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Christian Sorensen: War Industry Muster–Intro to Foreign Military Sales (FMS)

Stop Arming Israel

Image by Palestine Solidarity Campaign via Flickr

by Christian Sorensen
Writer, Dandelion Salad
September 25, 2019

C.P. Sorensen on Aug 10, 2019

Today’s episode of War Industry Muster introduces foreign military sales, or FMS.

The U.S. war industry is comprised of the corporations and academic institutions that develop, market, and sell weapons of war and related goods & services to the U.S. Department of War and allied regimes.

Transcript

Welcome to War Industry Muster. Today’s episode introduces foreign military sales, or FMS.

The U.S. war industry is comprised of the corporations and academic institutions that develop, market, and sell weapons of war and related goods & services to the U.S. Department of War and allied regimes.

Through Foreign Military Sales (FMS), the U.S. government procures and transfers military goods and services to allied nations and international organizations.

The worst regimes on Earth are frequent customers, including Riyadh, Cairo, Abu Dhabi, and Tel Aviv. War corporations do not conceal the fact that they sell to these regimes because the U.S. war industry operates in a favorable, pro-war environment in the United States.

FMS is a growing sector of the war industry.

High-ranking U.S. military officers, for their part, support FMS because foreign militaries dependent on U.S. equipment, know-how, training, parts, and software are more likely to listen to the Pentagon when it comes to military matters, international policy, and the direction to take in regional conflicts. Pentagon and industry officials claim FMS is just the U.S. government providing “capability to address common challenges,” helping allies’ “ability to defend themselves,” and “building partner capacity.”

The U.S. war industry loves the Zionist regime perched in Tel Aviv. Each year, D.C. funnels roughly $4.3 billion U.S. tax dollars to the Zionist regime. The Zionist regime uses most of that money to purchase weaponry from the U.S. war industry. (They are supposed to use it all on U.S. weaponry, according to the most recent agreement signed with D.C. in September 2016, but they do not provide accurate receipts and the D.C. regime does not press them on this oversight.) In addition to the billions of U.S. tax dollars routed through Israel to the U.S. war industry, the U.S. war industry loves the Zionist regime because the Zionist Occupation of Palestine and Zionist aggression against neighboring countries provide U.S. war corporations with an outsourced proving grounds to collaborate, test, evaluate, modify, and improve weaponry. The Zionist regime regularly purchases weaponry from Boeing, General Dynamics, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. Other, smaller war corporations profit—sales like FLIR weapon sights and ViaSat communications systems. The Zionist regime regularly claims self-defense when using U.S. weaponry to kill Arabs.

The Egyptian regime must be mentioned within the context of the U.S. supporting the Zionist regime. D.C. supports the Egyptian regime for two main reasons: the U.S. war industry says so, and the Zionist lobby says so. The U.S. war industry wants to sell weapons, and the Zionist lobby wants D.C. to continue giving Egypt the annuity of roughly $1.4 billion in foreign military financing—an effective bribe that helps the peace between Egypt and Israel. The U.S. war industry reequipped a pacified Egyptian military after the cessation of hostilities at the end of October 1973, en route to the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty. And it hasn’t stopped arming Egypt since. Recent sales to the Egyptian regime include but are not limited to Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft; a United Technologies reconnaissance system that is bolted onto the bottom of Egypt’s F-16s to provide detailed images, day or night; construction of military facilities at Cairo West Air Base; General Dynamics Abrams tanks; Husky mine detection vehicles; countermeasure flares; fuzes; Leidos mission planning software; ManTech vehicle maintenance; Orbital ATK motors for AIM-9P rockets; Raytheon missiles and radar systems; Swiftships boats; General Electric fighter jet engine maintenance; and Lockheed Martin targeting and vision devices for pilots on Boeing AH-64 helicopters. While these industry goods were being sold to Egypt, the Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah al-Sisi jailed thousands, executed dissidents, snuffed out free speech, tortured opponents, and committed other egregious human rights violations. D.C. likes al-Sisi because he enforces the peace with Israel, purchases weaponry from U.S. war corporations, and opens up the country to foreign investment.

We return to Apartheid Israel.

All major U.S. war corporations from Boeing to Raytheon have offices in Israel (inside the 1948 Palestinian land, that is). The CEOs of major U.S. war corporations travel to and from Israel regularly.

