Government-Industry relations so tightly woven, officials fail to distinguish

Todd Miller’s MORE THAN A WALL: Corporate Profiteering and the Militarization of US Borders
(Excerpt with minor editing and textual additions)

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hallenge

Human beings do not rise to great challenges such as those of a “socioeconomic and ecological” nature by increasing and accelerating threats of violence. The increasing militarization of borders — worsening of human problems, creating more problems, driving crises set in motion with prior domestic and international policies — constitutes such a failure of the United States to meet a great challenge.

The constant push for more border walls, more technologies, more incarceration, more criminalization is in a holding pattern (an impenetrable, unthinkingly accepted status quo); stuck in a corporate dynamic with a (narrowly defined) growth doctrine. 

It is time to expose the contractors, lobbyists, campaign contributions; the influence on policy-makers; and, ultimately, the profits wielded by the border industrial complex.

The ‘business as usual’ border regime is a recipe to make millions or even billions experience the most acute suffering inflicted on humankind.

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orruption crosses Isle, and Ideologies

Donald John Trump staked his presidency on a wall.

In 2017, when his administration took office and the president issued an executive action proclaiming the building of a wall (candy man showman that he is “going to build a mountain”), the stock market said “All Right!

However, the notion of wall is far more than physical barriers. Physical barriers are but simplistic optics for a far more expansive (hostile, aggression prone, sinister) US border control — “an extensive technological border-control infrastructure that penetrates deep into the United States interior and into the border regions of Mexico, stretching into Central America, the Caribbean, and beyond.”

The Government of the United States, since 1997, “has been steadily expanding the use of surveillance and monitoring technologies such as cameras, aircraft, motion sensors, drones, video surveillance and biometrics at the US–Mexico border.”

U.S. President Donald Trump merely “ratcheted up — and ultimately consolidated what has been ‘a long-standing US approach to border control.’”

In the past 15 years, border budgets “have more than doubled.”

Between 1980 and 2019, they “increased by more than 6,000 percent.

From the mid-1980s, US budgets for border and immigration control increased enormously; and have accelerated ever since.

Budgets rose from $350 million in 1980 (then run by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)) to $1.2 billion in 1990.

2003: $9.1 billion

2018: $23.7 billion (under Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)).

With border and immigration control also grew border patrol

In 1999: 4,000 agents

2019: 21,000 agents

 

Under CBP (parent of border patrol) agency, the largest federal law-enforcement agency in the United, which includes an Office of Air and Marine Operations, investigative units, Office of Field Operations, the number of agents in 2019 has reached 60,000

Between 2017 and 2019, CBP budgetary spending on contractors (new and existing) leaped more than $2 billion; ICE hiked nearly $2 billion.

“The government–industry relation is so tight and so blurred that some government officials no longer see any distinction.”

Border Industry 2020 elections

Biden tops his opponent’s take from Border Industry

Biden $5 million: 55 percent

Trump $2 million 44 percent

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ycle of what might be called Payola (recap)

“The main beneficiaries of border contracts are the same companies making the most campaign contributions and doing the most lobbying and meeting most often with government officials; and cycling in and out of government as “advisors and staff in strategic positions of influence.”

These influencers “shape border-militarization policies from which they profit.”

Center for Responsive Politics opensecrets.org database (source)

The border-security corporate giants are also the biggest campaign contributors to members of the House Appropriations Committee, the congressional body that regulates expenditures of the federal government, or earmarks the money for potential contracts.

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overing all the sectors

Winners of government’s military contracts were simultaneously “lobbying on military issues” and receiving “substantial contracts from Customs and Border Protection (CBP).”

2006 to 2018: Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing contributed a total of $27.6 million to members of the committee.

115th Congress (2017–2018): Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin topped the contributor list $866,194 and $691,401, respectively to members of the Appropriations Committee

Raytheon, Boeing, Deloitte, and General Dynamics came in with donations exceeding $500,000.

2017 to 2018 Top seven contributors — all CBP contractors — to the House Appropriations Committee members:  Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell International, General Dynamics, Deloitte LLP, Boeing, and Raytheon.

Border-security corporations to other committee members

2006 – 2018 period: Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing contributed a total of $6.5 million to members of the strategic House Homeland Security Committee, which handles legislation on border and immigration control.

