Moreover, it will obligate the US Secretary of Defense to submit a plan on halting Turkey’s receipt of F-35 aircraft if Ankara purchases Russian S-400 air defense systems. Radio Sputnik has discussed this issue with Scott Bennett, a former US Army officer and counterterrorism analyst.
Scott Bennett: The sad reality is that the US military industrial complex is like a toy manufacturing company. It’s not really geared towards making defensive weapons for a defensive position of the people of the United States.
It’s meant to enrich the military industrial complex. It’s becoming increasingly schizophrenic and almost maniacal in its obsession to generate and create more and more weapons, use these weapons and sell these weapons to Saudi Arabia, to Israel or to Ukraine. And these major flashpoints of major conflicts are not in the interest of the American people.
Instead President Trump seems to be either unable to fulfill the will of the American people and downsize the military industrial complex, pull us out of these conflicts, instead he seems over a barrel, hijacked or enslaved by these neocon warmongering Zionist fascist people in Washington DC and these military defense contractors.
Things like the economic sanctions against Russia, the confiscation of Russian property and now you’re threatening Aeroflot and all of these other sanctions – that’s economic war. And again, we’re seeing these provocations, this propaganda and this military industrial complex just continuing to grow.
Sputnik: What kind of commentary are you hearing from the Department of Defense, from ordinary soldiers and military personnel? Are they happy about this?
Scott Bennett: There are two types of people in the military. You have people that go in to work, to get a job; they treat it like a career path or like a social club. It’s just a form of socialism and government employment. These people are happy as long as they’re getting a paycheck.
And there are those of us that go to the military to do good, defeat enemies, win wars and then go home. I was one of those latter. I went into the military not because I needed to or not even because I wanted to, but because I felt I had to. I think ideologically all soldiers in the United States don’t recognize Russia as a threat.
You have the general support from the people in the high ranking officer corps; they want a conflict, they want to inflame conflict not necessarily because they want to be in a combat, they just like the drama of conflict. They like the rhetoric and the theater of pretending that there is some menace and some threat, that only their character and fortitude can defend the US.
All of that is nonsense and lies. They get a selfish thrill and some sort of pleasure out of all of this posturing. The American military is supportive of anything that’s going to keep their paychecks rising; but those of us who are aware of the larger dramas and the larger realities are sickened and outraged by this because it’s a grotesque waste of money; and worst of all it is advancing a deterioration of American relations with Russia when Russia should be the closest ally the Unites States has.
Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Scott Bennett and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
