Who should Kerry pick as Sec of Defense?

[DaveSZ]

I'd go with Bob Kerrey or Max Cleland myself.

:)

I think someone who has been to a war that was a mistake should hold that position.

[still_one]

1. Wesley Clark

[JI7]

2. he can't be sec of defense

one has to be out of the military for at least 10 years i believe before they can be sec of defense.

[unblock]

4. really? was that true for powell?

[punpirate]

6. Powell is Secretary of State....

They wanted him in.

[Pepperbelly]

18. who sez?

Seriously, I have heard this so much that i took it to be true but have been able to find nothing anywhere that actually indicates that it is true.

Do you happen to have this on authority and if you do, what authority is it and do you have a link?

[Dookus]

21. Here a citation

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/10/113.html

Sec. 113. - Secretary of Defense


(a)

There is a Secretary of Defense, who is the head of the Department of Defense, appointed from civilian life by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. A person may not be appointed as Secretary of Defense within 10 years after relief from active duty as a commissioned officer of a regular component of an armed force.

[Pepperbelly]

23. thanx ...

I had heard it and heard it and heard it but had never seen the citation.

[HawkerHurricane]

69. Hey, that means I'm eligible!

Since I was never 'a officer' and certainly never a 'gentleman'.

[Jai4WKC08]

38. No link, but here's the ref... you should be able to google

Title 10, Subtitle A, Part I,
Chapter 2, subsection 113 - The Secretary of Defense states that:

"(a) There is a Secretary of Defense, who is the head of the Department of Defense, appointed from civilian life by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. A person may not be appointed as Secretary of Defense within 10 years after relief from active duty as a commissioned officer of a regular component of an armed force."

My understanding is that this was passed in 1947. Since then, one exception has been granted--retured Generak George Marshall was appointed as SecDef in 1950 for one year. But, unlike other cabinet appointments, it took both houses of Congress to grant the exception.

[Sparkly]

50. So let's take back both houses

and it's a slam-dunk!

Seriously, I'd like General Clark to have whatever position he wants -- he is so needed now. (In my view, he'd be a dynamite Secretary of State.)

[fujiyama]

3. Bob Kerrey

That might be an interesting pick. However, he did unfortunately support the Iraq war.

There are several I would consider. Bob Graham might be a decent choice.

[MoonRiver]

5. Has Admiral Zinni been out of the military 10 years?

[punpirate]

7. Doubt this would be any consideration...

... but I'd like to see anyone with a strong determination to avoid war and contract the worldwide military presence of the US. No point in calling it the Department of Defense when it can't protect the country within its borders and is used almost exclusively for extra-territorial offensive operations.

[RC]

11. Go back to calling it the 'War Department'

In reality that is what it is used for.

[Hippo_Tron]

31. In all seriousness, now that we have homeland security we might as well

The military do some work directly protecting the US from invasion but not much considering that it's not a real threat.

[RoeBear]

8. Rumsfield!

Tee-Hee.

[WI_DEM]

9. yes, Max Cleland!!

[olddem43]

10. But, but, but is he patriotic enough?

[Pepperbelly]

12. Where does this "10 years out of miltary" come from?

I have looked high and low and have found nothing that substantiates this assertion. Does anyone know?

Is it real or is it an urban myth?

[Dookus]

22. it's real

see post 21 above.

It's a good law - helps ensure true civilian control over the military.

[Pepperbelly]

24. okay but today ...

isn't that civilian control what has caused us the problems we are having today?

:evilgrin:

They don't get more civilian than this crew of chickenhawks.

[quaoar]

13. I predict

Kerry will pick McCain.

And I think it would be a good choice. Kerry will want to reach out and pick a Republican or two for the cabinet. He does want to try to end the bitterness.

McCain is a deficit hawk and God knows the Pentagon needs that. And naming him opens a GOP Senate seat to be filled by Arizona's Democratic governor.

[gristy]

14. Hmmm. Those are some pretty good reasons.

But McCain's overt support for Cheney and Bush over the years (and Cheney just this past week) may be a show-stopper.

