Who Rules "Warmarkers' Republic of Cambridge"'s Draper Laboratory?

Sitting next to Scowcroft Group Principal Franklin Miller on the “non-profit” Draper Laboratory board of directors in recent years have been folks like the following people:

John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory Director Emeritus Richard Roca, who was paid $45,000 between June 2015 and July 2016 for sitting on Draper Laboratory’s board of directors;

Escalade Inc. Chairman of the Board, G-III Apparel Group Director and Oppenheimer & Co. Managing Director Richard D. White, who was paid $40,824 between June 2015 and July 2016 for sitting on Draper Laboratory’s board of directors;

Former Lockheed Martin Space Systems Executive Vice-President and CommScope Holdings, Visteon and Tetra Tech Inc. corporate board member Joanne Maguire, who was paid $39,628 between June 2015 and July 2016 for sitting on Draper Laboratory’s board of directors;

Former Lockheed Martin Vice-President and former Aerospace Corporation CEO and current OSI Systems Director William Ballhaus, Jr., who was paid $37,000 between June 2015 and July 2016 for sitting on Draper Laboratory’s board of directors;

Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer, former Fidelity Investments Vice-President and General Counsel and BlackRock Equity-Bonds Funds Director Lena Goldberg, who was paid $33,895 between June 2015 and July 2016 for sitting on Draper Laboratory’s board of directors;

MIT Professor and Singapore MIT Alliance for Research and Technology CEO/Director Daniel Hastings, who’s also a trustee of the Aerospace Corporation that “operates a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) for the United States Air Force” which provides “engineering and acquisition management support as well as objective technical analyses and assessments to the Air Force,” according to the Aerospace Corporation’s website. And between June 2015 and July 2016, Aerospace Corporation Trustee and MIT Professor Hastings was paid $31,500 for sitting on Draper Laboratory’s board of directors.

Former Central Intelligence Agency Operative and former Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency David Shedd, who was paid $7,625 between June 2015 and July 2016 for sitting on Draper Laboratory’s board of directors;

Flybridge Captal Partners General Partner David Arnoff, of the Boston and New York-based speculation/venture capital investment firm, who was paid $6,125 between June 2015 and July 2016 for sitting on Draper Laboratory’s board of directors; and

Lt. General Frank Kearney, a former Deputy Combatant Commander for United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) who “served in operational and command assignments at every level with combat tours in Grenada, Panama, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan” and “commanded all Theater Special Operations forces in the middle-east including OIF and OEF from March 2005 to June 2007”, according to the Thayer Leader Development Group at West Point’s website, before setting up his own “consulting” company, Inside-Solutions-LLC, of which he is president. And between June 2015 and July 2016, Lt. General (Ret.) and Inside-Solutions President Kearney was paid $6,125 for sitting on Draper Laboratory’s board of directors. 

Cambridge's Draper Laboratory's Brent Scowcroft/Scowcroft Group Connection

Coincidentally, the Draper Laboratory Chairman of the Board since October 2013--a “Principal” of former Kissinger Associates Vice-Chairman Brent Scowcroft’s Scowcroft Group named Franklin Miller---previously worked “twenty-two years in the Department of Defense…and four years as a Special Assistant to President George W. Bush” before joining The Cohen Group of former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen for five years, according to The Scowcroft Group’s website. And between June 2015 and July 2016, Scowcroft Group Principal Miller was paid $71,625 for being Draper Laboratory’s board chairman, according to Draper Laboratory’s 2015 Form 990 financial filing.

Besides being Draper Laboratory’s chairman of the board, Scowcroft Group Principal Miller—who “provides clients both strategic and tactical advice on defense”—has also, coincidentally, been a member of the Defense Policy Board, the U.S. Strategic Command Advisory Group and the Council on Foreign Relations. And in addition, he has, coincidentally, sat on the board of directors of EADS North America (a subsidiary of Airbus Group that profits from its Pentagon war and homeland security government contracts), the Sandia Corporation (which develops more modern nuclear weapons for the Pentagon) and the Atlantic Council of the United States (whose board of directors and international advisory chairman emeritus is, coincidentally, Scowcroft Group President and Principal Brent Scowcroft).

