Ombion: War is US imperialist top business

THAT is all there is in the United States (US) assassination of Iran’s top general Soleimani. Trigger a war with Iran to prop up the arms industry of America in the Middle East, around it and the world.

As an imperialist country, war is America’s biggest source of revenues, and play an important role in its economy and politics.

According to William Hartung, US President Donald Trump is one of the most aggressive arms salesmen in history. He boasted of the much exaggerated “$110 billion arms deal” with Saudi Arabia, announced on his first foreign trip.

It continued with his White House photo op with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in which he brandished a map with a state-by-state rundown of American jobs supposedly tied to arms sales to the kingdom.

In his years in office, President Trump has been a staunch advocate for his good friends at Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics — the main arms corporate beneficiaries of the U.S.-Saudi arms trade unlike the thousands of American soldiers the president recently sent into that country’s desert landscapes to defend its oil facilities.

All the American arms sales to the Middle East have had a severe and lasting set of consequences in the region in, as a start, the brutal Saudi/United Arab Emirates war in Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians via air strikes using U.S. weaponry and pushed millions of Yemenis to the brink of famine. And don’t forget the recent Turkish invasion of Syria in which both the Turkish forces and the Kurdish-led militias they attacked relied heavily on U.S.-supplied weaponry.

Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear that he cares far more about making deals for that weaponry than who uses any of it against whom. It’s important to note, however, that, historically speaking, he’s been anything but unique in his obsession with promoting such weapons exports (though he is uniquely loud about doing so).

His predecessor, Obama administration, managed to offer the royals of Saudi kingdom a record $136 billion in US weapons between 2009 and 2017. Not all of those offers resulted in final sales, but striking numbers did. Items sold included Boeing F-15 combat aircraft and Apache attack helicopters, General Dynamics M-1 tanks, Raytheon precision-guided bombs, and Lockheed Martin bombs, combat ships, and missile defense systems. Many of those weapons have since been put to use in the war in Yemen.

Since the US war of aggression on Iraq, US arms industry boasted an average of $US 70B arms sales a year.

In 2016 alone, top US Defense Contractors, namely Lockheed Martin made a sales of $US 161.7B, Boeing $US 121.4B, Norththrop Grumman $US 68.8B, Raytheon $US 57.2B, General Dynamics $US 47.8B, BAE system $US 42.4B, SAIC $US 25.8B, Mcdonnel Douglas $US 24.7B, General Electric $US 19.8B and OshKosh $US 18.5B.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, from 2014 to 2018 the United States accounted for more than 54% of known arms deliveries to the Middle East. Russia lagged far behind with a 9.5% share of the trade, followed by France (8.6%), England (7.2%), and Germany (4.6%). China, often cited as a possible substitute supplier, should the U.S. ever decide to stop arming repressive regimes like Saudi Arabia, came in at less than 1%.

If we are to account US arms sales since the Vietnam war, and its hundreds of covert and overt war operations in various parts of the world, Africa, Latin America, Asia, the amount could just be unimaginable.

Philippines is no exception; it has received billions in defense aid and loans from the US, not to mention the special combat, psywar, intelligence and career trainings given to Filipino defense officials and military officers and infantry men.

Of course, with arms sales, the US also rake in billions and trillions in the control of oil of the middle east and Central Asia countries.

Will Iran retaliate with equal violence? It may on small scale but widespread battles in multifront, including in America cities, and America’s allies and client states, including Philippines.

But I still believe that while US commands overwhelming military superiority over Iran, it will not engage in a full blown war equivalent to world war III because it knows that China, Russia and India will surely take the side of Iran, just like in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

The US is not ready for confrontation with much bigger and war ready alliance led by China and Russia.

Instead, it will continue to engage in medium intensity and proxy wars, and send messages to its foes that it can hit whoever it wants anytime and from anywhere, as it solidifies politically with in the US.

And Trump needed the strike against Iran’s General Soleimani to divert the focus of American public and his opponents away from his impeachment and the upcoming US elections to the much hyped but calculated war with Iran.

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