War profiteering is defined by Stuart Brandes in his book "Warhogs, a History of War Profits in America," as "a gain in economic well-being obtained as a result of military conflict."

As he shows, there is a long history of war profiteering in the United States and an equally long history of public disgust for it. One of the most quoted expressions of this disgust came from President Franklin D. Roosevelt in World War II: "I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster."

Brandes also notes there was a time when war was exceptional and war profiteering a nasty exceptional thing that accompanied it. But after World War II, the United States moved more and more to a status of permanent war.

In his new book "Washington Rules," former Army Col. Andrew Bacevich says a group of "semi-warriors" ... "some in uniform, others in suits," operators in the military-industrial complex, had by 1961 "gained de facto control of the U.S. government."

With this change, profiting from war has become permanent, so much a part of business life in the United States that it is accepted as normal. While US military people die in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan along with residents of those countries, the CEOs of US military suppliers receive personal incomes of millions of dollars a year.

This first article in the Calling Them Out series focuses on Steven R. Loranger, head of ITT Corporation, simply because his company is based in Westchester County, New York, where I live and because I heard of its work on bomb releases for drone aircraft.

Calling Them Out: War Profiteer Steven R. Loranger