[quaoar]

15. He's being loyal to his party

Without being critical of Kerry or Edwards.

[DarthDem]

34. Cleland Is My Choice . . . .

. . . because the man, a national hero, deserves to have a role in national politics after the legendary voters of rural Georgia bought into a baseless, criminally disgusting smear and voted him out in favor of Chickenhawk Chambliss.

However, if McCain would take the job, give it to him, because it helps us with Senate control. Napolitano could probably come up with a good successor who would stand a chance of holding the seat for us.

I also like Carl Levin, but even though we wouldn't lose a seat, I really think we need him in the Senate. Hey, perhaps John Warner would take the job? Heh. Another scenario where we pick up a seat.

Considering the games * played with his cabinet, filling it with African-American window dressing like Powell (marginally qualified) and Condi (totally unqualified), and doling out seats to Senate losers Fascroft and Abraham, I don't think a "strategic" pick would be out of line. However, Cleland would probably be very good at it and I think he should be selected.

[leyton]

36. Would McCain accept?

The man can do more from the Senate than from the Pentagon. I think he is a bit too loyal (in his own maverickish way) to the GOP to take the position, and it would also mean that when Kerry either lost re-election or finished his second term, he'd be without an office. I think he would be smarter to stay in the Senate.

[Myrina]

42. You stole my answer !!

:yourock:

[Zhade]

43. Oh, yes, let's pick a neocon booster for our SoD.

Jesus Christ. It's bad enough people deny Kerry and Edwards' votes for the IWR for what they were, now people want an unabashed pro-invasion SoD?

Has this country gone completely mad?

[mzmolly]

16. I heard Graham has a high level position with the campaign.

Kerry came close to choosing him, and told him that he would like Graham to remain heavilly involved? Don't recall the specifics.

[Radical Activist]

17. Howard Zinn

He's a war veteran and might add a slightly different perspective to the office, to put it mildly. :D

[JustinF]

39. I think Stan Goff would be the ideal progressive choice

He has been in the military for decades. He has seen the ravages of U.S. foreign policy first hand. His latest book, Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century should be the bible for all future military leaders.

Book Description
Stan Goff combines a spellbinding, first-person account of military maneuvers with a radical interpretation of American foreign policy. Drawing on his Delta Force and Army Ranger experiences, which took him from the invasions of Panama and Haiti to army training grounds in Colombia and South Korea, he depicts the new "American Empire" as over-reliant on technology, ignorant of the lessons of history, and backward in the stereotyping of other countries.

[JustinF]

19. Bob Kerrey is a war criminal

He should be in prison.

[Pepperbelly]

20. you are very mistaken ...

it is George W. Bush who is a war criminal and should be in prison.

Just thought I'd clear that up for you.

[IndianaGreen]

28. Bob Kerrey admitted to war crimes in Vietnam

Kerrey was part of the Phoenix program.

[Pepperbelly]

33. Are you saying that ...

he said, "I am guilty of war crimes" or are you saying that he said that he was part of the Phoenix Program and you drew the inferrence that he was ergo a war criminal?

[JustinF]

37. I wonder why googling "Bob Kerrrey" and "massacre" gets so many results..

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22bob+kerrey%22+AND+%22massacre%22

[Pepperbelly]

40. because all it takes to make an allegation is a computer and ...

a desire.

The usual suspects.

The same ones that accused Clark of being a war criminal.

I would be far more impressed if we had more specifics, such as the evening outside that village, the one Kerrey said he regretted. I heard the story. Didn't sound like a war crime to me. Sounded like the kind of shit that sometimes happens without intent, things tumbling out of control.

And of course, I do trust that you understand the difference between an allegation and a fact although I am confused why you trotted out allegations rather than facts.

[JustinF]

54. It isn't allegations

If you read the articles that I linked to and that others have posted here it would be obvious to you what Kerrey did was a war crime.

John Kerry also committed war crimes while in Vietnam by his own admission.

