Ike was right. War is good for business. Too good

• Author: DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD
• Published date: 06 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The big winners were the military contractors, who supplied everything from aircraft to trucks, guns and ammo, boots and food and everything in between. Accountants are still trying to tally the price tag, but it could exceed $2.5 trillion. All told, a Brown University study estimates American taxpayers spent $8t. on post 9/11 wars.

The short lesson is this: war is good for business and there are many powerful forces right here at home – financial, industrial, political and criminal – that get rich from these endless wars.

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In his 1961 farewell address president Dwight Eisenhower warned that the failure to adequately regulate the defense industry could lead to its "grave" expansion and perpetual war. As the World War II commanding general, he knew America emerged as the greatest military power in history and the giant industrial war machine that won the war was not about to go back to making refrigerators and cars.

He feared "the huge industrial and military machinery of defense," with its "insatiable appetite for profit," could lead to perpetual war, and "endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

After Iraq and Afghanistan, the Americans most willing to go back into another war in the region will be the defense contractors who supply the high-ticket consumables, and their shareholders, executives, consultants and politicians on their payrolls. To say nothing of the foreign warlords, tribal chiefs, government officials and other unsavory and unreliable allies who got their millions under the tables and in suitcases.

The Pentagon says it left aircraft, helicopters, tanks and other big-ticket items "inoperable," but the Taliban's taxpayer-funded booty includes Humvees, pick-up trucks, guns, ammunition and massive stocks of everything else.

But don't worry, the Pentagon will soon be asking Congress for money to replace all that and more.

War isn't cheap. On two days in 2017, the Pentagon signed contracts for $50.45 million just for combat boots and another for $20.49m. for ponchos, Salon.com reported. Then there was $1.7 billion for radios and spare parts. And that's the little stuff. A single Apache helicopter costs $31m. plus weapons, according to militarymachine.com.

Congress has been derelict in its two critical roles: authorization and oversight. It surrendered its authority to declare war by approving the...