How Arms Dealers Are Bribing Republicans To Launch New Wars In The Middle East

by: James DeVinnie

With the 2016 Presidential election already heating up, the drums of war can be heard echoing through Washington as militaristic Republican hawks attempt to outdo each other in their support of American interventionism and neocolonialism. Much of the political and monetary support for this war-mongering in the upcoming election will come from the lobby group founded by ex-chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers (R-MI) with the euphemistic goal of “electing a president who supports American engagement and a strong foreign policy”. The group’s Orwellian name, Americans for Peace, Prosperity, and Security (APPS) was presumably chosen because the real name, Military-Industrial Contractors for War, Death, and Destruction, didn’t have the right ring to it. APPS has registered as a 501(c)(4) rather than a PAC and therefore is not required to release information about its donors. Even so, it is not hard to determine that the group is merely another front for the military-industrial complex, its board being chock full of men with intimate ties to the “defense” industry and riddled with conflicts of interest.
Chairman Mike Rogers himself, who demonstrated his ignorance of national intelligence by declaring that Edward Snowden was a Russian double agent, has already benefited from his cozy ties with the war machine. In Congress Rogers has repeatedly touted the need for “more surveillance” in the United States, supported the CISPA bill to allow the government unlimited internet surveillance, and has been one of the House’s staunchest NSA apologists. All of this while his wife, Kristi Rogers, was serving as President and CEO of Aegis LLC, a defense contractor with a $10 billion contract to provide security and intelligence-gathering services to the State Department. While he should have been indicted for such corruption, Rogers has instead strolled through the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K Street.
The APPS Board reads like a who’s who of the defense industry. Among its members are the CEO of VT systems, which provides communications technology to the Defense Department; an owner of the defense consulting firm RiceHadleyGates and board member of military contractor Raytheon; the CEO of EPE Corporation, one of the main DoD manufacturing suppliers; the president of the Business Roundtable, a lobbying consortium that represents military-industrial giants such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman; the founder of Insight Technologies, a military technology provider; the director of strategy for BAE Systems, one of the nation’s largest defense contractors; and the former CEO of both BAE and SAIC, another large contractor, who was partially paid in stock options. The list goes on and and on, a depressing and disgusting reminder of the influence on our political system wielded by men who kill for a living, and are rewarded handsomely for it.

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