Retired General Anthony Zinni, retired General Jack Keane and former Bush administration official Fran Townsend
If you read enough news and watch enough cable television about the threat of the Islamic State, the radical Sunni Muslim militia group better known simply as ISIS, you will inevitably encounter a parade of retired generals demanding an increased US military presence in the region. They will say that our government should deploy, as retired General Anthony Zinni demanded, up to 10,000 American boots on the ground to battle ISIS. Or as in retired General Jack Keane's case, they will make more vague demands, such as for "offensive" air strikes and the deployment of more military advisers to the region.
But what you won't learn from media coverage of ISIS is that many of these former Pentagon officials have skin in the game as paid directors and advisers to some of the largest military contractors in the world. Ramping up America's military presence in Iraq and directly entering the war in Syria, along with greater military spending more broadly, is a debatable solution to a complex political and sectarian conflict. But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga: America's defense industry.
Comment: It is obvious that those who benefit the most from perpetual war, and have the least to lose are happy to spew war propaganda. You can bet none of their families are in any way in danger of being part of any boots on the ground initiative. They are part of the psychopathic hierarchy who consider the rest of humanity (the ones who pay the price for wars) to be little more than cannon fodder.