Raytheon Says Let’s Go to War!

The weapon manufacturer’s stock surged roughly 10 percent while American war drums for Syria crescendoed over the past two months. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., recognizes the jump as an unambiguous reminder that profit is a cause for the war President Obama seems prepared to make. “Nobody wants this except the military-industrial complex,” he said on a radio show Thursday.

Grayson said he can’t support an attack on Syria that his constituents strongly oppose, even if it is confirmed that President Bashar al-Assad killed civilians with chemical weapons.

“One thing that is perfectly clear to me in my district, and I think is true in many other districts from speaking to other members, is that there is no desire, no desire on the part of people to be the world’s policeman,” Grayson was quoted by The Huffington Post as having said on SiriusXM’s “The Agenda with Ari Rabin-Havt.” “For us to pick up this gauntlet even on the basis of unequivocal evidence of chemical warfare by the Syrian army, deliberately against its own people — even if there were unequivocal evidence of that — that’s just not what people in my district want.”

Turning to the issue of military combat as a profit center for American corporations, Grayson said: “I did notice, for what it’s worth, that the manufacturer of the missiles that would be used has had an incredible run in their stock value in the last 60 days. Raytheon stock is up … in the past 60 days as the likelihood of the use of their missiles against Syria becomes more likely. So I understand that there is a certain element of our society that does benefit from this, but they’re not the people who vote for me, or by the way the people who contribute to my campaign.”

Recent opinion polls confirm Grayson’s assessment that the American people do not want war with Syria, even though 59 percent of respondents to a HuffPost/YouGov survey said they believe Assad used chemical weapons against rebels.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.