Sorry, I'm late.
I had to stop by the Wax Museum again and give the finger to FDR.
We know Al-Qaeda, Zawahiri, is supporting the opposition in Syria.
Are we supporting Al-Qaeda in Syria?
It's a proud day for America.
And by God, we've kicked Vietnam syndrome once and for all.
Thank you very, very much.
I say it, I say it again.
You've been hacked.
You've been took.
You've been hoodwinked.
These witnesses are trying to simply deny things that just about everybody else accepts as fact.
He came, he saw us, he died.
We ain't killing they army, but we killing them.
We be on CNN like, say our name, man, say it, say it three times.
The meeting of the largest armies in the history of the world.
Then there's going to be an invasion.
All right, you guys, introducing Mandy Smithberger.
She is the director of the Strauss Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight, POGO.
Welcome back to the show.
How are you doing?
Not too bad.
Thanks so much for having me.
Very happy to have you here and very happy to see you writing with the great William Hartung here.
This is at TomDispatch.com and therefore under Tom's name in the archives at AntiWar.com as well, everybody.
It's called Our Man from Boeing.
Has the arms industry captured Trump's Pentagon?
So he got rid of Mattis, but then he named Patrick Shanahan to be the acting Secretary of Defense.
And no word on even him really considering anyone to replace this guy.
He actually, the president even said that, oh, I don't know, I kind of like this guy.
Maybe I'll just keep him or something along those lines.
And yet so many of us know so very little about this man.
So why don't you tell us?
Sure.
So Patrick Shanahan is a former Boeing executive and really has not had any public service experience before.
So he really comes from the arms industry.
He's not the first.
He was originally appointed as the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
He is not the first person in that role to come from the defense contracting industry.
President Obama, his first deputy, William Lynn, was a Raytheon lobbyist and actually was the first person who needed an ethics waiver.
So it is a common practice.
But this is the first time we've seen someone of this kind of experience in the top position.
Yeah.
And so how about some conflicts of interest?
Surely he's recused himself from all decisions involving Boeing.
But how could he if he's running the Pentagon?
Exactly.
So he has recused himself from anything where Boeing is a party.
But when it comes to a lot of decisions about policies that will benefit his former employer, he will likely still be involved.
And we've seen some reporting of people being concerned that he has already put his thumb on the scale to help Boeing on the F-15X program, for example.
While we think his criticisms of the F-35 program are accurate, some people have also raised concerns that he is criticizing Lockheed Martin's performance in that program because he is a Boeing executive.
Well, and it just raises that conflict when we all know that the F-35 is a turkey.
But you got to wonder, since he has dollar signs floating above his head, what his real interest is, which really goes for all of them, but most especially in this case, I guess, since he comes directly from that company.
But so, I mean, speaking of which, I got to say that without knowing anything about the F-15X, I think it must be a better plane than the F-35, just because they've had decades to refine the F-15.
I mean, yeah, the F-15 from something that was really not so good into something that finally, I guess they said it had enough electronics jammed in its nose cone that it was a worthwhile plane at some point.
Whereas the F-35 is so expensive and such a piece of junk.
So all other things being equal, it seems like anyone's bias would be toward, tell me about this F-15, right?
Yeah, I'm not clear on that.
We just know that the Air Force did not want to buy these F-15Xs.
Really?
Yeah.
But just because they wanted the F-35 so bad or for real reasons, do you know?
My understanding is because of a preference for the F-35.
And as you might have seen, the head of Lockheed Martin in an earnings call said that she wasn't worried about whether the department was going to keep on buying F-35.
So I think, yet again, it seems to be an instance where the defense industry wins and taxpayers lose.
Well, and I guess, I mean, I don't know.
Maybe it is a good thing that this guy represents Boeing, just all other things being equal in this limited context.
Since the F-35 is really such a disaster and so expensive and just, what, 30 years wasted capital on this thing.
It's just incredible.
And hey, it's unsafe at any speed.
You know, the thing is a complete piece of junk.
You can't even eject without your head getting torn off of the thing.
Or at least your neck broken.
But then I guess it raises the question of whether there will be a real pushback against him.
Like you're saying, they're already sort of passing rumors around that, well, he's just interested in helping Boeing rather than having legitimate criticisms of the F-35.
