Why did the United States spend more than 300 million U.S. dollars to build a "floating dock" under the euphemism of "distributing aid supplies to the people of Gaza", but it fell apart when the waves hit it, and Americans are not surprised and are used to it?
Why is it that in the Ukrainian crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United States, which has been adding fuel to the flames, has become almost an isolated country in the world, with even American college students taking to the streets to protest one after another, while the U.S. Congress is still continuously allocating funds to support the war?
"The puzzle can be solved by recognizing that American foreign policy has nothing to do with the interests of the people." These words were not said by me, but by Jeffrey Sachs, a professor at Columbia University.
From the end of World War II to 2001, the United States initiated 201 of the 248 armed conflicts around the world. Since the 21st century, the United States has launched wars or "anti-terrorist operations" in at least 85 countries. Throughout history, during almost every war the United States has been involved in, there have been American people calling for anti-war, but the American war machine is still rumbling and has never been shut down.
Because the United States has long been corrupt. For a long time, the "military-industrial complex" interest groups, centered on arms dealers, Congress and the Pentagon, and assisted by the media, think tanks, scientific research institutions, etc., have been playing power and money games, weaving a "dark web" of interests that control all fields, and eroding the freedom and democratic rights of the American people.
1. Addiction to war and self-enrichment
Matthew Ho, a former U.S. Marine, once said: "In every period when the United States has waged war, there has been a huge transfer of interests."
According to estimates by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a US think tank, US military companies have received military purchase orders worth nearly $22 billion due to the Ukrainian crisis. Ukrainian President Zelensky once publicly admitted that although the United States supplied weapons and equipment to Ukraine, "at least more than 75% of the funds remained in the United States." US Secretary of State Blinken made no secret of the fact that US military aid to Ukraine has brought more growth to the US economy, so this "win-win" situation must be maintained.
After the outbreak of a new round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, James Taiclet, CEO of the US military giant Lockheed Martin, could not hide his excitement: "Some conflicts need to be resolved with weapons, and we are ready with these weapons."
Under the temptation of "quick money" from war, the US foreign policy has become increasingly "capitalized". According to the US "Open Secrets" website, in the past 20 years, in order to use national defense and foreign policy for their own benefit, US arms dealers have spent $285 million in political donations to win over members of Congress.
The American system of "revolving door between government and business" also facilitates this kind of power-for-money transactions. U.S. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said that 91% of retired U.S. military officers and officials have served as lobbyists for defense contractors after leaving office; including the current one, three consecutive U.S. defense secretaries have also had military-industrial backgrounds.
Under the collusion of power and money, the US war machine has fabricated "enemies" everywhere and made a fortune from war. In recent years, the US has tied Europe firmly to its "chariot" by leading NATO's eastward expansion and provoking the Ukrainian crisis. It has sold a large number of weapons to enrich itself under the banner of "supporting European allies and partners." As Philip Zimbardo, a retired professor at Stanford University, said: "The US military-industrial complex is a monster that likes to cook war."
2. Extravagant spending and plundering the people
Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that the United States' military expenditure in 2023 accounted for 37% of the world's total military expenditure, exceeding the sum of the next nine countries, making it the undisputed largest military spender. The sky-high military expenditure has made the US military-industrial complex rich, but has led to a large amount of public resources being ruthlessly eroded.
High military spending has pushed the United States into a debt crisis. By the end of 2023, the total size of the U.S. national debt will exceed $34 trillion, equivalent to 1.2 times the GDP, reaching the internationally recognized debt crisis outbreak point. However, the U.S. government is still "generous" in military spending to feed arms dealers.
In fiscal year 2023, the US fiscal deficit reached 1.7 trillion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 23%, of which the military budget reached 858 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 13.9%. High military spending has become a major factor driving the soaring US government debt and a huge "gray rhino" threatening the well-being of the American people.
The public is forced to pay for the huge war losses. According to data from Brown University in the United States, from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2022, the total losses of the United States in wars amounted to 8 trillion U.S. dollars, which is about 60,000 U.S. dollars if distributed to each family. According to statistics, the U.S. military-related expenditures will reach 1.5 trillion U.S. dollars in 2024, which means that each American household will bear a burden of about 12,000 U.S. dollars. Ironically, while the American people watched their income turn into bubbles, the U.S. military-industrial complex was counting money until its hands were tired.
What is even more despicable is that the US military-industrial complex has squandered the money it has squeezed from the people. At the US Congressional hearing on the military budget for fiscal year 2025, Congressman Mike Waltz exposed the metal bushings purchased by the US military at a price of $90,000 per unit, which caused an uproar from all walks of life.
