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The most interesting element of this article is the mention of Bruce P. Jackson, who led the charge for the NATO expansion, which was intended to include the Ukraine.. Here is what I wrote about him the The Confiscation of American Prosperity: Bruce Jackson, whose career, deserves an entire book, seems to personify this brand of insider military Keynesianism. Jackson was born into the stratosphere of the military-industrial complex. His father, William Harding Jackson, was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1951 to 1956. Perhaps then nobody should be surprised that the Army assigned a young intelligence officer of such noble pedigree to work in the Pentagon as a military intelligence officer in the 1980s. During the Reagan and Bush Senior administrations, he labored under leading Pentagon hawks, such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney. Jackson left the military to begin a brief career in investment banking with Lehman Brothers between 1990 and 1993—no doubt with the expectation that his Pentagon contacts would prove valuable. Jackson also joined in with the Project for a New American Century (Project for a New American Century 2001). Indeed, Jackson’s wide network must have paid off. In 1993, he catapulted himself into a high position with a leading military contractor,Martin Marietta, as Director for Corporate Development Projects and Director for Strategic Planning. In 1995,Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed. At the newly formed Lockheed Martin, Jackson assumed the position of Director of Defense Planning and Analysis. In 1997 the company promoted him first to Director of Global Development and finally to Vice President for Strategy and Planning. The newly formed Lockheed Martin was the ideal employer for Bruce Jackson. Although the company may be most famous for selling the government $640 toilet seats, such trivial transactions are nothing for the most powerf l weapons contractor in the world. Tim Weiner, the New York Times’s crack reporter on the defense beat, sketched out the breadth of Lockheed’s ties with the government: "Lockheed Martin doesn’t run the United States. But it does help run a breathtakingly big part of it. Over the last decade, Lockheed, the nation’s largest military contractor, has built a formidable information-technology empire that now stretches from the Pentagon to the post office. It sorts your mail and totals your taxes. It cuts Social Security checks and counts the United States census. It runs space flights and monitors air traffic. To make all that happen, Lockheed writes more computer code than Microsoft. . . . It creates rockets for nuclear missiles, sensors for spy satellites and scores of other military and intelligence systems. The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency might have difficulty functioning without the contractor’s expertise. But in the post-9/11 world, Lockheed has become more than just the biggest corporate cog in what Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. It is increasingly putting its stamp on the nation’s military policies, too. . . .“It’s impossible to tell where the government ends and Lockheed begins,” said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington that monitors government contracts. “The fox isn’t guarding the henhouse. He lives there.” (Weiner 2004). In 2005, Lockheed Martin earned $37.2 billion. A mere 2 percent of its revenue came from sales to the private sector. Another 13 percent of its sales came from foreign governments, mostly close military allies to the United States, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Chile. Here again, influence with the U.S. government pays healthy dividends. As Bob Elrod, a senior executive in Lockheed’s fighter plane division, explained, all of these foreign sales are guaranteed by the U.S. government (St. Clair 2005, 150)." On Mon, May 18, 2015 at 8:43 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism < [email protected]> wrote: > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > NY Times, May 18 2015 > In Ukraine, Corruption Concerns Linger a Year After a Revolution > By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN > > KIEV, Ukraine — The country is on the cliff of bankruptcy. A spate of > politically motivated killings and mysterious suicides of former government > officials has sown fear in the capital. Infighting has begun to splinter > the pro-European majority coalition in Parliament. And a constant threat of > war lingers along the Russian border. > > A year after the election of Petro O. Poroshenko as president to replace > the ousted Viktor F. Yanukovych, and six months after the swearing in of a > new legislature, Ukraine remains deeply mired in political and economic > chaos. > > “Poroshenko, whether you like him or not, he’s not delivering,” said Bruce > P. Jackson, the president of the Project on Transitional Democracies, an > American nonprofit group. “The Ukrainian government is so weak and fragile > that it is too weak to do the necessary things to build a unified and > independent state.” > > Efforts to forge a political settlement between the government in Kiev and > Russian-backed separatists who control much of the eastern regions of > Donetsk and Luhansk have hit a deadlock over procedural disputes, despite a > cease-fire in February calling for decentralization of power and greater > local autonomy as the linchpins of a long-term accord. > > The shattered economy keeps sinking, with the G.D.P. plummeting 17.6 > percent in the first quarter of 2015. Hoping to avoid default, senior > officials have been in protracted negotiations with creditors, but they > have failed so far to secure a deal. Officials also now fret openly that > more than $40 billion pledged by the International Monetary Fund and > allies, including the United States and the European Union, will not be > enough to keep the country afloat. > > In perhaps the greatest disappointment to the protesters who seized the > center of Kiev last year, the new government led by Mr. Poroshenko and > Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk has so far failed to deliver on > promises to root out endemic corruption. Instead, it has become ensnared in > new allegations of misconduct and charges of political score-settling. > > The Parliament, in which pro-European parties control a huge majority, > voted last month to create a special committee to investigate accusations > that Mr. Yatsenyuk, a suave English speaker admired in the West, and his > cabinet have presided over the embezzlement of more than $325 million from > the state. > > The government and its supporters deny any wrongdoing and say it has gone > further than any of its predecessors in trying to shake off Ukraine’s > post-Soviet legacy of mismanagement and malfeasance. They point out that > Parliament has adopted a slew of reform initiatives, notably an overhaul of > the notoriously crooked natural gas industry and installing new leadership > at the national bank. > > The continuing disarray