Yes, everything Obama does is OK. Yes, I will attack anyone who criticizes our Lard and Savour, Barrack Obama. Yes, I am a cult member, with no original thought of my own.
Are you happy, now? Can you go to RedState, now? Or maybe start an analogous website where shit like this passes for analysis? We could call it "BlueState." Because dKOS doesn't need its own "Operation Leper." That's how freepers operate, which is why they are a massive blog FAIL sandwich.
Gates is not Brennan. Gates is not Lieberman. There is an argument for Gates' retention (and also a rational, if somewhat frivolous, argument for opposing it). Ironically enough, those who are accusing us of being thoughtless aren't talking about these arguments very much. I am accustomed to freepers avoiding rational argument by spending all their time insinuating things about their interlocutor. Sadly, the right has no monopoly on the "attacking the bias" fallacy. I can see the sense of Gates' retention, which apparently means that the progressive blogsphere was all a lie or has come to a sad end. Or something.
Meanwhile, I seem to remember that Robert Gates was not one of Bush's mandarins. He did not stick to the talking points. He did not come across as yet another damned tobacco lawyer. I remember being amazed that someone like Gates was in the Bush administration.
In fact, the "so-called 'progressive netroots'" has been noticing this about Gates for years, so I would expect anyone who is familiar with the "so-called 'progressive netroots'" to know that.
Just to keep this simple, I searched only two blogs: TPM and Yglesias.
On Gates' nomination:
TPM - 11/16/06:
according to John Deutch, director of central intelligence and a deputy secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton, in a November 15, 2006 New York Times op-ed:
....In particular, we must take a new approach to Iran....Two years ago, Mr. Gates and the national security adviser in the Carter administration, Zbigniew Brzezinski, led a Council on Foreign Relations committee that recommended a more active approach to Iran centered on a "compartmentalized process of dialogue, confidence building and incremental engagement." Mr. Gates’s work on the committee demonstrated his pragmatic approach to foreign policy and his ability to work effectively with those of differing ideologies.
...a few will raise questions, based on Mr. Gates’s involvement in the Iran-contra affair, about his ability to control covert operations. In this, I have full confidence in Mr. Gates’s judgment. When I was the C.I.A. chief, my job was made easier by the way Mr. Gates had structured the partnership between the directorate of operations and the directorate of intelligence during his tenure in order to ensure that operations were launched only after disciplined analytic thinking of consequences.
To President Bush, for his choice of Robert Gates, I say "bravo," a word I’ll bet he has not heard a lot recently. Congress should confirm the nominee promptly, thank him for his willingness to serve, and tell him we expect great results.
On The Surge™:
TPM - 11/38/06:
By Josh Marshall
Gates lacking the urge to surge? This is interesting. In yesterday's New York Sun, Eli Lake reports that Sec Def Robert Gates is actually quietly opposing President Bush's plan to escalate the conflict by adding 30,000 to 50,000 more troops to crush the Mahdi Army and other Shi'a militias in and around Baghdad.
This would hardly be surprising, if true, since Gates, as recently as November, was a member of the Iraq Study Group and clearly on board with its policy of -- albeit slow -- disengagement.
On shutting up the troops:
Deanie Mills at TPM - 5/4/07:
Sometimes Even the Army Goes Too Far--and Backtracks!
UPDATE:
It seems that one of the Army Majors who worked on the restrictive new regulations on blogging and Internet use has begun to back off a bit from their earlier, all-or-nothing stance.
In an interview he gave the AP, "Soldiers Face Punishment Over Blogs," (if my link doesn't go through, you can find it at Truthout.org), Army Major Ray M. Ceralde, said that, well, the soldiers wouldn't have to clear EVERY posting with their commanders.
"Not only is it impractical, but we are trusting the soldiers to protect critical information," he said.
He also said there would be "no effort" to block soldiers from setting up or commenting on blogs, and that e-mail would be excluded because:
"Soldiers have a right to private communications with their families."
Indeed.
Otherwise, they're leaving it up to individual commanders to be more restrictive of combat blogging, as they see fit.
Here's why I find this interesting.
In one of the postings I was reading on this subject, and I can't remember which one now so can't supply a link, I remember reading that the new Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, had started a policy of inviting combat bloggers to participate in conference calls with Pentagon high-ranking officers involved in war-planning.
Hmmm.
