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GATES TO LEAVE IN 2011; SKY FALLING; AUGUST IN WASHINGTON
I thought Fred Kaplan's profile of Sec. Gates was very solid work and enjoyed reading it. Gates said some very reasonable stuff about when he might like to retire:
"I think that it would be a mistake to wait until January 2012," he said. It might be hard to find a good person to take the job so late, with just one year to go in the president's current term. And, he added, "This is not the kind of job you want to fill in the spring of an election year."
August in Washington, though, man: I'm already getting requests for comment on WHAT THIS ALL MEANS. What this means is that everyone needs to act like Fonzie and chill. (Especially you, Yolanda.) Sec. Gates is not resigning tomorrow, and there will be plenty of time between now and his departure to both assess his legacy and handicap his likely successors.
Run Away!! Run Away!! Keep
Run Away!! Run Away!! Keep Running....
That Rabbit's Dynamite!!
I mean, why didn't Robert
I mean, why didn't Robert Gates sit down with someone who would reach a larger, younger audience? Rolling Stone's got some reporters clamoring for interviews and sleep-overs, you know. Best to go with the tried and true in this kind of situation, ha ha ha!
Who's the greater public
Who's the greater public servant--Henry Stimson or Robert Gates?
The Iview was surprisingly
The Iview was surprisingly cool - inspite of Dr K's penchant for Great Satan hating - and Def Sec Gates laid it out to play it out regarding any 2012 electile dysfunction
"You know, who knows what the election situation will look like. But also I just think this is not the kind of job you want to fill in the spring of a presidential election. So I think sometime in 2011 sounds pretty good."
Correctamundo, my question
Correctamundo, my question is, why is Gates still working at the Pentagon, if he can't fix simple problems like managing the DOD and start firing a bunch of over-paid, under-worked Contractors? 90% of our Contractor jobs could easily be done away with.... just start firing them!
Watching Gates on TV talking about his website (comical), to help resolve the DOD spending problems and expenditures reminds me of Jimmy Carter during the Energy Crisis.
Go put your sweater on Mr. Gates, turn down your thermostat in your office and send out a couple pink slips or................ grow a pair of balls!
I just bet you a Contractor was hired to put up the DOD public website to have labor force workers solve Gates expenditure problems for him!.... Ironic huh?
Stimson was for full-blown
Stimson was for full-blown post-war expansion of the so-called military-industrial complex, and generally supported the colonial model;
On Nicaraguan people, Stimson wrote that they "were not fitted for the responsibilities that go with independence and still less fitted for popular self-government."
Stimson's role in promoting and pushing for the use of the atomic bomb against Japan is also highly questionable, but then the real culprits are the scientists who continued work on the atomic bomb after it became very clear that Germany had zero atomic capability. Stimson and his allies used the bomb primarily to bring a rapid end to the war and avoid calling on Stalin for support. Otherwise, Stalin would have been leading the invasion of Japan, and a German-style partition might have resulted.
Stimson is praised for insisting on the Nuremberg War Trials, but that also left him in control of the process - and as a result, he selected judges with little experience for the trials of Krupp, Fick and I.G. Farben - and he refused to even consider putting American allies of these firms on trial for treason. This turned into a major propaganda coup for the Soviets, who printed endless cartoons of U.S. & British governments in bed with ex-Nazi industrialists and financiers. The story of the I.G. Farben whitewash is told in Josiah DuBois's The Devil's Chemists, and more recently in "Hell's Cartel."
All the CEOs - Otto Ambros, ter Meer, etc. - were given light slaps - and then released from prison in the 1950s - and who played the central role in that decision? Stimson's Assistant Secretary of Defense, John J. McCloy - who then worked for Chase, Rockefeller and Ford - very firms, who incidentally, in the pre-war period, were involved with I.G. Farben's American subsidiaries, and hence played an important role in the re-arming of Germany. It helps to know that in the 1930s, McCloy’s law firm (1929-1940) of Cravath, de Gersdorff, Swaine & Wood were attorneys for I.G. Farben - and that McCloy sat in Hitler’s box at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Isn't history fun?
McCloy, out of Stimson, then capped his career off by helping guide the establishment of the post-oil shock Saudi-American petrodollar recycling scheme in the 1970s, in lieu of supporting domestic energy initiatives - a relationship, which, eventually, culminated in the 9/11 terror attacks... later, many different parts of Dante's Hell then entered a bidding war over who would get to house him - even the Big Guy expressed interest.
Hence, the comparison between Stimson and Gates could not be more bleak; one man (and his lieutenant) played a major role in initiating the Cold War and all the dangerous waste it entailed, and the other played a major role in bringing it to an end.
Yes! and the Gimp isn't
Yes! and the Gimp isn't using any Anal Ease. Gates is really giving it to the taxpayers and he's laughing all the way to the bank!
Wish someone would do a documentary or book on the lives, after retirement, of Secretary's of Defense. Would be interesting to see how many have been paid off and received illegal gratuities over the last century.
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