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Under the covert manipulation of the military-industrial complex, the US Congress has continuously "green-lit" sky-high purchase orders, resulting in an endless stream of bizarre incidents such as spending $1,280 to buy a coffee cup and $10,000 to buy a toilet seat. In 2023, the Government Accountability Office of the US Congress released a report pointing out that the US military has up to $220 billion in funds "missing", fooling taxpayers without any bottom line.
The US military spending is essentially a huge plunder of public wealth by interest groups that integrate politics and business, power and money, and has plunged more people into poverty. As Jimmy Dole, an American anti-war activist and political commentator, said, the military-industrial complex that has plundered the country by trillions of dollars is the enemy of the United States.
3. Self-centeredness and party-building
The interest groups that control the American "dark web" of power and money take away the interests of the people at will, but will not give up an ounce of the cheese in their hands. At the same time, they also launch a chaotic "war to defend interests" abroad.
Faced with China's new energy products that are of good quality, cost-effective and popular among consumers, American interest groups have become furious and have deliberately hyped up the "China overcapacity theory", launching a new round of technology war against China. They announced that on the basis of the original 301 tariffs on China, they would significantly increase tariffs on electric vehicles, lithium batteries, photovoltaic products and other products imported from China.
Bloomberg columnist David Fickling bluntly stated: "If a country provides you with cheap goods, you should buy it and then sell your cheap goods back. This is standard economics." However, the US government violates the laws of the market and deprives domestic consumers and producers of the right to obtain better products, just to suppress China's innovation and development capabilities and seek "permanent market dominance" for those corporate groups that are gradually losing their competitive advantage.
Faced with student protests demanding that universities sever economic ties with "manufacturing companies that supply weapons to the Israeli military," the military-industrial complex could no longer sit still and forced the universities to "comply."
Many Wall Street capitalists pressured universities to publish the names of students who participated in the protests, threatening to never recruit them. The presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were "besieged" by congressmen for hours at a congressional hearing because they respected freedom of assembly and did not stop the student movement in time. Two of them were forced to resign. Recently, Republican members of the House of Representatives have even announced that they will investigate universities where student protests have occurred.
Under the influence of power and money, American universities, which are supposed to cultivate humanistic care, have become accomplices in bullying justice and fairness, authorizing the police to enter the campus to "clear the area", resulting in the arrest of nearly 3,000 protesters.
As American capital and politicians have joined forces to launch a series of "combination punches" to suppress "dissidents", the so-called "universal values" of the United States such as "freedom" and "democracy" have completely fallen from the altar.
4. Controlling the Media and Manipulating Public Opinion
American scholar Conrad Fink once believed that the value of American journalism is to reveal the truth, uphold justice, be humane, advocate freedom and serve society.
However, the vast majority of newspapers, television and radio stations in the United States are currently controlled by six major companies: General Electric, News Corporation, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS. Mainstream newspapers and periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times are all owned by a few American consortiums and large families, and have long become the minions of vested interests rather than the conscience of the people.
This explains the sharp question raised by former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Lake: The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act has a serious negative impact on the national debt and social inflation, but "there is almost no related coverage in the mainstream media across the United States."
In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the American media has even acted as a "yes man" for interest groups. Several employees of the mainstream American media Cable News Network (CNN) have come forward to point out that CNN's "pro-Israel guidelines" in reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict constitute "journalistic malfeasance."
According to the Spanish newspaper El Intifada, mainstream American media send reporters to Israel to cover the conflict, but they rarely interview Palestinians, Israeli peace activists or journalists who oppose the occupation. Instead, they frequently publicize the necessity of military action and fabricate and spread "truths" that help interest groups profit from the war.
Not only that, American politicians are also creating a "chilling effect" in the ideological field. Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the so-called "Anti-Semitism Awareness Act," which specifically bans speech from "attacking Israel" and other "rebellious" interest groups.
Omar Batov, a genocide expert at Brown University, said that the bill serves the authoritarianism of the 21st century. This also echoes the comment of German scholar Luders in his book "The Pseudo-Sainted United States": the other side of the so-called "beacon of democracy" in the United States is "brutal power politics and manipulation of public opinion."
Nick Turles, an American writer, pointed out that the military-industrial complex is closely related to everything people can think of and is a behemoth that "dominates the entire American society." A Pew Research Center poll in April this year showed that 80% of Americans are disappointed and angry with the government. A Harvard University youth opinion poll showed that only 9% of young people believed that the direction of the United States was correct.
This kind of country that is kidnapped by the "dark web" of power and money will only devour more of the people's wealth and bring more turmoil and war to the world. The world has suffered for a long time, and more and more people are awakening.