anti-war conservatives

Nota: The American Conservative é a casa dos chamados paleo-conservatives, espécie de arqui-inimigos dos neo-conservadores (cujo messianismo iluminista tem amigos na esquerda por mais que certa esquerda queira disfarçar).

Bacevich, a contributing editor of The American Conservative, new book: Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War:

Cui bono? Who benefits from the perpetuation of the Washington rules [what I am calling the bipartisan foreign-policy consensus]? The answer to that question helps explain why the national security consensus persists.

The answer, needless to say, is that Washington benefits. The Washington rules deliver profit, power, and privilege to a long list of beneficiaries: elected and appointed officials, corporate executives and corporate lobbyists, admirals and generals, functionaries staffing the national security apparatus, media personalities, and policy intellectuals from universities and research organizations. Each year the Pentagon expends hundreds of billions of dollars to raise and support U.S. military forces. This money lubricates American politics, filling campaign coffers and providing a source of largesse — jobs and contracts — for distribution to constituents. It provides lucrative “second careers” for retired U.S. military officers hired by weapons manufacturers or by consulting firms appropriately known as “Beltway Bandits.” It funds the activities of think tanks that relentlessly advocate for policies guaranteed to fend off challenges to established conventions. “Military-industrial complex” no longer suffices to describe the congeries of interests profiting from and committed to preserving the national security status quo.