The war on terrorism is wonderful business:
Arms manufacturers are making record profits from the war on terrorism and unprecedented spending on weapons programs.
The massive earnings have drawn condemnation from Australian defence experts, who say expensive weapons such as jet fighters, warships and satellites are not the way to combat terrorism.
The world’s biggest arms maker, Lockheed Martin in the US, maker of fighter jets including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which Australia is buying, announced last week it had increased third-quarter profits by 22 per cent to $US11.1 billion ($12.1 billion).
Northrop Grumman, maker of aircraft carriers, submarines and bombers, increased profits 62 per cent to $US489 million.
At General Dynamics, maker of the Abrams tank, which Australia has just bought, profits climbed 24 per cent to $US544 million.
Britain’s BAE said its profits were up 27 per cent to …£657 million ($1.23 billion).
It is purely coincidental, of course, that America wants to wage an endless war on multiple fronts for the coming generation and needs highly sophisticated weaponry to do so.
And it’s not just America, either, keen to develop and sell arms to anybody who comes knocking.