The Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is a closed-loop system wired for aggressive warfare rather than defence and peace.
Evidence shows that “full spectrum dominance” [i] is the goal. Full spectrum dominance, as described by a U.S Department of Defense (DoD) news article, “means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations.”
If the recent destruction and carnage caused by the US/NATO invasion of Libya,[ii] the illegal coup and carnage in Ukraine,[iii] the on-going warfare in Iraq,[iv] and now the invasion of Syria[v] are a measure of the expression “full spectrum dominance,” then the DoD goal would more accurately be labelled “global military imperialism,” or, as Michel Chossudovsky describes in two books: “The Globalization of War” and “The Globalization of Poverty.”[vi]
The on-going pursuit of this goal is incompatible with the rule of law, and it is leaving a trail of carnage and misery throughout the world.
Clearly, given a choice, most people would prefer that tax dollars be spent domestically and for the common good. Consequently, the machinations of the MIC occur largely beneath the public radar of awareness.
A web of interlocked agencies serves to manipulate and then capture the public with a view to engineering consent for the toxic military agenda of global domination. Informed consent is increasingly negated while engineered consent is prevailing.
Private Intelligence Contractors (PICs) are an important component of the “perception management” branch of the machine.
Ostensibly, private intelligence contractors offer evidence-based “intelligence” that serves to inform policy-makers with a view to making sound decisions, but too often, these agencies manipulate intelligence for the benefit of a warmongering agenda, and an uninterrupted flow of lucrative, publicly-funded contracts.
Vested interests override public interests at home and abroad, and the “War Machine,” as described by Peter Dale Scott in his book, “American War Machine/Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan” [vii] metastizes, largely beneath the public radar, as it sows death and destruction throughout the world.
Science Application International Corporation (SAIC)[viii] is likely the largest (and least known) PIC, with a huge staff (about 40,000 in 2007, likely more now), and it is fully integrated into the War Machine.
Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele report in “Washington’s $ Billion Shadow,” that
“SAIC’s friends in Washington are everywhere, and play on all sides; the connections are tightly interlocked. To cite just one example: Robert M. Gates, the new secretary of defense, whose confirmation hearings lasted all of a day, is a former member of SAIC’s board of directors . . .”[ix]
In the same article, Bartlett and Steele also report that
“SAIC personnel were instrumental in pressing the case that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and that war was the only way to get rid of them. When no weapons of mass destruction were found, SAIC personnel staffed the commission set up to investigate how American intelligence could have been so disastrously wrong, including Gordon Oehler, the commission’s deputy director for review a 25-year CIA veteran, Jeffrey R. Cooper, vice president and chief science officer for one of SAIC’s sub-units and Samuel Visner, a SAIC vice president for corporate development who had also passed through the revolving door and back to the NSA.”
We now know that Washington chose to use these intelligence findings—and not the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNMOVIC) findings[x]—as part of its rationale for waging the on-going war of aggression against Iraq.
The fact that SAICs board of directors is not only interlocked with Washington and governing agencies such as the DoD and Homeland Security but also with a myriad of powerful companies from the MIC, including Boeing, and Raytheon as examples,[xi] raises reasonable questions about its ability to provide “objective” intelligence.
But SAIC isn’t the only PIC. Peter Dale Scott describes in “The Real Grand Chessboard And The Profiteers Of War”[xii] characteristics of another PIC:
“Diligence LLC was licensed to do business in Iraq as a private military contractor (PMC). But it could be called a Private Intelligence Contractor (PIC), since it is virtually a CIA spin-off:
‘Diligence was founded by William Webster, the only man to head both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mike Baker, its chief executive officer, spent 14 years at the CIA as a covert field operations officer specializing in counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations. Whitley Bruner, its chief operating officer in Baghdad, was once the CIA station chief in Iraq.[31]’ “
Yet another PIC, possibly better known, is SITE. In “Disinformation Campaigns Have Blinded Us To Realities”[xiii] I explain the source of a screenshot depicting the beheading of Stephen Sotloff:
“A private intelligence contractor called ‘Search for International Terrorist Entities’ (SITE) is the source of the image. Furthermore, according to journalist James F. Tracy in Sotloff Family Spokesman Is Media Pundit, ‘One of SITE’s founders, Rita Katz, is a government insider with close connections to former terrorism czar Richard Clarke and his staff in the White House, as well as investigators in the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security, according to SourceWatch. Her father was executed in Iraq as an Israel spy, a fact that suggests a connection to Israeli intelligence.’
Clearly there appears to be a conflict of interest here. SITE, in collusion with the White House, is providing possibly fraudulent images to manipulate the collective mindset of the public, and to further a war agenda.”
What emerges from this overview of a number of PICS is that there are reasonable grounds to argue that there is collusion between government polities and PICS, and that there are reasonable grounds to argue that there are conflicts of interest as well.
Are the PICS providing “objective” intelligence, or are they being used as a profitable arm of the MIC to advance a permanent war agenda? Evidence suggests the latter.
Sources
[i] http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45289
[ii] http://sjlendman.blogspot.ca/2011/03/plaanned-regime-change-in-libya_28.html
[vii] http://www.amazon.com/American-War-Machine-Connection-Afghanistan/dp/074255595X
[viii] http://www.corpwatch.org/section.php?id=17
[ix] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/03/spyagency200703
[xi] http://investors.saic.com/board-of-directors
[xii] http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-real-grand-chessboard-and-the-profiteers-of-war/14672
[xiii] http://whatsupic.com/special-usa/disinformation-campaigns8765.html
Mark Taliano is a retired high school teacher. Currently, he is a writer and an activist residing in the Niagara region. This article first appeared on Whatsupic.
Mark, ‘Excellent Summary’ – as well as very fluent prose – a pleasure to read, though not to digest – What a foul mess – disgusts me to the core.