U.S. construction firms aid and abet the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Israel is not the only country that uses U.S. construction firms, but Israel is by far the most egregious. Construction contracts with Israel are usually issued via a branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Wiesbaden, Germany. U.S. construction corporations that have worked regularly for the Zionist regime include AECOM, Conti, KBR, and Nibor Enterprises. On 31 July 2015, Conti received a contract to build a photovoltaic power plant at an air base in Apartheid Israel. It’s worth noting that the Israeli military bombed Gaza’s electrical power plant in their 2008-2009 assault and again on 29 July 2014. Electricity for Zionist colonists, good. Electricity for Palestinians, bad.

Israeli war corporations have set up shop in the U.S. to sell to the War Department and cooperate on military technology. For example, the Israeli war corporation Elbit Systems has expanded its presence in Fort Worth, Texas, in recent years. Elta North America, a subsidiary of Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI), is headquartered in Annapolis Junction, Maryland, just west of Fort Meade, which is home to the National Security Agency. The Israeli war industry has succeeded—prospered financially, to be precise—in recent years by playing to certain strengths, which have been developed over decades attempting to control the Palestinian population. A sizeable portion of the Israeli war industry is now focused on population control and counterinsurgency technologies, like surveillance equipment, unmanned aerial vehicles, border sensors, and oppressive know-how. The worst regimes in the world, from Beijing to D.C. to Riyadh, use Israeli technology.

Israel is functionally a part of the U.S. war industry.

Another regime in southwest Asia, the Saudi regime, has an open relationship with the Zionist regime and stands in great favor with the U.S. war industry.

The U.S. war industry’s relationship with Saudi Arabia encapsulates D.C.’s approach to foreign policy: corporate and immoral. U.S. weaponry is the backbone of the Saudi military, including the National Guard, which leads the way quashing the Saudi citizenry whenever they rise up in demand of basic human rights. Corporations such as Booz Allen Hamilton, DynCorp, Northrop Grumman, and Rockwell Collins have been instrumental in training and sustaining the Saudi National Guard.

The D.C. regime did not object when the Saudi regime turned U.S. weaponry on civilians in Yemen. For years, weaponry from the U.S. war industry has murdered innocents in Yemen. The U.S. State Department approved over $30 billion in goods and services between four war corporations (Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon) and the Saudi regime during the last decade (Alex Kane, In These Times, 20 May 2019).

Saudi lobbyists go to great lengths to persuade, purchase support, and stay in favor within D.C.

Lockheed Martin’s business is one of the major links between the D.C. and Saudi regimes. The man in charge of Lockheed Martin’s business with Saudi Arabia, Joe Rank, recently finished up a career in the U.S. Army that spanned three decades. His final position in Army uniform was helping guide Middle East policy for the Secretary of War.

Liberals praise Capitol Hill for voting piecemeal to “end U.S. support for the Saudi war on Yemen,” but no vote so far has banned the U.S. Armed Forces or mercenaries from operating in the Arabian Peninsula. No vote has ended sales from U.S. war corporations to the Saudi regime. No vote has touched CIA’s drone war. And all votes allow loopholes for endless war against al-Qaeda and anyone the Pentagon or Langley deems “affiliates.” U.S. Congress will not harm the pillars of the D.C.-Saudi relationship.

U.S. war corporations increasingly rely on foreign military sales as a means of profit. Sales demand conflict. War. Is. A. Racket.

Christian Sorensen is a novelist and independent journalist. His work focuses on the U.S. war industry. His new book is Understanding the War Industry. Support Christian on Patreon. His website is War Industry Muster.

From the archives:

Howard Zinn: We Should Welcome the Collapse of the US Empire

Christian Sorensen: War Industry Muster–Why Work for the War Industry? + Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab is a Part of the War Industry

Christian Sorensen: War Industry Muster–The Corporate Underpinnings of the Special Relationship

Christian Sorensen: War Industry Muster–War Is A Racket

Will Griffin: How the U.S. Military Shaped Global Capitalism

Will Griffin: Militarism is Capitalism

What Should We Do Instead Of Bombing Yemen? Not Bomb Yemen! by David Swanson

What If Governments Obeyed Laws? by David Swanson + Merchants of Death: How the Military-Industrial Complex Profits from Endless War

Smedley Butler: I Was A Racketeer, A Gangster For Capitalism

The Great American Perpetual Motion War Machine by Greg Maybury

Chris Hedges: Israel’s Secret Weapons–“Combat-Tested” Against the People of Gaza