2017–2018, 115th Congress:

• Northrop Grumman donated $293,324 
• General Dynamics $150,000 and 
• Lockheed Martin $224,614
  

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alling tune: Money paid

Politicians on these committees, regardless to their party affiliation, “frequently align with the interests of their corporate donors (i.e., their benefactors, paymasters).

Over the past 17 years, border-security corporations’ lobbying around “homeland security” – of which border militarization is a significant part – has increased significantly.

2002 to 2019 reported lobbying visits related to homeland security: nearly 20,000.

2003 Northrop Grumman topped the lobbyist list: five lobbying “visits” where it was one of 385 “clients” with 637 reported visits.

“Clients” is a term referring to “either the companies, such as Northrop Grumman; or a separate firm that supplies a representative to one of those companies.

 

“Visits” is a term referring to the number of times a client visits a member of Congress or a policy maker to advocate or push for some sort of legislation or policy or fiscal budgetary allocation.

2006: “clients” and “visits” more than doubled:
Lockheed Martin, Accenture, Boeing, Raytheon, Unisys led:
724 clients with 1,428 reported visits

2018: 677 clients with 2,841 visits listed (among top CBP / ICE contractors):
Geo Group
L3 Technologies
Accenture
Leidos
Boeing
CoreCivic
Facebook, Microsoft, and Visa


Picture
2018 top CBP contractors / Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act (H.R. 3355).

The largest border and immigration budget in US history exceeded $23 billion (the sum total for CBP and ICE), signed Marcy 23, 2019 by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Lobbyists supporting H.R. 3355
General Dynamics’ reps 44 times
Northrop Grumman 19 times
Lockheed Martin 41 times
Raytheon 28 times
Plus related lobbyists and
Border-security giants, e.g.,
L3 Technologies
IBM
Palantir.

2018 Omnibus Appropriations bill hiked all related budgets
DHS $55.6 billion, 13 percent increase
CBP $16.357 billion, 15 percent increase
ICE $7.452 billion (incl $ for “40,520 (increased from FY 2017’s 1,196) detention beds per day)

2017 lobbying for federal budget and appropriations
CoreCivic Inc. $840,000 (reported via four firms)
Geo Group $2 million (reported approx via six lobbying organizations)

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ORE THAN A WALL: Corporate Profiteering and the Militarization of US Borders author Todd Miller sends a message to concerned citizens as concerned about the Military Industrial Complex as the Border Industrial Complex.

Establishing more humane United States policies on migration will require more than replacing one president or one administration or one congress or one political party with another.

“Border-security giants exercise strong influence over politicians and personnel in “strategic positions” of the Executive and Legislative branches of Government and in “key media positions,” whether they claim affiliation with the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, or something else.

“The militarization of US borderlands has a long history entrenched by corporations.” They thrive on violence, militarization, and detention. “Revenues and profits of these extremely powerful (border- industrial complex) business interests depend on an ever-expanding market for border control and militarization.”

“Any strategy to change the direction of US policy on migration will require confronting the border–industrial complex, and removing its influence over politics and policy.”

As long as private interests (whether corporate, government, or NGO, not-for-profit, or nonprofit) taking profits from human suffering remain embedded in positions of power within government and society — the enormous challenge to fashion new approaches giving top priority to human life and dignity will be impossible to meet.

 

Source

Miller, Todd More Than a Wall: Corporate Profiteering and the Militarization of US Borders

This report looks at the role of the world’s largest arms (as well as a number of other security and IT) firms in shaping and profiting from the militarization of US borders. Through their campaign contributions, lobbying, constant engagement with government officials, and the revolving door between industry and government, these border security corporations and their government allies have formed a powerful border–industrial complex that is a major impediment to a humane response to migration. 

