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Gates On War
Two remarkable paragraphs from former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' recent memoir:
Wars are a lot easier to get into than out of. Those who ask about exit strategies or question what will happen if assumptions prove wrong are rarely welcome at the conference table when the fire-breathers are demanding that we strike—as they did when advocating invading Iraq, intervening in Libya and Syria, or bombing Iran's nuclear sites. But in recent decades, presidents confronted with tough problems abroad have too often been too quick to reach for a gun. Our foreign and national security policy has become too militarized, the use of force too easy for presidents.
Today, too many ideologues call for U.S. force as the first option rather than a last resort. On the left, we hear about the "responsibility to protect" civilians to justify military intervention in Libya, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere. On the right, the failure to strike Syria or Iran is deemed an abdication of U.S. leadership. And so the rest of the world sees the U.S. as a militaristic country quick to launch planes, cruise missiles and drones deep into sovereign countries or ungoverned spaces. There are limits to what even the strongest and greatest nation on Earth can do—and not every outrage, act of aggression, oppression or crisis should elicit a U.S. military response.
Gates is right. World opinion polls show that the U.S. is seen -by far- as the greatest threat to global peace. Being hooked on hegemony is expensive. But unless the consequences of that position become obvious to every voter in the United States that fact is unlikely to lead to a change of the general U.S. policy direction.
Equally interesting was Gates’s revelation that the White House is completely dominated by election strategists.
Gates says, and, of course he is not a very credible source, that he felt like resigning when he realised that the Pentagon’s views were not really wanted when the plan to “surge” 30,000 soldiers into Afghanistan was being discussed. Theirs but to do and die
The picture he paints of Obama seeing the disposition of forces not in military or strategic terms but solely for their impact on the media and the electorate, confirms what many have been saying about this administration’s amorality and indifference to any interests but those of its sponsors.
This is a government which is doing politically what the financiers have been doing to US industry for decades: piecing its assets off and selling them to the highest bidders. The military is being used not to secure any “national” interests- we understand that by national is meant that “of the ruling class”- but to serve as pawns in a board game played for control over Washington.
Control, that is, over the tollgates and checkpoints at which the lobbyists and their clients are relieved of a chunk of the ill-gotten gains they have extorted from a nation being devoured by parasites, of the sort beside which vampires pale.
Rowan @1, describes the system as being Military Keynesianism.
It is nothing of the sort: Keynes’s policies were designed to revive Capitalism by investing in job creation, infrastructural public works projects and the expansion of consumer demand in order to foster private investment.
Obama’s government has done just the opposite: public payrolls have been slashed in all the states, there has been minimal investment in infrastructure and consumer demand has been cut in many ways. Most notably, to take very recent examples, by cutting unemployment benefits and food stamps.
Everything that Keynes warned against, the Obama government, sponsored by rentiers and indifferent to any but the narrowest Wall Street interests, has done.
Far from being Keynesian it is just the latest in a series of administrations pursuing suicidal Chicago School policies which have reduced the US economy to a shadow of its former strength, while vastly increasing the wealth of the capitalist class.
As to the military, it is certainly true that the government continues to pour enormous amounts of money into military expenditure but, dollar for dollar, it produces very little in the way of employment. In fact it’s a system of welfare for the rich, a means of syphoning off the wealth of the people and natural resources into the bank accounts of a tiny -1%- caste which increasingly shows signs of being ready to join its money offshore at any sign of impending trouble.
It is becoming clear that, underlying the hegemony project of neo-con true believers, military men and others eager to rendezvous with manifest destiny, the real purpose of the Defense budget is to protect the 1% from Americans, partly by maintaining a continuous state of emergency- fuelled by provocations globally, daily- but much more by militarizing the police, building the Panopticon and suppressing all dissent and potential opposition.
As has been often noticed in the past the US government is on auto-pilot.
Unchallenged militarily, invulnerable strategically, it doesn’t need to develop a coherent foreign policy, so it doesn’t.
Instead it looks away from the frenetic activities of military adventurers of a dozen conflicting types, including the various factions within the armed services, the secret agencies and police forces, from the JSOC and CIA to the DEA and the Immigration department. And this is not to mention the growing list of attack dog allies such as France in West Africa, Japan in east Asia, Ethiopia in East Africa and of course Israel in the middle east who have realised that, while they retain the impunity that US alliance gives them, nobody in Washington cares what they do in the way of creating chaos and provoking war.
