Can the Military-Industrial Complex Be Tamed?

My name is Bill Astore and I’m a card-carrying member of the military-industrial complex (MIC).

Sure, I hung up my military uniform for the last time in 2005.

Since 2007, I’ve been writing articles for TomDispatch focused largely on critiquing that same MIC and America’s permanent war economy.

I’ve written against this country’s wasteful and unwise wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its costly and disastrous weapons systems, and its undemocratic embrace of warriors and militarism.

Nevertheless, I remain a lieutenant colonel, if a retired one.

I still have my military ID card, if only to get on bases, and I still tend to say “we” when…