The Transnational Institute (TNI) is an international research and advocacy institute committed to building a just, democratic and sustainable planet. For more than 40 years, TNI has served as a unique nexus between social movements, engaged scholars and policy makers. www.TNI.org

No More Deaths/No Más Muertes is a humanitarian aid organization that seeks to end death and suffering in the US-Mexico borderlands. www.nomoredeaths.org

More than a Wall PDF https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/more-than-a-wall-report.pdf

AUTHOR: Todd Miller
EDITORS: Nick Buxton, Niamh Ní Bhriain
COPYEDITOR: Deborah Eade
DESIGN: Evan Clayburg
PRINTER: Jubels
PHOTOS: All photos by Laura Saunders (www.saundersdocumentary.com) except for photos of Commissioners on p79 (Wikipedia/public domain)
RESEARCH ASSISTANTS: Emmi Bevensee, Cyrina King, Donald Merson, Liliana Salas, Jesse Herrera, and Aletha Dale
Published by Transnational Institute – www.TNI.org https://www.tni.org/en
Co-sponsored by No More Deaths – www.nomoredeaths.org September 2019
Contents of the report may be quoted or reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the source is properly cited. TNI would appreciate receiving a copy of or link to the text in which it is used or cited. Copyright in the images remains with Laura Saunders. http://www.tni.org/copyright
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to research assistants Emmi Bevensee, Cyrina King, Donald Merson, Liliana Salas, Jesse Herrera, and Aletha Dale for all help in the research and writing process; Reece Jones for reviewing the draft report.

 

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U.S. Wars and Regime Change: Trails of Blood, Chaos, Horror Decimating cultures, Preventing Children’s Future

More than 200 years of U.S. regime change long before Capitol Hill January 6, 2021

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ases and Consequences foreign and domestic

1940s through post-World War II including September 11th through February 12, 2021

1940s

1941: Panama

1941–1952: Japan

1941–1949: Germany

1941–1946: Italy

1944–1946: France

1944–1945: Belgium

1944–1945: Netherlands

1944–1945: Philippines

1945–1955: Austria

1945–1991: The Cold War

1940s

1945–1948: South Korea

1945–1949: China

1947–1949: Greece

1948: Costa Rica

1949–1953: Albania

1949: Syria

1950s

1950-1953: Burma and China

1950–1953: Korea

1952: Egypt

1952–1953: Iran

1953–1958: Cuba

1954: Guatemala

1954: Paraguay

1956–1957: Syria

1957–1959: Indonesia

1958: Lebanon

1959–1963: South Vietnam

1959: Iraq

1959–2000: Cuba

1960s

1960–1965: Congo-Leopoldville

1960: Laos

1961: Dominican Republic

1961–1975: Laos

1961–1964: Brazil

1963: Iraq

1964–1975: Vietnam

1965–1966: Dominican Republic

1965–1967: Indonesia

1967–1975: Cambodia

1970s

1970–1973: Chile

1971: Bolivia

1973: Uruguay

1974–1991: Ethiopia

1975–1991: Angola

1977: Zaire

1978: Zaire

1979–1993: Cambodia

1979–1989: Afghanistan

1980s

1980–1989: Poland

1980–1992: El Salvador

1981–1982: Chad

1981–1990: Nicaragua

1983: Grenada

1989–1994: Panama

1991–present: Post-Cold War

1990s

1991: Iraq

1991: Haiti

1992–1996: Iraq

1994–1995: Haiti

1996–1997: Zaire

1997–1998: Indonesia

2000s

2000: Yugoslavia

2002: Venezuela

2003–2011: Iraq

2006–2007: Palestinian territories

2006–present: Syria

2007: Iran

2009: Honduras

2010s

2011: Libya

2015–present: Yemen

2019–present: Venezuela

 

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romises Broken

“Never to Happen Again” Happened    

After the breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the United States has led or otherwise participated in wars and various sovereignty-breaching forms of aggression to “determine” or displace “governance” of many of the world’s countries.

Separate studies have found that during the 1946 through 2000 period, the United States “performed at least 81 overt and covert KNOWN interventions in foreign elections”; and during the Cold War period, the U.S. has “engaged in 64 covert and six overt attempts at regime change.”

[Cold War dates: Cold War (1947–1953); Cold War (1953–1962); Cold War (1962–1979); Cold War (1979–1985); Cold War (1985–1991). Dissolution of the Soviet

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osts (estimates) of War: Summary of latest Findings (Brown University)

Some of the Costs of War Project’s main findings include:

• 800,000 (at least) people have died in direct war violence, including armed forces on all sides of the conflicts, contractors, civilians, journalists, and humanitarian workers (many more deaths, indirectly, because of malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation)
• 335,000-plus civilians have been killed in direct violence by all parties to these conflicts.
• 7,000+ US soldiers have died in the wars (full count of these deaths among returning veterans injured or fallen ill during deployment)
• 8,000 (approx.) U.S. contractor deaths and injuries (numbers not reported as required by law)
• 21 million people living as war refugees, internally displaced persons (in grossly inadequate conditions) — Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Syrian people.