This is not the background against which an ambitious hegemon is preparing to polish off its last rivals but the smoke left by a gang of criminals setting fires to cover their retreat with the plunder.
A country whose ruling class is seriously seeking to expand its power abroad is not one whose industries are rotting like the atrophying muscles of a crippled champion.
It is one that puts great importance on building up its manpower. Rather than allowing millions to rot in unemployment it will win their loyalty by putting them to work in productive jobs. Or in conscripting them into its armed forces. It will put the national interest in an educated, skilled and confident population above that of sordid educational profiteers and third rate intellectual quacks.
Instead of allowing its people to become marginalized and alienated- a Fifth Column-as they prepare for a final foreign push for power, (after winning which they will have all the time in the world to claw back any concessions they might come to regret) they will pour resources into consolidating their military and political base, not a few hundred billionaires but hundreds of millions of citizens.
The US does none of these things. As it seeks full spectrum dominance globally it is indifferent to the implosion of its great cities and the rapid immiseration of its “middle class.”
The paradox is easily explained: there is no single serious government in Washington, just a bunch of chancers, emptying Fort Knox into waiting getaway cars, letting the military do as it wants, approving every contract, ignoring every audit, with no thought for the future beyond stocking their mansions and securing their boltholes. Plus, of course, those with no idea what is really going on.
Does anyone seriously imagine that a ruling class that has given up on the planet’s climate is ready to put in overtime and dip into its savings to take it over?
The truth is that while there is a traditionalist commitment to US hegemony, in Washington the smart, cynical money is on ripping off everything that isn’t nailed down and getting the hell out of Kansas while it is still there.
As Keynes said “ In the long run, we’re all dead.” And that’s what the Obamas and, for that matter Gates’, remember about that particular defunct economist.
Posted by: bevin | Jan 9 2014 3:10 utc | 24
Here’s FP’s article on Gates’ book. Reading through its links to MSM articles I get the impression Gates is not looking for a return to govt, but is rather trying to justify his fuck-ups while SecDef. Like a number of books from former W administration neocons, he is painting a picture of his role as restrained by his ‘known-knowns’ of WH staffers, cabinet members, VP, and O. Just another book to try to redefine his place in history, not as dishonest as Kissinger’s but better than Rumsfeld’s.
FP’s Situation Report: Pentagon’s Pete Lavoy: post-2014 Afg shouldn’t last long
By Gordon Lubold
Angry man unmasks himself: Bob Gates loathed Congress, despised Joe Biden and was dismayed at how candid Obama and Hillary Clinton were about the politics they played on the Iraq surge. Gates’ new book, “Duty,” leaked out in advance of next week’s release, shows just how angry he was in the job, working for a president he didn’t think trusted him or the military. Gates, a Republican, is soft on George Bush in many ways. But he’s highly critical of President Obama’s White House if not Obama himself — and harshes on Joe Biden as politically calculating whose instincts are completely off on almost all foreign policy and national security issues.
The WaPo’s Bob Woodward: “It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president. Gates’s severe criticism is even more surprising — some might say contradictory — because toward the end of “Duty,” he says of Obama’s chief Afghanistan policies, “I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.” That particular view is not a universal one; like much of the debate about the best path to take in Afghanistan, there is disagreement on how well the surge strategy worked, including among military officials.” More here.
The LA Times’ David Cloud: “By early 2010, Gates writes, a ‘chasm’ had opened between the White House and Pentagon leadership. He recalled moments of deep ‘anger,’ ‘frustration’ and even ‘disgust’ at the way advisors around Obama dealt with him and uniformed military officers. He recounts sitting in a White House meeting in March 2011 in which Obama sharply criticized Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander he had chosen to turn around the Afghan war, and voiced deep skepticism about working with Karzai.” More on LAT story here.
The NYT’s Thom Shanker: “Mr. Gates does not spare himself from criticism. He describes how he came to feel ‘an overwhelming sense of personal responsibility’ for the troops he ordered into combat, which left him misty-eyed when discussing their sacrifices — and perhaps clouded his judgment when coldhearted national security interests were at stake. Mr. Gates acknowledges that he initially opposed sending Special Operations forces to attack a housing compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding. Mr. Gates writes that Mr. Obama’s approval for the Navy SEAL mission, despite strong doubts that Bin Laden was even there, was ‘one of the most courageous decisions I had ever witnessed in the White House.'”
