The Media ARE the War Profiteers

I'm amazed that people are still shocked when Barack Obama or any anti-war politician gets misquoted and attacked by the mainstream media. In contrast, John McCain has an actual criminal history and a recent record of violating campaign financing laws, but the average American would never know it, thanks to the media.

McCain has a closet full of skeletons bigger than Imelda Marcos' shoe fetishes, but the media treats him as a hero and portrays him as an experienced, proven leader - all the while Obama gets hung out to dry as a flip flopper for saying the same exact thing he said one year to the day about withdrawing troops from Iraq beginning his first day in office.

So why is that?

To steal a line from James Carville, it's the economy, stupid. More specifically, it's the booming war economy. Those same mainstream media we've been taught to trust our entire lives are now the people reeling in profits from our wars. As the economy crashes, in large part due to our government borrowing $720 million per day to keep our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the media are among the select group of companies who are literally making a killing.

As I've pointed out before, you can't trust the media. War is now in their best interests, and I'm not talking about ratings.

Quick quiz...

Which company makes nuclear bombs, smart bombs, and the weapons and ammunition that has helped kill over 1.2 million Iraqi's, but also has a history as the most highly respected news bureau in the U.S.?

Which company makes the engines that power our military fighters, helicopters, transports, and unmanned drones, besides being home to the longest running morning television news program?

CBS, home of news legends Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow, through their parent company and affiliated partners, also makes nuclear powered aircraft carries, nuclear bombs, smart bombs, and much of the weapons and ammunition used by our troops.

NBC's parent company General Electric not only makes those military engines for our fighters, helicopters, and drones, but GE also has one of the longest lists of defense contract corruption and fraud one can find anywhere.

Among known GE offenses:

"GE pled guilty in federal court to civil and criminal charges of defrauding the Pentagon...for the actions of a former marketing employee who, along with an Israeli Air Force General, diverted Pentagon funds to their own bank accounts to fund Israeli military programs..."

According to the WarProfiteers, "GE is a repeat offender when it comes to Defense Department fraud. The company has repeatedly violated the False Claims Act — a measure originally proposed by Abraham Lincoln to protect federal coffers. When the Project on Government Oversight surveyed defense contractors, it found that General Electric was responsible for 15 instances of fraudulent activity in just a four year period (1990-1994) — more than any other defense contractor."

Some of those offenses GE were fined for included: "misrepresentation, money laundering, defective pricing (2 incidents), cost mischarging (3 incidents), false claims, product substitution, conspiracy/conversion of classified documents, procurement fraud and mail fraud."

In 1995 and 1997, GE paid the United States fines for selling the military thousands of jet engines that didn't pass government testing requirements, and again for claiming circuit boards for hundreds of military aircraft engine controls had passed testing when they were never tested.

So GE not only doesn't care about misrepresenting the facts on NBC and MSNBC, but they also have a history of cheating and stealing from U.S. taxpayers and intentionally putting our soldiers in harm's way to further corporate profits.

William Hartung spelled it all out in a February, 2004, article that appeared in The Nation, "We all know that Halliburton Company is raking in billions from the Bush Administration's occupation and rebuilding of Iraq. But in the long run, the biggest beneficiaries of the Administration's 'war on terror' may be the 'destroyers,' not the rebuilders. The nation's 'Big Three' weapons makers--Lockheed Martin, Boeing Company and Northrop Grumman--are cashing in on the Bush policies of regime change abroad and surveillance at home."

NBC and CBS are in bed with the very same "Big Three" weapons makers.

NBC's parent, GE, is awarded billions in military contracts yearly, and according to the War Profiteers website:

"General Electric is one of the world’s top three producers of jet engines, supplying Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other military aircraft makers for the powering of airplanes and helicopters."

CBS is owned by the former Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, a division of Westinghouse. WBC purchased all of CBS in 1996 and dropped it's name in favor of the less ominous title, CBS Company, which was in turn purchased by Viacom. Besides making the appliances and household electronics we know them for, Westinghouse used to own Northrup Grumman, who makes nuclear powered aircraft carriers, military airplanes, smart bombs and nuclear bombs, and is one of the largest military contractors in the United States. Despite the sale of Northrup, Westinghouse still makes nuclear reactors for U.S. submarines as well as electronics for the military and manufactures arms. Those same arms that are used to kill Iraqi's and Afghani's.

