War Pigs

Ever wonder why America keep fighting wars against nations and things that pose us no real threat?

Here’s a good answer to why. Congress is heavily invested in the war industry. According to the Center for Responsive Politics as reported by the AP, “Members of Congress have as much as $196 million collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the onset of the Iraq war”.

The bastards who vote to send our friends and family members to go to die. The bastards that squander our money on missiles and guns. Are the very same bastards that profit from war. The members of Congress have a huge conflict of interest when the decide how our taxes are spent.  

Yes, of course this a surprise to no one, but the size of the investments might be.

The study found that more Republicans than Democrats hold stock in defense companies, but that the Democrats who are invested had significantly more money at stake. In 2006, for example, Democrats held at least $3.7 million in military-related investments, compared to Republican investments of $577,500.

Overall, 151 members hold investments worth $78.7 million to $195.5 million in companies that receive defense contracts that are worth at least $5 million. These investments earned them anywhere between $15.8 million and $62 million between 2004 and 2006, the center concludes.

Neither Sen. Barack Obama nor Sen. John McCain reported no defense-related holdings, but Sen. Hillary Clinton did have investments in holding Honeywell, Boeing and Raytheon. As of last fall, the defense industry had been incredibly generous to Clinton’s presidential campaign. This relationship with the war industry could be why the LA Times reported today that Clinton is on the sidelines of efforts to end the Iraq war. In fairness, “Obama was equally peripheral to the Iraq war debate, but he has not claimed a similar leadership role.” There seems to be a lot of lip service paid to ending the Iraq occupation, but not a lot of action from the party that controls Congress.

However, the biggest war pig turns out be Sen. John Kerry, as “a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, [he] is identified as earning the most — at least $2.6 million between 2004 and 2006 from investments worth up to $38.2 million.”

Here’s CRP’s report on Strategic Assets:

The Investors: Lawmakers with the most money invested in companies with Department of Defense contracts

Get Congress to stop the funding for the occupation of Iraq? Hardly, there are profits to be made. Every bullet fired by a soldier needs to be replaced. Every bottle of water drunk in Baghdad needs to be supplied by a war contractor.

But replacement is not enough for obese war profits. Congress keeps feeding their investments with new contracts that just keep coming. The Washington Post reported that our Weapons budget has cost overruns of $295 billion.

The Government Accountability Office found that 95 major systems have exceeded their original budgets by a total of $295 billion, bringing their total cost to $1.6 trillion, and are delivered almost two years late on average. In addition, none of the systems that the GAO looked at had met all of the standards for best management practices during their development stages…

The Pentagon has doubled the amount it has committed to new systems, from $790 billion in 2000 to $1.6 trillion last year, according to the 205-page GAO report. Total acquisition costs in 2007 for major defense programs increased 26 percent from first estimates. In 2000, 75 programs had cost increases totaling 6 percent. Development costs in 2007 for the systems rose 40 percent from initial projections, compared with 27 percent in 2000. Current programs are delivered 21 months late on average, five months later than in 2000.

Congress cannot stop any war, end any occupation, cancel any weapons program because they’re too heavily invested in keeping the conflicts going. It’s nothing personal America. It’s just business.