Obama’s trip: one of the largest U.S. weapon deals

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Obama’s trip: one of the largest U.S. weapon deals

By D. Lindley Young D.Lindley.Young@theknoxvillejournal.com


There have been many questions about Obama’s 10 day trip to India, Indonesia and, among other stops, a luncheon in Russia.

Obama touts the trip as one to get jobs for the “people” and to open up markets for American companies. It doesn’t seem that the Obama road show lived up to its billing, nor was it worth $10 million a day, which the American taxpayers funded.

A hand full of jobs for small businesses does not really matter a whole lot, when compared to multi-billion dollar weapons deals for companies like Lockheed and Boeing. Even sugar coating the trip with Obama’s silver tongue finds a skeptical audience trying to make sense of the real facts.

The real meat to the trip to Asian countries was the sale of weapons for Lockheed Martin, Boeing and other major defense and mid-level weapons industry dealers.

According to knowledgeable sources, the deal to sell weapons to India, Japan and possibly Taiwan is one of the biggest arms deals in the history of the United States.

It is a bit peculiar that the size of the deal, and the name Lockheed Martin — the biggest defense contractor in the United States, if not the world – and Boeing, fell so far below the media radar.

Although it is all about the big guys, Lockheed and Boeing, as opposed to the “people,” Obama touts jobs for the little people as his real mission. This is the height of hypocrisy, and Obama is all but calling the American “people” stupid and gullible. The snake oil salesman seems to have slipped by once again.

Most of the purported jobs are supposed to go to the big guys, like Lockheed and Boeing, and some mid-size companies, supposedly maintaining more than 75,000 jobs.

William Hartung at the Arms and Security Initiative New America Foundation speaks of the weapons sales Obama is advancing in the Asian arena saying, “There is no question, it’s big business.”

Weapons sales has been a mainstay of U.S. industry for a long time.

According to Business Insider and Mr. Hartung, in 1973, $10.1 billion in weapons, by today’s standards, including hundreds of super sonic aircraft and helicopters, were sold to Iran. In 2006 the defense industry sold planes to Turkey — 30 F-16s and related equipment for what would now cost 3.2 billion dollars. In 2003 the U.S. weapons industry sold to Poland — 48 F-16 fighting falcon combat jets for what would cost $4.2 billion today.

The list goes on and on. This doesn’t include what America buys with a defense budget bigger than that of the rest of the world combined.

However, the little guy, what Obama calls the “people” didn’t get much.

Robbins Co., of Solon, Ohio, tunnel-boring equipment for a water project in Mumbai — 35 jobs; Spancrete Machinery Corp. of Waukesha, Wis., sales of six sets of production equipment — 30 jobs; Implant Sciences, Wilmington, Mass., devices to detect bomb-making materials— 30 jobs; and SPX Communication Technology, Raymond, Maine, pilot deployment of long-range mobile phone antenna system — 5 jobs.

That’s 100 jobs. Nothing to brag about. Not such a great deal for conservatively estimating Obama’s travel expenses at $10 million a day or about $100 million. The arms business is one of the biggest businesses in the world when included with the financing that the people of the countries end up paying to buy weapons of death and destruction. The ramifications of Obama’s not-so-touted major arms deals goes beyond just providing weapons of war to India and other countries — because of the potential for war, humanity will hang on the iron cross of war waiting its fate.

Although Pakistan is supposed to be one of our partners in fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and is helping us with the war in Afghanistan, Obama insults the country, the people and the political leaders by not only going to India but selling weapons to India, and snubbing Pakistan.

We have two nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, poised for potential war, yet, Obama throws salt on the wounds. Most of the Pakistani army is stationed at the border between India and Pakistan, and India, although it will not openly admit it, has a policy of “Cold Start,” which are plans to immediately invade Pakistan should a war break out.

Now, in the midst of a very tense situation involving disputed territory between the Pakistanis and the Indians, Obama appears to be choosing sides, selling billions of dollars in weapons to India while he snubs the Pakistani people and its officials.

Obama’s actions with India are particularly insulting to the government of Pakistan, since Obama repeatedly sends drones into Pakistan territory to kill what he believes to be terrorists with the result that many Pakistani civilians are killed. This makes it very difficult for the Pakistani government to keep the lid on internal turmoil. As recently as last week, there were two suicide bombings in Islamabad, at mosques, killing more than 50 people. This has become routine in Pakistan.

Many wonder why Obama would exacerbate tensions area when the United States has a war in Afghanistan, needs the support of Pakistan but does not even attempt to have that of Afghanistan, and Pakistan and India meet to try to resolve their problems.

Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf commented on President Barack Obama’s decision not to visit Pakistan on his trip to Asia, which included a three-day stop in India. Musharraf stated, “One would have preferred that he should have gone to Pakistan to give due importance to Pakistan, which is fighting extremism and terrorism in a lead role and being a lead partner with the U.S. on this issue.”

Although Barack Obama sought to get India to back U.S. policies on Myanmar and Iran, India made clear it is not looking at modifying its policies with either. According to Indian officials, India is engaging Myanmar because of strategic and security reasons, and, it cannot ignore its civilianizational ties with Iran.

According to one source: “On Iran, we have already said that we don’t want another nuclear power in the region. However, we share a civilianizational relationship with Iran which we cannot ignore,” saying that India is not into any bargaining game with the U.S. in those countries.

Obama folds like a wet rag and approves the sale of over $10 billion and gets nothing in return. Some would see this as weakness by Obama in a limp wrist foreign policy.

Obama demeans the Office of the Presidency in the eyes of many. Like a Fuller Brush salesman hocking his brushes from country to country, in his form of weapons prostitution, isn’t very presidential. Nor does it appear to be a path to peace. Exacerbating tensions between India and Pakistan, to get a pat on the back from the weapons industry, seems to be poor policy.

America has approximately 750 military bases in as many as 130 countries across the world. Based on Vice President Cheney’s recommendation to privatize services for the military, Halliburton and Kellogg Brown and Root peel the potatoes, cook the food, mop the floors, provide the Coca-Colas, deliver gasoline, etc. on a cost plus basis. There are those that seek to cut defense spending and there are those who think we need to increase it.

The Peace Economy project, an organization that advocates for “reducing military spending in favor of social and infrastructure needs”, appeals to Congress asking that body to fund our communities.

Appeals of the Peace Economic Project, and other advocates for spending out tax payers money to build American infrastructure and otherwise assist states and communities, rather that fueling the industrial military complex that Eisenhower warned us about in his final speech, has been unsuccessful so far.

Don’t expect any defense cuts being funneled to help American communities and states while Obama is President. He is a war President, and any verbal commitment to help the states and communities is shallow and unlikely based upon his prior commitments and promises.

Again, the latest example is the pretense of creating jobs, and hypocrisy resulted in one of the biggest weapons deals in the history of America, while creating 100 jobs for small business, while billions are doled out to Lockheed and Boeing.


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