Fox News has relied heavily on the withdrawal experience of four-star General Jack Keane since the fall of Kabul, to criticize President Joe Biden for the withdrawal from the war in Afghanistan and its end.
While Keane’s experience as a former U.S. Army chief of staff has been trumpeted in her dozens of recent air appearances, what has so far not been revealed is Keane’s current role as to executive a defense contractor who has benefited from 20-year war agreement.
Since October 2016, Keane has held the position of CEO of AM General, the military vehicle manufacturer that Humvees manufactures. As reported Tuesday by Media Watch for America, a liberal watchdog, AM General received a $ 459 million contract in 2017 to supply more than 2,000 Humvees to Afghanistan by 2023.
Keane, who also works at Fox News as a senior strategic analyst for the network, has appeared on Fox News or its sister channel Fox Business Network at least 33 times since Aug. 16. the defense company or the agreement your company reached to reap benefits directly from the prolonged engagement in Afghanistan.
While all of Keane’s recent Fox News segments have focused on the situation in Afghanistan in general, there has been no discussion in any of its appearances specifically about Humvees or AM General. Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Keane’s presidency with AM General is also missing from his official biography on the Fox News digital news site. However, on the page he mentions that he is the president of the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank on defense policies that receives financial support from various military contractors.
Throughout her frequent television hits over the past two weeks, Keane has repeatedly shattered the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw all American troops from the country. He stated that the withdrawal puts at stake the “national honor” of America and that it has been a “shameful show of American leadership“, Suggesting that the administration should have stayed in Afghanistan until” next year “.
Keane’s failure to reveal her financial ties to the conflict in Afghanistan has not been limited to Fox News airwaves. In a January 2020 speech at an event for the conservative Heritage Foundation, Keane advocated for the extension of America’s involvement in Afghanistan, while never mentioning her company’s financial interest in a war. prolonged.
As reported by The Intercept last week, apart from AM General, Keane is also on the board of Cyalume Technologies Inc., a company that makes chemical lights for the military. This has also never been revealed during his appearances on Fox commenting on the conflict. Prior to his current defense contractor gigs, the retired general was the director of arms giant General Dynamics and an adviser to the private military company Academy, formerly known as Blackwater.
Keane infamously recommended the disastrous Afghan counterinsurgency strategy in Congress in 2009, but he is hardly the only architect of the war in Afghanistan who has frequented cable news in recent weeks, though, without neglecting it. conveniently disclose possible conflicts of interest.
During CNN’s recent appearance for former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, in which he compared the retreat to Bay of Pigs, for example, neither host John King nor Panetta mentioned that he was a senior director of a consulting firm. defense or member of the oracle board of the software corporation. directors. Instead, he only referred to his past credentials as a member of former President Barack Obama’s administration.
David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011, is another Afghan hawk and architect who has done cable news rounds recently without revealing his links to the industry. of defense.
While stating that the withdrawal is a “Dunkirk moment” and that Biden “should literally reverse the decision” in television interviews, Petraeus never pointed to his place on the board of a cybersecurity company he contracts with the Department of Defense. Nor did he mention his role as a partner in KKR and Co., a privately held company with a significant stake in defense spending.