Seems like the new guy ain't Rummy, and he kinda liked those guys telling the truth.
So somebody, somewhere, but the kabosh on the Nazi-style effort to control information on the Internet.
I'd kinda like to think it's the guy who handed my son his degree from Texas A&M. It would be a sort of poetic justice, don't you think?
More The Surge™ Goodness:
Steve Benen at TPM - 6/9/07:
Mullen on surge
With Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Mullen replacing Gen. Peter Pace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Wall Street Journal noticed an interesting trend among top military officials.
Adm. Mullen, like many of his four-star colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was skeptical of the decision to send additional U.S. troops into Iraq.
This comes on the heels of Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute's admission that he, too, registered his opposition to the president's surge policy.
And that came on the heels of Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressing his own opposition to the surge.
On Hillary and "aid and comfort to the enemy":
TPM - 7/20/07:
By David Kurtz
In response to our inquiries, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has issued a statement responding to the uproar over the letter from Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman to Sen. Hillary Clinton condemning her for reinforcing "enemy propaganda." Says Gates:
I have long been a staunch advocate of Congressional oversight, first at the CIA and now at the Defense Department. I have said on several occasions in recent months that I believe that congressional debate on Iraq has been constructive and appropriate. I had not seen Senator Clinton’s reply to Ambassador Edelman’s letter until today. I am looking into the issues she raised and will respond to them early next week.
I'd stop short of calling that a rebuke to Edelman, but just barely short. Greg, who has been dogging this story for the last couple of days, has more at Election Central.
On Iran, one of Yglesias' readers led me to this:
Justin Raimundo, citing NYT 2/11/08
Leaving the realm of speculation, and entering the region of hard facts: our
own National Intelligence Estimate on Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons
program shows that the Iranians had a weapons program that they abandoned:
"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear
weapons program." While keeping the option open, the Iranian regime has
not restarted its nuclear program, according
to our spooks, and probably could not iron out all the technical problems
and hoarding of nuclear materials until at least 2015 – and even then there
is no evidence Tehran has any such intention.
The NIE was issued last year around this time, and afterward Robert Gates
spoke
to the New York Times Magazine:
"One afternoon in late November, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was
flying back to Washington from the Army base at Fort Hood, Tex., where he had
spoken with soldiers and spouses about the future of Iraq. Sitting across from
him at his desk in the back of the Pentagon's jet, I asked him about the possibility
of another military conflict: U.S. air strikes on Iran. ‘The last thing the
Middle East needs now is another war,' he said quietly. ‘We have to keep all
options on the table,' he went on, reciting the standard caveat. ‘But if Iraq
has shown us anything, it's the unpredictability of war. Once a conflict starts,
the statesmen lose control.'"
Of Sticks and Carrots (already discussed in this thread):
Frank Heckley at Yglesias - 11/11/08:
Your idea of "a US Army more oriented to selectively playing a constructive role in other people’s conflicts around the world" is basically what Thomas PM Barnett is pushing for; he calls it the "SysAdmin" force (in contrast to the traditional high-tech "Leviathan" force).
Regarding your question, "is the marginal dollar of defense spending more useful than a marginal dollar of civilian development assistance, of a beef-ed up foreign service, of enhanced domestic infrastructure spending?", I think you will also find Barnett in sympathy with you there, not to mention Secretary of Defense Robert Gates himself; see in particular his Gates’s Landon Lecture from about a year ago:
"What is clear to me is that there is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security – diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development. ... We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military, beyond just our brave soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen. We must also focus our energies on the other elements of national power that will be so crucial in the coming years."
It’s this kind of thinking that has Barnett and others pushing the idea of Obama retaining Gates for at least a year or two more.
More on Carrots:
Yglesias - 11/30/07
Robert Gates is Making Sense
Via Mark Goldberg, it looks like Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is making the sensible suggestion that our funding priorities shouldn’t tilt so dramatically in favor of the Defense Department, "Funding for non-military foreign-affairs programs has increased since 2001, but it remains disproportionately small relative to what we spend on the military and to the importance of such capabilities."