And Wesley Clark WAS partially responsible for the atrocities committed in the attack on Yugoslavia.

But hey, who really cares? They're Democrats! They should be able to get away with a war crime or two.

It's not as if they did something as sinful as say, running on the Green Party ticket. Now THAT'S the kind of thing that someone deserves to be ostracized for. I don't care about some thirty year old massacre as long as the guy who did it is checking the box next to the (D).

[Pepperbelly]

60. Were you present at Thanh Phong?

I was not.

I have read the accounts of those who were and came away without a clear picture of the facts. Every account had inconsistencies.

What happened was a tragedy but by any standard of evidence in which the accused is allowed to defend against the allegations, it was not a war crime.

[IndianaGreen]

62. Were you in MI?

Were you even around when the shit hit the fan about the Phoenix program? The regular army was so pissed at the Green Berets for their role in Phoenix that they put a regular army guy in charge of all Green Berets in Vietnam. The Green Berets that were involved in Phoenix behaved as assassins, not soldiers. I suspect the same could be said for the SEALS.

War crimes are not excused by a "D" after a man's name.

[IndianaGreen]

41. He had command responsibility over the actions of his SEAL team

as such, he was responsible for the killings of civilians that took place under his command.

We hung General Yamashita for the same thing at the end of WWII.

[Zhade]

44. Don't confuse them with the facts.

Kerrey - war criminal, friend to neocons who worked with them on the CLI, yet some want to excuse him.

And people wonder why many Dems go along with war crimes.

The ignorance is astounding.

[IndianaGreen]

45. It is a fact, Kerrey should have been court martialed!

Instead, Kerrey and his unit were decorated for gallantry against the enemy, except for the minor detail that the "enemy" were villagers that were killed in cold blood.

Robert Kerrey and the bloody legacy of Vietnam
By Patrick Martin and David North
4 May 2001

Former US Senator Robert Kerrey, newly inaugurated as the president of the New School University, one of the most prestigious positions in American academia, has admitted participating in a death squad attack on a Vietnamese village 32 years ago, in which he and six soldiers under his command killed 21 women, children and elderly men.

Kerrey held a press conference April 26 in New York City, after the text of an upcoming article in the New York Times magazine was made public and widely distributed over the Internet. The article, written by Gregory Vistica, became the cover story of the April 29 issue of the magazine. The issue was explored as well in the Sixty Minutes II program broadcast on CBS television the night of May 1. CBS and the Times jointly backed the investigation, which Vistica initially began for Newsweek magazine in 1998.

There is little dispute about the main lines of the events of February 25, 1969 in the tiny Mekong Delta hamlet of Thanh Phong. Kerrey's seven-man unit of Navy SEALS entered Thanh Phong for the purpose of murdering the mayor of the village, who was targeted by the US command because he was believed to be an active supporter of the National Liberation Front (“Viet Cong”). The village was in the heart of an NLF-controlled region where neither US forces nor those of the Saigon puppet government normally ventured except in daylight and in overwhelming force.

In the course of the nighttime assault, the American raiders killed every Vietnamese they encountered—men, women, children. They used every weapon in their arsenal, from knives to rifles and grenades to light anti-tank weapons, expending more than 1,200 rounds of ammunition on a village where only a few dozen people lived.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/may2001/kerr-m04.shtml

[IndianaGreen]

47. Who Made Bob Kerrey Do It? (Thanh Phong massacre)

I would not call it a war crime. To describe it as an atrocity, I would say, is pretty close to being right, because that's how it felt. —Bob Kerrey, CBS-TV's 60 Minutes II: "Memories of a Massacre," May 1


Nat Hentoff

Who Made Bob Kerrey Do It?
Gerhard Klann: ‘We Just Slaughtered Them’
May 18th, 2001 4:45 PM

Soon after The New York Times Magazine and 60 Minutes II focused on the sharply dissonant stories of what happened in the Vietnamese village of Thanh Phong on a dark night in 1969, there were pickets outside New School University—Robert Kerrey, president—on West 12th Street.

