The Trillion-Dollar Military-Industrial Complex

Part 1 of a New Documentary Series

It’s well worth a few minutes of your time to watch the first episode of this series on the military-industrial complex and its enormous reach and power, especially in American society.

I remember when I used to see thoughtful series like this on Frontline. Occasionally, you’d see critical reports on the mainstream media: I’m referring here to the 1970s and 1980s and shows like “60 Minutes” and “20/20.” Those days, dear reader, are long gone.

It’s rather amazing that Americans have to look to Al Jazeera for critical and sensible reporting on our very own military-industrial complex. Remember what Ike warned us about in 1961? Remember when he challenged us to remain alert and knowledgeable? America, we have a trillion-dollar “pentagon of power” to monitor—and we’re not doing the greatest job at it, are we? In fact, that pentagon of power is doing a far better job at monitoring us.

Indeed, when our mainstream media covers the Pentagon, it usually relies on retired generals and admirals, who often have unreported conflicts of interest (they may sit on corporate boards of weapons contractors, for example, or even get their talking points handed to them by the Pentagon). Let’s just say you rarely hear a negative word about the MIC in this very much unbalanced and biased coverage.

I see that YouTube is cautioning us that Al Jazeera is partially funded by the Qatari government. The horror!

Anyway, Al Jazeera is promising three more episodes in the series, the next one on America’s $1.7 trillion “investment” in new nuclear weapons. Should be sobering.