De VS
houdt tijdens de Coronacrisis o.a. de enorme wapenindustrie ‘op de
been’ met miljarden aan subsidies, niet alleen dat: de VS is bezig de
spanningen met Iran, China en Rusland te intensiveren…… Onbegrijpelijk die subsidies, immers de wapenindustrie is schathemelrijk, alsof het Cornonavirus deze doodsindustrie kan nekken……….
Vannacht maakte ARD in het nieuws van 1.00 u. bekend dat het SIPRI* heeft berkend dat de wereld vorig jaar maar liefst 1.917 miljard dollar uitgaf een wapens (in de breedste zin van het woord en het hoogste bedrag ooit), waarvan de VS 38% voor haar rekening zou hebben genomen (heb de idee dat dit een hoger percentage moet zijn)……. Met een paar procent van dat bedrag zouden we kunnen voorkomen dat mensen aan honger en te voorkomen ziekten overlijden……
Afgelopen
woensdag liet Trump weten dat de VS elk Iraans marineschip zal aanvallen
dat de VS marine dwarszit in de wateren voor de kust van Iran, dus op
duizenden kilometers verwijdert van het vaste land van de
VS………
Ook Venezuela staat nog steeds in het vizier van terreurstaat VS dat marineschepen heeft buiten de terrirtoriale wateren van dat land….. Venezuele waar intussen meer dan 40.000 mensen zijn overleden tengevolge van de illegale sancties die de VS (met steun van Canada en de EU) dit land heeft opgelegd…… De VS heeft zelfs 4 miljard aan tegoeden van Venezuela gestolen, geld dat bedoeld was voor de aankoop van medicijnen en medische apparatuur…..
Tegelijk
is de VS marine weer aanwezig in de Zuid-Chinese Zee om daar China te
tergen, voorts heeft het Pentagon de vaste routes van de nucleair
bewapende B-52 bommenwerpers losgelaten, zodat Rusland en China dit doomsday
oorlogstuig moeilijker kunnen volgen, iets dat overigens al doet denken aan een oorlogsverklaring……
Het
meest walgelijke is wel de door de VS opgevoerde bombardementen op Somalië, een
land dat zwaar is getroffen door het Coronavirus…… Hoe
fascistisch en schandalig kan een land bezig zijn…?? Ach ja, geen
wonder als je bedenkt dat de VS feitelijk de grootste terreurentiteit
op onze kleine planeet is…..
Nog een land dat lijdt onder het buitenlandbeleid van de VS: Jemen waar de VS de genocide militair ondersteunt die de Saoedische terreurcoalitie uitvoert in dat land….. Jemen een land waarvan de bewoners sterk zijn verzwakt (door honger, cholera en difterie) en waar het Coronavirus nog heel veel slachtoffers zal maken……
De VS eist voorts van Mexico dat het haar fabrieken heropent die onderdelen maken voor de wapenindustrie in de VS….. (die fabrieken waren gesloten vanwege het Coronavirus) De zogenaamd linkse president van Mexico steunt de eis van de VS en heeft al gedreigd met inzet van de nationale garde tegen stakers die weigeren te werken……
Terwijl
de psychopathische massamoordenaar en vol-idioot Trump zich afvraagt
of men Coronapatienten niet zou moeten inspuiten met een
desinfecterend middel, is de VS het zwaarst getroffen door het virus,
intussen meer dan 50.000 doden….. De kritiek op het zwaar ondermaats reageren op het Coronanvirus door de Trump administratie, lijkt het signaal te zijn voor het Witte Huis, in te zetten op oorlogsvoering om zo het volk weer
achter de gek in dat huis te krijgen…..
Uiteraard
een uiterst gevaarlijke situatie en het is mij dan ook een raadsel
waarom de andere westerse regeringen de VS niet aan de paal nagelen
voor haar gevaarlijke spel en de grootschalige terreur die dit
gestolen land over delen van de wereld verspreidt……. Elk ander
land dat zich zou gedragen als de VS zou allang onderwerp van
internationale sancties zijn geweest…….
