some older articles...
excerpted from the article
Guns 'R' Us
by Martha Honey
In These Times magazine, August 1997
The United States, Britain, Russia, France and China dominate today's $32 billion global arms trade. But the United States has pulled out in front.
According to the U.S. government's own estimates, Washington's share of the business jumped from 16 percent in 1988 to 50 percent between 1992 and 1994. The sky seems to be the limit. According to a 1995 Pentagon forecast, the United States accounts for 63 percent of worldwide arms deals already signed for the period between 1994 and 2000.http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Pentagon_military/Guns_R_Us.htmlThe Pit and the Pentagon :: The Internet and the End Game ::
by Brian Bogart
(Wednesday, May 4, 2005)
Points of consideration:
(1). All areas of government are dominated or heavily under siege by ultraconservatives fully allied with US corporate-military powers. The neo-conservative movement is no longer a separate extremist entity, as its sphere of influence has encompassed the makers and enforcers of US policy as well as strategic US goals, economic and otherwise.
(2). Originally known as ARPANET, the Internet was the brainchild of DoD and CIA, not public domain.
(3). Pentagon strategy not only suggests it has the capability to shut down or alter the Internet, it relies on shutting it down or altering it.
(4).
Pentagon strategy, civil and international, answers to two men alone: the president or (not “and”) the secretary of defense. The American people have no say; their fate is decided in secrecy.
(5). Pentagon strategy isolates America and abuses all other nations. Beyond 2010, with the strategy in full swing, there will be scant potential for disaster-free recovery. If the people (and progressives who represent the conscience of the people) fail to unite and keep up with this rapidly unfolding scenario, they will not be in a position to oppose it and will suffer its consequences.(6). Contrary to founding principles, what the public sees and knows is always the tip of the iceberg. People inclined to do so can freely access unclassified information, but this appears temporary and unfortunately involves a small percentage of those pursuing progressive causes.
The records show that there has never been a national security consensus from the people to their government directing it to establish permanent global military superiority — but there clearly has been a national security consensus from the power elite directing the people’s government to do so. This elite consensus took effect simultaneous to the undemocratic post-World War II decision to employ a military-first US economy rather than a people-first economy. Though the people never gave their consent, America has since relied on conflict (there have been some 200 wars in the world since World War II) and its primary industry remains weapons manufacturing and sales.To assert that the American people understand and approve of a military-first economy, and by extension the current strategy for global supremacy, would be misleading, as the only mention of such a system has come from Hollywood productions of futuristic world scenarios, most of which portray a planet dominated by America. The fact that Americans accept so much emphasis on militarism today is a result of carefully orchestrated exploitations of terrorism, other manipulations of various groups of citizens (religious, etc.), and a prevailing sense of futility among youth. September 11 2001 is thus cited by the vast majority of those who do approve of such emphasis
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/headlines/the_pit_and_the_pentagon_the_internet_and_the_end_gamePentagon Capitalism
excerpted from article by Vijay Prashad
Z magazine - March, 1997
In 1970, Seymour Melman published Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War (New York: McGraw Hill) which detailed the tight nexus between the military elites and industrial capital. Melman showed how military control over national resources narrowed the choices available for other state programs. Further, he argued that the military-industrial complex uses arms exports as a means to manage domestic economic problems as well as to push an imperialist policy via proxy.
Aggressive arms sales to the Third World began after the onset of the long recession in 1973. Arms sales to the Gulf States, for instance, enabled the recovery of revenue spent on oil. The major arms merchants sold intermediary military technology to the Third World (keeping the latest inventions for the awesome military might of the overdeveloped world). The military industrial complex earned major revenues from the exchange which enabled the defense industry to subsidize its domestic production as well as to keep the companies productive during times of lean domestic demand.--------------------------
The latter option, total disarmament and non-proliferation of "conventional weapons," is not an option because
the arms industry is structured into the heart of the economy of the overdeveloped world. The Third World buys vast quantities of arms from the overdeveloped world: India, for in stance, imported $17 billion of military goods between 1985 and 1989; Iraq was next on the list with $12 billion (and it was in the midst of a bloody engagement with Iran at this time). From 1992 to 1994, India increased its arms expenditure by 12 percent and Pakistan by 19.5 percent. The major exporters of arms to India include France, Sweden, UK, U.S., and Russia; Pakistan is outfitted by PRC, France, Sweden, UK, and U.S. The role of the nuclear elite in such transactions is apparent.
From 1983 to 1993, the U.S. increased its share of the
pie to 55 percent and Russia decreased its share to 10 percent. Within the past four years, the U.S. renamed its Office of Munitions Control to the Center of Defense Trade. With the end of Cold War II (1979- 1989), the arms business has become "trade" rather than a matter of "control."
The U. S. occasionally frames laws to restrict arms sales to states which engage in nuclear production. Two such legal provisions are the Symington Amendment, section 669 of the Foreign Assistance Act (which prevents U. S. sales to states who do not meet International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards) and the Pressler Amendment (which suspends U.S. military aid and US AID assistance to states engaged in nuclear weapons development and proliferation-in this instance, Pakistan). These legal remedies are frequently exempted to funnel weapons to allies or to those states which pay top dollar. The international community forged two protocols to control the proliferation of "conventional weapons," but even these provisions are nowhere near comprehensive. The UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (October 10, 1980) is only for weapons "which may be deemed to be excessively injurious or to have indiscriminate effects" while the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies (November 1996) is only to prevent proliferation to states "whose behavior is, or becomes, a cause for serious international concern." Other states are offered free use of weaponry.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_Global_Economy/Pentagon_Capitalism.html
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