Sunday NYT exposes Gen. Barry McCaffrey: 'One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex'

[Newsjock]

A very long article
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/washington/30general.html?pagewanted=all

In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity.

The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles.

Access like this does not come cheap, but it was an opportunity potentially worth billions in sales, and Defense Solutions soon found its man. The company signed Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general and military analyst for NBC News, to a consulting contract starting June 15, 2007.

... Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.

Few illustrate the submerged complexities of this world better than Barry McCaffrey.

[tabasco]

1. Probably the biggest problem our military faces right now.

The corruption of the top generals.

We need to institute a complete ban on generals going to work for profiteering corporations.

[laststeamtrain]

2. "Military-Industrial-Media Complex". That's it. MIMC.

It's been awhile since GE made anything except weapons systems & fake news.

We're the most propagandized people in the history of the world.

[bemildred]

3. McCaffrey is a weasel (drug war), a war criminal (highway of death).

Everything Wes Clark is not.

[babylonsister]

4. Bookmarked-thanks. nt

[gratuitous]

5. Ho hum, another story of murderous corruption

What's the big deal anymore? Really, what is the big fucking deal anymore? Dishonest, corrupt military officers and their jock-sniffing sycophants scam the government out of billions of dollars. Thousands of people die, thousands more go without, millions more go into poverty. But some fatcats got to line their pockets with dollars and blood, so it's all good. For them. And you get to enjoy the spectacle of their fangs dripping blood while they tell us how important it is that they continue to get their graft. So send your sons and your daughters, your mothers and your fathers, off to far away places to kill and die for the greater glory of our bank accounts. We'll tell you that it's "defending freedom" or some such other jingoistic phrase, and you dupes will eat it up, eager for the opportunity to shed blood to fatten our bottom line.

God bless America, baby!

[happydreams]

7. LOL.

[JDPriestly]

6. What a scoundrel.