Het
volgend artikel werd geschreven door Bill van Auken, werd eerder
gepubliceerd op World Socialist Web Site en door mij overgenomen van
Information Clearing House (onder het artikel kan je klikken voor een
vertaling, dit neemt wel enige tijd in beslag):
Merchants
of death: Multibillion-dollar bailout for arms industry amid rising
COVID-19 toll
By
Bill Van Auken
April 24, 2020
“Information
Clearing House”
– “I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and
destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at
sea,” US President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday in a startling
threat that could trigger a catastrophic war throughout the Middle
East and beyond.
The threat to launch a
war 7,000 miles from US shores in the midst of coronavirus pandemic,
whose death toll in the US is rapidly approaching 50,000, comes on
the heels of Trump’s Monday night tweet announcing a suspension of
all immigration into the United States, a transparent attempt to
scapegoat immigrants for the ravages of the pandemic and the layoffs
of tens of millions of workers.
There is in both of
these actions an expression of desperation and a flailing about in
the face of a national and global crisis for which the US ruling
class has no viable solution. It is a crude attempt to change the
subject and divert public attention from the catastrophic
consequences of the criminal indifference of the government and the
ruling oligarchy it represents to the lives and well-being of the
vast majority of the population.
Pentagon officials
reported Wednesday that they had received no prior notification of
Trump’s tweet, much less any orders for a change in the rules of
engagement in the Persian Gulf.
Nonetheless, the
brutal and fascistic rhetoric of Trump reflects a drive to war by US
imperialism that has not been tempered, but rather intensified, by
the global pandemic.
Even as Trump issued
his tweet, US warships were sailing toward a confrontation with China
in the South China Sea. At the same time, the Pentagon was announcing
a shift in its deployment of long-range, nuclear capable B-52 bombers
to make their presence less predictable to Beijing and Moscow and
thereby ratchet up tensions.
B-52s lined up at Andersen Air Force Base
In recent days, the US
has sharply escalated its air strikes against the impoverished
African nation of Somalia, even as the coronavirus pandemic threatens
to ravage its population.
Escalating war threats continue against
Venezuela, and the Pentagon continues to provide support for the
near-genocidal Saudi-led war against the people of Yemen.
Nowhere does this war
drive find more naked expression than in the massive government
bailout that is being organized for the US arms industry. With tens
of millions of workers unemployed, many facing hunger, and a drive by
both the Trump administration and state governors to force a
premature return to work, billions upon billions of dollars are being
lavished upon military contractors to sustain their guaranteed
profits and the obscene fortunes generated for their major
shareholders.
The Pentagon’s top
weapons procurer, Undersecretary of Defense Ellen Lord, told a press
conference Monday that some $3 billion has already been funneled to
the arms makers in the form of early payments for existing contracts,
in addition to billions more approved by Congress in the first CARES
Act, which pumped trillions of dollars into the financial markets. She indicated that much more will be doled out once Congress passes
another stimulus package.
Asked by a reporter
how much would be need to insure Washington’s Merchants of Death
from any losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, she replied, “We’re
talking billions and billions on that one.” Lord added that the
first priority for this aid program was the “modernization process
of the nuclear triad.”
These industries are
hardly the picture of the deserving poor. The fact that massive
financial resources that are desperately needed to save lives and
rescue millions of workers from poverty are instead being poured into
their pockets is a crime.
In a conference call
this week to inform Lockheed Martin shareholders of first-quarter
earnings, the company’s CEO, Marilyn Hewson, boasted that the
corporation’s “portfolio is broad and expanding” and its “cash
generation” strong. She said the company looked forward to
“supporting our warfighters’ needs.”
Indeed, Lockheed
Martin pulled in $2.3 billion in cash during the single quarter and
expects to top $7.6 billion—coronavirus effects
notwithstanding—over the year. It has a $144 billion backlog in
orders, an all-time high.
Asked whether she had
any qualms about political fallout over completing a $1 billion stock
buyback in the midst of the crisis, she replied, “We’re very
different, I think, than those who have experienced a very
significant impact to their demands.” Hewson announced that the
company had set aside a grand total of $10 million for
COVID-19-related relief and assistance.
