Merchants of death: Multibillion-dollar bailout for arms industry amid
rising COVID-19 toll
23 April 2020
B-52s lined up at Andersen Air Force Base
“I have instructed the
United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if
they harass our ships at sea,” US President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday in a
startling threat that could trigger a catastrophic war throughout the Middle
East and beyond.
The threat to launch a war
7,000 miles from US shores in the midst of coronavirus pandemic, whose death
toll in the US is rapidly approaching 50,000, comes on the heels of Trump’s
Monday night tweet announcing a suspension of all immigration into the United
States, a transparent attempt to scapegoat immigrants for the ravages of the
pandemic and the layoffs of tens of millions of workers.
There is in both of these
actions an expression of desperation and a flailing about in the face of a
national and global crisis for which the US ruling class has no viable
solution. It is a crude attempt to change the subject and divert public
attention from the catastrophic consequences of the criminal indifference of
the government and the ruling oligarchy it represents to the lives and
well-being of the vast majority of the population.
Pentagon officials reported
Wednesday that they had received no prior notification of Trump’s tweet, much
less any orders for a change in the rules of engagement in the Persian Gulf.
Nonetheless, the brutal and
fascistic rhetoric of Trump reflects a drive to war by US imperialism that has
not been tempered, but rather intensified, by the global pandemic.
Even as Trump issued his
tweet, US warships were sailing toward a confrontation with China in the South
China Sea. At the same time, the Pentagon was announcing a shift in its
deployment of long-range, nuclear capable B-52 bombers to make their presence
less predictable to Beijing and Moscow and thereby ratchet up tensions.
In recent days, the US has
sharply escalated its air strikes against the impoverished African nation of
Somalia, even as the coronavirus pandemic threatens to ravage its population.
Escalating war threats continue against Venezuela, and the Pentagon continues
to provide support for the near-genocidal Saudi-led war against the people of Yemen.
Nowhere does this war drive
find more naked expression than in the massive government bailout that is being
organized for the US arms industry. With tens of millions of workers
unemployed, many facing hunger, and a drive by both the Trump administration
and state governors to force a premature return to work, billions upon billions
of dollars are being lavished upon military contractors to sustain their
guaranteed profits and the obscene fortunes generated for their major
shareholders.
The Pentagon’s top weapons
procurer, Undersecretary of Defense Ellen Lord, told a press conference Monday
that some $3 billion has already been funneled to the arms makers in the form
of early payments for existing contracts, in addition to billions more approved
by Congress in the first CARES Act, which pumped trillions of dollars into the
financial markets. She indicated that much more will be doled out once Congress
passes another stimulus package.
Asked by a reporter how much
would be need to insure Washington’s Merchants of Death from any losses due to
the coronavirus pandemic, she replied, “We’re talking billions and billions on
that one.” Lord added that the first priority for this aid program was the
“modernization process of the nuclear triad.”
These industries are hardly
the picture of the deserving poor. The fact that massive financial resources
that are desperately needed to save lives and rescue millions of workers from
poverty are instead being poured into their pockets is a crime.
In a conference call this
week to inform Lockheed Martin shareholders of first-quarter earnings, the
company’s CEO, Marilyn Hewson, boasted that the corporation’s “portfolio is
broad and expanding” and its “cash generation” strong. She said the company
looked forward to “supporting our warfighters’ needs.”
Indeed, Lockheed Martin
pulled in $2.3 billion in cash during the single quarter and expects to top
$7.6 billion—coronavirus effects notwithstanding—over the year. It has a $144
billion backlog in orders, an all-time high.
Asked whether she had any
qualms about political fallout over completing a $1 billion stock buyback in
the midst of the crisis, she replied, “We’re very different, I think, than
those who have experienced a very significant impact to their demands.” Hewson
announced that the company had set aside a grand total of $10 million for
COVID-19-related relief and assistance.
The “very different”
character of these companies was also noted in a financial column published in
the New York Times for the benefit of its well-heeled readers,
titled “Opportunity in the Military-Industrial Complex.”
Pointing to the projected
$741 billion Pentagon budget for the coming year, the Times counsels:
“That combination of federal dollars and corporate heft may represent an
opportunity for investors who don’t mind profiting from warfare. A modest bet
on a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund that buys military contractors and
aerospace companies may help buffer the deep recession brought on by the
coronavirus.”
In short, one can reap
substantial wealth from—and amid—mass death.
One of the principal
concerns expressed by Undersecretary of Defense Lord as she spelled out plans
for the multibillion-dollar bailout of the arms industry was the disruption of
supply chains, particularly those originating in the maquiladora sweatshops
just across the US border in Mexico. She also mentioned
problems in India.
Thousands of Mexican workers
have struck and protested against the deadly conditions inside these plants,
conditions that are being prepared for workers throughout the planet as
back-to-work orders are shoved through. At a plant in Ciudad Juárez owned by
Michigan-based Lear Corporation, 16 workers have died from COIVD-19, while area
hospitals are overflowing with victims of the virus.
The Pentagon and US
Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau have intervened with the Mexican
government, demanding that the maquiladora workers be forced
back into the plants as “essential” to US imperialism’s war machine, just like
their counterparts in the US. Lockheed relies on low-paid Mexican workers in
Chihuahua, Mexico to produce electrical wiring for the US military’s Black Hawk
and S-92 helicopters and F-16 fighter jets, while Boeing gets parts from a
plant run by PCC Aerostructures in Monterrey. General Electric, Honeywell and
other military contractors also profit off the labor of Mexican workers across
the border.
Transmitting the dictates of
the Pentagon in the language of contempt for human life that characterizes all
of the policies of the Trump administration and the US ruling class, Ambassador
Landau launched a Twitter campaign demanding that Mexican workers go back into
the maquiladoras for the greater good of US imperialism. He
enjoys the full collaboration of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López
Obrador, promoted by the pseudo-left as a “progressive” and even “socialist,”
who has prepared the country’s National Guard for deployment against strikers.
Warning that workers’ jobs
are tied to supply chains linking them to US arms manufacturers, Ambassador
Landau said, “if we do not coordinate our response, these chains can
evaporate.”
He added, “There are risks
everywhere, but we don't all stay at home for fear we are going to get in a car
accident. The destruction of the economy is also a health threat.”
These are the same
reactionary, antiscientific and misanthropic arguments being made in the US and
internationally in an attempt to force workers back into the factories and
workplaces with the certainty that many will fall sick and die.
Workers in the arms industry
in the US, like their counterparts in Mexico, have also struck and protested
over being forced to work as part of the “critical infrastructure” of US
imperialism. Workers at the Bath Iron Works in Maine and the BAE Systems shipyard
in Norfolk, Virginia, both run by General Dynamics, have struck over the
failure of the employers to provide them with protection against infection and
death. Similarly, workers at the GE Aviation plant in Lynn, Massachusetts,
which produces engines for US Marine helicopters, picketed the plant over the
lack of protective measures or any guarantee for workers who fall victim to
COVID-19.
This resistance of the
working class across national boundaries is directly opposed to the rabid
nationalism and reaction that characterizes the response of the ruling classes,
not only in the US, but in Europe and internationally, to the intensification
of the capitalist crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. To defend their
profit interests, they will condemn millions to sickness and death, even as
they prepare for world war and fascist dictatorship. The only alternative is
for the international working class to put an end to the profit system and
rebuild society on socialist foundations.
Bill Van Auken
The author also recommends:
The COVID-19 pandemic and the rise
of economic nationalism
[21 April 2020]
[21 April 2020]
Amid growing anger over criminal
response to COVID-19 crisis, Washington threatens war
[2 April 2020]
[2 April 2020]
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