America: a Beacon, not a Policeman	Merchants of Death	Americans Against World Empire  Homepage

Issue S99-83, Day 57
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May 19, 1999; 9:00PM EDT

HEADLINES

Phoenix 1. "Death Merchants'" View: "War Is Great;
Peace Sucks;
Long Live NATO!"

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PHOENIX, May 19 - "War is great. Peace sucks. Long live NATO!" The
preceding slogans could just about sum up the "death merchants'" views of
NATO's war on Serbia. And no wonder...

Wall Street investors who backed the "death merchants'" have seen the Top
10 Pentagon defense contractors' stocks outperform the market (the S&P 500
index) by a 2.5-to-one ratio since March 23 (+15% vs. +6%), the day before
the shooting war started in Yugoslavia.

After lagging the S&P during the first three weeks of NATO's war on Serbia,
the Top 10 Pentagon stocks surged ahead in mid-April, and stayed ahead of
the market, as it became evident that this war could drag on. And as
Congress started to deliberate the White House's request for additional $12
billion of funding for the Pentagon.

But even before this request, and prior to the shooting war's start on Mar.
24, the new Day of Infamy, the U.S. defense budget for fiscal year 1999 and
beyond had been already increased by the Clinton administration. The White
House requested in February an additional $112 billion in Pentagon spending
over the next five years, bringing the Pentagon's budget up to $319 billion
by 2005.
---
TiM Ed.: So much for NATO's war on Serbia having been caused by Slobodan
Milosevic's intransigence. Or by the "humanitarian" concerns of the mad
bombers. We've been saying all along that the only winners in this tragic
charade are the "death merchants," along with an assortment of other
industries which work in support of the war efforts. And that the true
motto of the New World Order is: "Perpetual commerce through perpetual
war," NOT its NWO mantra: "World peace through world trade." (see "Orwell
Would Have a Blast Today," Day 11, Update 2, Item Apr. 3, and "Pentagon Was
in It for Long Haul," Day 23, Update 1, Item 3, Apr. 15).
---
Well, now the New York Times has seconded this TiM assessment in today's
business front story (May 19):

"...American weapons makers are already anticipating that Kosovo may help
secure a strategic victory for them - not on the battlefield, but in
Congress," the New York Times said today (May 19). "After a decade of
slashing armaments spending by nearly 70 percent and downsizing the
military contracting industry, Washington now seems inclined to increase
outlays for weapons. And this spending will go far beyond the request for
$12.2 billion in Kosovo emergency funds now before Congress.

For military contractors, the relevant portion of the Pentagon budget is
the money earmarked for weapons - as much as $53 billion for weapons
procurement next year and $60 billion the following year - compared with
$44 billion last year, which was the lowest level in more than a decade."

Most of the transports, weapons and ordnance now in use in Kosovo is
equipment no longer actively produced, the Times said. Which includes the
C-5 transport plane, the B-2 bomber and the Tomahawk cruise missile. So the
need for new generations of materiel, and the money to pay for it,
represents the best business opportunity in years for military contractors
(see the charts at our Web site).

"Kosovo underscores what the industry has been saying -- that we need to
get to a sustainable rate of spending," Daniel Burnham, chief executive of
the Raytheon Co., the No. 3 Pentagon contractor which made the Tomahawk
cruise missile, told the Times. "We need to get to $60 billion in weapons
outlays. We are now on that path. And we are getting there faster than we
first thought."

In other words, Clinton is accelerating his efforts to please the "death
merchants" who helped send him to Washington. Compared with the Bush
administration, when there were 14 military engagements, with one big one -
the Gulf War, the Clinton years have so far been pretty "lean picking" for
the nation's defense contractors, despite the nearly four dozen
engagements. So now, before his term and the Y2K clock runs out, Clinton
is delivering another fairly "big one," in Yugoslavia, to the applause of
industrial America.

But not just industrial America. As we've pointed out before, a host of
other industries benefit from the foreign wars, such as NATO's attack on
Serbia.

If you take a look at the list of the top 50 Pentagon contractors in the
fiscal year 1998 (see APPENDIX 1 at the end of this report), you will find
CBS Corp., for example, as No. 21 with $567 million in Pentagon contracts;
Massachusetts Institute of Technology as No. 29 with $372 million; Booz
Allen & Hamilton as No. 37 with $312 million; John Hopkins University as
No. 38 with $306 million - to mention some non-industrial beneficiaries of
Washington's foreign wars.

You will also find on the top 50 list a number of big health care and IT
services providers, along with energy companies, and even some foreign
multinationals (e.g., Rolls-Royce, Phillip Holzmann Aktiengesellschaft,
etc.). Altogether, the top 50 received $63 billion in prime defense
contracts in fiscal year 1998.

