War as Big Business

This year’s proposed US spending on the Iraq war is larger than the military budgets of China and Russia combined. The combined spending requests would push the total for Iraq to US$564 billion, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS).

A proposed supplemental appropriation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq “brings proposed military spending for FY 2008 to $647.2 billion, the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II", the CRS said. Total proposed US military spending for 2008 is larger than military spending by all of the other nations in the world combined. It is:
•10 times the military budget of the second-largest military spending country in the world, China;
•larger than the combined gross domestic products of all 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa;
•more than 30 times higher than all spending on State Department operations and non-military foreign aid combined;
•more than 120 times higher than the roughly $5 billion per year the US government spends on combatting global warming, and;
•represents 58 cents out of every dollar spent by the US government on discretionary programs: education, health, housing assistance, international affairs, natural resources and environment, justice, veterans’ benefits, science and space, transportation, training, employment and social services, economic development and several more items.

That sort of money could go a long way to addressing so many of the world’s most urgent problems.

But war is a very profitable business for some very big and powerful corporations such as Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Vinnell and Blackwater. It has been argued that rather than profiteering from war, these corporations are making war for profit. Many of them would not exist as we know them without war.

[Excerpt of an article found at greenleft.org.au]