Ever wonder why Tony Blair was so hot to trot to support US warmongers?

[JohnyCanuck]

Why We Fight
Alan McKinnon shows that the UK and US 'defence' policy is in fact a 'projection of power' policy with the primary purpose of defending the commercial interests of transnational companies

SNIP

Britain's armed forces are different only in scale. For generations our defence posture has emphasised the projection of power to other parts of the world. And today our armed forces have the third highest military spending in the world (after the United States and China) and the second highest power projection capability behind the United States. The Royal Navy is the world's second largest navy and our large air force is in the process of procuring hundreds of the most advanced aircraft in the world. And then there is Trident, Britain's strategic nuclear 'deterrent' - the ultimate weapon for projecting power across the world. None of this is designed to match any threat to our nation. It is designed to meet the 'expeditionary' role of our armed forces in support of the policy of our senior ally, the United States.

This military overkill cannot be justified by 'defence' unless we extend its meaning to the 'defence of its interests' across the world. And this gets us closer to the real explanation for this military build up. US and UK companies comprise many of the biggest transnational companies. Twenty-nine of the top 100 global companies by turnover are US and seven are UK-based. And the top five global companies are all US or UK based. Both economies share many of the same strengths and weaknesses. Both have seen major erosion of their manufacturing base as compared with economies like Germany and Japan. Both have become increasingly dependent on banking, privatised utilities and financial services, hence their vulnerability in the recent banking collapse. But both retain dominance in certain key areas such as oil and gas and arms manufacturing. In the case of the UK we can add mining. Of the top 10 global companies, all but three are in oil and gas, with British companies Royal Dutch Shell and BP coming first and fourth on the list. The world's three biggest mining companies - Anglo-American, Rio Tinto and BHP Billington - are UK-based.

Today Britain continues to export capital on a scale unmatched by any other country apart from the United States. By 2006 British capital assets overseas were worth the equivalent of 410 per cent of Britain's GDP. This is the highest of any major capitalist economy. Much of this investment is in the United States and Europe, but a significant amount continues to be invested in extractive industries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. An even greater amount of money from abroad (mainly US) is invested in British financial and industrial companies, many of them now under external ownership. It is this interlocking of capital between the UK and the much stronger US economy which helps to bind UK and US foreign policy together. Britain's oil and gas giants, its mining companies and its arms manufacturers have a powerful and ongoing relationship with government and an effective lobbying influence in the office of successive Prime Ministers.

All of these strands come together with the drive for 'energy security' by the US and UK governments. It is the desire to protect overseas investments and control the strategic materials such as oil, gas and minerals that drive the foreign and defence policy of both countries. Britain no longer has the global military reach to defend its overseas investments. Increasingly it depends on the United States for this. The unwritten agreement is that, in return, the British government supports US policy around the world (emphasis added /JC). The same is true for Britain's biggest arms manufacturer, BAE Systems. It has grown rapidly in recent years to become the second biggest arms manufacturer in the world, mainly through the acquisition of other US companies. It now gets more business from the Pentagon than the MoD. UK support for America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly helps to oil the wheels of the UK arms business.

http://www.scottishleftreview.org/li/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=278&Itemid=1

[StarfarerBill]

1. It has ever been so.

[malaise]

2. Duh!!!!!!!!!!!

:D

[dusmcj]

3. eroded manuf. base ? thank Thatcherite and Reaganite free market shit

>Both have seen major erosion of their manufacturing base as compared with economies like Germany and Japan.

A nation of shopkeepers, led by a shopkeeper's daughter ? An unfortunate detour.

But thank God we're not socialist !

[Cirque du So-What]

4. Oil, capital & armaments

An unholy trinity that spells death for millions around the world.

[snot]

5. I find this very helpful in spelling out the details.

"No blood for oil" may be a great slogan, but I need more than that to actually discuss the issues.

[marmar]

6. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler knew of what he spoke:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War (I) a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill? ........http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

[peacetalksforall]

7. It is excellently rewarding after several decades of trying to use deductive

logic to figure out what was going on and then have the Iraq swindle thrown at us. The key word is pipeline, security, and control of earth resources by killing,controlling people while creating fear in them. Whether the pipeline is for oil-gas or minerals or timber-cattle, drugs - the people are being manipulated and I am sorrowful for those who haven't figured it out.

Pipelines from earth resources into the bank accounts of a few and between few.

The wealth of corruption.

Throw Israel into the duo to make a trio, then add Western Europe, Canada, Australia to the supporting nations.

Intelligence = corporate intelligence. We have to stop fooling ourselves.

President Obama - we don't want this.

All fiction, drama, literature, film scripts have already been there and now we are here - with war decalred on us by our own.

[peacetalksforall]

8. There is a huge flaw in their planning. They declared war on us and have deemed us expendable

instead of taking care that we have the basics and are occupied with children, family, jobs, education. Their other mistake was bringing Israel into the game of war game playing and GIVING them the arsenal, aircraft, bombs, inc. nuclear, $ aid, military/intelligence/contractor jobs that needed to be done and giving Israel the OK sign to bomb Palestinians, Arabs, Lebonese, Syrians. By perpetuating unrest -by designing and allowing eye for eye killing to have that everlasting, underlying fear of eruption - by allowing their native born and immigrants to take even more. The powder ket.

We can see it. What do we do about it?

The sham of democracy as a cover for corporatism is their ever-winning wealth ticket. Their power-ball.

And we hear it in concession speeches. I hope there is a plan to wake up and reconsider.