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Gates Warns Against More Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan
WEST POINT, N.Y. — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets on Friday that it would be unwise for the United States to ever fight another war like Iraq or Afghanistan, and that the chances of carrying out a change of government in that fashion again were slim.
“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it,” Mr. Gates told an assembly of Army cadets here. “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it,” Mr. Gates told an assembly of Army cadets here.
That reality, he said, meant that the Army would have to reshape its budget, since potential conflicts in places like Asia or the Persian Gulf were more likely to be fought with air and sea power, rather than with conventional ground forces.
“As the prospects for another head-on clash of large mechanized land armies seem less likely, the Army will be increasingly challenged to justify the number, size, and cost of its heavy formations,” Mr. Gates warned.
“The odds of repeating another Afghanistan or Iraq — invading, pacifying, and administering a large third-world country — may be low,” Mr. Gates said, but the Army and the rest of the government must focus on capabilities that can “prevent festering problems from growing into full-blown crises which require costly — and controversial — large-scale American military intervention.”
Mr. Gates was brought into the Bush cabinet in late 2006 to repair the war effort in Iraq that was begun under his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and then was kept in office by President Obama. He did not directly criticize the Bush administration’s decisions to go to war. Even so, his never-again formulation was unusually pointed, especially at a time of upheaval across the Arab world and beyond. Mr. Gates has said that he would leave office this year, and the speech at West Point could be heard as his farewell to the Army.
A decade of constant conflict has trained a junior officer corps with exceptional leadership skills, he told the cadets, but the Army may find it difficult in the future to find inspiring work to retain its rising commanders as it fights for the money to keep large, heavy combat units in the field.
“Men and women in the prime of their professional lives, who may have been responsible for the lives of scores or hundreds of troops, or millions of dollars in assistance, or engaging or reconciling warring tribes, may find themselves in a cube all day re-formatting PowerPoint slides, preparing quarterly training briefs, or assigned an ever-expanding array of clerical duties,” Mr. Gates said. “The consequences of this terrify me.”
He said Iraq and Afghanistan had become known as “the captains’ wars” because “officers of lower and lower rank were put in the position of making decisions of higher and higher degrees of consequence and complexity.”
To find inspiring work for its young officers after combat deployments, the Army must encourage unusual career detours, Mr. Gates said, endorsing graduate study, teaching, or duty in a policy research institute or Congressional office.
Mr. Gates said his main worry was that the Army might not overcome the institutional bias that favored traditional career paths. He urged the service to “break up the institutional concrete, its bureaucratic rigidity in its assignments and promotion processes, in order to retain, challenge, and inspire its best, brightest, and most battle-tested young officers to lead the service in the future.”
There will be one specific benefit to the fighting force as the pressures of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan decrease, Mr. Gates said: “The opportunity to conduct the kind of full-spectrum training — including mechanized combined arms exercises — that was neglected to meet the demands of the current wars.”
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Show AllGates can't recognize that there is no reason for the U.S. Army to exist.
.... Post-Constitutional America
Yea my, "oh my f*ing god" moment was when I read "War is a Racket" and old Smedley Butler said that there are not enough ships on the planet to bring over and supply enough troops to invade and occupy the United States.
Simply through geography we are one of the safest countries in the world, and could get by with little to no military, but instead we have the largest one int the world.
What a waste of lives and resources.
"...and could get by with little to no military" Never is this concept made public. Our National Guard, land and air plus the Coast Guard is all we need.
re: Smedley Butler, who made an honest man of himself once he retired, He was the chosen one to replace Roosevelt in the mid-30's coup d'etat planned by Bush's granddaddy et al and he was the one who ratted them out.
And it will never be made public. We lost what little chance we had for harnessing the military when we got rid of the draft - as unfair and disruptive as it could sometimes be. But now we have a professional military and its accompanying social caste that we didn't have before that has common interests - and lots of influence (and all the guns) and wants a bigger piece of the pie. That doesn't bode well for our broken republic.
Yes, AND
Have you noticed how COWARDLY so many Americans are, especially the "Right-Wingers"?
Compare NUMEROUS countries who have MUCH less military might than the U.S. (countries such as Denmark, Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, etc. etc.) who are not "shaking in their boots" and scared of the Boogey Man, as so many Amricans are.
We SHOULD be much more calm and non-worried because we have the (by far) largest military in the world.
Shame on the cowardly (and bullying, which often goes together with cowardice) Right-Wingers.
