Melvin A. Goodman

U.S. national media have been lazy in their treatment of our military—pandering to the military itself and using retired general officers with ties to the military-industrial complex as spokesmen. The United States is largely in an arms race with itself, but the media typically ignore bloated defense spending. It is past time to reinforce Martin Luther King’s address to the Riverside Church in 1967 that linked chronic domestic poverty and military adventurism.

For the past three years, the conventional wisdom has been that the United States and the Trump administration have been fortunate in not having to face a national security crisis. The killing of Qassim Suleimani is Trump’s first (self-inflicted) crisis, and his national security team has failed in every aspect.