I can’t be the only one who woke up on Monday morning absolutely sick and devastated from the images coming out of Afghanistan. Videos of Afghans stampeding into Hamid Karzai International Airport after the Taliban reclaimed Kabul have filled my newsfeed. The negligence of every single administration since the war was started has been infuriating.
After 20 years, was the war in Afghanistan worth it? Was it worth terrorizing and sacrificing thousands of innocent Afghan civilians? Was it worth losing our children in combat? Was it worth the traumatized souls and bodies that saw and experienced unspeakable things, their mental and physical health continuing to struggle?
No it wasn’t. Unless you are Northrop Grumman, Utah’s largest aerospace and defense employer.
Northrop Grumman has stood over the years as one of the greatest war profiteers in the world. With several billions of dollars, and in the name of defending freedom, Northrop Grumman specialized in perfecting bombers and drones for the United States and its allies to be more lethal and cruel. Those technologies ultimately helped to kill and maim countless innocent civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which only further increased the resolve of those now occupying Kabul.
When you see those images of Afghans clinging to planes, it may feel like a far off, distant problem. But if you look at the industry that contributed to the horror, you can see how Afghans’ suffering has been for corporate profit here in the Wasatch Front.
Northrop Grumman has worked hard to project a positive image. They are active philanthropists in the area, supporting institutions like University of Utah and Utah State University, and even donating over $250,000 to my former employer United Way of Salt Lake, where Northrop Grumman’s Wendy Williams sits on its Board of Directors.
As I worked in the past with the school systems in primarily immigrant communities, I have felt a sense of injustice knowing that donations by Northrop Grumman in Utah eventually make it to support children and families that have been affected by war.
The process looks like this. Companies like Northrop Grumman spend massive amounts of money lobbying our members of Congress, who are tasked with arguing a need for more and better weapons. The U.S. and its allies either start new wars or stay in old ones and find themselves needing to spend exorbitant amounts of money to wage these wars. Then, companies like Northrop Grumman receive a return on investment by being contracted to build the equipment for war. Those contracts then come to states like Utah where people are employed to build them, bringing revenues to us in Utah through wages, which then brings a boon to our local economy.
From the breadcrumbs of those profits and taxes, money is then donated here in Utah, which eventually makes it to immigrant communities, masking Northrup Grumman’s complicitness in human misery. The cycle is complete. The money that supports our livelihoods in Utah, including those of Afghan refugees, is the same that was made by supplying the tools of destruction of their home in Afghanistan.
Are our souls worth the money we make from the human cost of war? How can we sleep at night?
The horror in Afghanistan may feel like a far-away problem, but by looking at the security and defense industry here in Utah, the connections become less distant. Booms to our local economy connect to horrors abroad. Major donors to our nonprofits and universities are responsible for the root causes of the problems we fight.
Afghans deserve better. Veterans from all forces deserve better. Refugees deserve better.
As Utahns look to help Afghans, it’s time to see how industries in our home state have contributed to the tragedy.
Luis Miranda
Luis Miranda is a community organizer in Salt Lake City, also a son of immigrants whose family has lived through civil wars in Spain and Central America.