State Department Of Corporate Corruption
"The secretive world of international arms sales just became a little less secret thanks to a special report by Reuters. After an in-depth review of last year's leaked State Department cables, the wire service has uncovered several strange and unsettling dealings between military contractors and foreign governments, with U.S. diplomats obseqiously paving the way. There are a bunch of oddball deals in here, but want to know our two favorites? The deal to give Chad planes to kill pro-democracy demonstrators and the part where Lockheed Martin nearly sold Thailand F-16s in exchange for several boatloads of frozen chickens. Behold.
The Deal: Lockheed Martin wanted to sell C-130 military transport planes to Chad
The Problem: Chad couldn't afford the planes and lied about what it wanted to use them for (supressing a pro-democracy uprising)
The Role of U.S. Diplomats: The (State Dept.) to Chad knew about Chad's lack of funds and even its intentions to use the planes for ill. Despite that, it promoted the deal: "Our conclusion is that, like it or not, our interests line up in favor of allowing the sale in some form to go forward."
The Other Deal: Lockheed Martin wanted to sell F-16 fighter jets to the Thai government
The Problem: Lockheed Martin was competing with Russia's Sukhoi and Sweden's Saab. Also the Thai government didn't want to pay in cash, so it proposed paying with 80,000 tons of frozen chickens.
The Role of U.S. Diplomats: They actually worked to promote the odd-ball deal since it A) helped Lockheed and B) kept the Russians from winning the deal. Incredibly, Lockheed indicated that it was "was willing to play ball" and accept chickens as payment. Nevertheless, the chickens-for-jets plan never panned out because the Thai regime was ousted in a military coup."
State Department of Imperial Expansion
posted by nolocontendere at 5:32 AM
1 Comments:
I for one deal with LM on a daily basis and I can tell you they are sneaky, conniving, manipulative, dishonest, and unethical. They do things that others go to jail for but hide behind a cloak of secrecy and national security to protect themselves. Does this add up to corruption? Your call.
Do I think the USA would be better off in LMCO was dissolved and broken up, yes. The genius to new technology is in the people, not the company.
People want to do what is right, companies want to do what is profitable, and yes LM weighs the options of how much can they make doing something vs. how much will it cost them if they are caught, and 9 time out of 10 the immediate profit is 10 times more than any possible penalty.
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