They were from the Internationalist Group, part of the League for the Fourth international—in short, Trotskyites. Amid the shouts, they distributed a flyer with the headline:

"Drive Out War Criminal Bob Kerrey! He Should Be Brought to Justice by a Court of His Surviving Victims in Ho Chi Minh City!"

But now, the pickets gone, Kerrey is off the front pages, as well as the inside ones, and his name is seldom heard on talk radio or television.

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0121/hentoff.php

[Pepperbelly]

61. see my #60. Also ...

Lanh changed aspects of his story later on.

I cannot say what happened because I wasn't there. I submit that if one was not there, it will not be possible to discern the truth because not only do the statements conflict, each statement conflicts with its own self and some have been changed as time went on.

War crime? Only if you do not allow the accused a defense.

[IndianaGreen]

63. Neither of us were in Iraq during this war

does that mean that war crimes have not taken place?

How about the Holocaust? We weren't there? Does that deny its reality?

[newyawker99]

32. Hi JustinF!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[quam]

25. Sam Nunn?

His bio

"served as a United States Senator from Georgia for 24 years from 1972 to 1996...."

"served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the permanent Subcommittee on Investigations...."

"achievements include the landmark Department of Defense Reorganization Act, drafted with the late Senator Barry Goldwater, and the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, also known as the Nunn-Lugar program...."

"Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative...."

[IndianaGreen]

27. He is also as big a homophobe as Rick Sanctorum

No thanks!

[IndianaGreen]

26. Hopefully he will pick someone that is NOT former military

they make lousy SecofDef.

I also hope that Kerry won't repeat Clinton's mistake and appoint an idiot like Les Aspin.

Long term, I would like to see the role of the services Secretaries being given some real muscle, as they used to prior to the Cold War. Civilian control of the military has been undermined over the years, mostly by having civilians with connections to the military-industrial complex in key Pentagon positions coupled with military leaders retiring and going to work for defense industries.

Dick Cheney was actually a very good manager when he was at the Pentagon, he brought high-caliber people like Sean O'Keefe (the current NASA chief) and he implemented several business reforms. Al Gore had a great idea in his National Performance Review, which was actually across the government not just in the Pentagon. Too bad that what Gore started was not followed by the idiots currently in charge.

Rumsfeld is a crook, a war criminal, and he is totally insane!

[Hippo_Tron]

29. See, I disagree there

Remember that the sec. of defense not only runs the pentagon, but is also one of the key advisors to the president in foreign policy. I think that the sec of defense should have served in the military to know the consequences of war so he can advise the president with them in mind. Granted, Kerry has been in combat before and knows the consequences of war pretty damn well, so maybe a civillian sec of defense would work alright for his administration.

[liberalitch]

30. Me...

I'd work really hard.

[Zhade]

35. FUCK Kerrey!

He was (is?) on the Committee For The Liberation of Iraq.

Have you seen the members of that group? PACKED with neocons.

HELL NO on Kerrey!

[otohara]

46. I Second That!

he's over-rated and a war criminal

[yelladawg]

48. It would be Clark for me

It's time to load the cabinet up with the forgotten Americans, Vets.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

52. Agreed

A big :thumbsdown: to Bob Kerrey for a multitude of reasons.

[MODemocrat]

49. Wes Clark

N/T

[tritsofme]

51. Wesley Clark

I'm just kidding, I know he can't be SecDef.

I don't think McCain would take it either as some on this thread have suggested. I think he has his eyes set on 2008, and it would be rather akward, to say the least, if the SecDef challenged the President.

[JI7]

53. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan

i think he would be a very good choice. and michigan has a democratic governor so we wouldn't have to worry about it going into republican hands.

[joanne]

55. Wont it be great that we will be rid of Rumsfailed?

I like Bob Graham but dont care too much who it is... only care who it ISNT going to be after January!

[DaveSZ]

56. Ah

I didn't know the truth about Bob Kerrey.

