By Sarah Lazare, In These Times
In July 2019, while campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president, Joe Biden declared in a foreign policy speech, “It’s past time to end the Forever Wars, which have cost us untold blood and treasure.” But the president-elect — who as vice president oversaw wars in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan and more — is already embracing personnel with strong ties to the military apparatus driving this endless combat.
On November 10, Biden announced his agency review teams, which he says “are responsible for understanding the operations of each agency, ensuring a smooth transfer of power, and preparing for President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris and their cabinet to hit the ground running on Day One.”
Of the 23 people who comprise the Department of Defense agency review team, eight of them — or just over a third — list their “most recent employment” as organizations, think tanks or companies that either directly receive money from the weapons industry, or are part of this industry. These figures may be an undercount, as In These Times was not immediately able to exhaustively source the funding of every employer.