So you think that makes it, in net, easier or harder for him to make a change, maybe?
I think it makes it much harder for him to make a change against the competitors to Boeing.
I think that people are going to continue to question his credibility because of this perceived or real conflict of interest.
And so this is why we get concerned about these kinds of officials being in these roles.
We're talking about a lot of money.
We want to make sure that the people who are making decisions on how to spend it and how to keep our country safer, you know, beyond reproach.
Yeah, well, not too much of that going on here at Defense.
But what other business does Boeing have with the Pentagon other than the F-15 project?
So Boeing is the second largest contractor for the Department of Defense.
Last year, they received over $30 billion in contracts.
They have a significant interest in missile defense for this new space force being created.
This is something that companies like Boeing will profit from.
They've certainly been making money off of the war in Yemen.
So almost everything the department touches, there's kind of a Boeing equity.
Oh, can you elaborate about their role in Yemen?
Sure.
So, I mean, specifically when it comes to Yemen, we're talking about both Raytheon and Boeing.
A lot of their systems are being used.
And so that is something where we continue to have a concern about when he is asked to weigh in on what is the best interest of the United States.
Is he going to be thinking about our safety or is he going to be thinking about what's going to be profitable for Boeing?
Yeah.
You know, I guess I do wonder, too, what difference it really makes when you think about how much influence Boeing already has.
But so if they haven't completely owned the secretaries of defense in the past, how do they exercise that influence other than by lobbying Congress?
I mean, how's their influence inside the Pentagon work?
Sure.
So one of the things that we get particularly concerned about is the revolving door of senior government officials going to work for these contractors.
And so one of the ways that these companies exert influence is that people know that if they rock the boat too much on a program, that it's going to hurt their ability to become executive, to become lobbyists for these defense contractors.
And in the case of Boeing, they've hired a number of former senior military officers and senior officials.
Like who?
So most notably, there was the former head of our foreign arms sales.
Sorry, his name is dropping out of my head right this second.
But after he helped lead kind of record-breaking sales for the arms industry, he became a Boeing executive.
Are you a libertarian?
You run an IT business?
Well, then you have to read No Dev, No Ops, No IT by Hussain Badakhshani.
No dev, no ops, no IT.
It's how to run your computer company like a libertarian should.
You know, I don't know who coined this, but I think maybe I've read Bill Hartung before referring to this as more than the revolving door, but an iron triangle of bureaucrats and corporate executives, civilian and military men at the Pentagon and the congressional, not just the members of Congress, but all of their staff caught up in it and all the lobbyists and everything.
So a lot of vested interests and a lot of money.
Yeah.
Yeah, unfortunately, they all seem to share an interest in larger budgets and not in fiscal accountability or responsibility.
And too often what's in the best interest of the safety and effectiveness of our military is totally put on the wayside.
Yeah.
Well, like, for example, I think all strategists have agreed for 50 or 70 years or something that aircraft carriers are obsolete.
And yet, and that they're huge sitting duck targets, too, where you could have massive casualties in one bad hit, one good one, this kind of thing.
And yet they insist on cranking them out anyway, polluting all the oceans with them when they're really just begging for trouble there.
The first time one of those sinks, it's going to be one of our sinks.
It's going to be an incredible crisis there.
And speaking of which, you say in here, this guy's a big China hawk, huh, Shanahan?
Yes.
Yeah.
One of his first messages as acting secretary was China, China, China.
So we're really seeing the kind of threat inflation that underlies, you know, big increases to the Pentagon budget.
Well, huge ones, right?
A whole air-sea battle and all of that.
So what all does that include?
You mentioned the Poseidon.
Right.
And you're talking about things like hypersonic weapons.
You know, it's the aircraft carriers that you're talking about.
It's the F-35.
It's missile defense systems, kind of everything under the sun.
And really just looking at only military solutions and not thinking about diplomacy or trade or other opportunities.
Right.
And you mentioned that this guy was the one who was in charge of the airborne laser program, huh, when he was there?
Yes.
Yeah.
And he was in charge of missile defense there as well.
So he has a lot of experience in these programs.
All right.
Well, and then, yeah, so in Yemen, of course, you got the F-15s and you did, I guess, the refueling tankers and all of that, that they only recently canceled the refueling there, all of that.
Do you know, is there any way to calculate how much money they've made off the Yemen war since 2015, for example?
