U.S. government as military/business state

This may not be much of a surprise to anyone who follows national politics but the military-industrial complex has become the military-intelligence complex. There used to be a joke floating around that said “Military intelligence is neither”. Meaning our military had gotten weak and they were far from intelligent. However, the Bush administration, under the guidance of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, changed that.

They devised methods of financially profiting from a military role in Iraq while at the same time guaranteeing the continued need for a bigger, more technologically advanced military presence throughout the world. This administration saw this great opportunity for profit in Iraq and was just brazen enough and unethical enough to put their plan in motion. Their only hurdle to more profit was the fact that the U.S. public will not stand for the return of the draft. War profiteers salivate over having a draft because a larger military means more support staff, more supplies and more weapons which translates to more profit.

But this did not deter them in their profit scheme. They simply hired professional private soldiers, such as Blackwater USA, but did it in such a way as to create a financially symbiotic relationship.

Training Future Private Contractors

Blackwater USA founder, Erik Prince started out in the service of his country and soon learned how to turn his U.S. military training into profit, for himself. Their website states that "Blackwater Training Center was founded in 1996 to fulfill the anticipated demand for government outsourcing of firearms and related security training.” “Anticipated” and “outsourcing” are the key operative words here. Erik Prince did not create this company in ‘hopes’ that the federal government would need his services. He had assurances that his company would become another tool in our governments design for continued world dominance. The U.S. government hires Blackwater USA to train military personnel. Did the U.S. military become ineffective in training their own? Or is this part of a scheme to spread money around to their cronies?

Top CIA and Pentagon officials have taken up high positions in Blackwater USA and retain close working relationships with our government in order to profit from our self-declared ‘war on terror’. A war that we perpetuate in our continued ambition to remain the world’s dominant nation.

Stephen Cambone, once undersecretary of defense for intelligence and longtime aide to Donald Rumsfeld was hired by QinetiQ (pronounced kinetic) North America (QNA), a major British owned defense and intelligence contractor based in McLean, Virginia who has also profited from hiring former high-ranking Pentagon and intelligence officials.

Michael McConnell, Director of National Intelligence, was once the director of the National Security Agency. Between the two positions he received a seven-figure salary at Booz-Allen Hamilton, a major intelligence contractor. The Intelligence community and contractors have become so tightly intertwined at the leadership level that their interests are identical.

Dependence on Private Contractors

Intelligence gathering is becoming privatized and therefore less controlled and scrutinized by politicians. Awarding lucrative contracts to the private sector for intelligence gathering allows the Pentagon more control of their operational outcome by having quicker and more complete access to intelligence. No longer are they dependent on what the CIA decides to pass on.

The proliferation of these private enterprises will not cease after the war is over. The hunger for more and more intelligence cannot be quenched once we have the technology to allow us to gather it. An atmosphere of distrust between citizens and their government officials will always ensure that private citizens will be spied upon.

The Bush administration is already building the case for the need to spy on us under the guise of their war on terror. This legislation is not going to go away after the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The so called war on terror will continue as long as America pushes its policies onto an unyielding and unreceptive world.

High-tech devices such as military drones and robots, low-flying satellites and jamming technologies will not be relegated to storage after the war. They will continue to be used, this time on us. Civilians will not be able to go anywhere without someone watching.

Private military, disguised as private security forces, will be used much as NATO forces are used throughout the world. They will be used to supplement the National Guard just as they were during the Katrina aftermath.

Failing Diplomacy

Doug Brooks, president of International Peace Operations Association, an association of private military firms, says his members can help ‘where governments have failed’. The failing point of any government to prevent war is when diplomacy fails. Have we lost the art of diplomacy? Have we become so much more eager to resort to violence rather than address our differences at the conference table?

The recent Colombian military incursion into Ecuador, to attack the rebel group FARC, brought condemnation by Ecuadors president Rafael Correa and Venezuelan president Victor Chavez. Why wasn’t the action discussed with Ecuador before the raid took place in order to prevent the condemnation and perceived attack on Ecuador’s sovereignty? Venezuela took the action as an attack against them by the United States! Why? Because Venezuela backs FARC, a group that resorts to violence, kidnapping, rape and murder to get what they want. And Venezuela, who represents itself as ‘the peaceful path’, will jump at any opportunity to condemn the U.S. over anything the U.S. does or backs. Missed opportunities at diplomacy that leads to the misinterpretation of actions and supports the misplaced perception of arrogance, can be deadly which is exactly why diplomacy and open, truthful conversation is necessary for the world to move toward peace.

The need for acceptance and understanding is at the core of the ongoing friction between Israel and just about everyone else.

As long as the inability to maintain meaningful diplomatic relations exist between governments there will be wars, and the need for sophisticated intelligence networks.

Donald Rumsfeld understood this, so with Cheney’s support, he set out to modernize the U.S. military into a high-tech, computerized fighting force as a means of covering up what was really going on, the building of intelligence networks through the use of private contractors. The uniformed military and the defense industry were not pleased. Both objected to Rumsfeld’s network centric policies and the accompanying cuts imposed on Cold War-era weapons such as aircraft carriers and artillery systems. But the September 11, attacks served to galvanize the country and provided the opening for Rumsfeld and his allies in the administration to make intelligence the centerpiece of their new “war on terror.” Yes, those attacks proved very fortuitous indeed.

As a result, we attacked a nation that had nothing to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks, we have been instrumental in the murder of countless Iraqi citizens and contributed to the spread of terrorism which ensures that private contractors will always play a major role in the spread of America’s form of democracy and profiteering.

We have become a cancer. We are pushing our government/business model onto the rest of the world through war profiteering. Using our military might where we used to rely on diplomacy serves only those who are in a position to be financially rewarded. People like Stephen Cambone, Doug Brooks, Michael McConnell, Dick Cheney and Erik Prince are war profiteers and as such do not have America’s best interests at heart.

The privatization of what used to be the domain of the military brings about the question of ethics. Once you become private, you take the defense and protection of the American public out of the equation. Now you are no longer concerned with defending this country. Your outlook changes from the altruistic ‘fighting for your country’ to one of fighting for your financial health.