This article openly portrays the bombing of Yugoslavia with the latest technologically sophisticated weapons of mass murder as an advertising campaign by the death salesmen.
The military industrial complex is desparately looking to socio-politically construct new want/needs in the forms of "Hitlers" and "Evils"so that their weapon commodities have "use"-value. This is to replace the drastic drop in demand with the end of the Cold War (see the article below).
These are not socalled defense contractors. They are merchants of death.
Expropriate the Merchants of Death !
Charles Brown
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USA TODAY
April 15, 1999, Thursday, FIRST EDITION
Kosovo crisis boosts stocks of U.S. defense contractors
by Salina Khan
Escalation of the war in Kosovo is likely to bring more business for U.S. defense contractors. And that's giving a lift to some defense company stocks.
Raytheon -- which makes the Tomahawk cruise missiles being used against Serb forces -- has been the industry's biggest gainer. Its stock is up 17% the past two weeks. Stocks of military equipment manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Boeing are up 8% and 12%, respectively.
"Some of the performance is driven by excitement in Kosovo and renewed interest in their products," says analyst Bill Fiala at St. Louis-based brokerage Edward Jones.
"This is not just a flash in the pan," says analyst Shawn Narancich of D.A. Davidson & Co. in Great Falls, Mont. "Kosovo is just the catalyst. We're going to keep seeing money flowing into defense stocks."
The USA's defense equipment, such as the satellite-guided smart bombs, has stolen the international spotlight as NATO air forces pound Serbian forces. That could mean increased foreign interest in U.S. military equipment, analysts say.
"Other countries are going to be dropping these in a few years," says John Pike, defense analyst at the Federation of American Scientists.
But the windfall may come sooner than that.
The Pentagon said Tuesday that it will ask Congress for $ 3 billion to $ 4 billion in emergency funds for the Yugoslavia conflict.
Of that amount, defense industry estimates indicate Raytheon could get as much as $ 420 million to upgrade 626 cruise missiles in government inventory. Neither the Pentagon nor Raytheon would confirm that.
"We are expecting the Kosovo conflict to result in new orders downstream," says Raytheon spokesman David Shea.
But a spokesman for Lockheed Martin, which makes some of the key planes and targeting systems being used in the Balkans, says it's a misconception that a conflict translates into increased business for defense contractors.
Most of the orders for Lockheed's products come from annual government budgets, not unexpected military action, according to spokesman Lee Whitney. And it can be as long as two years from when an order is made to delivery, he says.
While defense spending has fallen since the end of the Cold War, the Clinton administration has requested an 8% increase in the fiscal 2000 budget for military purchases. Defense industry analysts say that could mean more business for defense companies.
© 1999, LEXIS®-NEXIS®, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Louis Proyect
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