While most Americans recoil at the conflict in the Middle East, the industrial military complex has been rolling in the money, reported The Daily Beast. This plays perfectly into Rep. Tom Cotton’s (R-AK) war-mongering narrative.
As tensions continue to rise in the Middle East, President Obama has approved the increased sale of American weapons to the military factions we support. American arms dealers are licking their chops at the chance to produce more killing machines and make more money.
The Daily Beast noted that congressional spending cuts have prompted a decreasing customer base.
“If you stop building product, you’re potentially shedding employees – and that’s constituents. That’s taxpayers. That’s your brother, your cousin, your friend – that doesn’t have a job because of a smaller defense budget,” said a defense industry lobbyist. “It’s ensuring a continuation of our industrial base and employment here.”
The military industrial complex now sees a huge payday on the horizon with the expansion of ISIS and growing turmoil in Iran. Companies have recently experienced a spike in weapons sales in the Gulf states, which is in reaction to the shaky political climate in Iran.
“There [is] a sharp increase in sales,” said Arleigh Burke of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You not only see that they’re accelerating, but they’re accelerating far faster than Iran can afford to match.”
The exported weapons market for American companies is massive, and the Middle East comprises 32 percent of that market. America sold $43 billion worth of weapons from 2010 to 2014 with a 71 percent increase to the Gulf Cooperation Council in that same time.
“This is one of the unintended consequences of this Iranian nuclear threat – you have a now far better armed Middle East than before, with more arms than ever before,” said Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Even if you don’t have a nuclear Iran, you will have a number of militaries that are far more muscular than they were a decade ago.”
While the rest of sane America condemns war, those who profit from it live for war; they pray for war. They don’t care who lives and who dies. They just want to get paid and move on.
