Product Code Database
A war profiteer is any person or organization that derives unreasonable profit from or by selling and other goods to parties at war. The term typically carries strong negative connotations. General profiteering, making a profit criticized as excessive or unreasonable, also occurs in peacetime. An example of war profiteers were the "shoddy" millionaires who allegedly sold recycled wool and cardboard shoes to soldiers during the American Civil War. Some have argued that major modern defense conglomerates including Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Boeing, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, and RTX Corporation fit the description in the post-9/11 era. This argument is based in the political influence of the arms industry, for example in 2010 the US defense industry spent $144 million on lobbying the US government and donated over $22.6 million to congressional candidates, as well as large profits for defense company shareholders in the post-9/11 period.
Modern-day war profiteering among politicians has increased with the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to an article by USA Today in 2011 the top 100 largest contractors sold 410 billion dollars’ worth of arms and services. Within this massive expense of services has evolved what is called the revolving door. This revolving door has not differentiated between the two political parties. An example of this revolving door is the case of William J. Lynn III. In 2010 he was confirmed to serve as the number two man in the Pentagon after he worked as a lobbyist for Raytheon. This example shows the process of a person joining the government, then being hired as a lobbyist, and back to government. In the UK there are some restrictions on the jobs ex-politicians can take, and similar rules, although less extensive, apply to senior civil servants.
/ref> War profiteering cases are often brought under the Civil False Claims Act, which was enacted in 1863 to combat war profiteering during the Civil War.
Major General Smedley Butler, United States Marine Corps, criticized war profiteering of US companies during World War I in War Is a Racket. He wrote that some companies and corporations increased their earnings and profits by up to 1,700 percent and how many companies willingly sold equipment and supplies to the US that had no relevant use in the war effort. In the book, Butler stated that "It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war period. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits."
In the American Civil War, concerns about war profiteering were not limited to the activities of a few "shoddy" millionaires in the North. In the Confederacy, where supplies were severely limited, and hardships common, the mere suggestion of profiteering was considered a scurrilous charge. Georgia Quartermaster General Ira Roe Foster attempted to increase the supply of material to the troops by urging the women of his state to knit 50,000 pairs of socks. Foster's sock campaign stimulated the supply of the much needed item, but it also met with a certain amount of suspicion and backlash. Either the result of a Union disinformation campaign, or the work of suspicious minds, , which Foster denied as a "malicious falsehood!", began to spread that Foster and others were profiteering from the socks. It was alleged that the socks contributed were being sold, rather than given to the troops. The charge was not without precedent. The historian Jeanie Attie notes that in 1861, an "especially damaging rumor" (later found to be true) circulated in the North, alleging that the Union Army purchased 5,000 pairs of socks which had been donated, and intended for the troops, from a private relief agency, the United States Sanitary Commission. As the Sanitary Commission had done in the North, Foster undertook a propaganda campaign in Georgia newspapers to combat the damaging rumors and to encourage the continued contribution of socks.Attie, p. 173 He offered $1,000.00 to any "citizen or soldier who will come forward and prove that he ever bought a sock from this Department that was either knit by the ladies or purchased for issue to said troops."
Steven Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank, has accused former CIA Director James Woolsey of both profiting from and promoting the Iraq War.
The Center for Public Integrity has reported that US Senator Dianne Feinstein, who voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution, and her husband, Richard Blum, are making millions of dollars from Iraq and Afghanistan contracts through his company, Tutor Perini Corporation. Financial disclosure forms indicate that as of January 2020 51 members of Congress and their partners own between $2.3 and $5.8 million of stock in the top 30 corporations that sell goods and services to the US military.
