Great read yesterday morning in the New York Times, which bashes Gen Barry McCaffrey for deploying his retired-four-star clout in the service of his own pocketbook.

One Man's Military-Industrial-Media Complex

Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.

Few illustrate the submerged complexities of this world better than Barry McCaffrey.

Check out McCaffrey's after-action report I obtained and posted on this blog last October. Extraordinarily, this retired mechanized infantry commander recommended buying more than 600 C-17s, 350 F-22s and a next-generation bomber fleet.