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Biden’s Defense Secretary Pick Shows the Revolving Door for Military Contractors Remains – Industry ties were simply taken for granted in Biden’s defense secretary sweepstakes.

Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden has tapped retired Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III for the pow­er­ful role of defense sec­re­tary, news out­lets revealed Decem­ber 7. Spec­u­la­tion over who Biden would pick had been brew­ing for weeks. All three top con­tenders for the posi­tion — Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion alum Michèle Flournoy, for­mer Home­land Secu­ri­ty Direc­tor Jeh John­son and Austin — have direct finan­cial ties to the mil­i­tary indus­try, and none can be described as even nom­i­nal­ly pro­gres­sive on for­eign pol­i­cy. Austin, arguably, is not the worst among them: Flournoy comes with an espe­cial­ly hawk­ish record, the most mil­i­tary indus­try ties, and an ide­o­log­i­cal pro-war gus­to that sets her apart. But it’s dif­fi­cult to breathe a sigh of relief about the advance of a retired gen­er­al who over­saw wars in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and Syr­ia, and who is on the Board of Direc­tors for the pow­er­ful weapons com­pa­ny Raytheon.

Austin is still list­ed by Raytheon, one of the largest weapons com­pa­nies in the world, as a mem­ber of its board. Raytheon is a major sup­pli­er of bombs to the U.S.-Saudi coali­tion that began wag­ing war on Yemen dur­ing the Oba­ma-Biden admin­is­tra­tion, and the com­pa­ny has aggres­sive­ly lob­bied against any curbs on U.S. weapons sales to the coali­tion. In just one exam­ple, an Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al report deter­mined that Raytheon man­u­fac­tured the bomb that killed six peo­ple, chil­dren among them, at a home in Yemen’s Ta’iz gov­er­norate in June 2019. Mark Esper, who served as Don­ald Trump’s Sec­re­tary of Defense before he was fired last month, was a for­mer lob­by­ist for Raytheon — a record for which he, right­ly, attract­ed con­sid­er­able flak.

But Austin’s mil­i­tary indus­try ties don’t stop there. As was first report­ed by The Amer­i­can Prospect, Austin — along with Flournoy — is also a part­ner at Pine Island Cap­i­tal Part­ners. Here’s how the New York Times described the firm in an arti­cle pub­lished on Novem­ber 28: ​Pine Island Cap­i­tal has been on some­thing of a buy­ing spree this year, pur­chas­ing the weapons sys­tem parts man­u­fac­tur­er Precin­mac and a com­pa­ny until recent­ly known as Meg­gitt Train­ing Sys­tems and now known as InVeris, which sells com­put­er-sim­u­lat­ed weapons train­ing sys­tems to the Pen­ta­gon and law enforce­ment agen­cies.” The same day, The Dai­ly Poster report­ed that the com­pa­ny has boast­ed that its team’s inclu­sion of for­mer gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary offi­cials will help boost profits.

The best thing you can say about Austin, who served in pow­er­ful mil­i­tary roles under Oba­ma, is that he does not hog the spot­light, and he fol­lowed orders when Oba­ma dealt them out. In a world of larg­er-than-life, pro-war per­son­al­i­ties like Jim Mat­tis and Stan­ley McChrys­tal, this has caused some to hope he is not the most harm­ful option. But when it came to his actu­al posi­tions — things that mat­ter when you’re sec­re­tary of defense — Austin often found him­self to the right of a pres­i­dent who, despite his 2008 cam­paign trail image, was no dove. In 2010, as the top com­man­der of U.S. forces in Iraq, Austin advised Pres­i­dent Oba­ma against with­draw­ing troops from Iraq, and said he should instead leave 24,000 troops in the coun­try (there were about 45,000 at the time). Oba­ma, how­ev­er, over­rode this rec­om­men­da­tion, and Austin end­ed up pre­sid­ing over a sig­nif­i­cant troop with­draw­al. As head of Cen­tral Com­mand, which over­sees the Mid­dle East, Austin would go on to rec­om­mend in 2014 that Oba­ma send a ​mod­est con­tin­gent of Amer­i­can troops, prin­ci­pal­ly Spe­cial Oper­a­tions forces, to advise and assist Iraqi army units” in the fight­ing of ISIS, as para­phrased by the Wash­ing­ton Post. Oba­ma also ini­tial­ly reject­ed this rec­om­men­da­tion, deploy­ing 475 troops, osten­si­bly to pro­vide train­ing, intel­li­gence and equip­ment, and ini­ti­at­ing an air war on ISIS that con­tin­ues to kill civil­ians to this day. 

Austin would pre­side over an expan­sion of this war, which by his retire­ment in 2016 saw 3,600 U.S. troops deployed to Iraq, and U.S. Spe­cial Forces to Syr­ia (although this did not pre­vent him from being crit­i­cized from the right for not doing enough to esca­late mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in Syr­ia). He led Cen­tral Com­mand dur­ing the war in Afghanistan, as well as when the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion ini­ti­at­ed U.S. par­tic­i­pa­tion in the war on Yemen, which erupt­ed under his charge into a full-blown human­i­tar­i­an cri­sis that has esca­lat­ed under Pres­i­dent Trump.

