Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, former Secretary of State Robert Gates’ memoirs of his years as SecDef, have been excerpted and/or discussed by the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. If you follow this sort of thing, you know that Bob loved Hillary, definitely a feather in her…
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Robert Gates and Leon Panetta: They’ll none of them be missed
Last week, that music hall pair, Robert M. Gates and Leon E. Panetta, aka Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, brought their good cop/bad cop routine to Dallas, Texas to answer questions about President Obama’s proposed incredibly small bombing of Syria. Gates, aka “The Thoughtful One,” said it was a bad idea while Panetta, aka “The…
Robert M. Gates, totally full of it. Totally.
“Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned on Thursday that North Korea was within five years of being able to target the continental United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile, and said that, combined with its expanding nuclear program, the country “is becoming a direct threat to the United States,” today’s New York Times reports. According…
Vanneman v. Gates, the struggle continues
Back on Jan. 11, 2011, I unloaded rather loudly on then SecDef Robert M. Gates, in a post rather testily entitled “Robert M. Gates, totally full of it. Totally,” expressing skepticism with regard to Gates’ statement that in five years North Korea would be able to target the U.S. with an intercontinental ballistic missile, which,…
Fred Kaplan: Getting Gates right
I’ve taken out some, though only some, of my many frustrations over our bloody and pointless war in Afghanistan by frequently ridiculing the columns of Fred Kaplan on the war. Writing for Slate, Kaplan, who has a lot of experience with foreign affairs, slowly metamorphosed from Afghan cheer leader to cautious skeptic to outright disbeliever…
Shorter Jamie Dimon: You’re calling me a “whore”? I prefer the term “businessman”.
Sorry, Jamie, but even by “businessman” standards—if they still exist—you’re a whore, and a pretty goddamn big one too. Here’s Jamie talking to CNBC about the state of the world, after meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Ukrainian spelling as per Wikipedia): But, you know, my heart goes out to the guy. I mean, people…
A Cold Snap in Hell: The New York Times Wonders if Government “National Security Experts” Always Tell the Truth!
Satan’s earmuffs, it’s cold! The headline says it all: Why ‘Trust Us’ Is Often Reason Enough Not to Trust the Government. In a stunningly trenchant “news analysis”, Charlie Savage notes that the frenzied resentment that Biden administration spokesfolk like Jen Psaki express towards anyone who doubts their sainted word only makes us doubt them all…
“Farewell” to the American Empire? GOOD RIDDANCE!
“Decline is a choice!” bellowed the late Charles Krauthammer back in the day, livid (to say the least) that that pantywaist in the White House hadn’t yet bombed the hell out of whomever Charles felt needed such treatment. And his spiritual children, the Trump-battered nextgen neocons at the Dispatch and the Bulwark are continuing to…
In 1997 General McMaster wrote an excellent book about Vietnam, “Dereliction of Duty”. That should be the title of his autobiography as well.
Lieutenant General (three-star) H. R. McMaster, former national security advisor to Donald Trump, among other crimes, has been all over the airwaves recently, denouncing (of course) President Biden for having the courage to pull the plug on a 20-year farce—albeit one written in the blood of the innocents—known as the Afghan “War”—one of the very…
Old Man War Machine, he jes’ keep rollin’ along
(Editor’s Note: I wrote this piece to describe the military intellectual complex’s endless search for a new Cold War. But Donald Trump seems to be looking for a hot one.) The Washington Post’s recent release of the “Afghanistan Papers”, which reported at least a significant portion of the near-infinite number of lies told to justify…