Defense Industry Lockheed Prophets of War Korean Iraq Wars Arms Industry

Tags: Lockheed Money Machine Pierre Sprey William Hartung Prophets of War Military Industrial Complex Korean War Iraq War Expanded NATO for Profit

William Hartung, an analyst I have grown to trust, talks often about the Military-Industrial Complex. Since it got bad reviews on Amazon.com with thinly veiled propaganda campaign that the book is boring. After watching the After Words where Pierre Sprey, a former F-16 engineer for Lockheed, I noticed that Amazon.com “independent” reviewer Steele lied about what was said by the Sprey interview on the After Words www.C-Span program.

Be aware that propaganda is everywhere in the good old USA. Carnegie … Peace organization is anything but that.

Lockheed which nearly went out of business after making so many lousy planes in World War II such as the P-33 which Germans had a field day shooting down due to the former not being able to maneuver well. Lockheed made some very good planes before Northrup left, a really innovative engineer such as the A-10 and Lockheed F-16. The A-10 loaded with one pound uranium tipped bullets which could penetrate walls of buildings and kill those inside, was heavily used in Iraq. The massacre in Falujah has largely gone unreported.

Why did Lockheed push for the Korean War and succeeded? To save their company! We placed our man Rhee from New Jersey into the dictatorship in South Korean and he invaded North Korea many times to finally start a war. Lockheed was making loads of money while soldiers did not even have decent books and equipment. Many died when they should have lived. If you read the honest history books, we cared shit about the South Koreans. We just wanted a war.

Some of you may recall the Neocon’s Project for the New American Century manifesto issued in 1997 to invade Iraq, a country devastated by our so-called Invasion of Iraq to save Kuwait. Sprey called this nonsense. Apparently Lockheed was behind this too! Lockheed VP, Bruce Jackson directed this effort. He started the “Committee for Liberation of Iraq.”

During the Reagan administration when the Stars Wars program was not going well because one test after another failed to stop missiles. Lockheed to heat up the attack missile so it could be easily detected by infrared sensors! The fraud was soon discovered, but it got the appropriations from congress before that.

What shocked me the most was the extent that Lockheed was responsible for starting the military-industrial complex and the Cold War when the Soviet Union had a problem even feeding themselves was not that involved in invading other countries.

I now know why Clinton expanded NATO in spite of the obvious threat to Russia. By including these former Russian satellite countries, they had to switch to American arms including planes. Yes, Lockheed was involved here too.

Lockheed still makes the C-130, the huge cargo plane in spite of Boeing’s far superior transport plane that Boeing diverted to build the 747. The Air Force doesn’t want the C-130, but the Lockheed lobby still prevailed. Yes, Obama got rid of the useless and bad F-22 fighter plane, but only when they approved the F-35 in Georgia, an even worse plane.

Why does this keep going on? Its jobs, jobs, and reelections.

Jim Kawakami,

http://www.booktv.org/search.aspx?For=Hartung

After Words: William Hartung, "Prophets of War," hosted by Pierre Sprey

Last aired: January 3, 2011

http://www.prophetsofwar.com/ Enthralling and explosive, Prophets of War is an exposé of America's largest military contractor, Lockheed Martin. When President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his famous warning about the dangers of the military industrial complex, he never would have dreamed that a company could accumulate the kind of power and influence now wielded by this behemoth company.

As a full-service weapons maker, Lockheed Martin receives over $29 billion per year in Pentagon contracts. The company has produced spy satellites; helped the Pentagon collect personal data on U.S. citizens; provided interrogators for employment at Guantanamo Bay; manufactured our highest-tech aircraft; and more. Lockheed Martin’s reach into all areas of US defense and American life is staggering. William Hartung's meticulously researched history follows the company's meteoric growth and explains how this arms industry giant has shaped US foreign policy for decades.

“The author explores how deeply Lockheed's tentacles have penetrated American economic and political life, pulling the curtain back on decades of unsavory dealings… and echoes President Eisenhower's argument that the only way to ensure against 'military-industrial' abuses is to have 'an alert and engaged citizenry.' This book is a fine step in that direction.”

—Publishers Weekly

"Fifty years after President Eisenhower's Farewell Address, should Americans still worry about the military-industrial complex? In Prophets of War, William Hartung answers that question with an emphatic yes — now more than ever.”

—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War

"I don't think anyone has made the story of the powerful rise of the military industrial complex as clear and engaging as Bill Hartung. In a time when everyone is focused on the financial community, he shows that it has been the defense industry that has long been America's most dangerous and debilitating systemic risk."

—Jeff Madrick, author of The Case for Big Government

“Prophets of War provides a sobering look at the continuing power and influence of the military-industrial complex, and a call to action for citizens seeking to stop its staggering waste of their tax dollars."

—Lawrence J. Korb, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Former Assistant Secretary of Defense

"Hartung provides a detailed, thorough, and sometimes shocking account of the enormous influence the world's largest defense contractor has on American policy. Through the shadows of Capitol Hill, he tracks the tactics and rhetoric used to cloak profitable contracts as urgent national security issues. In Prophets of War, Hartung offers a 21st century case study of the strength of the modern military-industrial complex, and forces us to wrestle with our own understanding of the relationship between national security and fiscal sanity. This is must reading for all who want to understand the raw power of money in setting national security policy."

—Joseph Cirincione, President, the Ploughshares Fund

"William Hartung has gifted all activists for peace, democracy, human rights with a powerful book. To combat the dire circumstances we now live within — heralded by Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial-congressional complex — read Prophets of War. Only "an alert and concerned citizenry" can return us to the rule of law and international sanity. This splendid book filled with essential facts is urgent reading — for hope, for life."

—Blanche Wiesen Cook, John Jay College & The Graduate Center, CUNY and author of The Declassified Eisenhower, and Eleanor Roosevelt (vols I, and II, III forthcoming)

“Bill Hartung’s “Prophets of War” is a searing indictment of the collusion between Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon, and Congress to boost the company’s profits at the expense of the American taxpayer, making the country on occasion less, rather than more, secure. He documents the company’s shameful corporate history at the apex of the military-industrial complex in meticulous detail. With dry humour he reveals the pork-barrel politics that have sustained Lockheed Martin but that undermine America’s democracy. A must-read for anyone concerned about the health of that democracy and the folly of so much of the national security discourse that underpins it.”

—Andrew Feinstein, former ANC Member of Parliament and author of After the Party: Corruption, the ANC and South Africa's Uncertain Future