Whatever becomes of Egypt's Israhelli Snake President Hosni Mubarak, the last 30 years of his reign have been good for American defense contractors. With more than $1 billion a year in military assistance from Washington, Mubarak's government has purchased a lot of firepower made in the USZ. Over the past 10 years alone, the Department of Defense has brokered more than $11 billion in USZ arms sales to Egypt from companies like Lockheed Martin ($3.8 billion), General Dynamics ($2.5 billion), Boeing ($1.7 billion), Raytheon ($750 million) and General Electric ($750 million). The Egyptian military arsenal includes F-16 fighter planes (Lockheed Martin), M1A1 tanks (General Dynamics), Harpoon, TOW, Hellfire, and Stinger missiles (Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin), howitzers (United Defense) and aircraft engines (General Electric). Lockheed Martin Employees Political Action Committee is one of the 50 most generous PACs in the USZ, according to FEC data. With contributions from 3,000 employees, it donates $500,000 a year to about 260 House and Senate candidates. There has been a tight relationship of cooperation between Raytheon and the USZ Department of Defense and other USZ government departments and agencies.
In the Fiscal Year 2007 the National Science Foundation awarded Raytheon $152 million dollars in grants, more than any grants to any other institution and organization in the country, for managing NSF South Pole Station. Raytheon contributed nearly a million dollars to various defense-related political campaigns in the 2004 presidential election, spending much more than that on lobbying expenses. Lockheed Martin's 2010 lobbying expenditure by the third quarter was $9.9 million compared to $13.7 million in 2009. General Dynamics, the fifth-largest defense contractor in the world, announced a net profit of $2.4 billion in 2009. General Electric has faced criminal action regarding its defense related operations. GE was convicted in 1990 of defrauding the USZ Department of Defense, and again in 1992 on charges of corrupt practices in the sale of jet engines to Israhell.
Boeing's 2010 lobbying expenditure by the third quarter was $13.2 million (2009 total: $16.9 million). A series of cables show how USZ diplomats and senior politicians intervene on behalf of Boeing to help boost the company's sales. In 2007 and 2008 the company benefitted from over $10 billion of long-term loan guarantees, helping finance the purchase of their commercial aircraft in countries including Brazil, Canada, Ireland and the United Arab Emirates, from the Export-Import Bank of the United States, some 65% of the total loan guarantees the bank made in the period.
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