the congressional testimony from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, casting serious doubts on the viability of efforts to nation-build in Afghanistan.
Indeed, the United States paid a high price for these mistakes the Cost of War Project at Brown University estimates that the war in Afghanistan cost U.S. taxpayers $2.3 trillion to date and resulted in the deaths of 2,324 U.S. military personnel, 4,007 U.S. contractors and 46,319 Afghan civilians but those costs werent shared by everyone.
While the American people financed the war with their tax dollars, and in some cases their lives, the top five Pentagon contractors enjoyed a boom in growth in federal contracts over the course of the war in Afghanistan. Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, found that Congress gave $2.02 trillion to the top five weapons companies Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing and Northrop Grumman between 2001 and 2021.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/09/02/top-defense-firms-see-2t-return-on-1b-investment-in-afghan-war/
2naSalit
(86,496 posts)essaynnc
(801 posts)Instead of enlisting them in unending unwinnable wars, tool them up for renewable energy and climate change hardening / mitigation projects. As easily as GM could be retooled to make tanks and military vehicles during WWII, they could be retooled to make windmills, solar arrays and who knows what else. Let's get some return for the trillions of dollars that we will probably spend anyway...
trash MTG and MG
(17 posts)The truth is scary
mopinko
(70,067 posts)a long time ago, my brother worked for an aerospace company in cali.
he worked as a tech in their jet fuel lab. they were just dumping leftover chemicals down.the.drain.
what is the footprint of all the steel, all the electronics, all the explosives and fuels?
bro blew the whistle on the company. he got out of the sciences, and became a teacher.
i think it's a lot harder to do what he did, and get such results.
Harker
(14,007 posts)They might have booked it.
mitch96
(13,883 posts)Me.
(35,454 posts)He's been getting his analysis and advice from a Raytheon board member