Quotable Gates on Joe Biden: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Gates on what Biden did to poison the military well: “I thought Biden was subjecting Obama to Chinese water torture, every day saying, ‘the military can’t be trusted.'”
On Obama’s approach to Afghanistan: “I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission.”
On Obama’s approach to Afghanistan: “I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions.”
On Obama and Bush: “It is difficult to imagine two more different men.”
On what he tried to do in “Duty:” “I have tried to be fair in describing actions and motivations of others.”
On his opaque style: “I have a pretty good poker face.”
On being SecDef: “The most gratifying experience of my life.”
On being SecDef: “People have no idea how much I detest this job.”
On Obama and Bush: “During my tenure as secretary, Bush was willing to disagree with his senior military advisers on the wars, including the important divergence between the chiefs’ concern to reduce stress on the force and the presidents’ higher priority of success in Iraq. However, Bush never (at least to my knowledge) questioned their motives or mistrusted them personally. Obama was respectful of senior officers and always heard them out, but he often disagreed with them and was deeply suspicious of their actions and recommendations. Bush seemed to enjoy the company of the senior military; I think Obama considered time spent with generals and admirals an obligation.”
On Obama as an ice man: “I worked for Obama longer than Bush and I never saw his eyes well up. The only military matter, apart from leaks, about which I ever sensed deep passion on his part was ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the law prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military that Obama successfully pushed to repeal.”
On an oval office meeting that deeply pissed him off: “…Donilon was especially aggressive in questioning our commitment to speed and complaining about how long we were taking. Then he went too far, questioning in front of the president and a room full of people whether Gen. Fraser was competent to lead this effort. I’ve rarely been angrier in the Oval Office than I was at that moment; nor was I ever closer to walking out of that historic room in the middle of a meeting. My initial instinct was to storm out, telling the president on the way that he didn’t need two secretaries of defense. It took every bit of my self discipline to stay seated on the sofa.”
Gates in his own words in the WSJ, here.
Gates in a neckbrace: From Politico’s Mike Allen’s Playbook: “Despite yesterday’s caustic leaks from his forthcoming memoir, Duty, former Secretary Gates will take a more reflective, contextual take about the President and Secretary Clinton on Monday, when he goes on ‘Today’ to begin a week of live interviews. Gates will say he believes Obama made the right strategic decisions on Afghanistan. Despite wearing a neck brace after a fall last week, Gates is keeping up a punishing book tour that includes ‘Morning Joe,’ ‘Charlie Rose,’ Jon Stewart, ‘Hannity,’ CNN and other stops.” More here.
Posted by: okie farmer | Jan 9 2014 3:25 utc | 26
Arianna Huffington Courts Global Elite in Effort to Undermine Alternative Media
Kurt Nimmo, Infowars, Jan 9 2014
Arianna Huffington is behind an effort to afford the 1%ers their own voice on a medium flooded with the dangerous political ideas of commoners. Huffington, who sold the Huffpo to media giant AOL, and in the process angered no shortage of starry-eyed leftists, has teamed up with billionaire Nicolas Berggruen to create World Post, a news and comment website. The site will use the same worker model as the Huffpo. It will exploit unpaid citizen journalists who will serve as bunting on a stage dominated by the likes of former British prime minister Tony Blair, Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Google’s Eric Schmidt. Huffington told the Grauan:
You can have all those heads of state and major business people, etcetera etcetera, writing right next to an unemployed man from Spain, a student from Brazil. The great heart of HuffPo is no hierarchy.
Huffington’s venture will receive an appropriate christening. It will be rolled out at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month. The Davos shindig holds a special place in the globalist constellation along with the G7, World Bank, WTO and IMF. The idea is to use the Huffpo model to get the global elite message to the masses. This is critically important now that the establishment’s dinosaur media is dying and millions of people are flocking to alternative media websites beyond the grasp of the corporate media. Berggruen predicted:
I think there will be a few media voices that really have weight and will survive but fewer and fewer.