- "That reality, he [Gates] said, meant that the Army would have to reshape its budget, since potential conflicts in places like Asia or the Persian Gulf were more likely to be fought with air and sea power, rather than with conventional ground forces."
Response: In other words, bomb "suspected targest" and anyone including civilians around them into submission with drones, aircraft and long range missles from navy ships without actually using troops and relying on unreliable sources to define targets. We've already seen the results of this, it just makes more enemies and is a cowardly manner to conduct war.
The obvious point is that we can't "win" (whatever that means) the wars we are in so we shouldn't be starting new wars.
I got the same thing, sit out on the ocean and bomb em'; it's cheaper, and this war stuff is costing too much.
Besides; the glory of real war is wearing thin among the troops; so we don't need as many of you anymore... unless you want to learn to fly drones?
A lot of handwringing, a lot of beating around the bush, Mr. Gates!
Give up the pretense already, and, above all, the mythology that the United States needs such a large "defense" apparatus.
Do you even know, Mr.Gates, when was the last time foreign uniformed armed forces set foot on the territory of the continental United States?
The Empire has entered wobble zone, and Gates is slowly preparing the terrain for the bad news.
"... the mythology that the United States needs such a large "defense" apparatus."
One does wonder at times why such a great country and its universally admired system of "freedom and democracy" would require so much military defending against violent skeptics. Or is it something else they're actually "defending"?
But be thankful that the defensive need IS largely mythological. With all the US MIC's trigger-happy technological advantages, its recent success rate, even in merely following up vast devastation previously inflicted by others and/or by cruel sanctions, wouldn't inspire great confidence in its actual capabilities. Nor would its actual record of "homeland protection" as demonstrated to date for that matter.
Of course, if all else fails, there's always the "Samson option" which, in the final analysis, along with economic weapons, seems to underpin most of USA Incorporated's imperial status and global influence in any case. Its enormous military resources, however inept, do provide for some intermediate stage "shock and awe" havoc, I suppose.
Notice he never said anything about Central or South America. That on-going covert war zone is the next non-covert war zone for the US.
It is perversely ironic to see a former Bush crime family operative publicly disdain Daddy Bush's 'concept' of the USA as "World Cop."
If Mr. Gates really means what he said he must by now have advised the President to immediately begin the complete withdrawal of our armed forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and their speedy return home. Since the forces will not need their tanks and other big hardware here they might as well leave these behind which will not only speed up the withdrawal but make it much less expensive. I fear though that my view is much too logical.
This arm chair warrior, and that's what he is, started in the right direction, but being actually a part of the problem and not the solution, he didn't finish the job. The fact is this provides a great opening for challenging the US military industiral national security media complex to really go through a transformation and move toward actually donwsizing itself and by doing so promoting real democracy.
This arm chair warrior, and that's what he is, started in the right direction, but being actually a part of the problem and not the solution, he didn't finish the job. The fact is this provides a great opening for challenging the US military industiral national security media complex to really go through a transformation and move toward actually donwsizing itself and by doing so promoting real democracy.
General McArthur: To the office of the Honorable Defense Secretary Mr. Robert Gates, "You should have your head examined! When I said future, I meant the future from my perspective, which is now your past. Why didn't you remember what I said in 2003 when it would have made a difference? I didn't just mean your successors. Clearly, you don't understand linear time, which is a symptom of dementia." --- I Shall Not Return
Good One!
The title of this article should be,
"Gates Endorses the Same Thinking as Rumsfeld."
Remember "Shock and Awe?"
THAT is exactly what Gates is promoting. He is not saying we shouldn't be blasting the Hell out of people.
He IS saying, as Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Co. (this include the democrat's leaders) had said with their enthusiastic warmongering, that the military needs to use more high tech murder instead of relying on human drones.
All those corpses coming home only complicate what he thinks should be a cleaner sort of horror.
He and his ilk think that the horror of war should not get in the way of the horror of war.
Disgusting.
Yes, that's what he's saying when we read the rest of the comment.
Ironically, mainstream media, relying on their small-clip method, reduced his speech to the one needs-his-head-examined statement. I couldn't believe my ears, knew there had to be more to the message, but if they want to leave it at that, fine with me.
This is only distantly relevant, but just look at the two photos on the front page of Counterpunch :-D Look at the decorations :-D Who else is reminded of late Soviet generals?
http://www.counterpunch.org/petraeus.jpg vs http://www.counterpunch.org/eisenhower.png
What an asshole; there are more colorful words like loo habitue but asshole will do. Tony
We are mired in pointless criminal wars on the countries of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the GOP is eyeing another pointless criminal war on the country of Africa.
despite junior bush's pronouncement, Africa is not a country.