I don't know if we've been able to calculate that, but I think it's safe to say, you know, at least hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions.
Yeah.
Yeah, must be.
And then, you know, it's interesting because you do quote Donald Trump in here, where usually they would have come up with some line of nonsense or something, but he didn't have any nonsense.
So he just said, look, we're making a lot of money off of this.
And I'd hate for anybody to lose their job because we stopped participating in this war.
And he really framed it that way as just USA as straight mercenary, you know?
Yeah, it is concerning that in particular, he is looking at arms sales as a jobs program and not as something that is part of our national security strategy.
And you could see that being, I'm not saying OK or understandable, but at least understandable from a Washington, D.C. point of view, if it was overall peacetime.
And don't worry, we're just selling weapons and making money, but it doesn't mean anything.
So we're talking about a massive, terrible starvation campaign and and, you know, just widespread targeting of civilians all across that country for the last four years here is absolutely horrible.
It's the worst thing the American government is doing is that Yemen war right now.
Yeah.
You know, it's truly horrific.
And obviously the moral cost of what we're doing is, you know, as great or greater than the financial one.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, so what if we were to do something about it?
I mean, you work for Pogo here doing good work every day, doing the research on this stuff and writing about it and and publishing the great work of others in this kind of thing.
What other work do you guys do?
Do you do direct lobbying with congressional offices and that kind of deal?
Yeah, we do.
We do work with congressional offices on conducting oversight, on developing legislative solutions to the problems that we find.
I think that's one of the really great things about an organization like ours is that, you know, not just identifying the problems, but trying to help fix them.
And I'm really encouraged.
H.R. one, which was introduced in the House, includes a number of ethics provisions that are addressing the problem of the revolving door.
And, you know, right now, unfortunately, I think that's seen as a very partisan bill.
It shouldn't be.
These are bipartisan ideas and will make the government work better for people and make sure that we're doing what's in the public interest and not in people's individual financial interest.
But I have a little bit of hope there.
Yeah.
You know, one of the ironies of the past even decades, I guess, was that it was the ultimate hawk.
John McCain was kind of the one of the only ones who felt kind of brave enough to shout down at these generals and say no when it came to not everything, but this, that and some things, you know, and it seems like there are not too many congressmen who are brave enough.
They really think of the military as a separate and maybe even more than equal branch of government to themselves there.
And it seems like it takes a lot of courage to say, no way, I'm telling you, not the other way around for these congressmen to take on the Pentagon in that way.
So do you see anybody really taking up that role the way he used to do it all?
I have not seen as much of that in the Senate.
You're right.
Senator McCain was really great at that kind of accountability on the ethics issue.
He actually made the Department of Defense create a database of the people going through the revolving door.
The problem is it's not public.
But I think when you look at people like actually, and let me correct myself, Senator McSally, I think, is someone who has that potential in the House.
She was really great at pointing out when the Air Force was incorrect on going after the A-10.
I think Representative Liu is another, you know, in a lot of cases, it's only the veterans who feel like they can speak up.
But he's another veteran who is raising important questions about our nuclear policy and the war in Yemen as well.
That's good.
All right.
Well, so how can people help you guys out at POGO there?
So if you would like to help us out, come to our website, pogo.org.
We actually have a petition right now for people to sign and how they want to make sure that we have laws in place to prevent the problems of the revolving door.
And join our list.
And we actually just also released our Baker's Dozen of reforms that we would like for Congress to adopt.
So go to pogo.org, check those out and talk to your lawmakers, write letters to the editor, be an active citizen.
Our democracy is only going to get better if more people participate.
Right on.
All right.
Well, thank you very much, Mandy.
Appreciate it.
Thanks so much for having me.
All right, you guys, that's Mandy Smithberger from POGO, pogo.org.
And she wrote this great piece with William Hartung that ran at TomDispatch.com and under Tom Englehart's name at AntiWar.com.
Our man from Boeing about Patrick Shanahan, our acting secretary of defense.
All right, y'all.
Thanks.
Find me at LibertarianInstitute.org, at ScottHorton.org, AntiWar.com and Reddit.com slash ScottHortonShow.
Oh, yeah.
And read my book, Fool's Errand, Timed and the War in Afghanistan at foolserrand.us.
