From Bad To Just As Bad
It took a bit for me to figure out who Robert Gates was, and he was someone I was trying to forget. Holden over at First Draft has several posts that you should read, and since he makes this “open source”, I can talk about it.
First off, Gates made the entire US intel community look like amateurs in regards to the Soviet Union. He buried the crumbling of the CCCP to maintain funding for the Company, which made the fall look like it took the intel community by surprise. Folks there wasn’t an FM stereo radio station in Moscow until 1970, that’s tells you how far behind the curve Soviet technology was. Their space and missile program was based on refinements of German WWII designs, which overlooked the advances their own people had made. Intel knew that the Soviet Union was in trouble, but Gates buried the signs.
Gates is also the US “father of al Qaeda,” in his push to attack the Soviets in Afghanistan. He was responsible for American funding, training, and equipment pouring in to supply the mujahadeen. He is the person who gave Stinger ground-to-air missiles to Islamic militants.
You are probably aware of his memory and truth problems during his testimony on the Iran-Contra affair.
Like North, Poindexter, Elliot Abrams, et al., he should have been left under a rock.
We don’t need another lying re-tread at the head of the DoD, we need someone who can add up columns of numbers accurately and speak in truthful declarative sentences. William Cohen comes to mind as he is a Republican and he seemed to be able to do the job.
2 comments
All of this is true, but doesn’t tell the real story at present, I think. Gates was sent in there by the Bu$h pere group to work as a placeholder, making some changes of course, while Jim Baker works out the arrangements for the US withdrawal from Iraq. The real question is where will the troops be placed?
He’s not going to continue the Rumsfeld approach to war.
No one can continue the status quo, we are out of people.
I hope like hell Baker can so something, but we are going to lose a lot of equipment unless the Shi’ia give us a pass to Kuwait.
Short term they probably go to the fortified bases, but the Marines in Anbar province are running out of options. This isn’t their kind of operation.
The Turks might let us withdraw through Kurdistan and Turkey to the Med, but that’s going to cost us.
It’s a mess. Kuwait can’t hold everyone, and we don’t have enough transports.
Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t launch another major suppression prior to the withdrawal, which is just going to cause the KIA to rise.
I hope they have bigger roofs on the new embassy in Baghdad, because we are going to need bigger helicopters to fly to the Persian Gulf.