These are wonderful times for U.S. military contractors.
Raytheon, which employs 73,000 people announced stellar financial results, as did L-3 Communications, which employs 64,000 people and General Dynamics, which employs 81,000 people. And Lockheed, which employs 140,000 people had record earnings.
Yet for U.S. military contractors, it gets even better. In 2001, Lockheed won a military contract to build 2,400 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet aircraft, at a cost to the U.S. taxpayer of $300-billion, with deliveries to start in 2012. This is the single biggest Pentagon award ever made.
Not wanting to lose out, Boeing is offering its old F/A-18 Super Hornet, the latest version the Navy began flying in 1998. Whereas the Navy version of the new Lockheed jet costs about $65-million each, Boeing prices its jet for as little as $49.9-million each.
And Lockheed's jet is ballooning in cost, so who knows how expensive it will be when shipments begin. Of course these jets would be insufficient without the latest weapons on board, the latest technology support systems and for the Navy, the aircraft carriers that will hold many of them.
Then there's Lockheed's F-22 Raptor Stealthfighter. It's a fighter jet the military doesn't need and we as taxpayers can't afford, as we borrow the money to pay for it. The Air Force has spent $65-billion in R&D and in buying 183 of them. That's over $300-million a plane.
Congressional Republicans and Democrats now want the Air Force to buy 60-more of them at a cost of $143-million each. Why? Because to make them employs 100,000 people between Lockheed and its sub-contractors, which include Raytheon and Boeing, and 1,000 parts suppliers in 44 states in Congressional districts nationwide.
So business is booming, financially and literally as wars are being fought in Iraq, Afghanistan and in pursuit of "militants" in Pakistan and the Pentagon prepares for future enemies as well, with seemingly endless spending.
It's unfortunate so many people must die so these profits can be made but then that's the nature of the military business. To make it more palatable, the Pentagon often censors the results of these weapons in action, for no-one wants to see men, women and children blown to bits and others covered in blood being rushed to makeshift hospitals, while what were their homes are left in piles of rubble.
Instead the military offers us air shows and promotional videos, and for a lot of people they are exciting to watch. And we're told those weapons protect us and "defend" our freedoms.
But there is a better way. We could instead try to resolve our differences with others peacefully, rather than attacking or threatening them. The money now spent on war could instead be used to create new sources of clean energy or applied to other constructive purposes as we redeploy the defense contractors and retrain their millions of employees to keep them working.
Some people would miss those colorful air shows and videos but suddenly we would be uplifting mankind rather than trying to destroy it. And we'd have millions of new and sustainable jobs that make the world a better place.
The choice is yours and mine. We can be silent and let the military continue to endanger the world in the names of security and jobs. Or we can speak with compassion and reason and reach out to our brethren in peace. And in the process, we may even save our economic system and our freedoms.
Dick
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