By Pepe Escobar
September 14, 2021 -- "Information
Clearing House -
The West has been literally swamped by a
non-stop propaganda offensive about Uyghur forced
labor camps – thoroughly debunked, for instance,
here. Now let’s examine the other – Western -
side of the story.
In early 2021,
Defense for Children (DCI) took the
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) to
court in New South Wales. DCI’s lawsuit charges that
ASPI may have been receiving funds from a number of
weapons manufacturers and government agencies in the
US and UK profiting from prison labor.
Although lawyers for ACPI assured these funds
would be cut off if any serious evidence surfaced,
the case got murkier, and there are doubts it will
ever go to trial.
Sources that prefer to remain anonymous insisted
on the fact that ASPI exercised serious pressure
directly on DCI’s headquarters in Geneva to drop the
case.
So why is this so important?
Like many of its peers in the Five Eyes
constellation, the Australian
Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) bills itself
as an “independent, non-partisan think tank.”
ASPI, based in Canberra, was founded in 2001 –
the year of 9/11. Its
funding comes from a mixed bag of Australian
institutions, especially the Australian Department
of Defense, as well as “overseas government
agencies,” including the US State Department, the
Pentagon and even NATO, which financed a quirky
“social media research project.”
The US industrial military complex is well
represented by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and
Raytheon. Other NATO stalwarts like BAE Systems,
Thales and Saab also show up.
The bottom line is that like reams of other Five
Eyes think tanks, ASPI is directly funded by
corporate Weapons Inc.
No Advertising - No
Government Grants - This Is Independent Media
Get Our Free
Newsletter
ASPI had at least 56 sources of income in 2018-19
– blandly described as either “sponsorships” or
“commissioned income.” Yet what raises eyebrows is
that a significant part of these funds from at least
11 donors can be directly and indirectly tied to
prison labor, which is equated all across the
industrialized West as
modern slavery.
At least 4 ASPI donors - Lockheed Martin,
Boeing, Raytheon and BAE Systems – have been
connected to the use of prison labor in
manufacturing components for their military
hardware.
Raytheon, for instance, may have exploited prison
labor directly for the assemblage of electronic
parts for surface-to-air Patriot missiles. A report
showed how “it costs prisoners 23 cents an hour to
make parts for the missile,” and prison management
is entitled to withhold some or all of the
prisoners' wages at will.
The US federal report on prison labor actually
states, unambiguously, that “all able-bodied
sentenced prisoners” are required to work. The
operative word is “required.”
UNICOR, which operates no less than 110
factories in 65 federal prisons, is blandly
described as the trade name for the Federal Prison
Industries (FPI) in the US, a “self-sustaining
government corporation that sells market-priced
services and quality goods made by inmates,”
including, of course, weapons for the
industrial-military complex.
According to 2019 figures, the US government -
which de facto operates the prison factories -
funded ASPI with $1.37 million.
Unisystems, an IT firm that sells interphones for
US prisons, also funded ASPI from 2005 to 2019.
Inmate labor may be dirt cheap, but if they want to
place a call to their lawyers or their family, they
need to shell out up to $24 for 15 minutes.
BAE Systems funded ASPI between 2014 and 2019.
BAE Systems
profits from components made by prison labor in
the aerospace system of the notorious Bradley
Infantry Fighting Vehicle.
Weapons Inc. fully in charge
Compounding the picture of a Five Eyes system
weaponizing and profiting from serial disasters for
years in Afghanistan, the Australian military have
also been exposed to serious scrutiny.
On November 2020, Australian Defense Force
commander Angus Campbell
confirmed Australian Special Forces have been
involved in serious crimes in Afghanistan. A
long-running inquiry recommended that 25 soldiers,
most within the elite SAS, should be investigated
for a handful of cases leading to the assassination
of 39 Afghan prisoners, including civilians - women
and children - as well as torture of 2 others.
As if accusations of Australian soldiers
committing murders in Afghanistan while corporate
donors to an Australian outfit profit from prison
labor was not a toxic enough mix, “the overarching
twist is that ASPI happens to be regarded as the
most authoritative, “independent” source for Chinese
matters in Australia.”
Similar to its American counterparts, ASPI as a
branch of Weapons Inc. pursues a clear agenda. One
vector churns out hefty literature demonizing China
– complete with detailed
Uyghur "forced labor" reports - and actively
promoting the specter of a “China strategic threat.”
The other vector lobbies - what else – for
increased defense spending especially
in missiles. That’s Quad territory (US, Japan,
India, Australia). Quad needs to contain China at
all costs.
And that’s what qualifies ASPI as a de facto
lobby for Weapons Inc., much more than a think
tank.
It gets curiouser and curiouser when one learns
that the Australian government wants to equip itself
with the AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM)
manufactured by none other than ASPI donor Lockheed
Martin.
So have fun with our little Five Eyes tale, where
an Australian “think tank” focused on demonizing
China 24/7 gets some of its financial kicks from a
Weapons Inc. handsomely profiting from Western
prison labor.
Pepe Escobar
is correspondent-at-large at
Asia Times.
His latest book is
2030. Follow him on
Facebook
Registration is necessary to post comments.
We ask only that you do not use obscene or offensive
language. Please be respectful of others.