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Seven Days in January
How the Pentagon Counts Coups in Washington
Sometimes it pays to read a news story to the last paragraph where a reporter can slip in that little gem for the news jockeys, or maybe just for the hell of it. You know, the irresistible bit that doesn't fit comfortably into the larger news frame, but that can be packed away in the place most of your readers will never get near, where your editor is likely to give you a free pass.
So it was, undoubtedly, with New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, who accompanied Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as he stumbled through a challenge-filled, error-prone two-day trip to Pakistan. Gates must have felt a little like a punching bag by the time he boarded his plane for home having, as Juan Cole pointed out, managed to signal "that the U.S. is now increasingly tilting to India and wants to put it in charge of Afghanistan security; that Pakistan is isolated... and that Pakistani conspiracy theories about Blackwater were perfectly correct and he had admitted it. In baseball terms, Gates struck out."
In any case, here are the last two paragraphs of Bumiller's parting January 23rd piece on the trip:Mr. Gates, who repeatedly told the Pakistanis that he regretted their country's ‘trust deficit' with the United States and that Americans had made a grave mistake in abandoning Pakistan after the Russians left Afghanistan, promised the military officers that the United States would do better.
His final message delivered, he relaxed on the 14-hour trip home by watching ‘Seven Days in May,' the cold war-era film about an attempted military coup in the United States."
Just in case you've forgotten, three major cautionary political films came out in the anxiety-ridden year of 1964, not so long after the Cuban Missile crisis -- of which only Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick's classic vision of the end of the world, American-style, is much remembered today. ("I don't say we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than ten to twenty million people killed.")
All three concerned nuclear politics, "oops" moments, and Washington. The second was Fail Safe, in which a computerized nuclear response system too fast for human intervention malfunctions and fails to stop an erroneous nuclear attack on Moscow, forcing an American president to save the world by nuking New York City. It was basically Dr. Strangelove done straight (though it's worth pointing out that Americans loved to stomp New York City in their fantasies long before 9/11).
The third was the Secretary of Defense's top pick, Seven Days in May, which came with this tagline: "You are soon to be shaken by the most awesome seven days in your life!" In it, a right-wing four-star general linked to an incipient fascist movement attempts to carry out a coup d'état against a dovish president who has just signed a nuclear disarmament pact with the Soviet Union. The plot is uncovered and defused by a Marine colonel played by Kirk Douglas. ("I'm suggesting, Mr. President, there's a military plot to take over the government, and it may occur sometime this coming Sunday...")
These were, of course, the liberal worries of a long-gone time. Now, one of the films is iconic and the other two clunky hoots. All three would make a perfect film festival for a Secretary of Defense with 14 hours to spare. Just the sort of retro fantasy stuff you could kick back and enjoy after a couple of rocky days on the road, especially if you were headed for a "homeland" where no one had a bad, or even a challenging, thing to say about you. After all, in the last two decades our fantasies about nuclear apocalypse have shrunk to a far more localized scale, and a military plot to take over the government is entertainingly outré exactly because, in the Washington of 2010, such a thought is ludicrous. After all, every week in Washington is now the twenty-first century equivalent of Seven Days in May come true.
Think of the week after the Secretary of Defense flew home, for instance, as Seven Days in January.
After all, if Gates was blindsided in Pakistan, he already knew that a $626 billion Pentagon budget, including more than $128 billion in war-fighting funds, had passed Congress in December and that his next budget for fiscal year 2011 (soon to be submitted) might well cross the $700 billion mark. He probably also knew that, in the upcoming State of the Union Address, President Obama was going to announce a three-year freeze on discretionary domestic spending starting in 2011, but leave national security expenditures of any sort distinctly unfrozen. He undoubtedly knew as well that, in the week after his return, news would come out that the president was going to ask Congress for $14.2 billion extra, most for 2011, to train and massively bulk up the Afghan security forces, more than doubling the funds already approved by Congress for 2010.
Or consider that only days after his plane landed, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its latest "budget outlook" indicating that the Iraq and Afghan Wars had already cost the American taxpayer more than $1 trillion in Congressionally-approved dollars, with no end in sight. Just as the non-freeze on defense spending in the State of the Union Address caused next to no mainstream comment, so there would be no significant media response to this (and these costs didn't even include the massive projected societal price of the two wars, including future care for wounded soldiers and the replacement of worn out or destroyed equipment, which will run so much higher).
