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[This article was originally published in April, 2021 at which time Raytheon had obtained $2.36 billion in Pentagon contracts since Austin’s appointment. Since that time, CAM has kept tabs on Raytheon’s contracts and the article has been updated.—Editors]

The Pentagon has awarded the defense giant Raytheon Technologies, the second largest weapons-maker in the world, over $30 billion in government contracts since Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III’s confirmation on January 22nd, 2021.

 

By

 Jeremy Kuzmarov

 

Austin was on Raytheon’s board of directors prior to his confirmation.

Austin at the time had made a commitment to resign from Raytheon’s board and recuse himself from all matters concerning Raytheon for four years and agreed to divest from his financial holdings in the company, amounting to between $500,000 and $1.7 million in stock.

These initiatives, however, have not prevented Austin from using his position to bolster Raytheon’s fortunes. Nor those of other defense contractors on whose board he has sat such as Booz Allen Hamilton, the world’s “most profitable spy organization,” according to Bloomberg News, and Pine Island Capital, a private equity firm that invests in military industry.[1]

At Austin’s nomination hearing, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioned him about his ties to Raytheon—whose headquarters are based in Warren’s home district (Waltham, Massachusetts).

A year earlier, Warren had proposed legal changes to strengthen ethics at the Defense Department by blocking the revolving door between the Pentagon and giant defense contractors like Raytheon, including by prohibiting big defense contractors from hiring former Pentagon officials for four years after they leave government.

Warren paradoxically voted to confirm Austin’s appointment as Defense Secretary—even though he embodies the danger of the revolving door.

Mark Pocan (D-WI), who with Barbara Lee wrote a letter in November 2020 to President-elect Joe Biden requesting that he nominate a Secretary of Defense with no previous ties to weapons manufacturers, stated that “American national security should not be defined by the bottom lines of Boeing, General Dynamics and Raytheon.”

With men like Austin at the helm, however, it is very clearly being defined in this way.

Raytheon

Reporting revenues of more than $67 billion in 2022, up from $64 billion in 2021 and $56 billion in 2020, Raytheon began its corporate life in 1922 as the American Appliance Company. It developed refrigerators and radio parts and made advances in vacuum tube technology and related electronics. 

The company was drawn into military contracting during World War II when it manufactured magnetron tubes for use in radar systems.

One of Raytheon’s founders, Vannevar Bush, became president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and chairman of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) during World War II, which initiated the Manhattan Project that led to the development of the atomic bomb.

Today, Raytheon is best known as the maker of Patriot and Tomahawk missiles.

It has also been a pioneer in the development of surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles and precision weapons—including guided missiles and laser-guided bombs—and manufactures air-launched nuclear missiles that are part of the U.S. nuclear triad.

Raytheon’s profits have increased considerably as a result of the Ukraine War: it manufactures Stinger and Javelin missiles, “the world’s premier shoulder-fired anti-armor system” that have been sold to Ukraine along with the Patriot Defense system.

 

READ MORE:

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/03/10/defense-secretary-lloyd-austin-former-member-of-raytheon-board-of-directors-has-awarded-over-30-billion-in-contracts-to-raytheon-since-his-confirmation-in-january-2021/

 

 

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in broad daylight.....

 By Jeremy Kuzmarov

 

On March 4, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, made a surprise visit to U.S. troops stationed in northeast Syria to the chagrin of the Syrian government, which said the visit was “illegal” and a “flagrant violation of the country’s sovereignty.”

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said that Milley’s visit would “not make Damascus stop its fight against terrorism. The U.S. and its allies put boots on the ground in Syria in 2014 under the pretext of fighting Daesh. The Takfiri terrorist group had emerged as Washington was running out of excuses to extend its regional interference.  The U.S.-led coalition keeps its illegal presence on the Arab country’s soil, although Damascus and its allies defeated Daesh in late 2017.”

Who is the Real Thief?

As Syria struggles to recover from a devastating earthquake on February 6, Biden administration officials are warning that Bashar al-Assad’s government will take advantage of the easing of banking restrictions to funnel money into its own coffers, and will divert humanitarian aid, like food and tents, being sent to victims of the natural disaster for its own uses.[1]

The Syrian Oil Ministry, however, has accused U.S. occupying troops in northern Syria of stealing an average of 66,000 barrels of oil per day, about 80 percent of Syria’s oil production, which if true means that the U.S. is the real thief.

Three-quarters of Syria’s oil is located in that portion of the northeastern governorate of Deir Ezzor, east of the Euphrates River, which is under the control of the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia, the Syrian Democratic Front (SDF).[2]

The United States has 500 of its 900 forces in Syria in the Deir Ezzor oil fields, from which the oil is being allegedly stolen. (There are also crucial wheat fields there, which the U.S. is likewise stealing, according to the Syrian government.)

 

READ MORE:

https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/03/13/syrian-government-condemns-visit-of-general-mark-milley-and-accuses-u-s-occupying-forces-of-stealing-countrys-oil/

 

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