A rogue elephant ravishes the American living room. But instead of stopping the criminal antics, the people and elected officials salute, praise and honor him, and keep him close to our hearts and wallets.

The scoundrel’s name? The Defense Department. Thanks to clever PR teams, the media refers to its murderous and thieving excesses in eulogies to “our brave men and women in uniform who keep our freedom alive.”

Until recently, Congress routinely lauded its “heroic feats.” Even as Members focused attention on debt-slashing, they continued to fund costly wars and development of futuristic weapons systems; some wrung their hands in despair over insufficient funds to maintain basic infrastructure.

The Pentagon (another name for living-room elephant), on orders from the President, fights these costly offensive wars to defend “national security.” Coincidentally, some contractors become super wealthy and some military officials just grow rich.  God, invoked in war and when passing defense budgets, must have wanted it that way.