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$18
By Eugene Jarecki
$19
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YouTube / RonPaul2008dotcom
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With the simple dictum “don’t be evil” as its motto, the Internet software giant Google—which ranked as the third-highest lobbying spender in the tech industry in 2010—wages an aggressive image and relations campaign with an international public, and its strategy is evolving. (more)
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AP / Susan Walsh
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The good news, for those awaiting the repeal of the military’s oppressive “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, is that the House of Representatives on Friday voted in favor of lifting the policy. However, it’s far from a done deal ... (continued)
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DoD / MC1 Chad J. McNeeley
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Only Congress can overturn the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, but the military may unilaterally make it harder to enforce—or at least hold up its end of the deal by actually not asking. The Pentagon will reportedly stop acting on accusations of homosexuality by third-party snitches and gay-baiters and will disempower anyone but generals and admirals to discharge people. Update
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mgx.com
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Senior White House officials have made it known that the self-imposed deadline for closing Guantanamo by January, one of the first orders laid down by Barack Obama as president, may have to be extended as legal and logistical questions prevent the U.S. from regaining its “moral high ground.”
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Summit Entertainment
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This week the Truthdig panel talks about the racial politics behind the arrest of high-profile Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who himself said, “I was cast by him [the policeman] in a narrative and he didn’t know how to get out of it.” Also, pop culture critic Sheerly Avni gives a big thumbs up to a new and telling film about the Iraq war, “The Hurt Locker.”
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Summit Entertainment
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This week the Truthdig panel talks about the racial politics behind the arrest of high-profile Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., who himself said, “I was cast by him [the policeman] in a narrative and he didn’t know how to get out of it.” Also, pop culture critic Sheerly Avni gives a big thumbs up to a new and telling film about the Iraq war, “The Hurt Locker.”
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DoD / Cherie A. Thurlby
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By Joe Conason — Fiscal conservative is one of those terms used by politicians of all sorts to describe themselves, without any real justification. That phrase is often used to mislead the public about the priorities and policies favored by those who claim to embody budgetary prudence.
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DoD / R. D. Ward
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Those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking their toll. To cope with rising demand, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he will increase the size of the Army by 22,000 troops for a period of three years. That means there will be 569,000 active-duty soldiers, bringing America’s active-duty armed forces close to 1.5 million.
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AP pool photo / Aleksey Nikolskyi
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By Scott Ritter — The president must be getting bad advice. Why else would he offer not to build a missile defense system he doesn’t want in exchange for Russia’s help with an Iranian nuclear weapons program that doesn’t exist?
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By Amy Goodman — President Barack Obama met recently with the prime ministers of Canada and Britain, two NATO allies looking for a way out of Afghanistan even as the U.S. is talking escalation.
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By David Sirota — Only weeks ago, the political world was buzzing about a “team of rivals,” but instead President Obama has populated his administration with Bush yes-men and Wall Street kleptocrats whose discredited theologies cannot be killed.
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flapsblog.com
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Turning away from the nation-building exercises that defined Bush-era policies but maintaining the dubious “war on terror” frame, Defense Secretary Gates indicated Tuesday that he has changed his mind on the goals for Afghanistan. Gates declared that the U.S., instead of seeking democracy, should set more limited goals in the long war and occupation.
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By Ellen Goodman — The standard male narrative about flying solo to the top, bootstraps in hand, energized only by your own talents, always seemed a bit cockeyed to me. The female narrative was not so much self-effacing as it was realistic.
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USAF / Master Sgt. Kristen Stanley
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“It is going to be more of a Wal-Mart approach than a Gucci approach.” That’s how a senior Defense Department official, quoted in the L.A. Times, describes perennial Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ vision for Pentagon spending priorities.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — In naming retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki as veterans affairs secretary, President-elect Barack Obama made what may be the most politically and morally significant choice of his transition.
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By Joe Conason — When the journalistic pack bites into a tasty cliché, they often refuse to let go, lazily chewing and regurgitating a phrase like “team of rivals” long after the flavor is gone.