"...the chances of carrying out a change of government in that fashion again were slim."
but not off the table.
I found the following most intriguing: "“Men and women in the prime of their professional lives, who may have been responsible for the lives of scores or hundreds of troops, or millions of dollars in assistance, or engaging or reconciling warring tribes, may find themselves in a cube all day re-formatting PowerPoint slides, preparing quarterly training briefs, or assigned an ever-expanding array of clerical duties,” Mr. Gates said. “The consequences of this terrify me.” I am most interested in these 'terrors.' Is he worried what one or some of these young WARRIORS might do with their free time when the power they are used to has evaporated? Does he worry about more psy-ops on elected officials? Coups? Assassinations? I am glad he's worried. I guess.
Ah yes, "Uncle Bobby" Gates, crony of the Bush family, realizes that more contained, high-tech military aggression is more efficient and still results in great profits for the MIC. The US military is over-stretched and reliance on the only comparative advantage left that the US enjoys is military technology. Relying on drones, HAARP, and other high-tech weapons will be the wave of the future.
However, once the world dumps the US dollar as reserve currency, the game will be over and a new game will have to be played.
What I find most interesting about this article is that Gates slipped and for a moment pulled back the curtain on one of the most frightening issues of our time:
“Men and women in the prime of their professional lives, who may have been responsible for [waging a campaign of murder and destruction in foreign lands] may find themselves in a cube all day re-formatting PowerPoint slides, preparing quarterly training briefs, or assigned an ever-expanding array of clerical duties,” Mr. Gates said. “The consequences of this terrify me.”
It's a frightening problem to comprehend. Even if tomorrow we ended the wars and brought all the soldiers home and downsized the military to sane levels... even if tomorrow we ended the patriot act and dismantled the US security state... even if tomorrow we ended the endless defense contracts and defunded the MIC... even then we would have all these people who have been trained as tools of tyranny. What do we do with them? What happens to TSA thugs when they are out of a job? What might legions of Intel Analysts apply their skills to when facing the unemployment line? This is scary stuff. Police states create dangerous people with a vested interest in maintaining the police state.
When Carter was elected, he purged the CIA of some of its worst elements. But they didn't go off and start organic farms and attend poetry readings. They worked (successfully) to actively undermine the Carter administration and engineered elements of the Iran hostage crisis to keep him from being reelected. This is historical fact.
Amuses me that maybe Gates woke up one morning and thought "Holy sh*t, what are we going to do with all these people?"
maybe they'd be happy to just go shopping?
The events in Egypt and Wisconsin illustrate that strong arm tactics and open kleptocracy are now well known for what they are and inspire vigorous resistance. There will be a shift to put a prettier face on the plutocracy. If that fails, it will be backed up by murder.
The new agenda will emphasize covert action that allows an illusion of democracy combined with vigorous protection of the prerogatives of the banks and multi-national corporations. It will include control of unions and other forms of direct democracy, and will promote sacrifice (read impoverishment) of the working and middle classes and independent farmers. That model is already under testing right here in the USA.
It requires a new breed of operatives who have lots of savvy, low levels of compassion, and a willingness to use their education and God-given intelligence for purely selfish ends. The misguided sincerity which informed many in the military will go the way of the horse and buggy. (Somehow, this model will have to continue feeding the voracious war materielle beast, which will be a little tricky to explain.)
Ultimately, with a newly awakened population and popular access to distributed forms of information, this model will fail. You cannot fool everyone forever. Only question is how much damage will be done to people and to the environment as imperialism runs around wildly looking for ways to stay alive.
jclientelle,
Well said. The people are finally waking up to what they are up against. It's going to get ugly because we are not dealing with decision makers at the top that will go quietly.
I'll re-post this doctor's comment I read about a year ago:
Anonymous Physician provides the context to understand both the ubiquity of Corporate Welfare/entitlement/cheating and the standard-issue welfare entitlement and gaming:
I have a great deal of experience with the poor, the very poor, the rich, and a few of the ultra-rich. Some accident of fate also gave me direct clinical contact with at least 6 serial killers (in custody) for extended periods. It is certain (i.e.; self-evident to the prepared consciousness as per Aristotle's definition of truth) that our current crisis of culture, political economy and political life is fundamentally related to the long-emerging filters on the roads to power and influence that now assure that cluster B personality types (sociopathic/ pyschopathic, narcissistic and to lesser degrees borderline and histrionic) dominate, in number as well as influence, all major institutions in this "country" as well as most of the rest of the world. (emphasis added) This state of affairs, in its extent, is historically unprecedented.
