US Arms Dealers Getting Rich On Yemen's Misery

[Brian4Liberty]

US Arms Dealers Getting Rich On Yemen's Misery

As the Saudi genocide of Yemen continues, everything's coming up roses for the US arms dealers who are supplying the Saudi killing machine. Billions in arms sales are made yearly and foreign agents lobbying for the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates are making millions. Meanwhile, millions of Yemeni civilians face starvation, disease, and death in the four year Saudi war of aggression on them.

[Brian4Liberty]

War is a racket. The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex has never been stronger.

————

Arms Dealers and Lobbyists Get Rich as Yemen Burns
See the Top 4 U.S. contractors' profits explode, all while their weapons have been used against civilian targets for years.
By BARBARA BOLAND • June 25, 2019

Chronic human rights violator Saudi Arabia is using American-made weapons against civilians in the fifth-poorest nation in the world, Yemen. And make no mistake: U.S. defense contractors and their lobbyists and supporters in government are getting rich in the process.

“Our role is not to make policy, our role is to comply with it,” John Harris, CEO of defense contractor Raytheon International, said to CNBC in February. But his statement vastly understates the role that defense contractors and lobbyists play in Washington’s halls of power, where their influence on policy directly impacts their bottom lines.
...
American-origin munitions produced by companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon were identified at the site of over two dozen attacks throughout Yemen. Indeed, the United States is the single largest arms supplier to the Middle East and has been for decades, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

From 2014 to 2018, the United States supplied 68 percent of Saudi Arabia’s arms imports, 64 percent of the UAE’s imports, and 65 percent of Qatar’s imports. Some of this weaponry was subsequently stolen or sold to al-Qaeda linked groups in the Arabian Peninsula, where they could be used against the U.S. military, according to reports.
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Yet American defense contractors continue to spend millions of dollars to lobby Washington to maintain the flow of arms to these countries.

“Companies like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and other defense contractors see countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE as huge potential markets,” Stephen Miles, director of Win Without War, told TAC. “They see them as massive opportunities to make a lot of money; that’s why they’re investing billions and billions of dollars. This is a huge revenue stream to these companies.”
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“Operations and maintenance have become a very profitable niche market for U.S. corporations,” said Richard Aboulafia, a vice president at Teal Group. He added that defense contractors can make as much as 150 percent more profit off of operations and maintenance than from the original arms sale.
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From the report: “Lockheed Martin…was involved in deals worth $25 billion; Boeing, $7.1 billion in deals; Raytheon, $5.5 billion in deals; Northrop Grumman had one deal worth $2.5 billion; and BAE systems…had a $1.3 billion deal.”

“Because of the nature of U.S. arms control law, most of these sales have to get government approval, and we’ve absolutely seen lobbyists weighing in heavily on this,” Miles said. “The last time I saw the numbers, the arms industry had nearly 1,000 registered lobbyists. ... The past 18 years of endless wars have been incredibly lucrative for the arms industry, and they have a vested industry in seeing these wars continue, and not curtailing the cash cow that…has been for them.”

The defense industry spent $125 million on lobbying in 2018. Of that, Boeing spent $15 million on lobbyists, Lockheed Martin spent $13.2 million, General Dynamics $11.9 million, and Raytheon $4.4 million, according to the Lobbying Disclosure Act website.
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Over a dozen lobbying firms employed by defense contractors have also been working on behalf of the Saudi or Emiratis, efficiently lobbying for both the arms buyers and sellers in one fell swoop. One of these lobbying firms, the McKeon Group, led by former Republican congressman and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Howard McKeon, represents both Saudi Arabia and the American defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Orbital ATK, MBDA, and L3 Technologies.
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Freeman details multiple examples where lobbyists working on behalf of the Saudis met with a senator’s staff and then made a substantial contribution to that senator’s campaign within days of a key vote to keep the United States in the Yemen war.

American Defense International (ADI) represents the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s coalition partner in the war against Yemen, as well as several American defense contractors, including General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, L3 Technologies, and General Atomics.

Not to be outdone by the McKeon Group, ADI’s lobbyists have also aggressively pursued possible swing votes in the U.S. Senate for the hefty sum of $45,000 a month, paid for by the UAE.
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In addition to the overt influence exercised by lobbyists for the defense industry, many former arms industry executives are embedded in influential posts throughout the Trump administration: from former Airbus, Huntington Ingalls, and Raytheon lobbyist Charles Faulkner at the State Department, who pushed Mike Pompeo to support arms sales in the Yemen war; to former Boeing executive and erstwhile head of the Department of Defense Patrick Shanahan; to his interim replacement Mark Esper, secretary of the Army and another former lobbyist for Raytheon.
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More: https://www.theamericanconservative....s-yemen-burns/

[Origanalist]

People are too worried about hating Donald Trump or owning the libs to give a $#@!. Besides, just think of all those beautiful jobs.