Each of these announcements could be considered another little coup for the Pentagon and the U.S. military to count. Each was part of Pentagon blank-check-ism in Washington. Each represented a national security establishment ascendant in a way that the makers of Seven Days in May might have found hard to grasp.
To put just the president's domestic cost-cutting plan in a Pentagon context: If his freeze on domestic programs were to go through Congress intact (an unlikely possibility), it would still be chicken-feed in the cost-cutting sweepstakes. The president's team estimates savings of $250 billion over 10 years. On the other hand, the National Priorities Project has done some sober figuring, based on projections from the Office of Management and Budget, and finds that, over the same decade, the total increase in the Pentagon budget should come to $522 billion. (And keep in mind that that figure doesn't include possible increases in the budgets of the Department of Homeland Security, non-military intelligence agencies, or even any future war-fighting supplemental funds appropriated by Congress.) That $250 billion in cuts, then, would be but a small brake on the guaranteed further rise of national-security spending. American life, in other words, is being sacrificed to the very infrastructure meant to provide this country's citizens with "safety." That's what seven days in January really means.
Or consider that $14.2 billion meant for the Afghan military and police. Forget, for a moment, all the obvious doubts about training, by 2014, up to 400,000 Afghans for a force bleeding deserters and evidently whipping future Taliban fighters into shape, or the fact that impoverished Afghanistan will never be able to afford such a vast security apparatus (which means it's ours to fund into the distant future), or even that many of those training dollars may go to Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) or other mercenary private contracting companies. Just think for a minute, instead, about the fact that the State of the Union Address offered not a hint that a single further dollar would go to train an adult American, especially an out-of-work one, in anything whatsoever.
Hollywood loves remakes, but a word of advice to those who admire the Secretary of Defense's movie tastes: do as he did and get the old Seven Days in May from Netflix. Unlike Star Trek, James Bond, Bewitched, and other sixties "classics," Seven Days isn't likely to come back, not even if Matt Damon were available to play the Marine colonel who saves the country from a military takeover, because these days there's little left to save -- and every week is the Pentagon's week in Washington.
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34 Comments so far
Show AllWhile to most Americans in 1964 Seven Days in May was entertaining fiction, there were some of us who wondered.
While JFK had entered office as a requisite cold warrior the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 shook all of us and his speech at American University in June 1963 plus his all-out push for an atmospheric test ban treaty with the Soviets signaled a distinct change in his thinking. Apparently others thought so too so he was murdered by what amounted to a coup by the national security state.
See JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass for a full account of the coup that changed America forever.
Mr Englehart does all of us a disservice by stopping his analysis where he did. Historical context is what brings true understanding and makes possible the deep revulsion that brings change.
You may also be interested in:
Ultimate sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the plan for a coup in Cuba
By Lamar Waldron, Thom Hartmann
'dead on' general!
Let's stop talking about the last coup (that birthed the American Empire) --- let's get serious about this current coup (that is birthing the Global Empire).
Best,
Alan
Mr. Englehardt can only do so much...the critic of "disservice" is what, some sort of projection? The action of projection, or some other name, that includes the negating and limiting of full power of your own vital contribution to The Argument -- as the recently late Howard Zinn said upon receiving the Cranbrook Peace Award and relating a story on Martin Luther King...it's all about "Power" -- I'm professionally trained as an Observer of Small But Significant Differences -- this is an example of one.
The military is a parasite on the economy, not a stimulus. For the most part, the arms produced and the men engaged in "defense" simply consume the national treasure. The enterprise is what Kurt Vonnegut called a "grandfalloon." It exists not to serve its original purpose but simply to perpetuate itself. By doing so, it confers benefits on certain political constituencies: veterans through their benefits, the arms industry, innumerable small towns that depend upon military bases, as well as all those that depend indirectly on those salaries such as small retailers, real estate agents, restaurant owners and more. This system is firmly in place and will only disappear when the funds are no longer there to provide benefits for this large block of voters. Unfortunately, it will take major cutbacks in other social programs to keep the bloated military afloat. It all relates to whose ox is getting gored--right now it is the inner city black neighborhood, the uninsured poor, farmer workers, laboring people on minimum wage, the young who are stuck with huge student loans. The MIC is doing quite well, thank you, and will continue to accept the largess provided by politicians that listen to the generals and the lobbyists for Lockheed and Boeing, but not the voices of those at the bottom.
