Only one group has meaningfully benefited from 20-plus years of U.S. hyper-militarism—the war-profiteers.

Here we’re talking truly mind-boggling numbers.

Recent reports show that an investment of $10,000 in defense stocks when the war on terror began would now be worth almost $100,000.

There’s something grotesque behind such statistics, and average Americans should be absolutely outraged by these blood money windfalls.

Because here’s the real rub: The recent collapse of Afghanistan is proof positive that the U.S. is definitively losing these campaigns—only the war industry won, raking in blood money-billions, while 7,000-plus American troops—including several under my command—did the actual bleeding for some $30-40,000 a year.

It is long past time to rebalance national priorities in ways that benefit people and bend toward decency. And mind you, that clarion call is coming from a longtime soldier and two war veteran, who shares an alma mater with that ever prescient old president—Ike.

Seeing as corporate advertising sound bites seemly infuse every aspect of American society, let me suggest a more accurate slogan for the military industrial complex’s public face: “The Department of Defense: ‘This is why we can’t have nice things.'”

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