After joining former Nixon Administration Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s for-profit Kissinger Associates “consulting”/influence-peddling firm in 1982, Draper Laboratory board chairman Miller’s business partner at the Scowcroft Group, Brent Scowcroft, was hired by the government of Kuwait’s Kuwait Petroleum Corporation [KPC] to sit alongside Ali Jabar Al Ali Al-Sabah on the board of directors of KPC’s U.S. subsidiary at that time, Santa Fe International; and Scowcroft sat on the Kuwait government’s Santa Fe International corporate board in 1984, 1985 and 1986, according to Poor’s & Standard’s Register of Corporations. Yet in the early 1990’s the former director of Kuwait’s major U.S. subsidiary at that time—Scrowcroft Group President Scowcroft—was allowed to sit in a White House office as then-President H.W. Bush I’s National Security Affairs advisor. As the Scowcroft Group “consulting”/influence-peddling firm’s website notes:

“As President of The Scowcroft Group…Brent Scowcroft provides clients with unparalleled strategic advice and assistance…Brent Scowcroft served as the National Security Advisor to both Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, the only individual in U.S. history appointed to the position under two different Presidents. From 1982 to 1989, he was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc., an international consulting firm. In this capacity, he advised and assisted a wide range of U.S. and foreign corporate leaders on global joint venture opportunities…His…twenty-nine-year military career…included… Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Military Assistant to President Nixon….Out of uniform, General Scowcroft...formerly served as the Chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board...”

And not surprisingly, when the Iraqi troops of the now-executed Saddam Hussein marched into Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, it was the presentation of Scowcroft-- the former member of the corporate board of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation’s Santa Fe International U.S. subsidiary-- -- at a National Security Council meeting on Aug. 3, 1990, “that made clear what the stakes were, crystallized people’s thinking and galvanized support for a strong response” to the Iraqi military occupation of Kuwait, according to a Feb. 2, 1991 New York Times article;  and, at this meeting, “Scowcroft stated that..he believed the United States had to be willing to use force” and “that Saddam had to be toppled…covertly through the CIA, and be unclear to the world,” according to Bob Woodard’s 1991 book The Commanders. But after the United States began “to use force” in Iraq in January 1991,  U.S. military forces apparently killed around 100,000 Iraqis people in the 1991 Gulf War to restore Al-Sabah family monarchical rule in Kuwait, while at least 849 U.S. troops were either killed or wounded in the same war; and during the next 10 years more than 9,600 of the U.S. soldiers involved in the first Gulf War, who “were often required to enter radioactive battlefields unprotected and were never warned of the dangers of Depleted Uranium” weapons, reportedly also died, according to Project Censored’s Censored 2004 book.

Coincidentally, Draper Laboratory Chairman Miller’s 91-year-old Scowcroft Group business partner also currently is a “Strategy Partner” at Torch Hill Investment Partners, whose for-profit investment portfolio includes stock in Zephyr Photonics, which “is a US-based…photonics company that is focused on providing solutions to the Department of Defense, aerospace, and intelligence markets” that “has developed its unique technology over 60 contracts from US Government agencies…and defense prime contractors,” according to the Torch Hill Investment Partners website. 

`New York City Refugee' folk song lyrics

A folk song about how real estate developers, landlords, and their political allies gentrified New York City after 1971; and created a native New Yorker refugee population.

lyrics

I was born in the Bronx
And I grew up in Queens
But then I became
A New York City refugee.

The millionaires came
From all over the globe
And bought up Manhattan
And drove me from my home.

I was born in the Bronx
And I grew up in Queens
And when forced out of Brooklyn
Became a New York City refugee.

They gentrified Brooklyn
And part of the Bronx
They co-oped Manhattan
And Queens apartments.

I was born in the Bronx
And I grew up in Queens
On Staten Island I lived
But now I'm a New York City refugee.

Landlords and their lawyers
De-controlled rents
And with Wall Street developers
Ripped-off their tenants.

I was born in the Bronx
And I grew up in Queens
Many native New Yorkers
Are now New York City refugees.

But on the Lower East Side
These words are now heard:
"New York City refugees
Have the right to return!"

Is Cambridge's Draper Laboratory Profiteering From War Research?

According to the tax-exempt and “non-profit” Draper Laboratory Form 990 financial filing for 2015, between June 27, 2015 and July 1, 2016 the Strategic Systems weapons technology development program of Draper Laboratory earned over $67 million more in revenues from its contract work than what it spent to do the contract work; between June 2015 and July 2016, Draper Laboratory’s Strategic Systems program’s revenues exceeded $445 million, while the Strategic Systems program’s expenses were only just under $378 million. Draper Laboratory’s 2015 Form 990 financial filing also noted that its Strategic Systems program has “been responsible for all of the U.S. Navy’s strategic guidance systems and are currently extending MK6 system life to 2042 through an extensive modernization effort that utilizes common processor and other key technical innovations to improve reliability and system performance” and has “also developed the guidance system for the air force peacekeeper ICBM.”

