There’s no ceasefire, because the shareholders say so. 

Tuesday, March 25, 2024–the United States Security Council voted in favour of a ceasefire, after the US dropped its threat of veto. Resolution 2728 (2024), adopted with 14 votes in favour and one abstention (United States), “demanded” an immediate ceasefire for the remainder of Ramadan, respected by all parties, to lead to “a lasting sustainable ceasefire”.¹  

“Our vote does not, and I repeat that does not represent a shift in our policy,” White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. “Nothing has changed about our policy. Nothing.”²  

For the duration of that day (and, unrelentingly through today), bombs belligerently exploded across Rafah, massacring dozens and maiming hundreds more. Only four days later, March 29, 2024, reports circulated that the Biden administration “quietly” authorised additional arms shipments, including more than 500 MK-82 500-pound bombs and 1,800 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs (both manufactured by General Dynamics) as well as 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines (by Lockheed Martin) worth approximately $2.5 billion. This, on top of the 10 year/$38 billion “Memorandum of Understanding” package, the $14.3 billion Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act–with $5 billion allocated to replenish the Iron Dome, Iron Beam, and David’s Sling systems as well as $2.4 billion explicitly for USCENTCOM, Congress’s two December 2023 sales totaling more than $253 million, the US State Department’s September 2024 approval of $167 million worth of Heavy-Duty Tank Trailers and ‘related equipment’ (by Leonardo DRS)– pushed through by the Pentagon’s “Tiger Team” (Israel Significant Initiatives Group) to skirt congressional oversight and expedite Foreign Military Sales (FMS), as tasked by Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. On August 13, 2024, Congress approved $20 billion in arms sales contracts to the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF)–including more than 50 F-15 fighter jets (manufactured by Boeing, with Pratt & Whitney (RTX Corp.) engines), 120mm tank ammunition and high explosive mortars–lining up expected deliveries through 2029. The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 has been amended heavily to legally account for this slushing of taxpayer funds, despite the direct violation of Leahy Law.

Kirby’s defiance-as-policy tracks with the United States’ nearly eight decades of aiding and abetting the Zionist settler colonial project of Israel. Religious zealotry–essential to the violent hydra of Zionism–is the footnote to the land theft, carceral devastations, ecological/cultural/political decimation of Palestinian lifeworlds. The thesis, I offer, is the amplification and prolongation of the logics of Forever War. Unfettered flows of munitions, chemicals, and correlated technologies that reproduce borders by every form; intergenerational trauma given no pause to heal. The market–indifferent to performative votes by member nations, to shrieks for peace by millions–so long as billions flow in for munitions contracts.

Plans remain consistent from October. Nearing 365 days (76, 107 years) into this Nakba.

There is an intricate and purposefully obfuscated web of (so-called) defence contractors, politicians (every single rung of the ladder), transnational corporations, university administrators, “journalists”, content creators/hasbara devouts, and a plentitude of other stakeholders who prove integral to the settler colonial Zionist project, as backbone of the border-military-industrial complex. But I choose to focus, for now, on RTX Corporation. Cutting through name-change and merger opacity, RTX (which subsumes Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, and Raytheon) is Raytheon Missiles & Defense (hereafter: Raytheon)–headquartered in my hometown of Tucson, Arizona. In addition to its role as Tucson’s largest employer, it is one of the largest weapons suppliers to the IOF.

Based on assumptions currently believed to be valid and are not statements of historical fact. ³

Raytheon’s Tucson corporate offices and some of its manufacturing facilities are located in the “Tucson International Airport Employment Zone,” part of the “Sun Corridor, Inc.” economic development plan. It abuts the South Nogales Highway–an eastern boundary of San Xavier Indian Reservation. The company’s other site is adjacent to Interstate-10, in the University of Arizona Tech Park–a property owned by the Arizona Board of Regents. More meaningful than the exact location of each building, here, is to underscore the airport, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, UA Tech Park, and Raytheon facilities all operate on stolen Tohono O’odham land (Fig. 1).

Compounding the centuries-long histories of settler colonial theft across the region, recent decades of unwieldy development throughout Tucson–expedited by the insatiability of the border-military-industrial complex–continue to obliterate the fragile Sonoran Desert ecology. In 1951, Hughes Aircraft Co. built a missile plant south of the city, on land purchased by the US Air Force. Air Force Plant 44 (AFP-44) endures as the federally-owned plot occupying over two million square feet of land (primarily as structures, completed and/or in-progress). 

