A secretly recorded speech at a Credit Suisse investor conference reveals that the arms manufacturers and defense contractors of America are applauding the escalation of conflicts in the Middle East, salivating at the thought of the profits to be made by pumping the region full of dangerous and expensive military materiel.
Top executives from Lockheed Martin (the designer of the much-maligned and exorbitantly expensive F-35 fighter jet program), Oshkosh (producer of infantry fighting vehicles) and Raytheon (producer of cruise missiles and electronic warfare devices) all gathered to celebrate the apparently imminent escalation of the US bombing campaign against Daesh (ISIS/ISIL), the intrusion of Russian forces into the Syrian Civil War and the Saudi Arabian bombing campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen.
They congratulated each other for convincing Congressional Republicans to allot the Department of Defense $607 billion dollars, knowing that the bulk of that money would go to them: “budget-wise, our programs are well supported. We think we did very well. It’s great to have that [budget] deal done, and to have greater certainty, that benefits ourselves.”
Within the past week, Lockheed Martin has already been given a $279 million contract to finish their fourth Freedom-class littoral (shallow water) warship, the USS Cooperstown, $302 million for the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile program, a $940 million contract for maintaining Sikorsky helicopters, and yet another $49.1 million for “ship integration” of the Aegis missile defense system.
