Don’t forget that Wolfowitz is still lurking in the background. That’s how everyone in Washington “knows” about Iran…....

Nice to see that peopel understand the reality of it all so clearly these days - but your M1 Abrams MBT is just as typically a ‘cold war monster’ as the USA itself now is, uhh!

Yes, even crocodiles have tears….....

After Admiral Fallon, I mean? To get the axe because he dares to question Bush, Cheney and the neocons?

Another thing—-his getting all teary-eyed at the end of his speech makes me think of crocodile tears.

“...And how many carrier groups do you need to keep the high seas safe from stateless terrorist groups?”

Humm, do you mean stateless terrorist groups without a navy, or an army, or planes, or ships, or tanks, or even NAMES/Identities?

Good question.

But, when there’s no real ‘enemy’ aside from the ones they CREATE, I guess they have to ‘cover all bases’. Besides, like you said…the MIC and the politicians need the money.

Gates said the U.S. military was not organized and equipped for the kind of wars it finds itself in today.

No shit?  The writing was on the wall by the early 70’s, but in the mid-first decade of the 21st Century, a counterinsurgency manual was published by the Pentagon…to great acclaim.

The reason that the U.S. military is not organized or equipped for the kind of wars it finds itself in today is that there wouldn’t be such big money for defense contractors…and hence politicians.

For example, the M1 Abrams MBT is probably the best MBT in the world.  It is designed for fast movement; consequently, it’s heavily armored on the front and the sides.  It was never designed to sit at a crossroad like a giant phallic symbol, or rumble down city streets.  But that’s what we use it for.

Never mind all the fancy electronics and the huge support staff that they require.  A B-2 bomber doesn’t do much (for the money) against regular looking guys with AK-47’s.  And how many carrier groups do you need to keep the high seas safe from stateless terrorist groups?

The Pentagon, with its general staff of 3,000 (Ike only had 300), is the problem…don’t expect them to solve it.

Gates is an improvement over Rumsfeld, but that isn’t saying much.  What’s missing during this election from all the candidates and spinmeisters of both parties is clear views on what our foreign policy should be and by what means and strategies we plan to implement that. We have been muddling through since the end of the Cold War and it isn’t working.

I wonder how personally responsible he really feels for them? I wonder if he even has an idea of how many recent West Point graduates have returned in boxes from Iraq and Afghanistan?

I personally know of three.

Meantime, how does he KNOW that Iran is ‘hellbent’ on acquiring nuclear weapons, despite his own agency’s NIE report from a couple of months ago, that says otherwise. Hillary seems to ‘know’ the same thing.

Do they ‘know’ this the same way that they ‘knew’ Saddam had WMD of all varieties?

How does he ‘know’ about all of these violent jihadist groups around the globe? It would be interesting if these people ever actually NAMED any of these groups and what they’ve done, or who they’ve done it to, or what they ‘think’ their planning for the future of this ‘long war’.

Why do I think they might just be making all of this shit up as they go along?