In the early 2000s, I was a poster boy for AIPAC’s campus initiative. Not only was I one of the pro-Israel organization’s few dozen summer interns, I was one of just two asked to sit on the board as a campus representative.

My involvement taught me about the overlapping worlds of pro-Israel advocacy and the US foreign policy establishment. During my AIPAC days I introduced prominent Iraq War hawk Charles Krauthammer at a major gathering. I did book research for “war on terror” enthusiast Jonah Goldberg and befriended neoconservatives like David Horowitz. My summer intern class included the son of convicted felon Scooter Libby, an influential adviser to Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and was chock full of young people exhibiting promise not only in pro-Israel activism but status quo “national security” polemics. Many were already affiliated with (or seeking employment with) think tanks and other institutions fully integrated into what has become known as the “foreign policy blob.”

Later, I joined the Marines and served in the Afghanistan War during one of its most violent moments. It was during that time I realized, in the words of fellow Marine Smedley Butler, that the war machine is a “racket.”