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Recent
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July
10, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions
July
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on
Bush?
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
Mickey
Z.
Why Speak Out?
Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud
John
Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
Website
of the Day
Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years
July
8, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
Dissents of Scalia
Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
Chris
Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
Brian
Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
Website
of the Day
Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
What Progressives Should Think About
Iran
Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
Uri
Avnery
The Draw
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian
July
3, 2003
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Meaning of Gettysburg
Thomas
W. Croft
There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy
David
Lindorff
Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong
and the US
John
Chuckman
Lessons from the American Revolution
Jackson
Thoreau
New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices
Stan
Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former
Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis
to Attack US Troops
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July 2, 2003
Diane
Christian
Good Killing and Bad Killing
Richard
Falk
After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future?
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress
Justin
Podur
Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia
Reuven
Kaviner
Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2
July
1, 2003
Sasan
Fayamanesh
Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and
Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia
and the Sodomy Cops
Susan
Block
A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong
to Ourselves
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono
David Lindorff
Weapons in Search of a Name
Gary
Leupp
Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1
June
30, 2003
Karyn
Strickler
The Do-Nothings: an Exposé
of Progressive Politics in America
Col. Dan
Smith
The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire
Tim
Wise
Race and Destruction in Black and White
Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall
Chris
Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"
Elaine
Cassel
Kentucky Woman
Uri
Avnery
Hope in Dark Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30
Website
of the Day
Bush El Hombre
June
28 / 29, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside
Man
Laura
Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?
Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?
C.Y.
Gopinath
Bush and Kindergarten
Noah Leavitt
Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law
Joanne
Mariner
Rehnquist Family Values
Ignacio
Chapela
Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley
Bob
Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers
Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"
Kam
Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!
Ron Jacobs
Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues
Julie
Hilden
Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment
Adrien
Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide
Adam
Engel
US Troops Outta Times Square
Poets'
Basement
Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod
June
27, 2003
Jason
Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq
Posed No Threat to US
David
Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker
David
Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical
Ali"
Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26
Website
of the Day
John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy
June
26, 2003
Sen.
Robert Byrd
The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate
Hans Blix
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq
Elaine
Cassel
Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner
CounterPunch
Wire
Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops
Sheldon
Hull
Squatting in Mansions
Ben Tripp
A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone
Uri
Avnery
The Best Show in Town
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
Ordinary Vistas:
The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo
June
25, 2003
Bruce
Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers
Mickey
Z.
The New Dark Ages
David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists
Dan
Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops
Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"
Elaine
Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing
Guidelines
Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods
June
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court
Roya
Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth
It to Risk One's Life?
John
Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations
David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24
June
23, 2003
Marc
Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with
Ray McGovern
Conn
Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon
Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad
Edward
Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23
June
21 / 22, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels
Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
June 20, 2003
Walter
Brasch
Down on Our Knees
Robert
Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America
Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Grannies and Baby Bells
Norman
Madarasz
Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a
Quebec Radical
Gary
Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies
Marathon: the Finale
Hot Stories
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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July
10, 2003
The Bloody Profits
of General Dynamics
Dealing
with the Devil
By RON JACOBS
It's a familiar story: Robert Johnson traded his
soul for the ability to play the guitar like no one else. Dr.
Faustus traded his for the ability to effect cures and other
medicinal wonders. In modern western society, it is the citizens
and their governments who sell themselves (and their souls) to
oil and the military. Nowhere is this Faustian deal more complete
and pervasive than here in the United States. Virtually every
large city and many smaller towns have some type of defense contractor
or military outpost that represents this deal. It doesn't matter
if the town's politics are liberal or conservative, leftist or
right-wing, pro or antiwar; nor does it matter what the political
slant of its elected representatives is, although districts where
legislators are known for the support of the war industry do
tend to have more military contracts.
For example, if one comes to Burlington,
Vermont and drives south about a mile and a half on Pine Street
s/he will see a small factory on the right with a good deal of
security--a guard post, razor wire, and a fence all around it.
This is the site of an armaments plant. Originally owned and
managed by General Electric, it changed hands in 1992 to Martin-Marietta
after a Wall Street deal was made with the former. Since then,
it has changed ownership to Lockheed (when Martin-Marietta and
Lockheed merged), and is currently owned and operated by General
Dynamics. No matter which master of war has their name attached
to it, however, the business inside continues. That business
is the manufacture of some of the most inhumane weaponry known
to humanity--no small feat in today's world of weaponry. This
is even truer under General Dynamics, a Virginia-based company
with facilities in the United States, United Kingdom, Mexico
and Canada, who make absolutely nothing but weapons systems and
the technology used to guide those weapons in their destruction.