This is no counsel of despair. Goodness, the ethical will, as a potentiality, is proportionally much more frequent than the evil will in humanity but it must be cultivated and it demands truthfulness and willingness to sacrifice for its actualization.
Viet Nam learned all over again! Stop trying to save nations from themselves!
But somewhere in an expensive college classroom sits another socially promoted moron with a big name... Wait 30 years and deja vu all over again.
These comments from Gates are ominous. I remember Condi telling everybody we weren't supposed to be the policeman of the world even as we were secretly planning to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a Rovian cognitive dissonance technique that I saw Bush ("We do not torture!") use as well.
I hope these crazy bastards in the pentagon aren't planning more mayhem but I wouldn't put it past them. There's a lot of oil in Libya.
Yep. The only festering problem we have is assholes like Gates and his full spectrum dominance murderers. God, I hate those people! What a scourge on the planet.
True. Horrible Horace comes to mind. But really, those people are a nuisance factor, not death merchants like the MIC and Wall Street.
They are not comparable, as far as I am concerned. doctor.
I agree with you that the intransigence of these idiots that live, breath and celebrate all the destructive propaganda they have been spoon fed since youth is a contributing factor to the problems in this world. It gets old.
I live in Vermont and my wife is native American mixed with Italian. She doesn't look white enough for the assholes here. She has a cum laude bachelor in science with a major in chemistry and is treated like she is a total moron everywhere she goes. Like you, she gives it to them with both barrels which I enjoy immensely. The looks on their faces as they struggle with someone superior in intellect to them that doesn't 'look white' is a joy to behold.
But they don't change. They just get meaner. I try not to think about it too much because I would go bat shit crazy with anger. When Bruce Lee was asked if the prejudice and racism he experienced at the studios in L.A. bothered him, he said, " Bother me? If I let it bother me, I wouldn't be Bruce Lee". I don't always succeed in doing a Bruce Lee, but I try.
Yes, my wife has a thick skin but the pain she has experienced goes deep. But we survive.
She isn't Abenaki. Some Abenaki here treat us like the plague while others embrace her on sight. Vermont is complicated. The Abenaki have many people like yourself who are indistinguishable from the European stereotype (those are the ones who treat us like the plague). There is still a lot of fear going back to the forced sterilizations (here in Vermont) of people of native American and French origin during the early 20th century. Everybody wants to be "real white" here. PITIFUL! My wife is a Caribbean Islander Native American and probably has some African slave dna mixed with the Italian. The tribe is probably the Tainos. The African tribe is probably the Mandinga. The Tainos were a peaceful tribe that was preyed on by the Cannibalistic Caribes which would raid the islands and take children, fatten them up in cages, and eat them. Then Columbus came and wiped out just about everybody but some soldiers did actually marry Native American Islander women because King Ferdinand forced them to.
At any rate, I appreciate your energy in this forum. I seem to have less each day. Please keep doing what you do. The Wadosys of this world do seem ubiquitous. The only thing worse than plain arrogance is blind arrogance. There's a lot of that in Vermont too. But since I am mostly a recluse, I don't have to deal with it too much.
You are very welcome.
I thank you and your family for your fortitude and grit in the face of formidable obstacles. The world needs more people like you.
Maybe some at the upper echelons of the so-called "Defense" Department are beginning to get some glimmers that they are severely overextended. It will be hard to maintain the myth of American military might when they have to fess up to not being able to afford the "actions" they've been used to being able to do.
Remember what George Bush said about fighting the "terrorists" in the land of origin (in foreign land) otherwise we may have to fight them on our own soil? This was the real rationale for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, if that is, we believe the propaganda about the threat of terrorism to America. Now Robert Gates is merely elaborating on this doctrine of pre-emptive aggression.
Now we need not only to limit OUR aggressive wars to foreign lands we must also limit human casualties to foreigners only, using our air and sea technologies and hardware . This means the wars of PRE-EMPTION must be launched earlier in the time frame and with even greater ferosity. This means requiring our decision makers to be even more "sensitive" and trigger happy and activate the war cycle before it reaches the need for ground forces.