As the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality details, groundwater contamination in the area was first detected shortly after the missile site’s creation. Elevated levels of chromium were found in a municipal water supply well near AFP-44, and nearby residents identified waning quality in private wells. It took until 1976 for the State of Arizona to close the AFP-44 well. By 1981, the US Environmental Protection Agency EPA and Arizona Department of Health Services identified volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the upper zone of the regional aquifer below the airport. Trichloroethane (TCE) was the primary groundwater contaminant. While desultory remedial efforts–such as large-scale pumping, treating and injection systems construction–took place, metal-contaminated soils (chromium, lead, cadmium) persisted–poisoning the community’s presentfuture generations. 

Throughout the early 2000s, 1,4-dioxane contamination persisted in the area’s groundwater. More than a decade of dead-end requests for comments, monitoring, and evaluation/testing later, the Air Force and Raytheon continue to skirt accountability and adequately attend to demands of quantifiable progress.⁴ On Friday, May 26, 2023, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against Raytheon and other manufacturing companies for knowingly releasing “forever chemicals” into the environment. 

The poisoning-by-plume and tainted groundwater demands an understanding of Forever War–the ceaseless reproduction of an enemy, of territory/property to defend, of contracts to secure–as enmeshed, as cellularly possessed, and now inseparable, from living in the Sonoran Desert. Meanwhile, the munitions manufacture at Raytheon presses on at breakneck pace; impacting communities nearest to its production site in addition to the catastrophic devastation wrought on those thousands of miles away. This, as part of the long history of ecocide against Indigenous land and its people. Max Loboiron guides us:

While there are different types of colonialism–settler colonialism, extractive colonialism, internal colonialism, external colonialism, neoimperialism–they have some things in common. Colonialism is a way to describe relationships characterized by conquest and genocide that grant colonialists and settlers “ongoing state access to land and resources that contradictorily provide the material and spiritual sustenance of Indigenous societies on the one hand, and the foundation of colonial state-formation, settlement, and capitalist development on the other.” Colonialism is about more than the intent, identities, heritages, and values of settlers and their ancestors. It’s about genocide and access.⁵

Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as “believe,” “expect,” “expectations,” “plans,” “strategy,” “prospects,” “estimate,” “project,” “target,” “anticipate,” “will,” “should,” “see,” “guidance,” “outlook,” “goals,” “objectives,” “confident,” “on track,” “designed to” and other words of similar meaning –

We must speak of the theft and poisoning of O’odham land, and we must speak of the theft and poisoning of Palestine. Drawing a through-line from this desert’s economic stronghold to the genocide (al-nakba al-mustamirra) in Gaza, Workers in Palestine’s analysis of Raytheon’s production for the IOF explicates:

• Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMS) tail kits and munitions are made by Boeing in St. Charles, Missouri; Lockheed-Martin in Archbald, Pennsylvania; General Dynamics in Garland, Texas; Elwood National Forge Co in Irvine, Pennsylvania; and Raytheon Missile Systems in Tucson, Arizona.

• Iron Dome interceptors are called Tamir and are co-produced by RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies) and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and assembled in Israel.

• Paveway II guided bombs are made by Lockheed Martin in Archibald, Pa. and Raytheon in Tucson, Arizona.⁶

While the more prominent Raytheon headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts manufactures additional weapons technologies (such as the MAGR 2K GPS receiver for aerial refuelling), it should be stressed that numerous munitions and surveillance technologies are contracted, developed, and tested here in Tucson–prior to handoff with the IOF. Not only that, but Raytheon’s predation on the community extends to all ages; from Aerospace & Defense, Business, and Applied Mathematics programs at The University of Arizona, through high/junior/middle school STEM programs and contests, from sponsorship of the Girl Scout’s computer science program and even the Tucson Festival of Books–grooming a pipeline of “patriots” who’ll feed into the cache of cataclysm.  

Despite mass mobilisations, temporary seaport and airport blockades, phone banking, bridge-shuttering, prayer circles, teach-ins/outs, lapel pins and letter signatories–the onslaught hasn’t ceased. Business is booming, remarks RTX President and Chief Executive Officer Chris Calio, in the RTX Quarter 2 2024 Report Earnings Call:

But if you step back and just think of beyond 2024 and look at the long term for RTX, we’ve got the best positioned franchise programs with the right content on the right platforms across commercial, aerospace and defense. Our large and growing installed base will support significant commercial aftermarket growth for decades to come, and our industry-leading defense capabilities address the threats playing out across the global landscape.