And then, of course, there is the fact that Austin is a retired gen­er­al who has been tapped to over­see an agency that is sup­posed to be run by civil­ians (although, when oth­er can­di­dates are so close­ly tied to the mil­i­tary indus­try, the line between civil­ian and non-civil­ian is blurred across the board). Because Austin has only been out of the mil­i­tary for four years, he will need a con­gres­sion­al waiv­er to serve in the role of defense sec­re­tary, as did Mat­tis, the first defense sec­re­tary under Pres­i­dent Trump. If approved, Austin will be the first Black defense sec­re­tary in U.S. history.

That Austin was cho­sen to head the Pen­ta­gon shows that the U.S. polit­i­cal imag­i­na­tion around war and mil­i­tarism remains trapped with­in Washington’s revolv­ing door of weapons indus­try con­trac­tors and gov­ern­ment offi­cials. And it shows that the sta­tus quo of the Oba­ma years — which brought us drone wars around the world, pro­tract­ed occu­pa­tion in Afghanistan and cat­a­stro­phe in Yemen — lives on with the incom­ing Biden administration.

It’s worth also tak­ing note of the oth­er top con­tenders who, even though they didn’t make the slot, nonethe­less are close to the Biden admin­is­tra­tion and are almost cer­tain to con­tin­ue exert­ing some influ­ence over the admin­is­tra­tion. For­mer Sec­re­tary of Home­land Secu­ri­ty Jeh John­son is on the board of direc­tors for weapons com­pa­ny Lock­heed Mar­tin. Like Raytheon, Lock­heed Mar­tin has prof­it­ed con­sid­er­ably from the U.S. war in Yemen, even as the war has fall­en out of favor among the main­stream of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty. That com­pa­ny infa­mous­ly man­u­fac­tured the bomb that killed 26 chil­dren when it struck a school bus in north­ern Yemen in August 2018.

Under the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion, John­son presided over Obama’s vast depor­ta­tion machine, over­see­ing a sig­nif­i­cant esca­la­tion in raids and depor­ta­tions, as well as the prac­tice of incar­cer­at­ing chil­dren in immi­gra­tion deten­tion cen­ters. In an open let­ter writ­ten to John­son in August 2016, 22 moth­ers held with their chil­dren at the Berks Fam­i­ly Res­i­den­tial Cen­ter in Penn­syl­va­nia plead­ed for their free­dom. ​Our chil­dren, who range in age from 2 to 16, have been deprived of a nor­mal life,” they wrote.

But it is Flournoy whose record attract­ed the lion’s share of con­cern from many anti-war activists. In addi­tion to Pine Island Cap­i­tal Part­ners, she is also on the board of mil­i­tary con­trac­tor Booz Allen Hamil­ton, which ​paid her about $440,000 in the last two years, much of it stock awards,” accord­ing to the New York Times. She also cofound­ed Cen­ter for a New Amer­i­can Secu­ri­ty (CNAS) — a hawk­ish cen­ter-left think tank that receives sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing from the weapons indus­try, includ­ing Raytheon and Lock­heed Mar­tin, where Austin and John­son are respec­tive­ly affil­i­at­ed. Flournoy is also co-founder and man­ag­ing part­ner of Wes­t­Ex­ec Advi­sors, a con­sult­ing firm that includes mil­i­tary con­trac­tors among its clients. Antony Blinken, Biden’s pick for sec­re­tary of state, is also one of WestExec’s cofounders, and the orga­ni­za­tion is a ​strate­gic part­ner” of Pine Island Cap­i­tal Partners.

Beyond these defense indus­try ties, Flournoy’s hawk­ish track record has earned her sig­nif­i­cant ire from anti-war activists. While this record can be traced back all the way to the Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion, it was the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion where she exert­ed con­sid­er­able influ­ence, as Under Sec­re­tary of Defense for Pol­i­cy from 2009 to 2012, as well as through her role at CNAS. Flournoy pushed to esca­late the war in Afghanistan, strong­ly pressed for the 2011 mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in Libya, opposed the com­plete with­draw­al of troops from Iraq, and as recent­ly as 2019 opposed a ban on sell­ing weapons to Sau­di Ara­bia. In a recent let­ter to Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden, pro­gres­sive groups, includ­ing the Yemen Relief and Recon­struc­tion Foun­da­tion and Yemeni Alliance Com­mit­tee, stat­ed, ​We are con­cerned that Ms. Flournoy has a record of ill-advised for­eign pol­i­cy posi­tions that have often con­flict­ed with your own, and has an opaque his­to­ry of pri­vate-sec­tor activ­i­ty — includ­ing ​shad­ow lob­by­ing’ for mil­i­tary con­trac­tors — which has raised ques­tions about poten­tial con­flicts of interest.”