The Huffpo venture arrives as a tidal wave of investment cash is being doled out to new media operations, most notably First Look Media, the news operation featuring journalist Glenn Greenwald financed by Pierre Omidyar, the eBay founder who bought Paypal. Omidyar will be on the World Post editorial board with a number of other major league news media corporatists, including Luis Cebrian, founding editor of El Pais, Dilip Padgaonkar, consulting editor of the Times of India, and Yoichi Funabashi, former editor-in-chief of Asahi Shimbun, a large Japanese newspaper that collaborated with the NYT. It is uncertain if the downtrodden and unpaid masses working for AOL-Huffpo will go along with the globalist plan to subvert alternative media. It is truly amazing so many supposedly progressive journalists and bloggers stuck around after Arianna sold them out in a deal with AOL back in 2011. Huffpo went on the block for a cool $315m and Arianna pocketed tens of millions, none of which, of course, she shared with her league of idealistic citizen journalists. It looks like the plantation model will continue with World Post. It is, of course, a model the global elite are comfortable with.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | Jan 10 2014 11:21 utc | 71
There is no sense in critiquing those who are endlessly critiqued by the powerful already of course. And though I am personally becoming increasingly ambivalent towards Greenwald’s seeming drift into the morally lukewarm waters of comfort and power, surely Greenwald risked a lot. Not as much as Snowden, but a lot. Not as much as Assange, who had a different, more combative, model, but a lot. Not as much as Manning, who has paid the ultimate price for her brave actions – and sadly had her trial ignored and overshadowed – but still, a lot. And the leaks are undoubtedly the most important exposure of criminal efforts by the US government since the flurry of Congressional Committees following the Viet Nam War and the death of J. Edgar Hoover. And they have obviously had enormous impact abroad – though their effects at home have been less clear. But that though, I suppose, is hardly Greenwald’s fault. That issue surely lies with our bought-and-paid-for congress-creeps who would gladly sell out the rest of us for a dull nickel.
Really, we have only to look at the real criminals for a split second to see how craven and revolting they are, comparing our well-founded grievances about their destruction of out basic Constitutional Rights with those of a child not wanting to take a bath!
General Alexander: “It’s like when you were younger — well, this is for boys,” he said. “You know, when you’re younger, you say, ‘I don’t want to take a bath.’ You say, ‘No, I’d never take a bath. Why would we want to take a bath?’ Well, you’ve got to take a bath, cleanliness, (et cetera). I said, ‘But isn’t there a better way?’ Well we don’t, so we had to take baths, right, or showers. What about here, what’s a better way to stop terrorists?”
And yes, these freaks are still discussing their attempts to stop the terrorist bogeymen from “getting us” while sending millions of dollars in aid to the same bogeyman’s hideouts in Syria – to better whip and behead her inhabitants with. These freaks are still discussing the “damage” the leaks have done to their supposed “effectiveness” (scare quotes required) as people attend their children’s funerals, weep for their lost loved ones, and learn to walk with prosthetics in Boston, Massachusetts. It is hard to imagine that we leave the prodigious power of our nation in the hands of such obvious pathological ignoramuses and outright monsters who have more to gain by allowing terrorist attacks than preventing them but we do. And that is the light in which any criticism of Greenwald should be viewed.
But all that said, there may be a danger in expecting too much from Greenwald, and maybe we should be asking more questions of one who has himself been handed so much power – first in the form of the leaks, and now in the form of the new media company and the millions attendant to it. We should, I think, begin to ask more of a man who seems to pride himself on being able to affably debate the servants of power – wether they be ones key to the mutilation of our public discourse like Bill Keller, or mindless toadies who can excuse or defend any type of elite malfeasance and murder like David Frum. Because of course it is easy to enjoy a good-natured debate with these fellows when you’re also granted paychecks via the same channels theirs come instead of being thrown in prison (real or practical, like Manning, Snowden, and Assange), or seeing your nation ripped to shreds (like journalists in the Third World) by, those whom one’s opponets slavishly defend in said mental chess matches. But where is the line between the social niceties, the increasingly bland interviews, and the gentlemanly conversation, and outright co-option?
But still something rare and brilliant has happened through the leaks – something extremely beneficial for the country and the world. And of course it is hard to get one’s head around what is actually coming out – especially since the media does their best to bury it. But the best source I know of is Wikileaks’ Free Snowden website which keeps a complete list of all the revelations and related documents as they come out. News on the “new venture” of Greenwald and Ebay Billionaire Omidyar, so far unseen, can be found here at the Omidyar Group’s website. And so we hope that Greenwald will do justice to the precious information he has been handed – precious because it is, above all, the property of the people of the United States, and more so because it is a key ingredient in the antidote to the deadly rattlesnake bite the fascist security state has put on all of us.
Posted by: guest77 | Jan 11 2014 19:13 utc | 83
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