In a 1999 speech to the Washington Economic Club, the company's
current CEO, Nicholas D. Chabraja, attacked those who desired
a peace dividend in place of increased weapons spending and called
for increased public spending on weaponry in the hope of forging
not just another "American Century" but an "American
Millenium." In other words, another century (if not a millennium)
of war for profit.
Perhaps General Dynamics' most (in) famous
product is what is currently known among arms purchasers as the
Vulcan armament system. This system is currently used on the
United States Air Force's F-16, F-16, and F-18 fighter bombers
and (as the company's web page puts it) "features a 20-mm
Gatling gun which provides reliability up to ten times greater
than single barrel guns. The system's M61A1 Gatling fires at
6,000 shots per minute and places a controlled dispersion of
projectiles in the path of the target." If one has never
seen footage of what 6,000 shots per minute can do to a person,
think of what your dog would look like if you placed a dynamite
stick in its mouth. I hope that's graphic enough to give the
reader an idea. The prototype of this system was the Gatling
gun, which was first used by Union troops during the Civil war.
That earlier version was capable of firing a couple hundred shots
per minute (with less accuracy) and, once the Union troops figured
out how to use it without injuring themselves, gave a clear advantage
to their side in those battles where the Gatling was present.
Since that time, it has been used in Korea, Vietnam, Colombia
and Iraq (among others). Its cousin, currently catalogued as
the RAH-66, which is designed for use on helicopter warships,
also raked the killing fields and deserts in Vietnam and Iraq
and was destined for use during the war against Yugoslavia in
1999, until NATO decided against the use of helicopters. This
ghastly gun is but one of General Dynamics' fine products. Others
include missile firing systems that can be mounted on both air
and land vehicles. Indeed, the Israeli military uses some of
these systems on the helicopters they use to attacks Palestinians
in the Gaza and West Bank.
Since the events of 911 and the resulting
expansion of the military budget, General Dynamics' sales have
jumped more than 18% and its profits have increased $16 million.
Much of this can be attributed to it being awarded over $4 billion
dollars in contracts, much of it in new weapons systems. Some
of the profit increase can also be traced to the company's ongoing
practice of outsourcing work to non-union shops and laying off
unionized workers. Why does General Dynamics get so many contracts?
One reason might be the amount of advertising it does in the
Congressional Record. Another might be its ability to get so-called
critics of the defense industry like Senator Leahy of Vermont
to push for these contracts because such contracts are supposed
to create jobs. This is where towns like Burlington make a compromise.
Its civic leaders and citizens trade their apprehension and misgivings
about the war industry for a few jobs and the income these jobs
bring into a community. In doing so, they begin a trek down a
road that is hard to veer away from because of the money and
politics that become involved. On a greater scale, the supposed
good times that the war industry brings depends on their opposite
somewhere else. Good times in this country mean bad times somewhere
else. In the United States, good times also mean that our war-based
economy must be doing well. This is certainly the case nowadays,
with the United States ranked as the number one arms seller in
the world and outranking its nearest competitor tenfold.
A group of activists who are linked with
Action for Community and Ecology
in the Rainforests of Central America (ACERCA) in Burlington
are stepping up a campaign against General Dynamics as part of
their work around US involvement in the war in Colombia. This
work is the successor to a multi-year campaign against the weapons
plant in Burlington that took place in the 1970s and 1980s when
it was run by General Electric and employed a couple hundred
people. Various other working groups organized against General
Dynamics during the 1990s, as well, culminating in a protest
at the company gates in April 2001 during the actions against
the FTAA Summit of the Americas in Quebec (when Burlington served
as a border convergence center). ACERCA is a Coordinating Committee
member of the National Colombia Mobilization (NCM)-a network
of peace and antiwar organizations working to end US military
aid to Colombia, in part by challenging the corporations that
profit from that aid. ACERCA's work against General Dynamics
has involved mostly generating publicity about its products to
this point, with the intention of stepping up its campaign in
future months.
Ron Jacobs
is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Weekend
Edition Features
Patrick
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Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
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St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
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