The National Security and Space program of the “non-profit” Draper Laboratory also earned more from its contract work than what it spent to do the work. Between June 2015 and July 2016, for example, Draper Laboratory’s National Security and Space program revenues of over $158 million exceeded its expenses of over $139 million by $19 million.  And Draper Laboratory’s 2015 Form 990 financial filing described the weapons technology development work of its National Security and Space program in the following way:

“Draper delivers national security systems and combat solutions as a highly valued government partner and design agent for our sponsors’ most difficult problems. We provide trusted, reliable mantime intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), extreme miniature solutions for precision engagement, highly accurate guided aerial delivery, soldier-centered solutions, secure electronic and communications, and early intercept guidance for missile defense engagements. We help our sponsors to clarify their requirements, establish government owned designs and create system prototypes…”

From all of its sources of revenues between June 2015 and July 2016 (including income from dividends on the corporate stock it owns, for example), Draper Laboratory’s total revenues were over $676 million; which exceeded its total expenses (that included $1 million spent on lobbying) of over $639 million by nearly $37 million, although Draper Laboratory claims to be a “non-profit” organization. And during the same period, the value of Draper Laboratory’s net assets increased from over $364 million to over $379 million. In addition, between October 2014 and September 2016 the annual dollar amount of Pentagon weapons technology development contracts awarded Draper Laboratory increased from $273 million to $360 million, making it the 73^rd-largest recipient of U.S. war research contracts in 2017.

Is Cambridge's Draper Laboratory Developing Weapons For Trump's War Machine?

Most people who live in Cambridge, Massachusetts don’t think that weapons technology development and “precision targeting”-related work for the Trump administration’s Pentagon war machine should be done in the “People’s Republic of Cambridge” in 2017. Yet in the “Warmakers’ Republic of Cambridge,” near MIT, Draper Laboratory is doing weapons technology development and “precision” targeting”-related work for the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency—while Trump and his Secretary of Defense, former General Dynamics board member, James Mattis, threaten to issue orders for a war against people in North Korea. As a Sept. 7, 2017 Draper Laboratory press release, titled “Draper Awarded $36.M for Guidance, Navigation & Control Technology,” stated:

“The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has awarded Draper a $36.9 million contract to perform technical and analytical services in support of the Agency’s efforts to evaluate, maturate, integrate and test guidance, navigation and control technologies.

“Under the contract, Draper will focus its work on sensors, modeling and simulation, radiation hardening, survivability, precision targeting and missile avionics development. The work will primarily be performed in Huntsville, Alabama and Cambridge, Massachusetts….”

According to the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency website, “North Korea has expanded the size and sophistication of its ballistic missile forces — from close-range ballistic missiles to ICBMs — and  has conducted an unprecedented level of nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches since 2016,” but “Missile defenses can provide a permanent presence in a region and discourage adversaries…”

In the “Warmakers’ Republic of Cambridge,” nuclear war weapons technology development work, for the Trump administration’s and UK Tory government’s nuclear-armed missile-launching Trident submarines, is also being done in 2017 at Draper Laboratory. As Trump and Mattis’s Department of Defense noted in a Jan. 26, 2017 press release, “Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Inc. is being awarded a $53,530,167 million fixed-price-incentive, cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for the Trident (D5) MK 6 guidance system production," and the $53.5 million nuclear war preparation contract “includes failure verification, test, repair and recertification of inertial measurement units, electronic assemblies, and electronic modules." According to a Jan. 27, 2017 Sputnik news article:

“The Trident D-5 is a three-stage, solid-fueled submarine-launched intercontinental-range ballistic missile…It is…deployed on the US Navy's Ohio and newer Columbia class nuclear missile submarines.

“Work will be performed in the US states of Minnesota, Florida and Massachusetts…US Navy funds in the amount of $45,663,167 million and UK funds of $7,867,000 are being released for the award….”

Draper Laboratory is also doing U.S. Army weapons technology development work in Cambridge for the Trump administration’s Pentagon war machine in 2017. As a March 7, 2017 Draper Laboratory website press release, titled “Draper Joins Teams Awarded U.S. Army Contract for Defense of Space, Missile, Ground and High Altitude,” noted:

“…Draper plans to help…provide rapid response to immediate warfighter requirements to the U.S. Army. Draper has been selected to join several teams of defense contractors that will design, develop, demonstrate and integrate products and systems focused on the development of space, high altitude and missile defense and ground system capabilities, enabling warfighters to effectively support their mission….Draper’s contribution will be in support of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/ Army Forces Strategic Command’s (USASMDC/ARSTRAT) Design, Development, Demonstration and Integration, or D3I, Domain 1 program….Under the D3I Domain 1 contract, Draper brings capabilities to the contract teams in mission-critical areas including space systems, integrated air and missile defense, avionics, surveillance, reconnaissance and guidance, navigation and control (GN&C). Draper’s contract work will primarily be performed in Huntsville, Alabama and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“Draper has supported the U.S. military’s strategic mission for more than 60 years. For the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM), Draper has developed image navigation for precision guidance of munitions even when GPS is not available. In addition to working with navigation systems, Draper has assisted the Army with projects including cybersecurity, technology protection and miniature cryptography for high stress environments. Draper and the Army have also worked together on a vision-aided navigation system that addresses current limitations, including cloud cover, which degrades the system’s ability to correlate vision sensor inputs with satellite imagery.”