Indicted defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes was reported to be ecstatic when hearing that the United States was going to go to war with Iraq. "He and some of his top executives were really gung-ho about the war," said a former employee. "Brent said this would create new opportunities for the company. He was really excited about doing business in the Middle East." One of the top profiteers from the Iraq War was oil field services corporation, Halliburton. Halliburton gained $39.5 billion in "federal contracts related to the Iraq war". Many individuals have asserted that there were profit motives for the Bush-Cheney administration to invade Iraq in 2003. Dick Cheney served as Halliburton's CEO from 1995 until 2000. Cheney claimed he had cut ties with the corporation although, according to a CNN report, "Cheney was still receiving about $150,000 a year in deferred payments." Cheney vowed to not engage in a conflict of interest. However, the Congressional Research Office discovered Cheney held 433,000 Halliburton stock options while serving as Vice President of the United States. 2016 Presidential Candidate, Rand Paul referenced Cheney's interview with the American Enterprise Institute in which Cheney said invading Iraq "would be a disaster, it would be vastly expensive, it would be civil war, we'd have no exit strategy...it would be a bad idea". Rand continues by concluding "that's why the first Bush didn't go into Baghdad. Dick Cheney then goes to work for Halliburton. Makes hundreds of millions of dollars- their CEO. Next thing you know, he's back in government, it's a good idea to go into Iraq." Another prominent critic is Huffington Post co-founder, Arianna Huffington. Huffington has said, "We have the poster child of Bush-Cheney crony capitalism, Halliburton, involved in this. They, after all, were responsible for cementing the well."
From 2007, there were regularly more contractors than U.S. forces in Afghanistan. By 2016, private contractors outnumbered US state personnel three to one. In 2016, the Harris Corporation was awarded a $1.7 billion contract to supply communications equipment to Afghan security forces.
The term "ABCD" refers to the four companies – ADM, Bunge Limited, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus – that dominate world agricultural commodity trading. The ABCD commodity-trading companies have seen large profits as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and rising food prices.
In March 2022, Bloomberg News reported that China was reselling its US LNG shipments to a desperate Europe at a "hefty profit". India was buying discounted oil from Russia. Saudi Arabia also increased imports of discounted Russian oil. In September 2022, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck accused the United States and other "friendly" gas supplier nations that they were profiting from the Ukraine war with "astronomical prices". He called for more solidarity by the US to assist energy-pressed allies in Europe. "German minister criticizes U.S. over ‘astronomical’ natural gas prices" cnbc.com. 5 October 2022.
In April 2022, Russia supplied 45% of EU's gas imports, earning $900 million a day. In the first two months after Russia invaded Ukraine, Russia earned $66.5 billion from fossil fuel exports, and the EU accounted for 71% of that trade.
Fictional character Lieutenant Milo Minderbinder in the novel Catch-22 has been called "perhaps the best known of all fictional profiteers" in American literature.Stuart Dean Brandes: Warhogs: a history of war profits in America. University Press of Kentucky, 1997, , p. 273
The Adventures of Tintin comic The Broken Ear features an arms dealer called Basil Bazarov who sells arms to both sides in a war. He is a recognisable example of this "type" and is specifically based on Basil Zaharoff.
Bertolt Brecht wrote the play Mother Courage and Her Children as a didactic indictment of war profiteering.
Daddy Warbucks was a war profiteer.
In the 1985 film Clue, Colonel Mustard was a war profiteer who sold stolen radio components on the black market.
The film The Third Man features a war profiteer named Harry Lime, who steals penicillin from military hospitals and sells it on the black market.
The film Lord of War is a fictional story based on the war profiteer named Viktor Bout, who illegally sold post-Soviet arms to Liberia and other nations in conflict.
The Suicide Machines released their 2005 album, entitled War Profiteering Is Killing Us All.
In the 2011 film , Professor Moriarty acquires shares in many military supply companies and plots to instigate a world war and make a fortune.
In Book 2 of The Legend of Korra, the character attempted to incite and encourage a civil war among the water tribes to make profit from selling weapons.
The song "Masters of War" by Bob Dylan is about war profiteering and the military–industrial complex.
In the film , Finn, Rose Tico and BB-8 travel to Canto Bight, a coastal city catering to the galaxy's rich and elite. Finn is initially mesmerized by the city's glitz and glamour until Rose informs him that most of the city's inhabitants are war profiteers, having made their fortunes selling weapons and ships to the First Order and the Resistance. Also, the character of DJ shows Finn that the owner of the ship they're on made his profit selling weapons to the good guys (the Resistance) and the bad (the First Order). DJ then tells Finn that "it's all a machine" and that he should "Live free, don't join."
|
|
