Profiting our Way to Peace?
FROM MY CORNER
Rising Defense stock prices are the news of the day. Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Honeywell International are all hitting new highs.
Media news attributes this substantially to all the military fuss about North Korea’s insistent nuclear experimentation as it strives to join the atomic bomb club. Simultaneously, however, the U.S. is busy completing a $110 Billion defense product deal with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia, you may remember, is where 15 of the 19 attackers on 9/11 came from. Whether the country is an active supporter of terrorists remains a major question being debated within the U.S. government.
America passed JASTA (Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act) which makes possible legal action against states that support “terrorists” who commit violent acts on U.S. soil. Lawyers from both Saudi Arabia and the U.S., battling over this in court, remain tight lipped about the legal struggle.
The point to be aware of is that, while the legal battle continues, the two countries are not adverse to creating multi-billion dollar sales of some of our defense technology to giant oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
It appears that capitalism’s beloved profit motive still Trumps serious potential enmity between the two countries. This is not surprising. The profit motive of our defense industry, which includes the oil industry, intimidates most citizen initiatives seeking real international peace.
It is a very difficult subject to write about. So much remains behind the scenes under the show business circus acts of the daily news. No one except those with top secret clearances can come anywhere near accessing the true inner workings of the powerful military/industrial complex.
Further, to be considered is always the issue of loyalty to our own country and its defense posture. Americans have largely accepted our immense profit-oriented defense industry. Speaking against it demands a careful tongue.
No one, after all, wishes to seem to demean Veterans. It is too easy to develop enemies when discussing this complex phenomenon. The position for any interested “patriot” may simply be to keep your eyes and ears open and pay attention.
We ordinary citizens, so normally disengaged from any serious connection to either defense or media news, can hardly do anything more complicated than be reminded of the old saying:
“Politics makes for strange bedfellows”
Indeed. It always has and clearly still does.
Howell – although you reveal no top secret information, your awareness is extensive enough to warrant action. Indeed, I think most Americans, today, know this to be true, just like you and I do. Most Americans, would add up to over 150 million people. Why is it that 150 million people are so afraid to stand up to this government and declare in a popular voice of no confidence, that this administration must resign, before we get ourselves into a nuclear war with North Korea. Before, it the key, here. Just, today, President Trump spoke about peace at the United Nations, but our Ambassador to the UN spoke of the failure of negotiations with North Korea to stop their nuclear proliferation and their missile program. We are on the brink of nuclear war, and nobody seems to be too worried, as if it is just another story in the fictional world of action movies.
Some, most perhaps, would believe Kim Jung Un is a consummate bluffer. That he is smart enough not to actually make any preemptive nuclear strike toward the U.S. or its allies. It is a debatable subject. However, it may be true. We may not really be at the edge of a real nuclear conflict. If a nuclear war did occur, it would be short, bloody, and the U.S. likely would come out the official winner. But, the cost in life would be large. To actually start a nuclear war would be a dangerous move by North Korea. Kim sure knows this. Until then, given the facts at hand, some deep breaths by all of us incapable of seriously influencing the situation, deep breaths and a calm mind are our only personal weapons in the game. I’ll bet we’re going to come out fine; some sort of resolution will occur. The odds are hard to calculate that’s all.