America’s War Machine

On the show this week, Chris Hedges discusses with Andrew Cockburn his new book The Spoils of War – Power, Profit and the American War Machine In Andrew Cockburn’s book The Spoils of War he lays bare the naked lust for profit that is behind America’s endless wars and bloated military budget. The American war machine, he writes, can only be understood in terms of the “private passions” and “interests” of those who control it - principally a passionate interest in making money. Thus, Washington expanded NATO beyond Germany, breaking a promise to Russian leaders, to open up the lucrative arms market in eastern Europe to defense contractors. The army insisted on furnishing soldiers with defective helmets from a favored contractor that magnify the trauma and traumatic brain injury caused by an explosion. The US Navy’s Seventh Fleet deployments were for years dictated by a corrupt defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard” who bribed high-ranking officers with cash, drunken parties that lasted days and prostitutes