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Hillary Clinton bucks the trend and rakes in cash from the US weapons industry

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 20 October 2007
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Wars and conflicts Parties USA

Hillary Clinton bucks the trend and rakes in cash from the US weapons industry

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 19 October 2007

The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Mrs Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street’s favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.

Mrs Clinton’s wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.

Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon – gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. "The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed," said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.

Republican administrations are by tradition much stronger supporters of US armaments programmes and Pentagon spending plans than Democratic governments. Relations between the arms industry and Bill Clinton soured when he slimmed down the military after the end of the Cold War. His wife, however, has been careful not to make the same mistake.

After her election to the Senate, she became the first New York senator on the armed services committee, where she revealed her hawkish tendencies by supporting the invasion of Iraq. Although she now favours a withdrawal of US troops, her position on Iran is among the most warlike of all the candidates – Democrat or Republican.

This week, she said that, if elected president, she would not rule out military strikes to destroy Tehran’s nuclear weapons facilities. While on the armed services committee, Mrs Clinton has befriended key generals and has won the endorsement of General Wesley Clarke, who ran Nato’s war in Kosovo. A former presidential candidate himself, he is spoken of as a potential vice-presidential running mate.

Mrs Clinton has been a regular visitor to Iraq and Afghanistan and is careful to focus her criticisms of the Iraq war on President Bush, rather than the military. The arms industry has duly taken note.

So far, Mrs Clinton has received $52,600 in contributions from individual arms industry employees. That is more than half the sum given to all Democrats and 60 per cent of the total going to Republican candidates. Election fundraising laws ban individuals from donating more than $4,600 but contributions are often "bundled" to obtain influence over a candidate.

The arms industry has even deserted the biggest supporter of the Iraq war, Senator John McCain, who is also a member of the armed services committee and a decorated Vietnam War veteran. He has been only $19,200. Weapons-makers are equally unimpressed by the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Despite a campaign built largely around the need for an aggressive US military and a determination to stay the course in Iraq, he is behind Mrs Clinton in the affections of arms executives. Mr Giuliani may be suffering because of his strong association with the failed policies of President Bush and the fact he is he is known as a social liberal.

Mrs Clinton’s closest competitor in raising cash from the arms industry is the former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who raised just $32,000.

"Arms industry profits are so heavily dependent on government contracts that companies in this field want to be sure they do not have hostile relations with the White House," added Mr Edsall.

The industry’s strong support for Mrs Clinton indicates that she is their firm favourite to win the Democratic nomination in the spring and the presidential election in November 2008. In the last presidential race, George Bush raised more than $800,000 – twice the sum collected by his Democratic rival John Kerry.

Mr Edsall’s analysis of the figures reveals that, over the past 10 years, the defence industry has favoured Republicans over Democrats by a 3-2 margin, making Mrs Clinton’s position even more remarkable.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3075691.ece

Forum posts

  • Mike Gravel, who unfortunately stands as much chance of winning his party’s nomination as Jimmy Hoffa does in making a comeback, has consistently said, "Follow the money." By now it’s impossible that there’s even one American left who’s unconvinced that financial patronage leads to direct reciprocity.

    You hear it spoken in the supermarkets, around dinner tables, in the waiting rooms at doctor’s offices: American politics are corrupt, through and through. Republicans say it. Democrats say it. Independents say it. But what are the people going to do about it? Sit on their hands? Grudgingly go along with it? Maintain the same apathetic response that’s dominated American politics since the 70s when David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission seeded the White House?

    People of America your government and your way of life have slipped through your hands. And now your fate’s being determined by a bunch of Neocons and corporate entities more concerned about their own asses than about the welfare of this once great democracy. And what are going to do about it? Let it continue? Vote for Hillary? Well then you deserve the fate you’re going to get.

    Read the writing on the wall. Take a moment, you zealous defenders of Hillary’s "intelligence" to look at her record. It’s shameful. She has accomplished nothing legislatively - that’s nothing as in 0 - in a time where leadership is needed more than ever. Where’s the beef? Where’s the appeal? Where’s the leadership?

    Oh, I know, you’re going to say, as many of the pundits have said ad nauseum, "She appears presidential." After W Donald Duck appears presidential. C’mon. Look deeper than the hacks you’re listening to like Chris Mathews. She’s shallow. She’s CONniving. She’s NEOCONniving. She’s dangerous. And moreover, she’s the same old same old.

    Nero would be better than Hillary. At least he didn’t pretend to be something other than a rat.

  • Is there a sane man or woman that would vote for Hillary? I too have not heard anyone say they would vote for Hillary. In fact, most have said just the opposite - NEVER IN THIS LIFETIME!

    The CLINTON"S are bad news.

    • It’s not JUST the Clintons OR Bushes or any OTHER puppet perse it is the BIG money that pulls both of their strings, it is The CFR and Tri-lat crowd who want a microchip in every hand, 24/7 surveillance of every citizen cradle to grave, a COMPLETE detruction of the Bill of Rights, a DESTROYED U.S. as a sovereign nation, and THEM set up as GODS over US ALL! Ron Paul 2008! America’s BEST and maybe last hope for SURVIVAL!!!