Eugene Linden remarked in his book 'The Future In Plan Sight'
that we are living in the era of bubbles and that the next to burst will be the MIC bubble. That's after the Regan rearming bubble of the 80's, the tech bubble of the 90's, the housing bubble (financial services bubble)of the 2000's, and next, the American military empire bubble. These bubbles are necessary because the world industrial economy is in excess capacity and the service economy is incapable of creating the jobs needed. So the bubble is necessary to sustain the illusion of endless economic growth. This system is all made possible by cheap oil. An era that is soon to come to an end. With out cheap oil the world economy is unsustainable. This will leave the bloated behemoth,the Mic, raging around in an attempt to maintain legitimacy. You argue it is already happening
the biggest granfalloon of all?
any nation.
any time.
anywhere.
so it goes.
Small countries spend money more efficiently than large ones. Similarly, local units of government generally spend taxpayer money sensibly. So I might quibble with your "any nation." When you get to a nation of 300 million, there is no accountability, only giveaways to certain constituencies. I am not totally a libertarian since I believe public services can compete successfully with corporations due to the economy of scale and due to the fact that corporations can't compete at all if there is little money to be gained--as in housing and healthcare for the poor.
I've seen Seven Days in May a half dozen times.
You mention Kirk Douglas as the colonel, would it have killed you to also mention Burt Lancaster as the would-be coup leading general, and Frederick March as the president?
Yes--well said and nicely done Tom Engelhardt! No less an authority than Dwight (five star general retired) Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the military industrial complex.
To his credit, Ike also walked the walk he talked. In the first year in the presidency he cut "defense" spending by 10% to the consternation of both the Pentagon brass and their Toady Defense Secretary Wilson (who, as the former President of GM, famously remarked "what's good for the GM is good for the country").
Ike once remarked to his son John, "I'm probably the only one in this town (Washington DC) who can tell the Pentagon brass 'no' and sleep soundly at night, because I have forgotten more about procurement and staffing levels than most of them ever knew. Heaven help this country when someone who doesn't know what I know is in the White House.
The military coup was consummated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas. Short of some similar violent response in opposition it is hard to imagine the mischief done that day ever being undone.
Poet
Yes, the military coup took place on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, but we retained some vestiges of democracy until January 21, 2010. It was on that day that the Supreme Court ruled that a corportion was a person.
The only chance I can see to return to the dreams of our Constitution and Bill of Rights is to vote now to replace the corrupt corporate mercenaries who sit their well clothed behinds in both houses of Congress. These scum are paid by and work for the greater profits of the corporations---the military industrial complex, the bastards on Wall Street and Big Pharma and the insurance companies. Any care for you or your family or for the life of our planet never cross their purchased brains. They know what side their bread is buttered on and they really like that bread.
So far the corporations can't vote. Only living people can vote. There is some small chance that if the living people vote for people with empathy, ethics and morals we can change the course of our fascist government back toward democracy.
But only if you wake up and face what is going on. We have been screwed big time by the big bucks. Turn off that damn picture box that is devouring your brain and erase any thought of the 'lesser evil'. There is no such thing. Both the Ds and the Rs are F ing you. If it says 'incumbent' or D or R after their name, avoid them like the plague---which is what they are.
I would love to see what anyone in the press thinks the American Defense budget should be.
At $600-700 Billion, we spend more on defense than the rest of the world. But, what attack to our homeland have we defended against since WWII?
9/11 was a criminal act, not an act of war and required no military action. Why was any large scale military action called into place at all?
Barney Frank called for a 25% cut in defense spending in early 2009. I think Barney could have upped that ante and the US would still have plenty of defense. Unless of course we continue on the Mossedeque, Guzman, Sukarno, Allende overthrow route. In that case, heaven help us.
During the primaries, Ron Paul called for a return to 1998 levels of all spending. The defense budget was in the neighborhood of $250-300 billion then.
This is a great article, but obviously with the James Douglass provided information, some of which Ray McGovern has provided on this web site, would do much to put all this in a needed historical context.
AD
This is a great article, but obviously with the James Douglass provided information, some of which Ray McGovern has provided on this web site, would do much to put all this in a needed historical context.
AD
Tom, with all due respect, (as Obama said before his supposed criticism of the Supreme Court) the issue is not one of taking over America, the American military super-power, or the 'American Empire' (as many are now comfortable talking about), in some kind of "Seven Days in May" (or January) --- because America has already been taken over in a 'Quiet American' coup for several decades now by the corporate/financial/militarist Empire nominally head quartered in 'our' former country.