I've even heard the lame excuse that if we didn't supply them the ruskies would and this way we can modify their behavior because of our influence.

[Ender]

People are too worried about hating Donald Trump or owning the libs to give a $#@!. Besides, just think of all those beautiful jobs.

I've even heard the lame excuse that if we didn't supply them the ruskies would and this way we can modify their behavior because of our influence.

Yep- and besides, we all know all the problems of the world are because of dem evil immigrants.

[Swordsmyth]

Is the problem that we sell weapons to too many people? or that we don't sell them to enough people?
Should government be telling our arms companies they can't sell to the Saudis? or should we stop government from telling them they can't sell to the Houthis?

[kfarnan]

That is bad money.

[Swordsmyth]

That is bad money.

Should gun companies be told who they can sell to?
If their guns are used in murders should they be held accountable?
Is this a problem of too little government or too much?

[Zippyjuan]

Trump will clean them all out. He hired a Boeing exec for his Secretary of Defense and is now replacing him with one from Raytheon. Mattis worked for General Dynamics. The head of his Intelligence Advisory Board is from DynCorp International. Pompeo worked for several contractors.

[kfarnan]

Should gun companies be told who they can sell to?
If their guns are used in murders should they be held accountable?
Is this a problem of too little government or too much?

It's always to much state involvement. US Government subsidizes weapons. There wouldn't be a market without the US push for arms.

[Swordsmyth]

It's always to much state involvement. US Government subsidizes weapons. There wouldn't be a market without the US push for arms.

Then we should attack it from that end instead of calling for a ban on weapons sales to any particular party.

[Origanalist]

Is the problem that we sell weapons to too many people? or that we don't sell them to enough people?
Should government be telling our arms companies they can't sell to the Saudis? or should we stop government from telling them they can't sell to the Houthis?

Do you think that under any circumstance the Houthis could get equal footing as our "ally" the Saudi's? This is never going to happen. I see what you're doing, you're arguing from a free market perspective but somehow I doubt your sincerity.

[Swordsmyth]

Do you think that under any circumstance the Houthis could get equal footing as our "ally" the Saudi's? This is never going to happen. I see what you're doing, you're arguing from a free market perspective but somehow I doubt your sincerity.

If you are going to make a practical argument that we can't get there from here I am willing to say that temporarily we might need to ban all foreign weapons sales, just as I argue for temporary practical "bandages" for other problems.

But we must not create the precedent that the government should make moral judgements about who can buy things, at least a ban on all foreigners can be made on national security grounds as opposed to moral grounds.

Too many libertarians turn into leftist interventionists when it comes to weapons sales and it feeds the anti-gun crowd.

[Origanalist]

If you are going to make a practical argument that we can't get there from here I am willing to say that temporarily we might need to ban all foreign weapons sales, just as I argue for temporary practical "bandages" for other problems.

But we must not create the precedent that the government should make moral judgements about who can buy things, at least a ban on all foreigners can be made on national security grounds as opposed to moral grounds.

Too many libertarians turn into leftist interventionists when it comes to weapons sales and it feeds the anti-gun crowd.

Yes, it get's pretty complicated. The US government awards huge contracts to these companies, sometimes for complete clunkers. Nonetheless, it's the US government funding their R+D, not the Saudi's or the Houthi's. On top of that, the government determines who can buy those weapon's and who can't.

[PAF]

the arms industry had nearly 1,000 registered lobbyists

Northrop Grumman had one deal worth $2.5 billion

Northrop Grumman has been confirmed as the winner of a three-and-a-half year, $95 million contract to develop the first two increments of a new biometric identification system for the Homeland Security Department.

DHS' future Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology system is intended as an upgrade over the current platform built in the 1990s for national security, law enforcement, immigration and intelligence functions.


The MIC is alive and well both overseas and domestically. No president can ever stop it. Only the hearts and minds of the American people if/when they finally realize it.

[juleswin]

Is the problem that we sell weapons to too many people? or that we don't sell them to enough people?
Should government be telling our arms companies they can't sell to the Saudis? or should we stop government from telling them they can't sell to the Houthis?

The problem is that we sanctions countries like Syria and Yemen for human rights violations and in the case of Yemen put naval blockade of them so making almost impossible for her allies to supply them with weapons while at the same time selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. So essential the US govt is telling weapon companies not to sell weapons to Iran, Yemen and Syria while allowing weapons sales to Saudi Arabia. That is the problem

[oyarde]

It is because people today are of low morals and unscrupulous . Decay . When I was young I did not make a lot of money dealing arms . I just loved to sell guns .