Flournoy has her defend­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly among ​nation­al secu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als” who cel­e­brat­ed the poten­tial high-lev­el advance­ment of a woman, some­thing that infu­ri­at­ed the anti-war fem­i­nists I spoke to. And some groups that con­sid­er them­selves lib­er­al or pro­gres­sive on for­eign pol­i­cy expressed ret­i­cence about oppos­ing her. Although she did not get the posi­tion, it will be impor­tant to keep an eye on Flournoy, who will no doubt con­tin­ue to exert influ­ence from CNAS.

If one believes, as I do, that the U.S. mil­i­tary is not a force for good in the world, it is doubt­ful that there is such a thing as a ​good” sec­re­tary of defense. There is, how­ev­er, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reduc­ing — even mar­gin­al­ly — the harm the U.S. mil­i­tary inflicts across the globe. The field of poten­tial nom­i­nees was, from an anti-war per­spec­tive, dis­mal: None of Biden’s picks for sec­re­tary of defense were going to be pro­gres­sive, even accord­ing to Washington’s stan­dards. His occa­sion­al rhetoric around end­ing ​for­ev­er wars” aside, Biden nev­er real­ly gave us any rea­son to think he’d steer a course that veers very far from the wars and inter­ven­tions he sup­port­ed — either overt­ly or tac­it­ly — dur­ing the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion, not to men­tion dur­ing his long polit­i­cal career before that. While one must not flat­ten dif­fer­ences between can­di­dates, it is also impor­tant not to sound a note of tri­umph when the absolute worst is avoid­ed but an unac­cept­able sta­tus quo remains, as some have done with respect to the president-elect’s oth­er appoint­ments. Espe­cial­ly when it comes to for­eign pol­i­cy — where the pres­i­dent has the most pow­er to act with­out Con­gress, and where Biden’s appoint­ments have uni­form­ly avoid­ed mean­ing­ful con­ces­sions to the Left — sug­ar­coat­ing real­i­ty is ill-advised.

It’s not too much to ask, at the very least, that ​pub­lic ser­vants” ele­vat­ed to the high­est ech­e­lons of pow­er not take over agen­cies that reg­u­late and patron­ize the cor­po­ra­tions they were well-com­pen­sat­ed board mem­bers of weeks before tak­ing office, and will like­ly be again once they leave office in a few years. Even set­ting aside ide­o­log­i­cal oppo­si­tion to U.S. empire or the iner­tia of vio­lence that defines U.S. mil­i­tarism across the globe, basic good gov­ern­ment types can see the inher­ent con­flicts of inter­est in the revolv­ing door between indus­try and gov­ern­ment. This revolv­ing door was sim­ply tak­en for grant­ed in Biden’s defense sec­re­tary sweep­stakes. Cer­tain­ly, there has to be some­one in the ​nation­al secu­ri­ty” world not drown­ing in the largesse of Raytheon, Booz Allen or Lock­heed Mar­tin. And if there isn’t, what does this say about the fun­da­men­tal nature of the U.S. war machine and who it serves?

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Sarah Lazare | Radio Free (2020-12-08T14:56:00+00:00) Biden’s Defense Secretary Pick Shows the Revolving Door for Military Contractors Remains – Industry ties were simply taken for granted in Biden’s defense secretary sweepstakes.. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/12/08/bidens-defense-secretary-pick-shows-the-revolving-door-for-military-contractors-remains-industry-ties-were-simply-taken-for-granted-in-bidens-defense-secretary-sweepstakes/

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" » Biden’s Defense Secretary Pick Shows the Revolving Door for Military Contractors Remains – Industry ties were simply taken for granted in Biden’s defense secretary sweepstakes.." Sarah Lazare | Radio Free - Tuesday December 8, 2020, https://www.radiofree.org/2020/12/08/bidens-defense-secretary-pick-shows-the-revolving-door-for-military-contractors-remains-industry-ties-were-simply-taken-for-granted-in-bidens-defense-secretary-sweepstakes/
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Sarah Lazare | Radio Free Tuesday December 8, 2020 » Biden’s Defense Secretary Pick Shows the Revolving Door for Military Contractors Remains – Industry ties were simply taken for granted in Biden’s defense secretary sweepstakes.., viewed ,<https://www.radiofree.org/2020/12/08/bidens-defense-secretary-pick-shows-the-revolving-door-for-military-contractors-remains-industry-ties-were-simply-taken-for-granted-in-bidens-defense-secretary-sweepstakes/>
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» Biden’s Defense Secretary Pick Shows the Revolving Door for Military Contractors Remains – Industry ties were simply taken for granted in Biden’s defense secretary sweepstakes. | Sarah Lazare | Radio Free | https://www.radiofree.org/2020/12/08/bidens-defense-secretary-pick-shows-the-revolving-door-for-military-contractors-remains-industry-ties-were-simply-taken-for-granted-in-bidens-defense-secretary-sweepstakes/ |

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