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By Amy Goodman — President-elect Barack Obama introduced his principal national security Cabinet selections to the world Monday and left no doubt that he intends to start his administration on a war footing. It is revealing that his choice for national security adviser is a director of Boeing, a weapons manufacturer, and Chevron, an oil giant.
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By Eugene Robinson — Terrorism (for the umpteenth time) is a tactic, not an enemy. One of the most urgent tasks for President-elect Barack Obama’s “team of rivals” is coming up with a coherent intellectual framework—and a winning battle plan—for George W. Bush’s globe-spanning “war on terror.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — In electing Barack Obama, the country traded the foreign policy of the second President Bush for the foreign policy of the first President Bush.
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USAF / Tech. Sgt. Jerry Morrison
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Multiple news outlets, from ABC to Fox, now confirm that Robert Gates will retain his post as secretary of defense for at least the first year of the Obama administration. The president-elect will roll out Gates and his other hawks during a national security team unveiling next week.
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Flickr / James Gordon
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Here’s one way to get U.S. troops out of Iraq: The tediously negotiated status-of-forces agreement between the U.S. and Iraq has met yet another snag. The current legal justification for the occupation of Iraq is about to expire, and the U.S. is eager to pass new guidelines, but the Iraqi Cabinet is hitting the brakes.
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By William Pfaff — The issues that have fueled Russian-American tensions in Europe in recent months, and European tensions with both Russia and the United States, have suggested a willingness on all sides to reignite tensions that on the face of it serve no one’s real interests. Recent developments could change all that.
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By William Pfaff — Less apparent to most people than the economic crisis, but just as real, are the signs of an impending crash of an American military system in which, since the end of the Cold War, Pentagon dysfunction has metastasized so uncontrollably as to scandalize the men who have overseen it.
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usip.org
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It seems that “personal regret” is deemed sufficient to exculpate the U.S military after the deaths of civilians in U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Gates offered his hollow apologies and promised more accurate targeting in future attacks.
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http://www.mnci.centcom.mil/leaders/index.htm
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On Tuesday, Gen. David Petraeus handed over the duties of commander of multinational forces in Iraq to his second-in-command, Gen. Raymond Odierno, who worked with Petraeus on implementing the U.S. troop surge over recent months. To mark the occasion, Petraeus, other American officials and Iraqi brass joined Odierno for a ceremony in a Baghdad-area palace formerly owned by Saddam Hussein.
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Northrop Grumman
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Unnecessary and extraordinarily expensive, the once-green-lit controversial KC-X midair refueling tanker program has stalled, according to the Pentagon. Any movement on the $40 billion contract to purchase new Air Force tankers will have to wait for the next U.S. administration, a clear sign that military-industrial complex spending is an institutional, rather than administrative, problem.
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AP photo / Ziv Koren, Pool
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By Robert Scheer — Barack Obama is betraying his promise of change and is in danger of becoming just another political hack. Yes, just like former maverick John McCain, who has refashioned himself as a mindless rubber stamp for the most inane policies of the miserably failed Bush administration.
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opendemocracy.net
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On Friday, a day after an American cargo ship fired warning shots at two small boats off the coast of Iran, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen said the Pentagon is considering various options, including military action, to deal with what he characterized as the Iranian government’s “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq.
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DoD / Robert D. Ward
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates thinks Gen. David Petraeus should succeed Adm. William Fallon as head of U.S. Central Command. “I don’t know anybody in the United States military better qualified to lead that effort,” said Gates.
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Iraq’s civilian spokesman for Baghdad security was released from captivity Monday. Professor Tahseen al-Sheikhli, who was kidnapped a few days ago, was found unharmed, except for his ego.
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AP photo / Sgt. Armando Monroig, U.S. Army
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Americans serving in Iraq will have to wait until the next president takes office before they can expect any substantial changes in troop numbers, if Bush follows the latest recommended plan from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
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msnbc.com
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In an effort to combat ever dwindling enthusiasm among America’s youths for a career in the military, the Army is enlarging its recruitment staff, loosening age and criminal record restrictions and offering more cash bonuses, such as $45,000 tax-free to buy a house. Last year the Army spent $1 billion on bonuses and advertisements.