That was the mid-20th century boffo movie which played out from the time of getting JFK out of the way, and in which film, the leading stars were; corporations, banks, MSM, the MIC, the CIA, the "Secret Team", the 'shadow government', the "Power-elite", and the two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy, all of which were highly efficient in bringing about the guileful gutting of any approximation to a democratic Republic, and replacing it with a neo-fascist American Empire.
But that was only the late 20th century hit movie --- and now is the time of moving beyond the theatrical success of Luce's 'American Century' and the blockbuster film "American Empire" --- now the next Hollywood block-buster in production is "Global Empire".
Now in the 21st century the sequel to the previously unmentioned hit, “American Empire”, is the new, more exciting, more dramatic, block-buster with fantastic special effects (and secret tricks) the star-studded “Global Empire” ---- brought to you be the same corporate/financial/militarist Empire, but now with an expanded cast that includes all the global corporations, financial institutions, and multi-national militarist forces working together, but still pretending to be patriotic and loyal to the old –fashioned nation-state carcasses that the new Global Empire will soon be discarding like old costumes.
When the Global Empire’s pre-selected faux “Emperor-President”, Obama, takes the stage he brings something that the dated fascist models like Hitler and Bush jr. could never offer this new Global Empire ---- ‘global guile’ with a smile.
This 21st century extravaganza goes far beyond and “Seven Days in May”, it provides a new wide-screen version of the “Manchurian Candidate”.
The only real hidden faction that would benefit from insinuate someone like an Obama 'Manchurian Candidate' into the White House would be the Global Empire --- that already controls America, and is eating its way, like a cancerous tumor, around the world.
The 'American Empire' of the late 20th century, which Luce more politely referred to as the 'American Century', and of which no presidents since Eisenhower and JFK ever whispered the word 'Empire' while it actually existed, was already body-snatched by the time anyone other than Chomsky and Chalmers Johnson impolitely called it by its real name.
Now, in the 21st century, that the Global ruling-elite corporate/financial/military Empire has quietly and fully displaced their previously seldom-talked-about 'American Empire', it is safe and even helpful for every two-bit media shill, like ABC's "This Week” to employ the term 'American Empire' to rally Americans with fears of "Empire Lost' and that the economic benefits of 'their empire' are at risk ---- without, of course ever revealing that any benefits of that, now transformed empire, were invested by those who actually benefit from empire into their new 21st century model.
"The old nationalist Empire is dead. Long live the new (better-hidden and distributed) global Empire"
It is surprising, in the 21st century, how few, regardless of geographic location in the world of passing nation-states, are truly benefited by the newer global Empire --- and how many, in all geographies, religions, cultures, and ideologies are ravaged by it.
What better post-racial, post-partisan, post-nationalist, and post-ethnic “Emperor-President” [Andrew Bacevich’s term] could this evolving 21st century Global Empire have as its founding figure-head than someone like Obama, who can work smoothly (oh soooo smoothly) with militarists like Gates, with financial con-artists like Summers, and with corporatists like all the transnational CEOs and global banksters around the world during this propitious ‘shock-doctrine’ crisis of global economic, political, and military stress ---- to insure that this ‘perfect storm’ of a “crisis is not wasted”, as the saying goes?
Now let’s take a look at the type of use that a newly evolving Global Empire might want to make of the international political, economic, financial, and militarist ‘crisis’ that just happens to present itself today to be potentially molded and used for some broader goal. And let’s look also, in a possibly related sense, at the kind of messages and actions that such an evolving Global Empire might want to project through a global figure during this propitious ‘crisis’.
Looking back to Obama’s most dramatic moment in his SOTU address, his supposed ‘calling out’ of the Supreme Court decision that he characterized to Americans thusly:
“With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities.” (Applause.) [From the NYT]
Only two conclusions can be made about Obama’s understanding and message regarding the domination by corporatist Empire of our faded democracy:
1. That Obama does not understand, even to the extent that JFK did 48 years ago, Ike did 50 years ago, and FDR did over 75 years ago, that a hidden ruling-elite (“royalist”) corporate/financial/militarist Empire cabal was attempting to circumvent his democratic authority and malevolently control the United States and its political-economic and military power, in an extrajudicial an anti-democratically guileful manner for its own purposes.
