ERIC ZUESSE—To summarize the argument in my two articles: the U.S. military controls American foreign policies, in order to maximize sales-volumes for the corporations that really pay, in retirement, the bulk of the top-brass’s lifetime income; and so those generals — even while being paid by the Government; i.e., on the government-side of the revolving door between ‘public’ service and ‘the private sector’ — are actually mainly salespeople for those private firms, getting contracts for all those unnecessary weapons. How else, for example, could the narrative that’s documented in the 2013 Reuters report, “Special Report: The Pentagon’s doctored ledgers conceal epic waste”, make sense?