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AP Photo / Andrew Gray, pool
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It’s now five months into the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq, and although Defense Secretary Robert Gates (center) claimed during his visit to Baghdad this weekend that it’s still too early to tell if the surge is working, one U.S. military higher-up, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, admitted that only 40 percent of Iraq’s capital city is consistently safe.
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While the Bush administration has repeatedly referred to the Democrats’ timetable for withdrawal from Iraq as a recipe for failure, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has praised the measure. He’s also urged an assessment of the troop escalation by this summer—sooner than supporters of the “surge” would like—and indicated support for a withdrawal as outlined by the Iraq Study Group, which he was once a part of.
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The House Oversight Committee has sent requests to the White House and Pentagon asking for all documents related to the death of Pat Tillman. The committee is investigating why the Army misrepresented the circumstances of the Ranger’s death. Key to that effort is a letter sent by a top general urging Gen. John Abizaid to warn the White House.
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The Pentagon has had it with picking up the slack from civilian agencies in Iraq, grumbling its concerns to the president and even Congress. The military has been forced to fill jobs that otherwise would be performed by civilians, mainly from the State Department, which, unlike the Army, can’t force people to work under the nightmarish conditions it helped to create.
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from asashop.org
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who only two years ago supported renewing diplomatic relations with Tehran, has taken the administration’s recent Iran bashing to heart, saying the U.S. will beef up its presence in the Persian Gulf to make sure Ahmadinejad & Co. don’t get any ideas.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates and Gen. Peter Pace all testified before Congress on Thursday, defending the president’s plan to escalate the war. But many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, weren’t impressed. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, told Gen. Pace, “This is the craziest, dumbest plan I’ve ever seen or heard of in my life.”
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Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer and contributor James Harris discuss Robert Gates, the virtues of “losing” at war, race in America and more.
Posted on Dec 23, 2006
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Robert Scheer joins Truthdig contributor James Harris for a lively discussion on the devolution of Robert Gates, exiting Iraq, the politics of race and more in this special audio edition of the Truthdig podcast. (Now includes transcript)
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cnn.com
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Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command and the military chief of the Iraq fiasco, will retire in March. Though officials say Abizaid tendered his retirement before Rumsfeld was pushed out, his departure will allow Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Bush more flexibility in their Iraq makeover, as Abizaid has been a dogged opponent of increasing troop levels.
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AP Photo / Ron Edmonds
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By Robert Scheer — Here we go again: A new secretary of defense and yet another call for ending the war in Iraq by escalating it. What are they smoking in the Bush White House?
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Veteran journalist and Bush administration critic Seymour Hersh speaks to Amy Goodman on “Democracy Now” about what to expect from Robert Gates as defense secretary: “The reality is Gates is a fresh face and there’s a lot of people, [Brent] Scowcroft and James Baker among them, who are very worried about what’s going to happen in ‘08.” Watch it
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By Joe Conason — If nothing else can be said for Robert Gates, he seems to have learned that the appearance of honesty is preferable to blatant attempts at deception.
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Robert Gates has been confirmed by the Senate with enormous support. While much has been made of Gates’ “fresh perspective” on the war, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) pointed out that it is the president who structures policy. And this president is notorious for selectively listening to advice.
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wcsh6.com
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When asked during his confirmation hearing today whether the United States was winning the war in Iraq, Robert Gates said simply, “No, sir.” The nominee for defense secretary, who later went on to soften his position, is expected to receive a speedy confirmation.
Update: The Senate Armed Services Committee has voted unanimously to recommend approval of Gates’ confirmation.
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By Robert Scheer — Truthdig’s editor argues that there remain unanswered questions surrounding the Iran-Contra connections of Robert Gates, whom Bush has tapped as defense secretary.
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Last week, President Bush told a group of reporters that Donald Rumsfeld would stay on until the end of Bush’s term. But as Bush himself admitted during his Nov. 8 press conference, that was a lie. Watch it
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