Gates Pushes for Radical Overhaul of Pentagon Arsenal

Via TFT:
Obsidian Wings:

I'm not sure it tells anything we don't already know (read, e.g., The Dark Side). But the Levin-run Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainee abuse is now out (pdf exec summary). And it deserves some press attention.

Will Obama Buy Torture-Lite?

You’ve got to hand it to them. Torture aficionados at the White House and CIA have conned key congressional leaders into insisting not only that torture-lite would be a swell idea, but advocating that the overseers of torture be kept on.

From change-you-can-believe-in, we seem to be slipping back to fear-you-can-trade-on.

It is not just Obama, or even the Intelligence Committees, it is the entire palace of moral bankruptcy that makes this possible.

Until 1947, the United States habitually told the truth about at least one thing. The job title of the Pentagon's highest ranking civilian was the Secretary of War. But the recent slaughter of tens of millions in the Second World War had given the Pentagon's real function a bad name. So Democrat Harry Truman rebranded the Department of War, naming it the Department of Defense. From that day, the Secretary of War became the Secretary of Defense. War plants, war expenditures and bloodthirsty war industries became more benign-sounding defense plants, the defense expenditures and the patriotic defense industry.

Robert Parry

Surprisingly this Thanksgiving, the Washington Establishment had a lot to give thanks for. And its chief mouthpiece – the Washington Post’s neoconservative editorial page – was glowing over its good fortune in the three-plus weeks since Barack Obama's election.

On Friday, the Post’s lead editorial thanked President-elect Obama for settling on insider favorites for key jobs, especially officials with long records of promoting the neocon foreign policy agenda. ...

He is a advocate of homophobia, is stalling on closing Guantanamo and giving excuses in place of results.

Gates blames everyone but himself. Gates fires reality-oriented officers. Gates is a warmonger, that is how he got his present job.

Obama Team Tilts Toward Gates

Another sign that Obama may be close to retaining Gates has been the lack of chatter from transition officials about alternative candidates

Robert Gates; bad as Rumsfeld?,
The Danger of Keeping Robert Gates

Obviously there are no plans to hold torturers accountable and no plans to tell the truth about what happened.

Burt Lahr in "Waiting for Godot" (Explained after the jump)

So what's David Ignatius' excuse? He may be stupid, but "criminally insane" is a reach, as it is not for Bush/Cheney and all who have drunk of the cool-aid.

The singular purpose of Ignatius' latest column, out today in the welcoming pages of the Wa Po opinion section, is to make sure that Democrats get a good portion of the blame for all the bad things to come in Iraq.

Getting into Iraq was President Bush's decision, and history will judge his administration harshly for its mistakes in the postwar occupation. But getting out of Iraq is now partly in the hands of the Democrats who control both houses of Congress. History will be equally unforgiving if their agitation for withdrawal results in a pell-mell retreat that causes lasting damage.

Well, at least he makes it explicit.

So what the hell is it that Ignatius is cautioning Democrats they'd better be on board for?

Robert Gates has Tehran on his mind:

Serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide "pretty good" evidence that Iran is providing either weapons or technology for militants there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserted Friday.

Offering some of the first public details of evidence the military has collected, Gates said, "I think there's some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found," that point to Iran.

There's a smoking gun for you.

[I'm listening to those wienie-scarfing fucktards at NPR carefully frame Robert "Bob" Gates as a member of the Bush 41 team--the rational Republicans, so much better than Bush, so much more the natural ruling party.... Without, can you believe it, mentioning Gates as an Iran-Contra operative. Just unbelievable.]

It could be that the Republican tendency to lower the bar and exceed even the most cynical expectations for massive suckitude has somehow been eliminated...

That the Republicans, chastened, have returned to reality-based thinking...

That the Republicans, somehow, can undrink the Kool-Aid.

No, I didn't think so. Bush's trainwreck of a presser showed this clearly; all he could do is repeat the same inside-the-bubbdle talking points.

Anyhow, Robert Gates is a more competent VRWC operative than Rummy. And for those who remember Iran-Contra--arguably, where today's Constitutional crisis has its roots--Robert "Bob" Gates is an old, old friend: