Military Industrial Complex

The Military- Industrial Complex Important Points (of US President Eisenhower in 1961)  “A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment”

 Total influence of Military-Industrial complex : economic, political, spiritual

 The military production

Manufacturing arms, warships, fighter planes, clothes, shoes, medicine and beer for the forces – is paid for by the state, that is with taxpayers’ money.

 Military industry after World War II o Cold War

o Iraq and Afghanistan

 PMFs Private companies, hired by governments, to provide a wide range of military and security services.

Kellogg, Brown, Root (formerly part of Halliburton), DynCorp, Blackwater, Trident.

 Military industry on society 3.8% of the total US workforce employed in direct defenserelated jobs. Considering that there are 26.5 million veterans in

the USA, we have 30 million of Americans receiving money from State that directly or indirectly are originated from USA military budget.

 Pentagonism https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37Dvt2EqXF4&feature=youtu .be “Pentagonism operates military methods similar to imperialism, but its purpose is different. The territory going to be attacked is the final depository of goods that have already been produced and sold and paid for by the mother country. It would not matter to those who accumulate profits on military production whether these goods were thrown into the sea or used for war. But the pentagonized people would not be willing to spend their tax dollars if the high defense budgets were not justified by war.”

 Future of military industry complex

Were these enemies and threats real, or invented?

According with text, USA found a pretext to continue the profitable production of weapons and keep strong in economic and geopolitics terms. They saw Soviet Union as their enemy. They had totally different ideology however both were running with same proposes: Total and undisputed power of the world In order to keep the communist threat alive and to keep the

people way from questing about military spending, they create a “Fear based mind control program”, stimulating extreme levels of fear against Soviet Union:  The fear of “enemies within”

 The fear of “nuclear weapons”  The scare of communist controlled the countries in South East Asia and Latin America.

So, a climate of fear was created in order to incite fear in the general public to achieve political and military goals.

The Vietnam War was the first “television war”. It brought

the “horror of war” night after night into people´s living rooms. It

was all about creating a state of fear which leaded to trauma and brought out the worst on the population.

Images of burning people alive, mass shootings, bombings, etc have a brutal impact in human brain, submerged within the subconscious mind of the global population.

“ If the population believes there is a threat, it will freely give up even more rights to be protected.�

Give examples of enemies and threats used to justify involvement in war, and the production of arms.

After the World War II the United States of America was in a good shape, economically. They had the conditions to prosper in a peaceful way, however they needed to find an enemy to keep “endless flow of government money for military industry”.

Therefor Cold War arises with URSS as the enemy of USA. NATO Alliance was created with propose of keeping peace and security against the Soviet Union.

During that period, military spending went up, with money invested in nuclear weapons and anti-nuclear missile systems placed in space.

After Cold War, military spending dropped to its lowest since World War II. “The military-industrial complex needed a new type of enemy and a new type of war.”

The Terrorist attack in USA on 9/11, 2001 “comes in handy” to the military industry. Military weapons were created to fight the Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Oil Conspiracy in Uganda Kony 2012 became one the most viral video in the world in 2012.

The propose of the video was to capture attention from the public about Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord`s Resistance Army (LRA).

Indeed, Kony and the LRA had terrorized tens of thousands and displaced millions of central and east Africans, but actually there is

not signals that he still alive somewhere else in Uganda or nearest countries.

Invisible Children is the organization that created the video and through that they supports Obama’s military advisor plan and urges Americans to be aware of and support this plan as well.

• In Nov. 2011, President Barack Obama already had sent military advisors, 100 of them, to assist the Ugandan military.

• Many industry insiders have assumed Uganda had oil since the 1980s.

• Next, let’s consider the location of Ugandan oil reserves and the ease with which the US government could access them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNLeOKWfLJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSSVEQp2DSU

Summarize who benefits from the military-industrial

complex.

 Arms suppliers

o Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon  Military contracting firms  Banks

 PMFs ( private military forces) o Kellogg,

Brown

and

Root

(formerly

part

of

Halliburton), DynCorp, Blackwater, Trident,etc.  Corporations, like Bechtel and Haliburton, General Motors,

General Electric, who build infrastructure projects in the country that was attacked, after war.  Businessmen  Generals

 Resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society  Shareholders  Politicians ( Revolving door - the door is open to high government positions as president, secretary of defence, secretary of state, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, national security advisor, chairman of committees, etc.)

The door is also open to important positions in big corporations,

especially in the military industry

Summarize the effect of the war on the ordinary

people in these countries (Afganistan, Iraq)

 Over one million people died as a result of these conflict  Millions of orphans from the war  Children and adults suffering mental health problems  Innocent people were bombed by US planes, drivers were shot at checkpoints because they missed a flashlight warning them to stop, and hundreds of other unarmed civilians were killed for no legitimate cause.

 The war in these countries continues taking and destroying lives, due to the direct consequences of violence.  Disintegration of public health, security, and infrastructure like schools, shops, offices.  Civilians have been killed by many ways like assassination, explosive devices, cross fire.  Doctors, teachers and women who did not wear burqa became an open target for the fundamentalist.

 Unexploded devices from the war against the Al-Qaeda continue to kill innocents even in the absence of fighting  Large number of wounded people, including amputees and burn victims without treatment.  Lack of clean drinking water, malnutrition and reduced access to health care.

 Drought and floods made more even worse the life conditions of these countries.  Prisoners had been set free, causing the chaos and mass looting of private stores, houses, museums and more.  This two countries became extremely vulnerable to the indirect effects of the war  Premature death — poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation, lack of access to health care,

 Multinational companies from the countries that had supported the war built huge infrastructure projects: power plants, highways, ports, industrial parks, things that serve the very rich and seldom even reach the poor. Most of these companies create permanent construction contracts. “In fact, the poor suffer, because the loans have to be repaid, and they’re huge loans, and the repayment of them means that the poor won’t get education, health, and other social services, and the country is left holding a huge debt, by intention”.

Economic Hit men

“Love is the reason why there is pain, When we lose someone precious to us, hate is born. Vengeance is the product of that hate and so death follows. But in death there is only more death. This will give rise to more pains. In this cursed world we live in, it is a cycle of hatred that will not cease.”

The War you don't see By: Pilger Promote war is not so difficult, just choose the perfect time to get the individual to each person emotions.

Edward Bernays invented a concept that called of modern advertising.

This way of working was based on the principle that people are irrational, their decisions and actions are easily manipulated.

Modern Advertising -------- Public Relations

For Edward Bernays, public relations was like a war against the people to manipulate their will.

The best way to persuade people is touch their emotions through their unconscious impulses and intuitive.

Persuasion factors: • Use shocking images, • Use of exaggeration, • Use of euphemism words,

• Use of videos and violent images to invoke the revolt of both parties. Ex: show videos or cases of people who have suffered at the hands of the Americans to appeal the uprising of Iraqis and vice versa, • Show real cases of woes, • Use of taboo symbols to draw attention of the population, • Focus on people, and the events that impact their lives, • Use some symbols to associate with others. Ex: explosionsterrorists-Al-Qaeda.

With the advancement of media and the easy sharing of information, the world earn a new word “Embedding”-to insert- a concept used by journalists to define war events.

Nowadays the information are easy to get, because of “Global Village�. An event that is happening, live in a part of the world, the other party can see the event in real time.

The media are the eyes and the opinion of the people, and therefore try to foist information in the way that suits them. How to reach the public and public opinion is through the television channels and newspapers, like CNN and Al Jazeera. Each TV channel tries to take advantage of their part of the story.