CIA Analyst Says: Gates is the Wrong Man to Replace Rumsfeld!

[KoKo]

In his previous positions at the CIA and the NSC, Mr. Gates earned a reputation as a micromanager (a trait he shares with Mr. Rumsfeld), lacking confidence in his subordinates and immersing himself in the minutiae of decision-making. This will not work in the Pentagon, the most powerful and difficult department in Washington's vast national security empire. He presumably would want to replace the senior civilian leadership that has earned the scorn of the uniformed military, and he will need a great deal of time to get up to speed on such difficult issues as Iran, North Korea and weapons procurement - let alone the challenges of the Iraq war.

Nearly two years ago, Mr. Gates turned down the position of director of national intelligence because of the endemic problems of the intelligence community. Now he would confront the even more serious problem of managing a $450 billion defense budget and the service rivalries in the Pentagon.

Finally, it is particularly troubling that President Bush, who marched this country into an unnecessary and costly war on the basis of specious and even fabricated intelligence, is turning to Mr. Gates, who has a reputation for politicizing intelligence. This suggests that the president is not open to real change with respect to Iraq; instead, he is circling the wagons with another loyal and obedient subordinate who will not question the wisdom of the pre-emptive use of military force in Iraq or the wisdom of pursuing "victory" in Iraq.

In appointing Mr. Gates to head the Pentagon, Mr. Bush is running the risk of further poisoning the tense atmosphere at the Department of Defense. It is up to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to look past Mr. Gates' glittery résumé and to assess whether he has acquired the maturity and integrity to manage the huge military bureaucracy.

Much more at........ http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.gates10nov10,0,3393156.story

Melvin A. Goodman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, was an analyst at the CIA from 1966
to 1990.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Everybody Shrub knows is the wrong person to replace Rummy.

[luckyleftyme2]

2. THIS COULD BE TRUE

Gates is envolved with the baker team,most of bakers team are bush's dads crew. So where is the change in strategy? There will be none;it will simply be a smokescreen to drag out the war in IRAQ!
thousands more will die. its time to shit or get off the pot.

[Sadie5]

3. Iran Contra

When I heard that he was part of Iran Contra and there was insufficient evidence to charge him I was against his appointment.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Next up: Ollie North, I spose.

All the rest of them are there already.

[Disturbed]

5. It will be interesing to see how many Dems and which ones

vote for this guy.

[formercia]

8. It's all they know

Their operation is so corrupt that they can't afford an outsider to become privy.

[Peace Patriot]

6. $600 million in military aid to Columbia this year alone ($1.5 billion total)

and the Bush Cartel is purchasing a 200,000 acre enclave in Paraguay, a weak country ('easy pickins' for the Bushites), where Plan Columbia is already on the move. The Bush Junta also played fast and free with our tax money in building a state-of-the-art military air base in Paraguay. They're also re-starting training of Latin American fascist military groups in torture and assassination of peasants and leftists. Maybe this is where Rumsfeld is headed--to capitalize on the zillions in U.S. taxpayer funds already used to build up fascist forces in the Andes region, and launch a private corporate war against surrounding democracies. First stop: Bolivia. New socialist president, Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia, opposed the murderous U.S. "war on drugs" during his campaign; he got elected after a big, peoples' uprising against Bechtel Corp. (--which had privatized the water in one Bolivian city and jacked up the prices to the poor, even charging poor peasants for collecting rainwater! --the Bolivians threw Bechtel out of their country.) Also Peru, where a leftist candidate, also 100% indigenous, Ollanta Humala, came out of nowhere and almost won the presidential election this year. (He'll be back.) Ecuador, where a socialist is in the lead. And, of course, Venezuela, where the Bushites have tried a violent military coup and other dirty deeds, and failed to destroy Venezuelan democracy or Chavez. Lots and lots of oil, gas, minerals, timber, clean water and other resources in the Andes region, and these resources must not fall into the hands of the people of these countries, to be used for their benefit, as we have learned.

I'm still worried about these Navy maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean, where a "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident could so easily be cooked up, to plunge the U.S. into war with Iran. I don't think we have a strong enough Congress--truly representative of the SEVENTY PERCENT of the American people who oppose the Iraq War and Bush, and the EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT who oppose any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast War--not to be sucked in. Even people like Murtha (well, maybe not him). But there are plenty of "Bushite Democrats" (like the ones who voted for torture and suspension of habeas corpus a few weeks ago), who could act as block of pro-war swing votes, to go along with another charade. Maybe Iraq doesn't matter much any more. It has created the conditions of chaos in which the PNAC plan can easily be implemented by stealth. I wouldn't bet on PNAC being dead.

But I think the focus may shift from destroying Middle East countries for their oil, to destroying South American democracies for their politics, in order to re-open them to global corporate predators, for resource extraction and slave labor, and rule by corrupt rich elites. Also, if the situation in the Middle East deteriorates sufficiently (from the Bush Junta/Corporatists point of view), they will be in particular need of South American oil, and there is lots of it in Venezuela oil (where we get 15% of our oil already). Destroying the Chavez government, and getting control of that spigot, and a bigger cut of the profits, may be a priority. Iraq is a disaster area. Iran would be costly and very tricky in the current political climate. Sticking to this hemisphere and securing all of its resources for the corporate profiteers might be the best course, for now.

Gates would be the right fit for either of these agendas, or both. But I fail to see where the money's going to come from, for a war on Iran. Or the troops. We're $10 TRILLION in debt, our future mortgaged for many decades to come. The Bushites have stolen so much money, they may be able to lay waste to the Andes with the money they've already spent plus multi-billions stashed away in the Cayman Islands, and all the mercenaries that can buy. But the Mideast? There will have to be a military Draft, for one thing. And the trick they play to get us into it will have to be very clever to succeed in the face of 84% opposition at home. But how to make us pay for Exxon-Mobile & brethren to get their filthy hands on all that oil? I dunno. Of course there's that minimum wage hike the Democrats are going to push through. It will provide more Social Security funds to borrow against. And if the Dems nibble at the rich tax cuts a bit, there's that.

Naw, they're going to have to wait on Iran, I think--until a Democratic president makes some headway on the deficit, starts putting things right, at least heading in the right direction (toward the black). Then they can loot that.

South America it is. For now.

[williesgirl]

7. Recommended - he should NOT be confirmed.

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. We are not going to get someone we want. W is "The Decider"

Personally, since Gates is alligned with Bush the Elder, and since most of Bush the Elder's Foreign policy team opposed much of the neocon fiasco, I consider us lucky that someone like Gates was the pick. My best hope for keeping George W. Bush from getting us into another war is that he turns to Daddy to save his ass. Bush Senior had enough sense not to take out Hussein the first time. Maybe, just maybe, if some less than crazy advice gets pitched to W from a real family loyalist, he will actually accept some of it. I find it extremely unlikely that W would nominate anyone better than Gates, and Democrats can only consider someone he nominates.

[Norquist Nemesis]

10. Until Bush changes the policy, everything is the same

It's not going to matter who is SecDef or SecState. The policy is at Bush's feet...you know, The Decider.