George Clooney is being paid by the world\u2019s top two war profiteers, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, to oppose war profiteering by Africans disloyal to the U.S. government\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n
Way back yonder before World War II, war profiteering was widely frowned on in the United States. Those of us trying to bring back that attitude, and working for barely-funded peace organizations, ought to be thrilled when a wealthy celebrity like George Clooney decides to take on war profiteering, and the corporate media laps it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal leverage for peace and human rights will come when the people who benefit from war will pay a price for the damage they cause,\u201d said Clooney \u2014 without encountering anything like the blowback Donald Trump received when he<\/em> criticized John McCain.<\/p>\n Really, is that all it takes to give peace a chance, a celebrity? Will the media now cover the matter of who funds opponents of the Iran deal, and who funds supporters of the wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.?<\/p>\n Well, no, not really.<\/p>\n It turns out Clooney opposes, not war profiteering in general, but war profiteering while African. In fact, Clooney\u2019s concern is limited, at least thus far, to five African nations: Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, though these are not the only nations in Africa or the world with serious wars underway.<\/p>\n Of the top 100<\/a> weapons makers in the world, not a single one is based in Africa. Only 1 is in South or Central America. Fifteen are in Western allies and protectorates in Asia (and China is not included in the list). Three are in Israel, one in Ukraine, and 13 in Russia. Sixty-six are in the United States, Western Europe, and Canada. Forty are in the U.S. alone. Seventeen of the top 30 are in the U.S. Six of the top 10 mega-profiteers are in the U.S. The other four in the top 10 are in Western Europe.<\/p>\n Clooney\u2019s new organization, \u201cThe Sentry,\u201d is part of The Enough Project, which is part of the Center for American Progress, which is a leading backer of \u201chumanitarian\u201d wars, and various other wars<\/a> for that matter \u2014 and which is funded by the world\u2019s top war profiteer<\/a>, Lockheed Martin, and by number-two Boeing, among other war profiteers.<\/p>\n According to the Congressional Research Service, in the most recent edition of an annual report that it has now discontinued, 79%<\/a> of all weapons transfers to poor nations are from the United States. That doesn\u2019t include U.S. weapons in the hands of the U.S. military, which has now moved into nearly every nation<\/a> in Africa. When drugs flow north the United States focuses on the supply end of the exchange as an excuse for wars. When weapons flow south, George Clooney announces that we\u2019ll stop backward violence at the demand side by exposing African corruption.<\/p>\n The spreading of the U.S. empire through militarism is most often justified by the example of Rwanda as a place where the opportunity for a humanitarian war, to prevent the Rwanda Genocide, was supposedly missed. But the United States backed an invasion of Rwanda in 1990 by a Ugandan army led by U.S.-trained killers, and supported their attacks for three-and-a-half years, applying more pressure through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and USAID. U.S.-backed and U.S.-trained war-maker Paul Kagame \u2014 now president of Rwanda \u2014 is the leading suspect behind the shooting down of a plane carrying the then-presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6, 1994. As chaos followed, the U.N. might have sent in peacekeepers (not the same thing, be it noted, as dropping bombs) but Washington was opposed. President Bill Clinton wanted Kagame in power, and Kagame has now taken the war into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with U.S. aid and weapons, where 6 million have been killed. And yet nobody ever says \u201cWe must prevent another Congo!\u201d<\/p>\n What does George Clooney\u2019s new organization say about the DRC<\/a>? A very different story from that told by Friends of the Congo<\/a>. According to Clooney\u2019s group the killing in the Congo happens \u201cdespite years of international attention,\u201d not because of it. Clooney\u2019s organization also promotes this argument<\/a> for more U.S. warmaking in the DRC from Kathryn Bigelow, best known for producing the CIA propaganda film Zero Dark Thirty.<\/em><\/p>\n On Sudan<\/a> as well, there\u2019s no blame for U.S. interference; instead Clooney\u2019s crew has produced a brief for regime change.<\/p>\n On South Sudan<\/a>, there\u2019s no acknowledgement of U.S. warmongering in Ethiopia and Kenya, but a plea<\/a> for more U.S. involvement.<\/p>\n The Central African Republic<\/a> gets the same diagnosis as the others: local ahistorical spontaneous corruption and backwardness leading to war.<\/p>\n Clooney\u2019s co-founder of the Sentry (dictionary definition of \u201cSentry\u201d is \u201cA guard, especially a soldier posted at a given spot to prevent the passage of unauthorized persons\u201d) is John Prendergast, former Africa director for the National Security Council. Watch Prendergast find himself awkwardly in a debate with an informed person here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Clooney\u2019s wife, incidentally, works for U.S.-friendly dictators and brutal killers in places like Bahrain and Libya.<\/p>\n More nations could soon be spotted by The Sentry. The President of Nigeria<\/a> was at the U.S. Institute of \u201cPeace\u201d this week pleading for weapons. U.S. troops are in Cameroon<\/a> this week training fighters.<\/p>\n If the peace organization I work for<\/a> had 0.0001% the financial support of The Sentry, perhaps the debate would change. So, one thing you can do is support the right antiwar efforts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Another is to let The Sentry know what it\u2019s missing. It asks for anonymous tips when you spot war profiteering. Have you ever turned on C-Span? If you see something, say something. Let The Sentry know<\/a> about the Pentagon.<\/p>\n _______________________________<\/p>\n David Swanson is the author of <\/em>War Is A Lie and <\/em>Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union. He holds a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia and has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN<\/a>. He blogs at http:\/\/davidswanson.org<\/a> and http:\/\/warisacrime.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n