You could say similar things about John Kerry though.

[PurityOfEssence]

57. Gary Hart

Although a more sensible billet for him would be State or Ambassador to the U.N.

Hart, if you'll remember, had some of the most innovative and sensible ideas for the military in his undercut '84 campaign. (Still stuck in my craw, incidentally: this wasn't the '88 campaign with the infidelity, this was the top-loaded force-feeding of Mondale to us.) He wanted to abolish the separate services and combine them under one command, thus eliminating much waste, duplication and inconsistency. (Hell, in Grenada, Marines weren't even able to call in naval gunfire, and they're a part of the Navy.)

He's a smart guy, open to new ideas, honest and decidedly realistic. Having him in Defense would show the world that we meant business, but weren't bent on world domination. He also has impeccable credentials of late, since the Hart/Rudman Commission was right on the money in its predictions before 9-11.

[genius]

58. Wesley Clark

[Zech Marquis]

59. Clark hasn't been out of service long enough,,,

I think Flag Officers have to be out of the military for 10 years or somewhere in that time period before they could become Sec of Defense. Hmmm...General Zinni (if he meets that time period requirement), Bob Kerrey for sure. Max Cleland..I'd love to see him as the VA administrator, so all the vets will have someone who knows exactly what they've been through (and no Enron stench about him either!)


Bob Graham? chuck Robb?

[IndianaGreen]

64. Bob Kerrey has ties to the Carlyle Group

and then there is the war crimes issue discussed elsewhere on this thread.

May 17, 2001
A CounterPunch Special Report

Fragging Bob: Bob Kerrey, CIA War Crimes, And The Need For A War Crimes Trial

by Douglas Valentine

By now everybody knows that former Senator Bob Kerrey led a seven-member team of Navy Seals into Thanh Phong village in February 1969, and murdered in cold blood more than a dozen women and children.

What hardly anyone knows, and what no one in the press is talking about (although many of them know), is that Kerrey was on a CIA mission, and its specific purpose was to kill those women and children. It was illegal, premeditated mass murder and it was a war crime.

<snip>

Yes, the CIA has a global, illegal strategy of terrorizing people, although in typical CIA lexicon it's called "anti-terrorism."

When you're waging illegal warfare, language is every bit as important as weaponry and the will to kill. As George Orwell or Noam Chomsky might explain, when you're deliberately killing innocent women and children, half the court-of-public-opinion battle is making it sound legal.

http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine.html

[Jai4WKC08]

65. Zinni retired after Clark

So he hasn;t been out 10 years either.

Besides, picking a Repub SecDef is a BAD idea. Esp during a time of war. Remember how Cohen undercut Clinton in support of his former Senate collegues? First loyalty always goes to party with career politicians. Look at McCain's campaigning for Bush as much as he hates him personally.

I'm all for bipartisanship and reuniting the country. But some cabinet positions (SecDef and SecState for sure) are just too important, and their power too far-reaching, to experiment with.

As much as Zinni opposes the war and the way it's being mishandled, he's still too loyal to Bush and the Repub party to place the responsibility where it lies--at the top. He wants Bush to fire Rumsfeld and some of the other Defense Dept civilians. As if that would solve anything if they're just replaced with more of the same.

[genius]

66. Michael Moore or Jesse Jackson

[Name removed]

70. Deleted message

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[greatauntoftriplets]

71. Please tell us what is wrong with Jesse Jackson?

n/t

[DURHAM D]

67. BOB KERRY - NO - DOES NOT PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS.

Did anyone notice his behaviour on the 911 Commission? He seemed unable to take in new information, acted like a bully and revealed himself to be an outlier. Also, remember his negative remarks about Clinton during the Monica thing. He actually reminds me very much of Bush. It's all about "him". He should go back to Debra W.

[IndianaGreen]

68. OTOH, Max Cleland would an excellent choice for the Pentagon

Cleland has experience in managing governmental departments, as he did as head of the VA.

Cleland is also not tainted with war crimes.

[Name removed]

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