{"id":19449,"date":"2020-01-19T07:18:51","date_gmt":"2020-01-19T12:18:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=19449"},"modified":"2020-01-19T07:19:33","modified_gmt":"2020-01-19T12:19:33","slug":"usa-following-iran-strike-lockheed-martin-and-raytheon-score-huge-defense-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=19449","title":{"rendered":"USA: Following Iran Strike, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Score Huge Defense Contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .<\/p>\n

An article by Peter Castagno in Citizen Truth<\/a> (All Citizen Truth original articles licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. )<\/p>\n

Defense companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon scored huge Pentagon contracts in anticipation of military conflict with Iran following the Trump administration\u2019s assassination of Iran\u2019s most powerful general late Thursday.\u00a0Lockheed won a $1.93 billion contract\u00a0to expand production of the\u00a0controversial F-35 fighter jet program\u00a0and Raytheon gained a\u00a0$758 million deal\u00a0to manufacture advanced medium-range air to air missiles (AMRAAM).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Defense stocks have soared\u00a0in recent days as investors\u00a0have expressed excitement\u00a0at the\u00a0prospect of greater violence in the Middle East:<\/p>\n

\u201cBig-name defense stocks are rising, with Northrop Grumman leading the rally last Friday. Northrop has risen 8% in the last five days, while Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have jumped around 4% and 2%, respectively,\u201d\u00a0reported Forbes Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe S&P 500 Aerospace & Defense (Industry) Index rose 3.7%, while the Dow Jones U.S. Aerospace & Defense Index went up 3.6% in the past five trading sessions,\u201d as per\u00a0Nasdaq on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

General Dynamics also scored a $98 million contract to work on docking phased maintenance with the Naval Sea Systems Command.<\/p>\n

Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project of the Institute for Policy Studies, notes that because top defense executives receive stock-based pay, they are\u00a0already reaping a windfall from Trump\u2019s military strike.
\n\u2018The Game Has Changed\u2019<\/p>\n

Amid escalating tensions with Iran, the\u00a0US is deploying roughly 4,500 soldiers, as well as\u00a0a wide array of ships, planes and other weapons to the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who was\u00a0Raytheon\u2019s top lobbyist for seven years, said that \u201cthe game has changed\u201d shortly before President Trump\u2019s assassination of a top Iranian general on Thursday, which marked the first time the U.S. killed a top foreign military leader since World War II. Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi said that\u00a0Soleimani was in Iraq by his invitation in an effort to deescalate tensions\u00a0with Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n

The Iraqi parliament has since voted to expel U.S. forces from the country, which Trump responded to with\u00a0threats of \u201cvery big\u201d sanctions \u201clike they\u2019ve never seen before, ever.\u201d\u00a0Trump also threatened Iran with retaliation \u201cperhaps in a disproportionate manner,\u201d including destruction of cultural sites if the country takes military action, a threat\u00a0the Pentagon has contradicted. The president has previously spoken of his\u00a0support for torture\u00a0and\u00a0\u201ctaking out\u201d the families of terrorists, all while civilian deaths abroad have\u00a0sharply increased\u00a0during his presidency.<\/p>\n

(Article continued on the right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question for this article:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

\n

Does military spending lead to economic decline and collapse?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Article continued from the left column)<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the assassination was to prevent an imminent attack on U.S. forces planned by the general, but provided\u00a0no evidence for his claim, and\u00a0other officials have offered divergent accounts.\u00a0The Washington Post\u00a0reported on Sunday that Pompeo had been pushing the move for months.
\nEconomist Dean Baker\u00a0noted that some defense stocks suspiciously surged before the attack:<\/p>\n

Revolving Door<\/strong><\/p>\n

As\u00a0Citizen Truth wrote earlier this week, critics argue that the revolving door between private defense contractors and the Pentagon improperly influences public policy to benefit private weapons manufacturers:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn November 2018, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) released an\u00a0analysis\u00a0of the Trump administration\u2019s defense sector, finding 645 instances of federal employees working for the top 20 Pentagon contractors in fiscal year 2016. Most of them worked as lobbyists, where they used public funds allocated to them through Pentagon contracts to vouch for policies that would help their private employers profit.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Department of Defense Secretary Mark Esper\u00a0spent seven years as the top lobbyist at Raytheon, refused to recuse himself from decisions involving his former employer, and has refused to wait before returning to Raytheon after his public service. U.S. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy is a former Lockheed Martin executive.<\/p>\n

Former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who resigned in 2019, was ranked by the nonprofit government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington as one of the \u201cmost corrupt members of Congress\u201d for her work with Lockheed Martin. In 2015, Lockheed Martin paid a\u00a0$4.7 million settlement\u00a0to the Department of Justice after the revelation it had used taxpayer funds to hire lobbyists, including Wilson, for a $2.4 billion contract.<\/p>\n

Critics argue that proponents of military action should disclose their ties to the arms industry. Beyond the\u00a0numerous Pentagon officials connected to weapons manufacturers, many congressmembers are\u00a0supported by companies like Lockheed Martin\u00a0and\u00a0hold stock in the defense industry. As\u00a0Lee Fang reported Monday night, multiple pundits who have praised the recent assassination neglected to reveal their financial interests in the arms corporations preparing for war.<\/p>\n

Defense Spending<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Intercept\u2019s Lee Fang reported last year\u00a0that Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson said that \u201cbipartisan support for defense spending,\u201d favored her company, in addition to geopolitical tensions with countries like Iran.<\/p>\n

House Democrats approved a $738 billion military package last month, even as it was stripped of amendments that would have forbidden the president from starting wars without congressional approval. Congress approved the colossal spending package a week after the\u00a0Afghanistan papers\u00a0were published, revealing how the U.S. government systematically deceived the public about the war in Afghanistan for 18 years.<\/p>\n

In October, an\u00a0Ex-Pentagon official said he was fired\u00a0for speaking out about defense companies ripping off taxpayers. A 2016 Politico profile\u00a0described the official, Shay Assad, as \u201cthe most hated man in the Pentagon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTraditionally, defense stocks tend to outperform the market during periods of budget growth,\u201d\u00a0reported CCN. A\u00a0CNBC analysis found\u00a0that \u201cshares of defense companies outperform the broader market in the six months after a crisis event in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY . An article by Peter Castagno in Citizen Truth (All Citizen Truth original articles licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. ) Defense companies Lockheed Martin and Raytheon scored huge Pentagon contracts in anticipation of military conflict with Iran following the Trump administration\u2019s assassination of Iran\u2019s most powerful general late … Continue reading USA: Following Iran Strike, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Score Huge Defense Contracts<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,91],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-19449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disarmament","category-north-america","tag-north-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}