Cable News Military Experts Are On The Defense Industry Dole

Many former military and public officials appearing in the news have more than a patriotic interest in a continued occupation.

by Ryan Grim, Sara Sirota, Lee Fang, Rose Adams

August 19 2021, 4:44 p.m.

JACK KEANE HAS had a busy week.

The retired four-star general has been making the cable news rounds, offering scathing criticism of the White House in wake of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, he appeared on Fox News, where he told host Harris Faulkner that the administration “made a terrible mistake in pulling our troops out and giving the Taliban the opportunity to take the country over.”

“It’s going to become a more dangerous place, threatening America,” he warned. “And the world’s going to be a more dangerous place.”

On another Fox News program earlier in the week, Keane attacked President Joe Biden’s withdrawal plan as “embarrassing” and “ill-conceived,” suggesting that the administration should have delayed until “sometime next year.”

What neither Keane nor the host in either of these segments mentioned is that he has more than merely a patriotic interest in the continued occupation. Keane, a former board member at weapons maker General Dynamics, is chair of AM General, the company that makes Humvees. He also sits on the boards of Cyalume Technologies Inc., which manufactures military chemical lights and other technology deployed on the battlefield in Afghanistan, and the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that publishes defense policy proposals with the aim of “developing the next generation of national security leaders” and is backed by CACI International Inc., General Dynamics, and other defense contractors.

https://theintercept.com/2021/08/19/afghanistan-taliban-defense-industry-media/