2. That Obama well understood the above “Secret Teams’” actions and not only did NOT focus his ire at the actual Empire attacking the Constituional democracy he had sworn to defend, but that was the willing propagandist of such Global Empire in seeding crude, xenophobic, and militant ‘nationalism’ and deflecting the angst of the American public at the false flag/ false target of only “foreign corporations” and “powerful foreign entities”.
Alan MacDonald
Conclusion:
One is left wondering, for what reason would Obama underplay, or almost ignore, the far more pervasive impact of a homeland based ruling-elite cabal and corporate/financial/militarist Empire that had amassed a 75 year history of dirty tricks, circumvention of democracy, oppression of liberties, and violently pre-emptive military attacks on the world stage (which had been clearly recognized and ‘called out’ by at least three former U.S. presidents), and instead turn this obvious basis for compelling criticism, fascist overreach, and arrogant imperialism instead upon the countries and oil territories upon which this 20th century American Empire had been exerting its crimes for the last half century?
The only reason that I can think of is that Obama is serving as a convenient and effective handmaiden to the evolving Global corporate/financial/militarist Empire which aims to use the last efforts of its American captive state to attack portions of the world not under its current control, and if America (and its people) are damaged by such misdirected economic, financial , and military actions to merely transfer the accumulated wealth and power of the Empire to a broader stage.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Mr. Gates . . . promised the military officers that the United States would do better.
The United States is morally and intellectually incapable of doing better. It can only do worse.
P.S. There's nothing "clunky" about "Seven Days in May". It's a very good film and one of John Frankenheimer's best.
And I reject the notion that Fail Safe is a clunker. It's still a frightening premise as shown in the 2000 TV remake by George Clooney (producer and actor) shows. Make you sweat.
Gary
"Only fools are positive."
-- "Tommy Grady" Fail Safe.
Sorry this is off-topic, but I worry a lot about the subject, and don't see any stories here:
"Obama Budget Includes $54 Billion for New Nuclear Reactors"
[snip]
"Obama's new action on nuclear energy is being praised by Republicans like Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), who said the Obama administration had for too long "been pursuing a national windmill policy instead of a national energy policy, which is the military equivalent of going to war in sailboats." Senator Alexander's proposal last year to double the number of nuclear reactors in America by 2020 would be very feasible under Obama's new nuclear budget. Senator Alexander promotes nuclear energy for its lack of pollution and abundant domestic availability.
"Senator John Kerry also has increased his support for nuclear energy in his most recent draft of the Senate climate bill. Political analysts say that this addition to the bill, along with a provision for increased offshore drilling, are mainly in place to secure the votes needed to avoid a Republican filibuster.
"Not everyone agrees with the president's pro-nuclear message and proposed spending increases. Greenpeace spokesperson Daniel Kessler said that "Despite [Obama's] statement, the president knows better. Nuclear power is neither safe nor clean. There is no such thing as a 'safe' dose of radiation, and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn't mean it's 'clean.'"
"In a press release, Environmental group Friends of the Earth said 'President Obama's support for all these dirty energy sources was a big win for corporate polluters and their Washington lobbyists, but it was a kick in the gut to environmentalists across the country.'"
http://www.ecofactory.com/news/obama-budget-includes-54-billion-new-nuclear-reactors-020110
We need to start working on this and NEVER shut up about it!
"Sorry this is off-topic, but I worry a lot about the subject, and don't see any stories here:
"Obama Budget Includes $54 Billion for New Nuclear Reactors" -- Alex01
I, too, am worried about this issue. Today, on Counterpunch, Harvey Wasserman posted a new article. I was hoping CD would also post it so that we could discuss this issue.
Do we really need to build more nuclear bombs? (I also read that Obama wants to build more nuclear bombs.) -- and Nuclear Reactors?
Thanks for posting your concerns!
Not off topic at all.
The MIC and NRC(s) are basically one. The Nuclear Industry has been running at full speed at entwining itself around a spigot pouring money out of the US Treasury via the Defense(I think it was still called the War Dept. in the 1940's[?]) department since 6 months before the atomic bombings of Japan. Of course the Nuclear Industry consistently faces public relations challenges, the recent spike in cancer rates of Iraqis and US Troops being the latest, but they're still the masters at timing their assaults through the Congressional system: nation fatigued from the debate around health care, Haiti, people in this country just trying to survive the winter, the myopic "jobs, jobs, jobs" at whatever cost mantra infecting the populous, Mr. Silver Tongue sitting in the Oval Office pushing any debate about the appropriateness of an Afghan Surge off the table until the summer of 2011 (lawyers: what a gift for delaying a trial or hearing...whatever happened to a speedy trial?)...wa la! perfect time for pulling that daggumit Coyote Genie out of the Nuclear Bottle.
