Foreign policy and war profiteering
Last week we uncovered how many billions of dollars the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are costing the American taxpayers. We all know that war costs a lot of money. What we don't know is that the same people who profit off the wars we create have a direct influence in shaping the foreign policy that keeps America at war while putting millions of dollars in their own pockets.
Here is the way our government system is supposed to work: foreign policy is supposed to be drafted between the President and Congress, and the Secretary of State. In the present administration, this is Hillary Clinton. She is supposed to serve as the President's main foreign policy advisor. What is foreign policy? Foreign policy is a set of goals outlining how a country will interact with other countries economically, politically, socially and militarily. These days, many of our elected representatives have become merely the messengers of foreign policy prescriptions that were created by councils and think tanks comprised of CEOs and executives from the biggest corporations in the world. On these councils sit executives from every major industry from food to media and, most shockingly, national defense.
Is if there is a conflict of interest when CEOs of the largest defense corporations are advising our lawmakers on foreign policy? Before you decide ask yourself this: if you were the CEO of Lockheed Martin, the largest defense corporation in America, and 95% of your company's $35 billion dollar annual profit came directly from government contracts that employ you to supply war materials, would you want the war to end? Especially if you personally enjoyed a $21 million increase in compensation from 2005 to 2008 as a result of the War on Terror? Between 2001 and 2005, defense corporations' annual profits climbed 189%, and the CEOs of these corporations that benefited the most from this profit increase sit on councils together with our politicians to "recommend," "suggest" and "prescribe" foreign policy. (Source: Media Roots/brasscheck tv)