Thinking beyond 2024 precipitates prolonged conflict, hedges bets on failed UN resolutions, disorganised energy and arms embargoes, and waning boycott efforts. 

Billion-dollar backlog, as underscored ad nauseam in the earnings call, is the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-contract. Far from a longitudinal study, my skimmings of the Department of Defense’s daily contract awardees in recent months hark to this phrase. This, perchance, the very crux of Forever War. Forever, the next weapons technology-in-development, the next contract to be secured. The walls, checkpoints, towers, biometrics, bombs, gases…will indefinitely demand updating…against those known-unknowns. For example, on September 11, 2024:

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, has been awarded a $1,195,985,081 firm-fixed-price, incentive modification (P00007) to a previously awarded contract (FA8675-23-C-0037) for Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) Production Lot 38. This modification adds additional production of the AMRAAM missiles, AMRAAM telemetry system, initial and field spares, and other production engineering support hardware and activities. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2028.⁷

Now, the general public’s access to these munitions’ buyers is extremely limited so my rudimentary gaze can’t discern if these all-weather, beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles with kill probability (Pk) with a ‘good chance of success’…with the “fire-and-forget” feature, are intended exclusively for the IOF, or otherwise. But if we attempt to calculate the odds, with the Congressional Fiscal Year 2025 Budget of $849.8 billion allocated for the Department of Defense–and a distinct section on funding for “Israel,” the likelihood is quite high. Chapter Two of the DoD report pinpoints:

[The FY 2025 budget request] continues funding in support of development and production of Israeli Cooperative BMD [Ballistic Missile Defense] Programs, to include United States funding for the Iron Dome system to defeat short-range missiles and rockets and co-development and co-production of the David’s Sling Weapon System and Arrow-3 System.⁸

In addition to hypersonic and hellfire missiles (plus Cooperative Engagement Capability systems, Digital Multimedia Watchdog communications, and scores of other radars and guided bombs), Tucson’s Raytheon manufactures the Tamir interceptors, integral to the Raytheon Rafael Area Protection Systems (R2S) for the IOF’s Iron Dome.

And other statements that are not solely historical facts – 

And I literally cut and paste chunks verbatim…cut, paste, read, weep. I can’t tell the difference between something I made up to satirise the horrific, banal language of industrial murder and the language of denial, obfuscation. The small print of precision killing and trade agreements.⁹  

I stare at these documents long enough that I lose count of the almost-sonic bursts from the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, so routinised in the Sonoran soundscape; fading eyes against the front page of Raytheon’s “Who We Are” spells it clearly (Fig. 2), should we attune:

Who we are is WAR. What we do is WAR. I toggle tabs to the Department of Defense: [August 29, 2024] “Raytheon Missiles and Defense, Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $24,838,936 firm-fixed-price contract for Medium Range Intercept Capability (MRIC). The contract provides for 16 All Up Round Magazines (80 missiles) and launchers, lifting and loading devices, training, and supplies for missile storage for the MRIC. This work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona (100%), with a final delivery date of April 29, 2027…”. This, listed under the “NAVY” section of the day’s DoD contracts. Our Sonoran Desert city, undoubtedly lending a major hand in the “temporary” (foreseeably permanent, in a forthcoming iteration) port in Gaza. Any settler colonial–temporary–squat, outpost, chain-linked construction site in-stasis, “future development site”, plan–becomes permanent. Because that’s what land grab is. A noticeable uptick in Naval weapons and surveillance expansion must be to secure unhampered flows of natural gas reserves from the Gaza Marine (as well as the Karish, Tamar and Leviathan fields).

We claim protection of the safe harbour –

In the middle of the Sonoran Desert, landlocked by caliche basins and sky islands, is the Port of Tucson. Lexiconically baffling, but maybe not, given that “Ports of Entry” across the southwest are the “designated” (heavily surveilled/policed) arrival and departure points for migrants and bodies on the move. But this is about borders and borders are about the protection of private property and currents of capital. The Port of Tucson is the area’s International Intermodal; an inland “port” constructed on the Union Pacific Rail Line that provides storage and staging, as shipping containers (that sometimes serve as border walls—a story for another day) are moved from the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, across the continent. Constructed in the early 2000s, the site is adjacent to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and just across the Interstate-10 freeway from the Tucson Airport industrial area. You know, by the Amazon fulfilment centre, near that funnel cake shop. These sites in the service of slaughter are so routinised into the landscape, into the quarterly reports, to lull us into apathy; we drive by the strip mall, they have us forget tens of thousands of Palestinian children are being dumped into mass graves…dug by Caterpillar, bombed out by Raytheon.