• In 80 countries the U.S. Government is conducting and vastly expanding wars (under pretext of “counterterrorism”) across the globe.
• Wars are accompanied by erosions in civil liberties and human rights at home and abroad.
• Human and economic costs of these wars are protracted into decades with some costs, such as the financial costs of US veterans’ care, not peaking until 2020.
• So-called reconstruction funding, post-war and as wars persist, e.g., in Iraq and Afghanistan, “has totaled over $199 billion— most of it used to arm Afghan and Iraqi security forces. Any money for “humanitarian relief” or “civil society rebuilding” money is “lost to fraud, waste, and abuse.”
• $6.4 trillion—excluding future interest on borrowing for the wars (estimated at $8 trillion over 40 years) is the cost estimate for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria alone.
• Ripple effects on the US economy have also been significant— e.g., job loss, interest rate increases.
• Iraq and Afghanistan rank extremely low in global studies of political freedom. Women in Iraq and Afghanistan are excluded from political power, and experience high rates of unemployment and war widowhood.
• In the aftermath of 9/11—though compelling alternatives were and are still available, they were “scarcely considered.”
  

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nspeakably Reckless Disregard for Life   
Top Dog Madness abroad, madness and neglect at home

Madness of Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (b. Marie Jana Korbelová), 20th United States Ambassador to the United Nations in office January 27, 1993 – January 21, 1997 later, 64th United States Secretary of State in office January 23, 1997 – January 20, 2001; presiding head of state William Jefferson Clinton (b. William Jefferson Blythe III).

Asked about the killing of thousands of Iraqi children, Albright says  

“We think the price is worth it”

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting 2001 re Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.” — 60 Minutes (5/12/96)

FAIR continued

“It is worth noting that on 60 Minutes, Albright made no attempt to deny the figure given by Stahl — a rough rendering of the preliminary estimate in a 1995 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report that 567,000 Iraqi children under the age of five had died as a result of the sanctions.

“In general, the response from government officials about the sanctions’ toll has been rather different: a barrage of equivocations, denigration of UN sources and implications that questioners have some ideological axe to grind (Extra!: 3-4/00).…

“Even before the September 11 attacks, bombing of Iraq had dramatically increased.

“In February 2001, two dozen U.S. and British planes attacked Iraqi radar installations, some of them out of the ‘no-fly’ zones. In August and early September, there were at least six more pre-planned attacks to degrade Iraqi air defense.…

“TV’s drive to convict Iraq may have something to do with the fact that Iraq has real targets for bombing campaigns, unlike Afghanistan, which is already in ruins after more than 20 years of United States, USSR, and other foreign meddling.”

 

Y

ears later Grayzone recalls William Jefferson Blythe III Clinton / Marie Jana Korbelová / Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright Bloodletting Reign of Madness

“Genocidal Sanctions on Iraq”

“In the 1990s, the Clinton administration pressured the U.N. Security Council to impose one of the most brutal sanctions regimes in history on Iraq, ostensibly in order to punish (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein — whom the U.S. had backed throughout the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s — for his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.”

“Slaughter in Rwanda”

“The U.S., with (Madeleine) Albright’s and Bill Clinton’s leadership, pressured the U.N. to withdraw peacekeeping forces from Rwanda during the first two weeks of the 1994 genocide that left hundreds of thousands of people dead.”

“Overseeing NATO war on Yugoslavia”

(Madeleine) Albright’s role in the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia has also again come under intense scrutiny. While the U.S. stymied U.N. action against the genocide in Rwanda, it claimed that genocide could possibly take place in Yugoslavia if NATO did not intervene (as it would again do in 2011 in order to justify war in Libya).

Madness of Hillary Clinton

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, 67th United States Secretary of State in office January 21, 2009 – February 1, 2013; presiding head of state Barack Obama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton

Speaking of the October 20, 2011 killing of Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic and “Brotherly Leader” of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (Colonel Gaddafi, Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist)

Hillary Clinton: “We came, we saw, he died” she joked when given news of the death of Libyan President and military leader Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi.