He makes a whole bunch of good points, and it’s genuinely rare in Washington to see anyone suggest that any other agency’s mission is important and deserves more money. That said, this is still in the "talk as cheap" neighborhood. Rare as it is to see someone suggest that someone else’s budget ought to be higher, it’s by the same token very easy to suggest that someone’s else’s budget ought to be cut to increase spending elsewhere. What would be really revolutionary would be a Secretary of Defense who not only recognized the point Gates is making here, but who was willing to see the needed money come out of the Pentagon’s pocket. Until that time comes, we’ll need to rely on Lawrence Korb and his Unified Security Budget for the United States reports:
The shift recommended in this report—$56 billion in cuts to spending on offense and $50 billion in additional spending on defense and prevention—would convert a highly militarized 9-to–1 security ratio into a better balance of 5-to-1.
In the real world, no proposals of this sort are going to go anywhere unless Democrats are provided with substantial political "cover" by Republicans, so it probably does all hinge on whether or not people like Gates are willing to follow their insights where they lead instead of just vaguely suggesting that the State Department needs more capabilities. Still, this is a definite sign of progress.
On Talking to the Enemy:
Gates and Petraeus Agree with Obama on Negotiations
October 9, 2008, 1:17AM
In comments that are sure to be repeated by the Obama campaign, Gen. David Petraeus said Wednesday that negotiations with the Taliban could be the key to success in Afghanistan."I do think you have to talk to enemies, " Petraeus said when asked about dialogue with the Taliban.Earlier in the week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates took a similar stance saying, "Part of the solution is reconciliation with people who are willing to work with the Afghan government going forward."
That, dear Kossacks, is just a small sample of what the "so-called 'progressive netroots'" has been saying about Robert Gates ... FOR TWO YEARS, so it's just plain stupid to pretend now that the man is like kryptonite to our values.
Look, I doubt he'll stay on very long (because it appears he doesn't want to), but in the meantime, there's continuity on a sticky issue AND Obama is rewarding a non-idiot, non-ideologue. By the same token, I'd like to see Obama's Justice Dept. hire back those fired prosecutors, even though they're Republicans. Their professionalism got them in trouble, which makes them martyrs to meritocracy. Sri Darwin looks down and smiles.
Yglesias tackled this whole thing a couple of weeks ago:
Gates and the Pragmatists
As Josh Marshall indicates, you need to understand talk of keeping Robert Gates on as Defense Secretary in the broader context of an effort to coopt the pragmatic realist wing of the GOP (for which "Scowcroft" is a good shorthand) and bring it into Obama’s coalition. I wrote my post-election column about this last week.
But here’s the nickle version. What you don’t want to do is "move to the center" on national security issues with Gates on board as a bipartisan token of said centrism. What you want to do is redefine the center away from the neocon / liberal hawk center that dominated public debate in 2002-2005 in favor of a new progressive / realist center that’s prepared to undertake bold regional diplomacy aimed not only at extricating ourselves from Iraq, but also achieving diplomatic breakthroughs with Iran and Syria and making progress on Israel/Palestine issues.
During the 2008 presidential election, the "center" was already being defined. Obama and Maliki ambushed the president on withdrawal and timelines, and Bush had to "surrender," leaving McCain all alone on his Iraq-4-evah plan.
It's already begun.
But, if we insist on seeing everything through the lens of ideology, we're going to miss the point, which may explain why some are resorting to the "attacking the bias" fallacy so common to rightwing polemic in this country. I don't buy into the Gates hysteria.
The problem we had with the right wasn't their ideology, because they never implemented it. Instead, their political approach was to lay down withering suppressing fire to cover for the looting of a first-world economy. They called themselves conservatives, but their organization was Marxist-Leninist: total top-down control by a vanguard, and absolute zero-tolerance for deviation from lip service to ideology.
I think this kerfuffle is yet another example of the fans gambling with the coach's chips (so sue me, it's another football metaphor). The purists want to see the slate wiped clean, with everyone who'd participated in Bush's Lost Decade exiled to the wilderness. This is naïve. You can either bring Gates into the fold, with his connections, thus isolating the rest of the neocons, or you can leave this paleocon foreign policy apparatus to make up with the neocons. What center of gravity are Gates' critics aiming for? Near as I can tell, this hasn't even occurred to them.
Obama took a lot of crap from the right for being willing to talk to our enemies if it's to our advantage, and here he is taking friendly fire for being willing to do the same thing with some of our domestic opponents. The fundamental strategic plan for any operation is to attach yourself to as many centers of power while denying them to your enemies.
Which do you want: competence or revenge? Strategy or purity?
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