Based on assumptions currently believed to be valid and are not statements of historical fact –

The munitions manufactured at Raytheon are loaded into shipping containers at the Port of Tucson, transported by the Union Pacific through my backyard in the Dunbar-Spring neighbourhood, and carried across the line for export onto US Naval ships–en route to the Port of Ashdod; weapons launched at Gaza fishers, at Flotillas, at children playing football on the beach throughout the duration of this ongoing 17+ year blockade.

And other statements that are not solely historical facts –

Raytheon’s manufacture of AMRAAMs, SPY-6 naval radars, its family of radars and the Standard Missile Family of Naval Missiles–has wiped thousands of Palestinian families off the civil registry in Gaza. From the Port of Tucson, across continents and oceans and in addition to the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of munitions already dropped on the region, we can also consider this trail of unexploded bombs–contaminating the earth, “dolphining” under the soil, detonating and causing imaginable [if lived, if suffered–never unimaginable, just as we cannot and must not ever ‘run out of words’ to describe the horror and name its perpetrators] havoc long after any next ‘pause’ or ‘three-phase deal.’

(2) Risks associated with U.S. government sales, including changes or shifts in defence spending due to budgetary constraints, spending cuts resulting from sequestration, a continuing resolution, a government shutdown, the debt ceiling or measures taken to avoid default, or otherwise, and uncertain funding of programs –

A continuing resolution, a permanent ceasefire, an arms embargo, is their risk. Why would we, the non-stakeholder masses, demand anything less? What are we willing to risk?

(25) The intended qualification of (i) the merger as a tax-free reorganisation and (ii) the separation transactions and other internal restructurings as tax-free to UTC and former UTC shareholders, in each case, for U.S. federal income tax purposes –

What I won’t do is pretend to grasp the scope of subversion, as buried in the “Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995” (PSLRA), falling very much in line with Clinton-era policies that deluded us in brilliant blue DNC glitter. But maybe this is an opportune point to mention that RTX’s reorganisation (hence, renaming/rebranding) is to qualify as tax-free for United States federal income tax purposes. For 2023, Raytheon reported sales of $68.9 billion. First quarter 2024 earnings included reported sales of $19.3 billion, up 12 percent versus the previous year. Second quarter 2024 adjusted sales were $19.8 billion. Their outlook for the full year 2024: Sales of approximately $79 billion; company backlog of $206 billion, including $129 billion of commercial and $77 billion of defense.

Untaxed billions amidst “unprecedented demand” across their portfolio; a flood of free cash flow, and we drown in our debts. 

Raytheon’s forward-looking statement is that Forever War is great for business, is great for the next border-to-be-built; according to Chris Calio in the Q2 call: 

Across RTX, we have now connected 26 factories with our proprietary digital analytics technology, providing us with real-time data to boost equipment efficiency, improve quality and yield higher output. This represents a 30% increase in connected sites since the start of the year, and we remain on track to connect 40 factories by the end of the year. These incremental efficiency, capacity and technology improvements are critical to meeting the needs of our customers as we operate in the strongest demand environment in our history.

Yielding higher output means the demand for more munitions means the siege of Gaza won’t cease means the persistent occupation /displacement /dispossession /poisoning of Palestinian land and its people from the river to the sea, won’t cease. Means that markets are booming–under the guise of slowing Ansar Allah, the expansion of the UK’s Akrotiri and Dhekelia bases in Cyprus…stockpiles at the 800+ US global military bases, means more money to Fogbow and the Maritime Humanitarian Aid Foundation for the next Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) sinkhole…the-next-best-internal-external-worldwide border to be built. 

During the Q&A portion at Q1 2024 presentation’s end: 

Ron Epstein – Bank of America Merrill Lynch – Analyst

Could you speak a little bit to the supplemental that got through the house and how that plays out for your defence business. What goodies are in there for you guys?

Chris Calio – Chief Operating Officer

Hey, good morning, Ron. This is Chris. So, as I’m sure you’ve seen, if you break down sort of the supplemental into its big buckets, it’s about $60 billion for Ukraine, another $25 billion or so for Israel, and $10 billion for INDOPACOM. So, when we look at our product portfolio against those big buckets, we look at Ukraine and say about two-thirds of that is addressable with RTX products.

