Stephan: Since the end of the draft, only about 1% of the American population has anything to do with the military. Last year how many dinner parties did you go to where talking about the Afghan war dominated table conversation the way it would have in the 1940s when every family in the country practically was involved with the military in some way. As a result, very few in this country actually have any direct interaction with wars like Afghanistan, and that has allowed the military-industrial complex, as Eisenhower called it, to keep these wars going, and to turn them into preposterous opportunities for profit-making. Two trillion was poured into the sewer of this war; for defense contractors, it was like winning the jackpot.
Mine resistant armored vehicles and other machinery set to be transported out of Afghanistan are seen in the background with a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane at Bagram Airfield in Parwan on May 27, 2014. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty
As the hawks who have been lying about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan for two decades continue to peddle fantasies in the midst of a Taliban takeover and American evacuation of Kabul, progressive critics on Tuesday reminded the world who has benefited from the “endless war.”
“Never has it been more important to end war profiteering.” —Public Citizen
“Entrenching U.S. forces in Afghanistan was the military-industrial complex’s business plan for 20+ years,” declared the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group Public Citizen.
“Hawks and defense contractors co-opted the needs of the Afghan people in order to line their own pockets,” the group added. “Never has it been more important to end war profiteering.”
In a Tuesday morning tweet, Public Citizen highlighted returns on defense stocks over the past 20 years—as calculated in a “jaw-dropping” analysis by The Intercept—and asserted that “the military-industrial complex got exactly what it wanted out of this war.
Rev. Dean
on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 at 2:13 pm
No one listened to Eisenhower when he warned us that the Military Industrial and Banking complex had to be watched closely or it would take over the country. Those of us who were around back then knew or found out the hard way that he was a very informed President who could see a bad possibility in the future. Now some still do not understand what this article tells us; which is sooo true.
No one listened to Eisenhower when he warned us that the Military Industrial and Banking complex had to be watched closely or it would take over the country. Those of us who were around back then knew or found out the hard way that he was a very informed President who could see a bad possibility in the future. Now some still do not understand what this article tells us; which is sooo true.