Did you hear about this thing called the military-industrial complex, a deep-seated alliance between the U.S. government and American corporations that makes sure we are almost always involved in wars, declared or undeclared? Dwight Eisenhower identified it in 1961, and this week CNN caught on. From Raw Story:

CNN commentator Jack Cafferty railed against the United States’ ongoing involvement in Afghanistan following the alleged murder of 16 Afghan civilians by a rogue U.S. soldier.

“How much is enough?” he said Tuesday. “The United States has been in Afghanistan for more than ten years. And President Obama insists we will remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2014. Why? What will be accomplished by staying in that godforsaken hellhole for another 20 months that hasn’t been accomplished in 10 and a half years…?”

“Why don’t the American people have anything to say about what we’re doing?” Cafferty added. “We have no voice in any of this stuff any more. They go into Iraq, they go into Afghanistan, they might go into Iran. We got nothing. We’re just kept in the dark and the government does whatever the hell it feels like doing, or preferably what it is being told to do by the people who pay the politicians’ bills. Remember that warning from Dwight Eisenhower about the military-industrial complex? It’s got this country by the throat.”

Yes, I’m being a smart-ass. Cafferty’s commentary was on the money and necessary, if only because so many Americans are still asleep to the fact that the two wars on the other side of the world are killing our credibility, not to mention hundreds of thousands of people.

But still — why weren’t the talking heads stating the obvious years ago?