No wonder so many of us are sick of this shit

[malthaussen]

65. There have been profiteers in every war, aye.

Used to be they were called "War Contractors," or "Commissary Agents." A host of names. They have always been synonymous with corruption, but there is a difference between them and what has come to be known as the "Military Industrial Complex." In the U.S., there was no pipeline to industry from government, and the regular military was kept quite small, by the Constitution, which was penned when people had a pathological fear of standing armies. While Europe, engaged constantly in major wars, evolved a system of reserves and standing forces to quickly mobilize the whole nation for war, America, with only a few natives to fight, made do with a small, starved military in which all senior ranks were appointed by approval of Congress, not by the Commander-in-Chief. This is why so many captains and lieutenants found themselves generals after the Civil War broke out, generals of Volunteers, appointed by the governors, not by the Federal government which controlled the regular forces, which numbered only about 25,000. (It's also, incidentally, why most ex-slave combat units were formed as "U.S. Colored Troops," on the regular establishment, because few governors wanted to raise "Colored" regiments. Some exceptions apply, but there were only a few "Colored" regiments of volunteers.)

When WWI came along, Europe committed collective suicide and the war profiteers made a bundle; there was plenty of feeling that the profiteers prolonged the war because they were making so much money, which a casual reading of Siegfried Sassoon's life would demonstrate. But the U.S. was largely untouched by WWI, and in the inter-war period, thanks to the Depression and cutbacks by the Isolationists, we didn't even build all the ships and weapons we were allowed under various international treaties. Thus, we were seriously wrong-footed when we entered WWII, because we had not yet begun to increase our armaments. This is a lesson that would linger, although after WWII. we were in such a hurry to de-mobilize that Korea again caught us unprepared. Since it takes rather a long time to change over automobile assembly lines to produce tanks, and to pipeline the large numbers of aircraft without which the military is not capable of fighting a war, the more hawkish advocated setting the economy on a permanent war-footing, with fat defense contracts flowing from the Pentagon (which was only built during WWII, you may recall) to the profiteers, including the Bush evil empire.

Citations? All this is so easily learned and understood that a casual Google of "Preparedness" would give you enough material for several books. You may not like Ike, which is your privilege, but he was warning about something that was a relatively new thing under the sun, at least in the U.S., where our habit had always been to starve the military so that Congress could have greater say in it. Of course, since WWII, Congress has cravenly betrayed the obligations it was placed under by the Constitution in respect of war. which is one reason why we haven't declared any since 1941, despite being in constant combat.

-- Mal