So I agree constant vigilance and mastering off the argument is an essential worthy of enthusiasm. One of my pet statements is that "if nuclear energy was so safe, why did the Governor of North Carolina threaten to lay down in the middle of the highway with his State's Guard behind him if someone attempted to move nuclear waste into his state instead of to Yucca Mountain or staying at the site of origination?" I then go on if the situation is ripe for it with "...and if We haven't figured out how to safely re-cycle nuclear waste from energy production plants and the likes of hospitals, then why are we using nuclear weapons in the form of so called "depleted" uranium munitions...weapons that not only put the civilian population in the immediate area of use at extreme risk of genetic mutilation {present pictures of DU Intoxicated Babies from the Caldicott or Veteran Collection...}, but it also depletes the life force of the entire Earth Atmosphere {***present picture of Wilhelm Reich and President Eisenhower on Arizona Plateau discussing the darkening of the Moon Craters due to Nuclear usage[military experiments and reactor leaching during solar flaring]...at least Eisenhower moved future experiments underground...but still!}...and in addition: it puts US Troops in immediate danger of Immune System Dysfunctions!
And at what cost?! Besides those trying to kidnap orphaned and other Haitian children, what return of investment is being accrued in and from Haiti compared to the return of investment in Iraq and Afghanistan and Palestine! (Free Free Palestine, Free Free America, Free Free The World!) I have a Power Point presentation from a Lady who has the argument down from the site of uranium mining to the sight of human flesh melting from the inappropriate use of uranium I want to review...in order to get the argument down pat...so, no: not off topic at all -- it's a core root to the MIC Congressional Challenge -- worthy of enthusiastic vigilance! (Practice The Argument, and bring it to the US Social Forum in Detroit, June 21-23[?]; if We can pay Farmers not to grow crops or to dump their crops in the Ocean, then We can pay Nuclear and other Military Industrailists to spend money on anything other then destroying the Earth Atmosphere or Cluster Bombing a Wedding Party -- and I guarentee it will be more fun and pleasing {stay with "pleasing" for now, "pleasure" pushes the envelope too much for the moment}...for All!).
*** The Wilhelm Reich Museum says Reich and Eisenhower never met, so I maybe mistaking Walter Russell or Victor Schauberger for Reich...still searching for the picture again.
"...or the fact that impoverished Afghanistan will never be able to afford such a vast security apparatus (which means it's ours to fund into the distant future)."
At this rate, the "future" of this Empire will not have much distance.
By trainining and inclination, Robert Gates was a career spy and lifelong Republican, serving as Bill Casey's right hand man during the Reagan/Carter campaign back channel negotiations with the Iranian mullahs over the timing of the release of the US embassy hostages. Mr. Gates' later involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal temporarily derailed his ascendancy to become formal head of the CIA, but he later was confirmed by Congress and served as CIA director under President George H W Bush (the first former spy actually to be elected US president).
During the Clinton years, Robert Gates left Langley and went into academe. When Rumsfeld fell upon his rubber sword after the 2006 Congressional elections put the Democrats back in power in the House, George W. Bush called Gates back to Washington to replace Rummy as Secretary of Defense. Very fitting. Career military men took over the top posts at the Central Intelligence Agency, so naturally a career spy took charge at the Pentagon. Fair and balanced.
Barack Obama's decision to keep Gates on as SecDef when forming up his cabinet in 2009, in the interest of bipartisan compromise and continuity of course, is proving to be troublesome.
First, on Gates' watch, graduates of the School for the Americas in the Honduran military staged a coup to oust the elected civilian government of Honduras. Nobody - nobody in the White House or in the press - seems interested in confronting Robert Gates with awkward questions about how it happened that DIA assets in Honduras pulled this coup off without DIA (ie., Pentagon) foreknowledge or approval. Although the details of the behind-closed-doors infighting remain understandably murky, Gates is also generally credited with winning the policy review turf battle that spawned Barack Obama's troop escalation in Afghanistan that was announced in the infamous West Point speech.