This means we must crush all challenges to the status quo and revolutionary urges outside of USA so that our ruling elite would not have to face such problems at home. If we can keep our "Empire of Bases" available and exploitable for as long as we can then our own populace will live "exceptional" lives in an "exceptional" United State of America of peace and prosperity. The rest of the world can go to hell. For America to be EXCEPTIONAL this national strategy must never be compromised. If our elite cannot keep our consumerism based ideology and our capitalism-on-steroid going by continuous exploitation abroad then we will have a Big Revolution at home pretty soon.
Some of you need to take a deep fucking breath. The Bush/PNAC crew are not in power. We now have people with some sense at the helm. Gates was brought in by Dubya when someone FINALLY convinced him that the yo-yos on his team were fools. Rumsfuckingfeld was out and we at least got someone who wasn't totally out to lunch with his known unknown blah blah blah. The Gates talk to the army was amazing. You don't hear this kind of stuff just any old day. Wouldn't it be great if people would wake up and realize that electing idiots like Dubya have bad consequences. Making decisions because you're the 'decider' and going with your 'gut' do not reassure me. When most of your advisers are neo-con nut jobs, then hope is gone. But, oh yeah, I f'n forgot, there's no dif between repub insanity and dem limp-wrists.
"The Bush/PNAC crew are not in power."
I wouldn't place any bets on that if I were you. AIPAC has always been the power behind PNAC.
"We now have people with some sense at the helm."
LOL
"But, oh yeah, I f'n forgot, there's no dif between repub insanity and dem limp-wrists."
In intelligence operations ( I studied it at Lowry AFB, Colorado in the USAF) it's called "Mutt and Jeff" or "good cop, bad cop". Your level of denial is amazing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can hardly f'n wait for bad cop, bad cop, bad cop... when the unions are destroyed and the only political commercials are from right-wing corporate interests, and what's left of the middle class can pay for every new war they dream up. And at least partly because there is not enough difference between liberal and conservative (or whatever label) politicians. So, many of you will not raise a finger to do more than bitch or vote 3rd party, which will simply make things worse faster. If you have no pragmatism, why not just contemplate your navel or something equally peaceful?
I spent 3 months wandering Mexico 40 years ago. I met poor, but wonderful people. Back then I worried that the rough border area might someday characterize all of Mexico. Anyway, good for you. I hope the drug wars stay far away from you.
The headline to be truthful should read: GATES WARNS OF MORE WARS LIKE IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN. Endless enemies; for endless wars; for endless profits! I see that Boeing just got a multi billion $ order from the Air Farce for tankers. For what, may I ask? Nothing changes.
To evaluate the logic/reason in warmongering is pure folly, but the NY Times does it with gusto, dutifully playing its propaganda role in the death/destruction enterprise.
In short the "USA stay out of Libya". Libyans are the only ones who have a right to decide their fate with possible UN help in ground peace keepers/ no fly zone if they request it/permit it but MINUS every former colonial power and the current USA Empire.
The Pentagram was fully aware of the catastrophy of a land war in Asia long before Neo-Cons and Zionests started these criminal wars for their own personal plunder.
when it comes to the middle east policies, gopers have always been fairer than the damns (though that doesn't mean a whole lot),
as 95% of the american jews vote democratic.
This one is warning of no more wars while Hillary is flying to Geneva trying to get smack dab in the middle of the Libyan conflict. If for no other reason that because her masters in Israel are telling her to. You can't teach an old dog a new trick and you can't stop a dying empire from warmongering. The idea of massacring innocents makes the warmongers feel like they're still in control. The ones running the show over here are not different that the dictators in the ME only they have more bombs and they can kill more people and faster.
Well, this is good news. Of course Gates is trying to work our how to suck up as much budget and orphan as many people as he can, but that isn't the part that's news, is it?
And in some way I enjoy watching him thrash and sound like old Rummy, which cannot play terribly well even at West Point. But it's not as though we really want Rumsfield speaking at West Point or elsewhere.
What is of interest here is the ineffectiveness of the options that Gates is examining for completing the tasks Gates and his confreres design. The major use of US power, of course, has nothing to do with a major war against China or Russia or even India. Not only would too many highly placed people not profit from that, the loss is so obvious that they apparently can see it.
What the US gov't wants from the bright and shiny faces at West Point is called "population control." It is police work within the colonies: bribing and beheading leaders and informers and dissenters and mafiosi, intimidating and dispersing demonstrators, breaking strikes and forcing labor.
If they continue to attempt this with fancy droids, a la Rumsfield, the economics of it all will kneecap them. That will not be a pretty thing for Americans, but it is difficult to see how else the Machine will be dismantled.