What a wonderful empire!

A new investigation by the Boston Globe finds that retiring generals are leaving the military in large numbers to take lucrative jobs in the defense industry with little concern for any conflicts of interest. According to Democracy Now, "the Globe analyzed the career paths of 750 of the highest-ranking generals and admirals who retired during the last two decades. The results are staggering. From 2004 through 2008, 80 percent of retiring three- and four-star officers went to work as consultants or defense executives. That compares with less than half who followed that path a decade earlier.

"The Globe analysis found that in many cases the generals are recruited for private-sector roles well before they retire, raising questions about their independence and judgment while still in uniform. What’s more, the Pentagon is aware and even supports this practice."

The Globe article can be found here.

The interview with Bryan Bender, national security reporter for the Boston Globe, can be found here, watched below, or downloaded as an mp3 here.

This prodigiously enlarged turnstile, a growth industry in itself, of course insures that the military industrial complexwill continue unabated, helping to bankrupt the nation, enrich oligarchic defense contractors, and continue the torrent of blowback that the late Chalmers Johnson predicted would come to pass.