Think GEM-T, NASAMS, Patriot, AMRAAM, AIM9X, Israel, we kind of handicapped that as about 30% addressable, stockpile replenishment, Iron Dome, David’s Sling procurements, and then INDOPACOM, again, roughly that 30% addressable with the RTX product suite, namely SM-6, Tomahawk, AIM9X. So again, the services will have their specific lists of what they’re looking for, but again we think our product portfolio is pretty well positioned to address the needs in each of those theaters.¹⁰

The US Department of Defense’s April 2024 Security Supplemental gifted about $90 billion in goodies to Raytheon, as well as many other transnational weapons manufacturers; par for the course from a government that’s ostensibly a handful of defence contractors in a trench coat. 

Goodies, because as Fady Joudah says–English is the language that genocides me. 

Trying to finish this draft–I swear I have to wrap it up–clicking back over to the DoD Contracts, waiting for 2pm MST to refresh for the (any, every) day’s numbers–August 16, 2024: “Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $231,936,852 firm-fixed-price modification to a previously award contract (N00024-22-C-5400) for fiscal 2024 Navy, Federal Republic of Germany, and Foreign Military Sales (FMS) procurements for the Rolling Airframe Missile Block 2/2A/2B guided missile round pack, spare replacement components, and recertification.” September 11, 2024: “Raytheon/Lockheed Martin Javelin JV, Tucson, Arizona, was awarded a $143,521,766 modification (PZ0121) to contract W31P4Q-19-C-0076 for Lightweight Command Launch Units. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of June 25, 2025.” 

From 1999, AMRAAM Sale to Israel Highlights Export Success. From the Congressional Budget Office in 1986, The Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM): Current Plans and Alternatives. From 2023. From 2024. Forever, War.

For additional information on identifying factors that may cause actual results to vary materially from those stated in forward-looking statements –

What could cause actual results? What can stop this endless flow of weapons, this ceaseless urge for deathmaking–from occupied O’odham land to occupied Palestine? 

On November 5, 2023, around 150 actionists staged a “die-in” at the entrance to Raytheon’s manufacturing facility. Signage visualised the core demand: divestment from the genocide economy. The research, manufacture and circulation of munitions and surveillance technologies are what pays Tucson’s bills and the profiteers work tirelessly so that it’s almost unfathomable to envision another way. On the morning of November 30, 2023, an autonomous group of about 30 actionists blockaded the entrance to the UA Tech Park. Pima County Sheriff Deputies promptly arrested several, including a local journalist. 

November was ten months ago. To my knowledge, not a singular protest or action has occurred at either Raytheon site since. The Indigenous and the undocumented/migrant communities across Sonora have long resisted; demonstrating immense resilience and paths forward despite the desecration of this desert. But I often feel like there are moments when the entire world is rising up–except Tucson. And here, like, right down the road, the actual armpit of empire is where the materials and mechanisms of Forever War are prototyped, “field-tested”–their obsolescence, planned, ahead of the next batch of budgets. 

Student groups and other actionists are urging divestment on campus and beyond; but administration refuses to listen. And higher up, the state of Arizona’s 2016 anti-BDS bill (SB1167, amended August 2019–again amended in 2022 with SB1250) currently prohibits any state contracts with entities that boycott Israel. Additionally, as outlined by Palestine Legal, 2022’s HB2675 adopts the IHRA definition of antisemitism:

Originally a bill about the right to a jury trial, this antisemitism redefinition bill requires the use of a distorted definition of antisemitism in hate crimes reporting and sentencing. Criticism of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights could be used as evidence of a hate crime or result in more severe sentences.

This, compounded with the Board of Regents’ floating of “Prohibition on Support for Foreign Terrorist Organizations by Student Groups and Organizations” policy (condemned by CAIR-AZ), where student groups could be sanctioned for…supporting sanctions. And, the upsurge in censorship, repressive intolerance and unabashed brutality against US university students, staff/faculty, and their accomplices on scores more campuses emboldens increased surveillance and the increased use of military-grade equipment on protestors (such as California Highway Patrol’s violation of state law, AB481, to assault UCLA actionists in Spring 2024). 

The cautionary statement, perchance, is to shut down everything.¹¹ But this is no time for caution, our call is to disrupt everything. Rupture the warmaking machine.

Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and RTX assumes no obligation to update or revise such statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.¹²

A forward-looking statement: Free Palestine.