Clueless By Design

In the New York Times, Peter Baker and Thom Shanker report:

President-elect Barack Obama has decided to keep Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in his post [...] Democrats close to the transition said Tuesday.

They note that this

will be the first time a Pentagon chief has been carried over from a president of a different party[.]

How audacious!

Is this Change you can Believe in? Or Change you can Hope for?

As an aid to understanding this non-transition, the NYT piece quotes Loren B. Thompson, Chief Operating Officer of the Lexington Institute.

According to Thompson's biography, he

holds doctoral and masters degrees in government from Georgetown University and a bachelor of science degree in political science from Northeastern University.

As Source Watch has noted, Thompson has been quoted in major media, downplaying atrocities committed in Iraq by American troops.

He told the Christian Science Monitor:

You could probably construct an empirical case that US forces are exhibiting more restraint in their treatment of Iraqi civilians than has ever been seen in past wars of similar scale and duration. Almost all of the atrocities that have been alleged involve small units deliberately disobeying rules of engagement and the orders of senior officers.

We know this is not true.

He told the San Francisco Chronicle:

When you look at the circumstances of whom we send and what we expect them to do, it's surprising we don't have more of those cases.

If this is true, it's a powerful indictment. War apologists like to say, in one way or another:

It's a war: What do you expect? Wars inevitably produce atrocities. Get over it.

On the other hand, if all wars produce atrocities, then they shouldn't be waged casually, or on false pretenses, should they?

Regarding the Obama team's decision to keep Robert Gates in charge of the Pentagon, Loren B. Thompson told the New York Times:

I really can’t begin to understand from a political point of view how Barack Obama, a person who got the nomination because he ran against the Iraq war, can keep around the guy who’s been in charge of it for the last two years.

There are plenty of political observers who do understand it, of course, and some who saw it coming a long time ago. But the New York Times cannot possibly quote any of them --- any of us.

Why not? Because we're not part of the established order? Because we might tell too much of the truth?

~~~

Heather Wokusch, at Atlantic Free Press, writes an open letter to the president-elect:

To be honest, Obama, you lost me when you voted for the PATRIOT Act reauthorization in 2006. You lost me again when you voted for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) amendment in 2008. And you lost me every single time you voted for yet more war funding.

Don't even get me started on your vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

I cast a ballot for you in November ...

And so did millions of others.

And now we will all get what they deserve.

~~~

In honor of the cluelessness around us, and in recognition of the day when we celebrate our genocide against the people who lived in North America before it was "discovered", I've made a list of all the things that we -- as Americans and as citizens of the world -- have to be thankful for today:

1.
2.
3.

Our so-called enemies may have a shorter list.

To comment on this post, please click here and join the Winter Patriot community.

Memo To Robert Gates From European Allies: The War In Afghanistan Is Lost

The war in Afghanistan -- never a true or noble cause -- is now being described by America's most important European allies as a lost cause as well. Unfortunately, "lost" in this sense does not mean "finished".

The repercussions from this failed war will be immense and very ugly -- especially because the Americans still can't see that it's lost.

The Telegraph : Afghanistan is lost, says Lord Ashdown

Nato has "lost in Afghanistan" and its failure to bring stability there could provoke a regional sectarian war "on a grand scale", according to Lord Ashdown.

The former United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina delivered his dire prediction after being proposed as a new "super envoy" role in Afghanistan.

Lord Ashdown said: "We have lost, I think, and success is now unlikely."
...

Lord Ashdown added: "I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite [Shia], Sunni regional war on a grand scale.

If there is any solution to be found, it lies mainly in the realm of politics.

This Is London : War with Taliban 'could last for years' warns defence chief

British troops could remain in Afghanistan for "decades", the head of the Armed Forces warned yesterday.

And even then the conflict will only be resolved by a political deal - after talks with Taliban leaders, said Sir Jock Stirrup.

In an interview, the Chief of Defence Staff said: 'In terms of bringing Afghanistan into its rightful place in the 21st century, that is an enormous project, that will engage the international community, frankly, for decades.

"There is a common misperception that the issues in Afghanistan, and indeed elsewhere around the world, can be dealt with by military means.

"That's a false perception. The military is a key, an essential element in dealing with those problems, but by and large these problems can only be resolved politically."

It's too bad the Americans don't understand any of this.

The Guardian : Gates Doubts Europeans' War Commitment

Defense Secretary Robert Gates [photo] on Thursday questioned the commitment of some NATO allies to winning in Afghanistan, saying the outcome there is at "real risk" because some European nations are unwilling to provide enough troops and resources to the mission.
...

"If an alliance of the world's greatest democracies cannot summon the will to get the job done in a mission that we agree is morally just and vital to our security," he told the European army generals, "then our citizens may begin to question both the worth of the mission and the utility of the 60-year-old trans-Atlantic security project itself," referring to NATO, which was created in 1949.

I have bad news for Robert Gates.

First, The "getting the job done" is a fantasy. The job itself is impossible. Nobody has ever conquered Afghanistan, and nobody ever will.

Second, we do not agree that the war is morally just. We remember the Taliban's offer to hand over Osama bin Laden if the Bush administration could provide evidence that he was responsible for 9/11. Six years later, even the FBI doesn't have such evidence. Thus, the assumptions on which the war is declared to be morally just and noble are incorrect -- perhaps intentionally misleading. Note that this applies not only to the war in Afghanistan but to the entire "war on terror".

Third, it would be a good thing if our citizens began to question the worth of the mission. Many of them are already doing so. It would be an even better thing if our citizens begin to question the worth of the politicians who sent us on that mission, and the false pretext on which that mission is based. And some of them are doing that as well.

On second thought, maybe none of this is news to Robert Gates. Maybe he knows all these things already. But clearly he cannot say them.

And that's why we have bloggers.