Answering a further question of whether the killing of the African leader related to her visit to Libya a few days earlier, Hillary Clinton she said “I’m sure it did.”

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aste, Misplaced priorities Abandonment, Neglect

Signed and Sealed Landmark Agreement (Obama 2016) 

No amount enough for Israel

“The United States will give Israel $38 billion in military assistance over the next decade (2016-2026), the largest such aid package in U.S. history.”

Signed and Sealed (Trump 2020)

“An enormous US spending bill that accompanied the COVID-19 relief package contains many financial and political perks for Israeli government”

U.S. Poverty and Homelessness

• 38.1 million Americans (11.8 percent of the U.S. population) languish in poverty

• 567,715 people cutting across every population sector (every region, family status, gender category, racial/ethnic group) are Homeless in America. On any single night in 2019, seventeen out of every 10,000 people in the United States were homeless.
  

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erhaps reasonable people will conclude that the man elected Forty-Fifth President of the United States—a man lacking in education, experience, knowledge, training, even demonstrated substantive interest in public service—took his lead from entrenched congresses and administrations that preceded him.

These predecessors had laid out a pattern of misrepresentation, dissembling, braggadocio and blaming, and all-round aggression, everywhere, anywhere, anytime, for any manufactured reason, or for no reason.  

Perhaps the difference is in decibels.

The comparison between the 45th U.S. President and, just in recent times, the 42nd through 44th (with the last’s entrenched Senator turned VP) and their revolving door partners comes down to

Predecessors’ sinisterly opaque harmfulness in the world, and
Donald John’s swaggeringly loud harmfulness

 

 

References

United States involvement in Regime Change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change

Costs of War Project: “Costs of War” Summary Brown University Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs latest update 2020, 2021 https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/summary

FAIR Rahul Mahajan November 1, 2001 “‘We Think the Price Is Worth It’: Media uncurious about (U.S.) Iraq policy’s effects— there or here” https://fair.org/extra/we-think-the-price-is-worth-it/

YouTube (w/ views) “Madeleine Albright - The deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth it for Iraq’s nonexistent WMD’s” 379,025-plus views February 9, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8

Grayzone May 16, 2016 “Protests revive accusations against ‘war criminal’ Madeleine Albright, who defended deaths of 500,000 Iraqi kids” by Ben Norton https://thegrayzone.com/2016/05/16/protests-war-criminal-madeleine-albright-deaths-iraqi-kids/

CBS News by Corbett Daly “Clinton on Qaddafi: ‘We came, we saw, he died’” October 20, 2011 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/clinton-on-qaddafi-we-came-we-saw-he-died/

YouTube (w/ views) “Hillary Clinton ‘We Came, We Saw, He Died’ (Gaddafi)”

647,601 views •December 17, 2011 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmIRYvJQeHM

RealPolitics posted by Tim Hains  “Flashback 2011: Hillary Clinton Laughs About Killing Moammar Gaddafi: ‘We Came, We Saw, He Died!’” June 19, 2015 https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/06/19/flashback_2011_hillary_clinton_laughs_about_killing_moammar_gaddafi_we_came_we_saw_he_died.html

Also https://www.bing.com/search?q=Hillary+Clinton+quote+on+Gaddaft&cvid=ae2f8453d5b445dba849a9e026159d57&pglt=129&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=U531

Reuters “U.S., Israel sign $38 billion military aid package” by Matt Spetalnick Aerospace and Defense September 14, 2016 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-statement-idUSKCN11K2CI

Middle East Eye: “US spending bill: Five gifts to Israel” by Ali Harb in Washington December 22, 2020 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-spending-bill-five-gifts-israel

National Alliance to end Homelessness “State of Homelessness: 2020 Edition” National Alliance to end Homelessness 2020 report https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-2020/

“As the Alliance publishes this updated version of the State of Homelessness, COVID-19 is creating a health and economic crisis in America and throughout the world.  It is too soon to determine its ultimate impacts.  Thus, this year’s report represents a baseline—the state of homelessness before the crisis began.  It also reflects some early considerations and predictions about the influence of the pandemic on this vulnerable population.”

 

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