{"id":34668,"date":"2016-03-30T13:49:36","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T17:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=34668"},"modified":"2016-03-30T13:49:36","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T17:49:36","slug":"former-bush-official-laments-we-are-the-death-merchants-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=34668","title":{"rendered":"Former Bush Official Laments &#8220;We Are The Death Merchants Of The World&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--more-->by Claire Bernish<br \/>\nTheAntiMedia.org<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cI think Smedley Butler was onto something,\u201d<\/em> Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former George W. Bush administration heavyweight, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2016\/03\/29\/we_are_the_death_merchant_of_the_world_ex_bush_official_lawrence_wilkerson_condemns_military_industrial_complex\/\" target=\"_blank\">told <em>Salon<\/em><\/a> in an exclusive interview.<\/p>\n<p>Major General Smedley Butler earned the highest rank in the U.S. Marine Corps, accumulating numerous accolades as he helped lead the United States through decades of war. <strong>He later became an ardent critic of such militarism and imperialism.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><u><strong><em>\u201cWar is a racket,\u201d<\/em> <\/strong><\/u>Butler famously said, and Wilkerson \u2014 who has also turned critical of U.S. imperialist policy \u2014 agrees with and admires the esteemed Marine.<\/p>\n<p data-mediaconductor-processed=\"true\">Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to former secretary of state, Colin Powell, has<strong>grown tired of <em>\u201cthe corporate interests that we go abroad to slay monsters for.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dianomi.com\/smartads.epl?id=2381\" width=\"100%\" height=\"114\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"NO\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Of the profiteering scheme that wars have come to embody, Wilkerson <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=WD4XBAAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA333&amp;dq=%22I+might+have+given+Al+Capone+a+few+hints%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwj7sr65ruTLAhVMXB4KHY0CCLkQ6AEILTAD#v=onepage&amp;q=%22I%20might%20have%20given%20Al%20Capone%20a%20few%20hints%22&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\">quoted<\/a> Butler:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"quote_start\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"quote_end\"><\/div>\n<p><strong><em>\u201cLooking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Noting Butler\u2019s brief but accurate characterization of what Eisenhower <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU\">called<\/a> the military-industrial complex, Wilkerson added that <strong>today\u2019s war machine <em>\u201cis more pernicious than Eisenhower ever thought it would be.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The willingness of such weapons and military equipment corporations to excuse the transgressions of repressive and abusive regimes in the Middle East and Asia for the sake of profit, Wilkerson asserted, stands as evidence Eisenhower underestimated the extent the to which the problem would manifest.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWas Bill Clinton\u2019s expansion of NATO \u2014 after George H. W. Bush and [his Secretary of State] James Baker had assured Gorbachev and then Yeltsin that we wouldn\u2019t go an inch further east \u2014 <strong>was this for Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, and Boeing, and others, to increase their network of potential weapons sales?<\/strong>\u201d<\/em> Wilkerson asked.<\/p>\n<p><u><strong><em>\u201cYou bet it was,\u201d<\/em> <\/strong><\/u>he answered his own question.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIs there a penchant on behalf of the Congress,\u201d<\/em> he continued<em>, \u201cto bless the use of force more often than not because of the constituencies they have and the money they get from the defense contractors?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cYou bet.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIt\u2019s not like Dick Cheney or someone like that went and said let\u2019s have a war because we want to make money for Halliburton,\u201d<\/em> Wilkerson explained, describing such decision-making as <em>\u201cpernicious.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Taking his description a step further, <strong>Wilkerson characterized those corporations flooding congressional elections and political PACs with cash as <em>\u201canother pernicious influence.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Relating another ill of the U.S. war machine, Wilkerson repined the creep of privatization of <em>\u201cpublic functions, like prisons,\u201d<\/em> for which the former Bush official places greatest blame on Republicans \u2014 though Democrats appear as eager about the shift. <em>Salon<\/em> mentioned Hillary Clinton\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/campaign-2016-hillary-clinton-pitched-iraq-business-opportunity-us-corporations-2121999\" target=\"_blank\">speech<\/a> from 2011, during her tenure as Secretary of State, in which she stated, <u><strong><em>\u201cIt\u2019s time for the United States to start thinking of Iraq as a business opportunity.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n<p>Indeed, journalist Jeremy Scahill extensively reported and investigated the enormous army of private contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan \u2014 with a particular focus on Blackwater. Run by notorious mercenary Erik Prince \u2014 who recently became the <a href=\"http:\/\/theintercept.com\/2016\/03\/24\/blackwater-founder-erik-prince-under-federal-investigation\/\" target=\"_blank\">subject of an investigation<\/a> by the Dept. of Justice and other federal agencies \u2014 Blackwater appeared to operate so unpredictably as to essentially be a rogue organization.<\/p>\n<p>Scahill penned <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk\/2007\/aug\/01\/military.usa\" target=\"_blank\">an article<\/a> for the <em>Guardian<\/em> in 2007, revealing the exact troubles with privatization Wilkerson referred to \u2014 there were 48,000 \u2018private contractors\u2019 working for 630 companies in varying capacities in Iraq.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIn many respects,\u201d<\/em> Wilkerson continued, <u><strong><em>\u201cit is now private interests that benefit most from our use of military force. Whether it\u2019s private security contractors, that are still all over Iraq or Afghanistan, or it\u2019s the bigger-known defense contractors, like the number one in the world, Lockheed Martin.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n<p>Contractors have arguably done the most to damage U.S.\u2019 international relations and accountability than any other factor \u2014 except for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmsforaction.org\/watch\/iraq-for-sale-the-war-profiteers\/\" target=\"_blank\">corporations paying them<\/a>. All of this profit for belligerence has clearly benefited one de facto policy: American imperialism.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe now dwarf the Russians or anyone else who sells weapons in the world,\u201d<\/em>Wilkerson noted. <strong><em>\u201cWe are the death merchant of the world.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now, Wilkerson worried,<em><u><strong> \u201cWe\u2019ve privatized the ultimate public function: war.\u201d<\/strong><\/u><\/em><\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2016-03-30\/former-bush-official-admits-weve-privatized-ultimate-public-function-war\">http:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2016-03-30\/former-bush-official-admits-weve-privatized-ultimate-public-function-war<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}