is becoming a source of friction between the > Ukrainian government and its European allies, especially Germany and > France, whose leaders helped broker the cease-fire and are increasingly > frustrated with the slow pace of change. > > “We don’t have simply Russian aggression against the victim Ukraine,” Mr. > Jackson said. “We have a predictably aggressive Russia against an > unpredictable and unreliable Ukraine. Ukraine is now seen as not to be > trusted. What the E.U. is saying is: Where is the decentralization? Where > is the commitment? Where are the reforms?” > > Not surprisingly, public confidence in the government has slumped, as well. > > Adding to the tumult, Mr. Poroshenko recently declared a crackdown on the > country’s richest and most powerful businessmen, known as oligarchs, in a > bid to curtail their influence and to win back popular support. Yet the > assault risks making enemies of the country’s biggest employers, who until > now have backed the government. > > “When you don’t want to do anything and you don’t have anything to report > on what you have already done, you need an enemy,” said Dmitry V. Firtash, > a former patron of Mr. Yanukovych who is a major target in the so-called > de-oligarchization campaign. “It’s very convenient to use rich people as > scapegoats.” > > For Kiev, there is no greater problem, and no greater test, than the > as-yet futile fight against corruption. Even officials on the forefront of > the effort say it has so far largely gone nowhere. > > David Sakvarelidze, the deputy prosecutor general, who helped carry out > sweeping changes to the judicial system in his native Georgia, has been > given Ukrainian citizenship and a mandate to overhaul the prosecutor’s > office. > > “They are still corrupted, and no systemic changes have been made in law > enforcement agencies and in courts,” Mr. Sakvarelidze said in an interview > in his office in Kiev. > > He described a criminal justice system that needs to be rebuilt nearly > from scratch. For example, he said, there was no effective system of plea > bargaining to allow prosecutors to resolve cases swiftly, and no clear > goals that set national priorities in law enforcement. > > “We do not have any criminal policy,” he said. “None of the prosecutors > have clear guidelines.” > > Instead of existing government agencies taking action, Mr. Sakvarelidze > said, the Parliament has been overly focused on adopting legislation that > creates even more bureaucracy. > > One of the major promises to come out of the Maidan revolution was a new > anticorruption bureau, which is expected to employ 700 enforcement > officers. On April 16, after long delays, Mr. Poroshenko finally selected > the bureau’s first director, Artem Sytnyk, a former Kiev city prosecutor. > > Because of the delays, the government has been unable to deliver on > pledges of swift restitution. Most notably, it has failed to recover any of > the billions of dollars believed to have been stolen by the former > president, Mr. Yanukovych, his family and closest associates. > > Nor have Mr. Yanukovych or any of the senior officials who fled with him > been arrested, with many now in Russia. Corruption investigations against > other former officials and executives of state-owned companies have largely > stalled. > > Egor Sobolev, an organizer of last year’s protests who is now a member of > Parliament and chairman of its Committee on Corruption Prevention and > Counteraction, said his panel was flooded with complaints. > > “The biggest problem in the country is we do not have a real system of > justice, we do not have judges, most of them are people from Yanukovych’s > time, very corrupted,” he said. “The same situation with prosecutors.” > > “And another problem, a very big problem,” he added, was that “Mr. > Poroshenko as the president is not ready to fire them.” > > Mr. Sobolev is not alone in his lack of trust in the new government. Many > of the Maidan demonstrators who are now in government posts say they are > uncomfortable with Mr. Poroshenko and Mr. Yatsenyuk, who were opponents of > Mr. Yanukovych but also longtime veterans of the Ukrainian political system > that the demonstrators wanted to dismantle. > > This is one reason there was strong support in Parliament to create a > special committee to investigate allegations by Nikolai Gordienko, the > former head of a state financial inspection agency, who accused Mr. > Yatsenyuk’s government of benefiting from a major embezzlement scheme. > > To a great extent, the frustrations are to be expected, analysts say. “A > year out, everybody is always disappointed from any revolutionary upheaval, > that’s a statement of social science law,” said Michael A. McFaul, a > Stanford University professor and former American ambassador to Russia who > is an expert on revolutions and visited Kiev last month. > > “There’s never a case where people are saying, ‘Oh, things are going even > better than I thought.’ It’s always, ‘The government is not doing enough.’ > It’s always, ‘Reform is slow.’ ” > > Mr. McFaul said that he had hope for Ukraine’s efforts. “I am impressed > with the number of reforms that they have already passed. I think that is > underappreciated in the West,” he said. > > Still, he said, the task ahead is gargantuan, especially given the demands > of Western benefactors. “They just don’t have the state in place to do the > kind of things they are being asked to do right now,” Mr. McFaul said. > > Boris Lozhkin, Mr. Poroshenko’s chief of staff, said the president had > five priorities: “de-shadowing, de-monopolization, de-oligarchization, > deregulation and decentralization,” with de-shadowing referring to bringing > new transparency to the economy and the government. > > “The oligarchy as a basis of the country’s political and economic life > must cease,” Mr. Lozhkin said. > > But the confrontation has only added to a sense of fear in Ukraine, > particularly among business figures and officials who had ties to the > Yanukovych government. > > At least six such officials have died in apparent suicides this year, and > a seventh, Oleg Kalashnikov, a former member of Parliament from Mr. > Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, was shot dead outside his home in Kiev last > month. > > Prosecutors have opened investigations but say they do not believe the > killings and suicides are connected. > > While the government says it fears a renewed invasion by pro-Russian > forces could come at any time, some analysts said there was little reason > for renewing hostilities while the Ukrainian side was fighting with itself. > > “Russia is just waiting for the internal problems of Ukraine to make it > less attractive for the West,” said Alexander Baunov of the Carnegie Moscow > Institute, a research group. “Putin’s hope is Russia doesn’t need to make > Ukraine weak. Ukraine will be weak by itself, and he can just wait awhile > and take advantage of its weakness sometime in the future.” > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/michael.perelman3%40gmail.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