The “very different”
character of these companies was also noted in a financial column
published in the New
York Times
for the benefit of its well-heeled readers, titled “Opportunity in
the Military-Industrial Complex.”
Pointing to the
projected $741 billion Pentagon budget for the coming year, the Times
counsels: “That combination of federal dollars and corporate heft
may represent an opportunity for investors who don’t mind profiting
from warfare. A modest bet on a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund
that buys military contractors and aerospace companies may help
buffer the deep recession brought on by the coronavirus.”
In short, one can reap
substantial wealth from—and amid—mass death.
One of the principal
concerns expressed by Undersecretary of Defense Lord as she spelled
out plans for the multibillion-dollar bailout of the arms industry
was the disruption of supply chains, particularly those originating
in the maquiladora
sweatshops just across the US border in Mexico. She also mentioned
problems in India.
Thousands of Mexican
workers have struck and protested against the deadly conditions
inside these plants, conditions that are being prepared for workers
throughout the planet as back-to-work orders are shoved through. At a
plant in Ciudad Juárez owned by Michigan-based Lear Corporation, 16
workers have died from COIVD-19, while area hospitals are overflowing
with victims of the virus.
The Pentagon and US
Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau have intervened with the
Mexican government, demanding that the maquiladora
workers be forced back into the plants as “essential” to US
imperialism’s war machine, just like their counterparts in the US.
Lockheed relies on low-paid Mexican workers in Chihuahua, Mexico to
produce electrical wiring for the US military’s Black Hawk and S-92
helicopters and F-16 fighter jets, while Boeing gets parts from a
plant run by PCC Aerostructures in Monterrey. General Electric,
Honeywell and other military contractors also profit off the labor of
Mexican workers across the border.
Transmitting the
dictates of the Pentagon in the language of contempt for human life
that characterizes all of the policies of the Trump administration
and the US ruling class, Ambassador Landau launched a Twitter
campaign demanding that Mexican workers go back into the maquiladoras
for the greater good of US imperialism. He enjoys the full
collaboration of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador,
promoted by the pseudo-left as a “progressive” and even
“socialist,” who has prepared the country’s National Guard for
deployment against strikers.
Warning that workers’
jobs are tied to supply chains linking them to US arms manufacturers,
Ambassador Landau said, “if we do not coordinate our response,
these chains can evaporate.”
He added, “There are
risks everywhere, but we don’t all stay at home for fear we are going
to get in a car accident. The destruction of the economy is also a
health threat.”
These are the same
reactionary, antiscientific and misanthropic arguments being made in
the US and internationally in an attempt to force workers back into
the factories and workplaces with the certainty that many will fall
sick and die.
Workers in the arms
industry in the US, like their counterparts in Mexico, have also
struck and protested over being forced to work as part of the
“critical infrastructure” of US imperialism. Workers at the Bath
Iron Works in Maine and the BAE Systems shipyard in Norfolk,
Virginia, both run by General Dynamics, have struck over the failure
of the employers to provide them with protection against infection
and death. Similarly, workers at the GE Aviation plant in Lynn,
Massachusetts, which produces engines for US Marine helicopters,
picketed the plant over the lack of protective measures or any
guarantee for workers who fall victim to COVID-19.
This resistance of the
working class across national boundaries is directly opposed to the
rabid nationalism and reaction that characterizes the response of the
ruling classes, not only in the US, but in Europe and
internationally, to the intensification of the capitalist crisis
triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. To defend their profit
interests, they will condemn millions to sickness and death, even as
they prepare for world war and fascist dictatorship.
The only
alternative is for the international working class to put an end to
the profit system and rebuild society on socialist foundations.
Copyright ©
1998-2020 World Socialist Web Site – All rights reserved – “Source“
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* Beste bezoeker bij plaatsing vergeten SIPRI als bron te noemen, hier een link naar een uitgebreid schrijven over de militaire uitgaven in 2019.
Zie ook:
‘EU ‘vraagt burgers mee te denken’ over oplossingen aangaande Coronacrisis‘ (en zie de links in dat bericht naar andere artikelen over het Coronavirus)