Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [115]
Colin Powell has since admitted that he was basically duped, and it was Powell who I think pushed it over the top, because he was the one whom the people wanted to believe. In hindsight, I hold Powell somewhat responsible. He spent his entire life as a military man. You may offer resistance to the commander in chief up until the point that the decision is made. Then any good soldier must go along with the president, whether they agree with him or not. That’s the position Powell was in. Personally, he probably had his doubts, but when push came to shove, his years in the military prevailed. So I can understand, to a point.
But I can’t forgive the rest of the chicken-hawk cowards—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest—who never served, and who sent American boys to Iraq to die. All based on a pack of lies.
I’ve heard people say, “W” did it ultimately to impress Daddy. George, Sr., stopped short of going into Baghdad at the end of the Gulf War, and George, Jr., had always played second fiddle to his brother Jeb, and this was his big chance to show Dad he could seize the initiative and do something that even his father didn’t contemplate. Is it that? I don’t know. I seem always to go back to the old line from “Deep Throat” during Watergate: “Follow the money.” That’s generally behind at least 90 percent of all decisions made in government nowadays, I believe.
When America entered World War II, FDR said: “I don’t want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.” Harry Truman, who was then a senator from Missouri, launched an investigation into war profiteering that ended up saving the taxpayers more than $15 billion—the equivalent of more than $200 billion today. Today, a whole lot of people are cashing in on the “war on terror.” Not just Halliburton and the Carlyle Group. The big weapons makers—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics—are all reporting huge profits. It’s been toted up that the defense industry’s top thirty-four CEOs have collectively earned a billion dollars since 9/11. I compare the situation to the current mortgage market, where buyers are getting properties for a steal.
Iraq is the most privatized war in American history. There are as many as 200,000 private contractors over there—a number greater than our 160,000 military troops! You might call it “rent-an-Army.” Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s old company, was ready to roll when the war began. They’ve since been found to have wasted millions of our dollars in overbilling and shoddy services (Halliburton runs the chow lines, too). It’s amazing, but these companies have zero accountability. Only one of those 100,000 contractors has been accused of any violations, or been indicted for any crimes. They are operating totally outside of any public scrutiny. Yet, by some estimates, up to forty cents out of every dollar being spent on the war is going to these corporate war contractors.
Take the mercenary force called Blackwater Worldwide. Their top brass are mostly former CIA and Pentagon people. Since the “war on terror” began, Blackwater has received almost a billion dollars in government contracts, most of them no-bid deals. They’ve now got 2,300 personnel operating in nine countries, and 20,000 more waiting in the wings. They’ve got their own major weaponry and their own private “intel” division. Think about this: a top Army sergeant makes a little over $50,000 a year, including salary, housing and other benefits. Blackwater contractors, who in fact are often retired sergeants, are getting anywhere from six to nine times that much—close to a half million dollars a year—in some instances.
And these are really little more than hired gunslingers,