Some kind of complex
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A recent article in the New York Times by David Barstow (via truthout) describes the sleek career moves of Gen Barry McCaffrey, a former US Army general and highly decorated solider turned corporate consultant and NBC analyst—the youngest general in the Army at the time of his retirement—as he delved into the world of lobbying for high octane contractors such as Defense Solutions and Veritas Capital.
Thus, within days of hiring General McCaffrey, the Defense Solutions sales pitch was in the hands of the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq’s expanding military.
“That’s what I pay him for,” Timothy D. Ringgold, chief executive of Defense Solutions, said in an interview.
Particularly in a capitalist economy, wars, like everything else, are always about money. Not about lost lives, wrecked futures, or motorbike stunt jumps right over long strings of international laws. It is worth recounting the prophetic words of another ex-general who knew a little something about the arms industry, speaking at his farewell address in 1961:
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience…we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
