During the Cold War Pravda said the US&#x27;s military-industrial complex existed due to America&#x27;s nascent imperialism.  All mainstream talking heads, commentators etc. in the US said US military bases only ringed the world because of the threat of teh Soviet Union.  Of course, when the USSR dissolved itself, NATO expanded east, and US bases didn&#x27;t close, but open in countries it could not have been in before.  As some Russians say &quot;Everything the communists said about here was false, everything they said about the West is true&quot;.<p>The militaruy-industrial complex has found its own form of product-market fit.  Arm Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the Taliban to eliminate Afghanistan&#x27;s seculat government.  Work with the mullahs to overthrow Mossadegh&#x27;s secular parliament in Iran.  Arm Islamic fundamentalists to undermine Assad&#x27;s Syrian government.  Then put military bases in, and bomb in some of the countries in which these Arab nationalists live.  Well after a decade of US military occupation of &quot;Saudi&quot; Arabia, and some decades of arming him against secular threats, Osama and company attacked the Pentagon etc.  ISIS just responded to France&#x27;s month long bombing campaign with bombs of their own.<p>Then we&#x27;re told we the people have to be spied on...when I was young Nixon was having burglars break into the Democratic campaign headquarters, then using the FBI to cover it up.  The FBI which was bugging and intefering in Martin Luther King&#x27;s campaign for all people in the US to get the freedoms which the law said we all were supposed to have.<p>It&#x27;s a self-reinforcing circle.  What the hell does the US have military bases all over the world for? Not for any good purpose, I have as much suspicion of the US and French&#x27;s governments intentions in Arab countries as the Arabs do.