But the media's war profiteering is much deeper than that. One of the longstanding members of the board of directors for Westinghouse was Frank Carlucci. Carlucci served as Secretary of Defense before Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor before Colin Powell, and also as the CIA Deputy Director. Carlucci also served as chairman of Carlyle Group from 1992-2003 and as Emeritus Chairman until 2005. The Carlyle Group is an investment firm with ownership in multiple industries, but some of their defense contracts have been widely criticized. Former employees of the Carlyle Group include George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, and James Baker.

I don't want to dabble in conspiracy theories, (other than the conspiracy to make money) but reputable sources, including the Wall Street Journal before Rupert Murdoch purchased them, revealed that one of the investors of the Carlyle Group is none other than the bin Laden family construction business, Saudi binladen Group, headed by Bakr bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's brother. Another bin Laden family brother, Shafig bin Laden, is a Carlyle investor and was meeting with George H.W. Bush and other Carlyle members the morning of September 11th, 2001.

That means that indirectly through the Carlyle Group, which has had direct ties to CBS, and who owns several defense contractors, the bin Laden family is an investor profiting from the War on Terror. How F'ed up is that?

News Corp, who own Fox, Fox News, 35 television stations, 175 newspapers - including the Wall Street Journal, plus TV Guide, HarperCollins Publishing, and all things evil, has a longstanding policy of conveniently offering jobs to former government officials and book deals to politicians in favorable positions to pass influential laws.

For example, "after supporting a congressional move to limit media ownership, Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, agreed to a compromise that allowed companies to own stations reaching to 39 percent of American homes. Months before, HarperCollins, Mr. Murdoch’s publishing house, signed a $250,000 book deal to publish Mr. Lott’s memoir, “Herding Cats.”

"The deal reminded critics of the time HarperCollins gave Republican Newt Gingrich $4.5 million for a book contract just as Congress was preparing to redraw media ownership rules."

"Other prominent politicians have also received significant deals from HarperCollins: Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) received $24,506 from HarperCollins for “Passion for Truth,” according to a NYTimes review of Specter's financial disclosure forms. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, received $141,666 for her book “American Heroines.” All sit on either the Commerce or Judiciary Committees that most closely oversee the media business. In addition, HarperCollins has given book deals to Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), as well as a $1 million advance to Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court."

Then Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and the other mainstream news take it all a step further by putting "military analysts" on the air to discuss the War on Terror and provide their "expert" opinions. These are usually retired generals who, we are led to believe, have close ties to their former agencies and know the "truth" about how things are really going.

It turns out the ties are even closer than we are told. As the New York Times reported, not only are many of the military experts still on the Pentagon's payroll as "...a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance...." It gets even more ridiculous, "Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air..."

Just when you think it couldn't get worse, The New York Times adds, "military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror."

So, we've learned the mainstream news is nothing but a propaganda machine for the war industry, who are one and the same. They are not only lying to the American public about how well the war on terror is going, they are defrauding taxpayers through criminal and civil violations of their defense contracts, yet they keep getting rewarded with larger and larger cuts of the "hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration's war on terror."

Knowing that, nobody should be shocked when Obama says, "we have to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in," and it is reported as "Obama's Iraq Shift", and "Obama Flip Flops".

And, knowing all of the above, it's also no surprise when an AP reporter calls Obama a liar, refers to him as "Osama", and then personally serves John McCain with coffee and donuts - with sprinkles on them - and gives him a standing ovation.

The moral of the story? Don't believe a single word from the mainstream media. That includes CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, all of the cable news outlets, the Associated Press, and probably damn near everyone else. The next time you hear "Obama is against this," or, "Obama is for that", you can almost be certain it's another smear job. I'm not saying Obama's squeaky clean, I haven't walked in his shoes. But I do know better than to trust the messenger.

There are billions of dollars in profits and military contracts on the line this November, and the Gods of War will do anything to protect their wallets.

It's eerily reminiscent of the early 1960's, when the military industry was eager to get their hands on defense contracts and were promising a quick victory over a backwards army in a foreign land. However, a certain U.S. President refused to fully commit to a war in Vietnam, and went so far as to publicly promise to start withdrawing troops immediately after the upcoming election. At the same time, recently released documents show JFK was working behind the scenes for a diplomatic solution to the war that he would never get to pursue.

Let's just hope that the today's war profiteering media conglomerates limit themselves to only character assassination of Obama.