Now we are treated to Robert Gates the diplomat, poaching publicly into Hillary's domain. To say there were gaffes during Gates recent visit to Islamabad puts it way too charitably. He stopped off in India to sell upgraded military hardware to New Delhi, and then openly warned Pakistan shortly after his arrival there that India could not be expected to show continued restraint if there were another terrorist attack like the incident in Mumbai. There's only one way to connect those dots. Small wonder the Pakistanis were pissed.
This is not merely inept public diplomacy. Rather, this seems to me to be the military-industrial-national security complex openly scuttling whatever incremental steps towards scaling back the US military presence in Afghanistan the Obama administration might be inclined to undertake.
Robert Gates is stirring the pot because he quite understandably senses that he has been given a free hand to do so.
Bill from Saginaw
"Robert Gates is stirring the pot because he quite understandably senses that he has been given a free hand to do so."
Thank you for the refresher on his background. He appears to be a dangerously unpredictable ex-CIA 'asset' in a very powerful position. How tenuous is the presidential grip over the CIA and the FIFTEEN other 'intelligence agencies' in the US Government? How about his grip on Gates?
I suspect 0 only has a grip on himself.
Kent -
Well worth a read over at Robert Parry's ConsortiumNews blog is a two part series on US government policies towards Haiti by Lisa Pease.
Tucked away near the end of Part II is an anecdote about how Bill Clinton sought the assistance of the CIA's black ops boys to bring Aristide back from exile in the mid-90's, and our boys at Langley told the President to take a hike. Clinton had to turn to the Pentagon to restore Aristide (the democratically elected president of Haiti) to power, where Clinton's authority as Commander-in-Chief still was recognized. A few years later, George W. Bush's intelligence assets then ousted Aristide back into exile a second time in a CIA-facilitated coup.
That presidential grip over our intelligence agencies appears very tenuous indeed, at least if its a matter of focusing clandestine operations away from the interests of the right, in support of a more progressive alternative. The CIA tail actually wagged the Big Dog.
Bill from Saginaw
"Or consider that $14.2 billion meant for the Afghan military and police. Forget, for a moment, all the obvious doubts about training, by 2014, up to 400,000 Afghans for a force bleeding deserters and evidently whipping future Taliban fighters into shape, or the fact that impoverished Afghanistan will never be able to afford such a vast security apparatus (which means it's ours to fund into the distant future), or even that many of those training dollars may go to Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) or other mercenary private contracting companies. Just think for a minute, instead, about the fact that the State of the Union Address offered not a hint that a single further dollar would go to train an adult American, especially an out-of-work one, in anything whatsoever."
That paragraph, next to last in the article, bears repeated readings.
$14.2 billion in job training for up to 400,000 Afghans, many of whom will eventually become Taliban aka "the enemy". We are now in the most literal sense using the MIC to manufacture "an enemy that needs to be militarily contained" by further use of the MIC. We are watching a self-replicating monster that devours human beings and treasure.
and, "it's ours to fund into the distant future"
"many of those training dollars may go to Xe Services (formerly Blackwater) or other mercenary private contracting companies."
"not a hint that a single further dollar would go to train an adult American, especially an out-of-work one, in anything whatsoever"
We are living in a nightmare, riding an express train to hell. The MIC is a juggernaut way past any hope of constraint. Add in the financial manipulations of "investment banks" and "insurance companies" stealing every last cent they can thanks to laws weakened and/or repealed by their bought and paid for politicians.
Like the energy wars? You'll love the water wars.
And, great news, I hear Xe is hiring!
"Xe is hiring!"
they've got the gummint contract to investigate Blackwater?
well u aint seen nuthin yet....
admiral mullen
**“I recognize that the military budget is higher now than it has ever been” but “I would see that in the future as an absolute floor.”**
http://tinyurl.com/669cag
"trust deficit". Same banal technocrats and eviscerators of the language, different faces. Get everything into the proper column, balanced out in a nice elegant flow chart and pretty soon a million Vietnamese (or whoever) are dead.
Those behind the Bush Coup ... are still in power.
Look on the bright side: No more gun control.
I was in a sporting goods store yesterday. What struck me was the number of guns available, especially "assault rifles." The guns, including assault rifles were racked unsupervised for consumer inspection. Likewise, ammunition. The shelves are full of cartridges of assorted calibers.
How can I interpret this? The government (ruling elite) has no worry that the people will revolt, violent or otherwise.
The warrior people of the USA are ready to defend this country against all enemies, including ideas which are un-warlike. The USA is armed like no other people in history.
I am only reporting. Please, don't attack me because I am the messenger.