TEHRAN- Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has slammed Western arms companies who are putting their lucrative profits on top of civilian lives by working relentlessly to prolong the war in Ukraine.The proof is in the pudding as they say.
And the data is not comfortable to digest.On April 18, 2003, the biggest United States arms manufacturer published the following on its official website "Lockheed Martin Corporation today reported first quarter 2023 net sales of$15.1 billion."The top American arms producer also posted this "net earnings in the first quarter of 2023 were$1.7 billion, or$6.61per share."The second quarter of the profits of this year will be published prior to the market opening on July 18.A quick look at Lockheed Martin's four quarterly profits, shortly before the Ukraine war began, suggests the figures for this quarter will be identical.Around $15 billion in profits every three months and just above or below $7 dollars per share on the market.Raytheon Technologies, another top United States arms manufacturer, reported first quarterly profits in 2023 of$17.2 billion, up ten percent over the prior year.On April 26, 2023?, the Boeing Company recorded a first-quarter revenue of $17.9 billion.On April 27, 2023, Northrop Grumman Corporation reported that in the first quarter, 2023 sales increased six percent to $9.3 billion, as compared with $8.8 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
The arms manufacturer added that the first quarter sales "reflect continued strong demand".On April 26, 2023, General Dynamics released its reports of its First-Quarter 2023 Financial Results with revenue of $9.9 billion, up 5.2% year over year.Also, on April 27, 2023, L3Harris Technologies generated $5.8 billion of orders for investors, a quarterly record.These are just six of at least eight United States weapons manufacturers that the Pentagon held a meeting with in April 2022 to inform the United States military industrial complex to supply weapons for Ukraine with the aim of prolonging the war in Ukraine.The Pentagon made it clear to the arms companies that they would be working with a view to a war that would last for years.The Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Administration would go on to hold weekly meetings of its European Crisis Management Team to review specific requests related to Ukraine.As the conflict passes 500 days of fighting, there has been only one clear winner from the deadly crisis: the United States arms industry and those who bought American arms companies' stocks in the market.Before the conflict even erupted, United States lawmakers had invested their money in stocks belonging to American arms manufacturers.This has raised a lot of suspicion over how much intelligence United States lawmakers had that Washington would reject the Kremlin's security guarantees over NATO's eastward military expansion on Russian borders that would, eventually provoke Moscow to the extent of sparking a conflict, that could have been easily avoided.There are no ways Ukrainian forces would have been able tocontinue fighting against the Russian military without the strong stream of American weapons.The United States has been, by far, the largest military donor to Ukraine, with assistance amounting to at least $76.8 billion, according to theKiel Institute for the World Economy.The majority of that money has gone toward providing weapons systems, training, and intelligence for the Ukrainian military.The staggering amount in the space of less than one year and five months appears to be rising with the administration of President Joe Biden regularly announcing new packages of "assistance" to Kyiv.On Wednesday (July 12), Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said, "The people of Ukraine are being killed because the interests of the companies that produce and sell arms in the West lie in the continuation of the war in Ukraine."As the conflict rages on, there havebeen many accusations that the United States is profiting from the war through the sale of weapons.The United States military industrial complex is expandingits weapons production beyond what is needed in response to Ukraine.The latest item on the itinerary is cluster munitions.
Ukraine has received the weapons of mass destruction, a military spokesperson said on Thursday, less than a week after the United States announced it would transfer the widely banned munitions to Ukrainian forces.The Kremlin has said it would be forced to respond if Ukraine used cluster bombs against its troops, after Washington pledged the weapons to Kyiv."The potential use of this type of munitions changes the situation, and of course it would force Russia to take countermeasures," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.The United States arms industry is purely profiteering from deaths on the other side of the Atlantic.
Nobody is being made safer by the gigantic amount of weapons being shipped into the warzone.Ultimately, with the purposeful absence of any United States peace initiatives, the American arms producers are on the course for a historic bonanza.With powerful arms lobbies in Congress and their pundits waging a propaganda and disinformation war, the American public are none the wiser.The Western military industrial complex certainly has the potential toexert a lot of influence over government policy, especially when there are lawmakers who arebenefiting fromtheir investments in arms companies.Last year, theUnited States Senate passed a funding bill that includeda record $858 billion in annual military spending,up from $740billion the previousyear.Ironically, or perhaps not, it was $45 billion more than what was proposed by President Biden.The bill included funding for Ukraine, allowing thePentagon tobuy massive amounts of munitions using multi-year contracts, both for Ukrainian forces and to refill the United States stockpiles.In the United States , there isa strong interest and desire to prevent the Ukraine war from ending, especially forthe American economythat is highly dependent on the vast number of military-related contractors that keep employment levels up.Estimates suggest that nearly one million jobs are tied to this deadly sector in the United States.But the United States isn't alone.
The United Kingdom and other Western military companies are cashing in as much as they can.Arms contracts are being rolled outthick and fast tospeed up weapons production and fill up the supply gaps.The Ukrainian civilians are the ones paying the price for the cruel practice of pouring weapons by an uncontrollable Western sector, making lucrative profits at the expense of people's livelihoods.And none of the Western arms suppliers, their leaders as well as none of their supporters are being held accountable.