"In the ensuing decades, a large, permanent military establishment emerged as a result of the Cold War -- an establishment that forged deep ties to the Congress and industry."-- Robert Gates in 2008
Secretary Gates, successor to Donald Rumsfeld, has led our ever-expanding military-industrial complex through both Bush and Obama regimes, the "surge" in Iraq and the escalation of the war in Afghanistan. Prior to that, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W. Bush as Director of Central Intelligence.
Neither of these two regimes have much to show for all that except mounting body counts, loss of American prestige and credibility around the world, and deepening financial crisis and collapsing infrastructure here at home. Perpetual war has helped make the U.S. a superpower in decline, in large part because militarization has replaced real productive growth and wealth within our national economic structure. The result has been a continuing decline in the real wages and living
