A response to a glowing article titled "In Praise of The Military Industrial Complex"

Commander Salamander published a gushing article by a contractor about what a great thing America's "Military Industrial Complex" is.

My response" 

From: The Gaffer

My goodness. I had 37 years and 9 months active duty and working in, and for, the Navy and I wouldn't have been able to write such a one sided - or naive - review of the MIC after only 8 or 10 years at the job.

Sure the MIC looks good from the deck of a reasonably well designed, built, maintained, and manned ship - but, really, is that representative? My experience - although dated now - leads me to believe that's largely not the case. Recent examples; the LCS, what's that burning at the pier, and the Connecticut.

But the greatest evil visited on the republic by the MIC is far, far from the ramp and deck plate. It lies in their participating in the "deep state" - the unelected cabal of contractors and bureaucrats who are unanswerable to the nation but have hijacked it's most powerful tools of influence. As a JO I thought it was cute that Bobby Ray would tug on his sock when his boss spoke to congress in order to tip off Senator Goldwater he was lying. Not too much later it was less funny being in the Persian Gulf while Adm Lyons appeared to be pursuing an agenda shared by some - but not the Commander in Chief - at the time.

Sigh, those were the days.

Today we have a coterie of Generals and Admirals (active and retired, running code-word access IT firms) who have directly opposed the will of the elected President and have conspired in a coup against him. While we were otherwise distracted the incredible information warfare systems designed to counter foreign government was, first commercialized ('tossed over the transom'), then aimed at the enemies of deep state - and DC power player political opponents (for a fee/consideration in kind).

And THAT, IMHO, is the real power of the MIC - it has become exactly what Eisenhower warned of.