Warmongering and Woke

January 17, 1961: President Dwight Eisenhower warns of the “military-industrial complex” during his farewell address.

Writing for In These Times, Sarah Lazare warns that Joe Biden’s White House will be more warlike than leftists would like:

The Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (CSIS) is list­ed as the ​“most recent employ­ment” of three indi­vid­u­als on Biden’s Depart­ment of Defense agency review team: Kath­leen Hicks (a for­mer defense offi­cial under Pres­i­dent Oba­ma), Melis­sa Dal­ton and Andrew Hunter. CSIS is a hawk­ish and influ­en­tial for­eign pol­i­cy think tank that receives fund­ing from Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Cor­po­ra­tion, Raytheon, Northrop Grum­man Cor­po­ra­tion, Lock­heed Mar­tin Cor­po­ra­tion and oth­er weapons man­u­fac­tur­ers and defense con­trac­tors, as well as oil companies.

. . . [A] New York Times inves­ti­ga­tion in 2016 found that, based on a cache of email leaks, CSIS was effec­tive­ly dou­bling as a weapons indus­try lob­by­ing firm, push­ing for expand­ed drone sales. Lock­heed Mar­tin is a key con­trac­tor for the THAAD mis­sile sys­tem in South Korea — a sys­tem that CSIS has also advo­cat­ed for with­out dis­clos­ing their con­flict of inter­est.

In June, CSIS also released a study claiming that the US faces an “escalating terrorism” problem, mostly from the Right. It did not include the list of terror attacks it used in its analysis, blurred the line between “right-wing” and “religious” motivation, and called incel mass shooters “right-wing,” but major news outlets uncritically reported its findings. On October 22, CSIS  claimed, “White supremacists and other like-minded extremists conducted two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in 2020,” and warned of more political violence due to the election. If President Biden expands military operations in the Middle East, he will face opposition from plenty of Democrats, but every faction in the Left’s coalition will praise him for buying more muscle to fight “right-wing terrorism.”

Progressives recognize that the Military–Industrial Complex is hawkish, but as mockers note, they could learn to love it.

Please support Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

It might seem like they’re getting rich off of pointless wars and military engagements.

But a time might come when we need to go to war for transgender rights, and it is then that you will thank them.

— Darren J. Beattie 🌐 (@DarrenJBeattie) October 27, 2020