Which is over five times Yugoslavia's prewar GDP, generously estimated at
about $12 billion. Pentagon's 1999 budget is about 23 times greater than
Yugoslavia's GDP; while the U.S. GDP alone, without taking into account the
economic muscle of the other 18 NATO countries, is about 741 times greater.
The Serbs are also outnumbered by 97-1 by the 780 million citizens of NATO
countries.

Yet NATO is losing the war, according to some estimates of independent
analysts (see Day 16, Update 2, Item 3, Apr. 8). Because the Washington
and NATO "supermen" had not studied the Serb culture before attacking them.
An old Serbian proverb says, "bitku ne bije svijetlo oruzje no srce u
junaka." ("Battle is not fought by shiny weapons but by the hearts of
heroes" - see Day 9, Update 1, Item 4, Apr. 1).

But the "death merchants" don't care about who wins and who loses, as long
as there are wars going somewhere around the world. Because after the
destruction comes the rebuilding. And they make out either way (see
S99-61, Day 39, Update 1, Item 1, May 1).

Which is why NATO "death merchants," individually and collectively, must
have cheered another New York Times front page news story this morning.
The Yugoslav Army has started to dig and fortify the possible approaches
which NATO ground troops may use in an eventual land assault on Kosovo, the
Times said.

In other words, far from being ready to give up, as the NATO spokespeople
keep repeating their own wishful thinking, the Serbs are getting ready for
a long and bloody war. And now, a U.S. Air Force general has conceded the
same thing.

Asked by the Times how long the air war might continue, Gen. John Jumper,
the head of the U.S. Air Force in Europe, gave a terse response: "Months."

Most normal human beings would have shuddered at such a thought. But not
the Pentagon and other NATO defense contractors. Can't you hear them
chanting, "War is great. Peace sucks. Long live NATO?" We can... As we
can see Wall Street jumping for joy at Gen. Jumper's proclamation.

So stand by for another "good day at the office" for the CCCC-killers
(Clinton, Clark, Cohen, Chirac), and for America's "death merchants." Or a
good month... Or a year... God forbid!
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APPENDIX 1
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TOP 50 PENTAGON CONTRACTORS
Fiscal Year 1998
        Prime
Rank    Defense Contractor    Contract Amt.
        ($ 000s)
-    -    -
1    LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION     $12,341,236
2    BOEING COMPANY, THE INC     $10,865,899
3    RAYTHEON + HUGHES    $5,661,161
4    GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION    $3,679,867
5    NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION     $2,690,742
6    UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION    $1,983,147
7    TEXTRON INC    $1,837,815
8    LITTON INDUSTRIES, INC     $1,644,465
9    NEWPORT NEWS SHIPBUILDING INC     $1,546,634
10    TRW INC    $1,347,903
11    CARLYLE GROUP, THE     $1,328,834
12    SCIENCE APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL    $1,223,978
13    GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY INC     $1,161,392
14    HUMANA INC     $867,453
15    GTE CORPORATION     $787,073
16    ITT INDUSTRIES, INC     $780,794
17    THE GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. PLC    $732,057
18    ALLIED SIGNAL INC     $655,994
19    COMPUTER SCIENCES CORPORATION     $646,655
20    FOUNDATION HEALTH SYSTEMS INC     $592,990
21    CBS CORPORATION     $567,485
22    DYNCORP     $537,330
23    STANDARD MISSILE COMPANY, LLC     $475,088
24    IT GROUP INC, THE    $435,920
25    ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION    $435,264
26    TRIWEST HEALTHCARE ALLIANCE CO.    $419,973
27    AVONDALE INDUSTRIES INC    $398,821
28    MITRE CORPORATION, THE    $394,233
29    MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHN.    $371,883
30    TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED    $349,120
31    ROLLS-ROYCE PLC    $345,054
32    AEROSPACE CORPORATION, THE     $339,055
33    LONGBOW LIMITED LIABILITY CORP     $331,067
34    ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS INC    $316,569
35    WORLDCORP, INC     $316,215
36    HIGHMARK, INC     $314,923
37    BOOZ ALLEN & HAMILTON INC    $311,704
38    JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY INC    $305,842
39    PHILIPP HOLZMANN AG    $304,869
40    NEW ENERGY VENTURES, LLC     $297,075
41    FDX CORPORATION     $288,999
42    HALLIBURTON COMPANY (INC)    $285,623
43    UNISYS CORPORATION     $281,197
44    OCEAN SHIPHOLDINGS, INC    $278,784
45    GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES    $265,291
46    ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS CORP    $260,804
47    NASSCO HOLDINGS INC     $257,650
48    SVERDRUP CORPORATION, THE     $255,834
49    SHELL OIL COMPANY    $254,625
50    NICHOLS RESEARCH CORPORATION     $243,722
       
    TOTAL    $62,616,108
    Percent of total defense budget    23%
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