A May 19, 2016 press release of the Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey-based U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center’s website provided some additional details on the kind of weapons technology development work Draper Laboratory has been doing for RDECOM in recent years:

“Picatinny Arsenal engineers are among a group of researchers developing image navigation that would be used for precision guidance of munitions even when GPS is not available. The Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, or ARDEC, is leading the development of image-navigation techniques for precision-guided munitions.

“With image navigation, a target can be identified on any type of digital map, which along with its metadata, can be loaded into the munition-guidance processor….Other partners involved in the research are from Draper Labs, Army Research Laboratory, Air Force Research Laboratory and the Aviation and Missile Research, Development, and Engineering Center. Using the reference image, along with the image the munition sees, the munition can determine where it is and what course corrections are needed to precisely guide it to the desired aim point.

"`This technology has the potential to be a game-changer for how precision munitions are employed in various contested environments on the future battlefield,’ said [Christopher] Stout [the ARDEC project officer for Affordable Precsion Technologies]…

“The developing technology is designed to mitigate the current reliance on GPS for precision munitions and achieve the potential to transition to future increments of Excalibur, High Explosive Guided Mortar, or HEGM, and other future precision munitions.

“Ensuring the survivability of cameras and optics under the `high G’ shock of gun shock launch is being done by using ARDEC's modeling and simulation capabilities...ARDEC and Draper Labs are working closely to develop this simulation environment capable of virtually assessing system performance across all terrain and weather scenarios…”

`Simon Legree Killed Tom' folk song lyrics

A protest folk song whose lyrics tell the story of Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic 19th-century anti-slavery protest novel, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," that was written after re-reading Stowe's novel in 2005.

lyrics

(chorus)
Simon Legree killed Tom
When Tom did not inform
Simon Legree was master
But Slavery was wrong.

(verses)
Tom lived in Kentucky
Where he sang religious songs
He worked hard for Mr. Shelby
Whose Kindness made Tom feel secure
But Shelby owed some money
To a greedy slave trader
So he sold him his slaves Tom
And Eliza and her kid. (chorus)

Eliza and her child
Ran away in the night
Crossed the Ohio River
By walking across on ice
But Tom was taken South
And forced to leave his wife
Yet another kindly master
Put hope back in Tom's life. (chorus)

Then Tom's master was stabbed
While breaking up a tavern brawl
To Tom he had promised freedom
Yet failed to sign all the forms
So when the master died
His cruel wife now sold Tom
At an auction in the slave market
Where mothers and children sobbed. (chorus)

Tom's new master was brutal
His name was Simon Legree
Ex-slaves were his overseers
And they whipped without mercy
In the field of the plantation
Picking cotton seven days a week
No time to read his Bible
Tom felt the worst kind of slavery. (chorus)

Simon Legree tried to make Tom
Become a person less saintly
By beating Tom all the time
To get him to renounce his beliefs
But Tom would not sell his soul
And when Legree's slave women escaped
Legree said "Tell me where they hide
Or a slave's death is your fate." (chorus)

`Remember Lumumba' protest folk song lyrics

An historical protest folk song from 2017 about role of Belgian and U.S. governments, UN and former Columbia University administration officials in eliminating democratically elected Congolese PM Patrice Lumumba, between July 1960 and January 1961.

lyrics

(chorus)
Lumumba
Remember Lumumba
Lumumba, Lumumba
Spoke for freedom. 

(verses)
The Belgians pulled out
The U.S. moved in
They wanted a puppet
Who wouldn't stand firm. (chorus)

Katanga they took
Belgium returned
UN troops came
Then changed their whole mission. (chorus)

Columbia Trustee Burden
Named Lumumba as his foe
And helped by the UN's Cordier
Lumumba was overthrown. (chorus)

He would not submit
They carried out a coup
They threw him in jail
And Patrice Lumumba they slew. (chorus)

They still want their empire
They still want their mines
And they still try to kill
Those who expose their crimes. (chorus)

Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!

Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!