Missile Madness: Mr. President: Please Show Secretary Gates The Gate!

Unabashed regular readers are probably already weary of our campaign to render Secretary of Defense Robert Gates even slightly vulnerable to the scrutiny of observers of all political persuasions.  The Secretary has presided over nearly a full Presidential term, 2 years under Bush and now approaching 2 with President Obama with notable lack of success.

The war in Iraq is not over, 50,000 U.S. troops(and over 70,000 civilian contractors) remain until December 31, 2011!  The "Surge," which we prefer to identify more accurately as "The Escalation," only caused more casualties on both sides and only delayed the inevitable fall of the current regime(it can't be called a government, because one hasn't been formed since the elections in March, now almost half a year ago) which those who've spent anytime in country agree will occur within a year or two of the departure of the final 50,000 uniformed American troops.  

The Escalation "succeeded" temporarily because irrational nuts like Muqtada al-Sadr who led armed gangs of thugs that killed in the name of Allah were paid off, and Baghdad rendered relatively safe, again temporarily.  Incidentally, al-Sadr has taken his American currency to Tehran where he is plotting future nonsense.

General Petraeus hoodwinked Secretary Gates into escalating the uncalled for Iraq war.  Then General McChrystal hoodwinked him into applying the same failing principle of "counterinsurgency" to a totally different set of circumstances in Afghanistan, and Gates presided over McChrystal's pathetic "dissing" of all civilian control of the military by means of flapping his lips and allowing his underlings to do the same in the presence of a Rolling Stone reporter while barhopping in Europe during the volcanic ash grounding of airliners earlier this year. 

Gates also presided also over Petraeus taking a demotion from CenComm commander down to Afghanistan commander in order to mop up after McChrystal.  Gates has been in charge of our failure to win two wars against entities(not governments, "gangs" really) without the benefit of air forces, navies, missiles, or anything but home made bombs, rifles and handguns.  

Gates is also responsible for the pathetic condition that Walter Reed Army Hospital was allowed to fall into(remember the videos showing moldy walls, etc.) for our returning heros, as well as for the loss of hundreds, maybe thousands of remains at Arlington National Cemetary.

He gets $700,000,000,000.00 in regular funding annually from Congress, which does not even include the funding for Afghanistan and Iraq, and has been unable for nearly 4 straight years to prevail over third world street gangs and the "Taliban." 

Clearly he is incompetent, to say the least, and the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, and media on the right and on the left keep hands off the Teflon Defense Secretary.  Again, I ask:  Why?

There were never any WMD in Iraq, and no Al Quaeda in Iraq until after the Cheney/Bush invasion.  The Afghan war was won in 6 months and since then we've only succeeded in advancing Mullah Omar's cause by expanding his base throughout Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.  One day and 4 hijackings on one horrendous occasion killed too many Americans.  However, Al Quaeda has never been a threat to U.S. national security.  We all await the Breaking News Story reporting the successful Punk Bin-Laden drone strike, those of us on the right, the center and on the left!

The only legitimate military threats to U.S. national survival still only come from the nukes deployed by former KGB-er(and G.W. Bush's "good friend") Vladimir Putin and the godless Communist/Currently Captialist leaders in Beijing.  I don't worry at all about "Jihad" on a daily basis.

The Obama administration is definitely on the right track by compelling current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seriously negotiate with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.  Netanyahu, as a right-wing Israeli politician, is uniquely qualified to sign a treaty with Abbas, just as right-wing Prime Minister Menachem Begin was in the same unique position to sign the first Israeli-Arab treaty with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat under President Jimmy Carter's leadership. 

Netanyahu's inflammatory rhetoric and military misadventures, particularly in boarding a Turkish relief ship headed for Gaza and killing numerous Turkish nationals several months ago, have put him in no position but to follow the Clinton State Department's lead in seriously negotiating with the more than moderate Mr. Abbas.  Should talks become promising, it is likely to undermine both Hezbollah and Hamas in the Golan Heights and in Gaza.

And nothing could more quickly undermine or even put an end to "Jihad" altogether than a Palestinian-Israeli peace and a legitimate and permanent two-state solution.  Neither could anything undermine President Ahmadenijad and the so-called Shiite Mullahs(not either Shiite, nor Mullahs; just "nuts") ruling Tehran and threatening to stone yet another woman this month.  And nothing would end more quickly the need to employ American uniformed personnel in wacky attempts to lose wars to third world punks like "Mullah" Omar, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin-Laden.

Once again America owes a huge debt of thanks to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Mr. President, your foreign policy will succeed in far more glorious ways for the people of the United States should you choose to dismiss Secretary Gates today(we suggest Senator John Kerry of Massachusettes as a great potential replacement) and eliminate the civilian link to the uniformed brass that despises civilian rule over our military.  Peace....