For those who have not noticed, the Global War on Terror has morphed into what is now being labeled as "The Long War".

Soon after the neo-cons got their "Pearl Harbor", former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Americans what to expect. "Forget about 'exit strategies, we're looking at a sustained engagement that carries no deadlines."

Donald Rumsfeld is today a discredited and widely reviled figure. Robert Gates, Rumsfeld's successor as Defense secretary, is generally admired for manifesting qualities that Rumsfeld lacked -- a willingness to listen not least among them. Yet on one crucial point, the two see eye to eye: Both believe that the United States has no alternative but to wage a global war likely to last decades.

LA Times The 'Long War' Fallacy by Andrew J. Bacevich

Speaking at West Point in April of this year, Gates, echoed his predecessor's assessment. "There are no exit strategies." Gates described a "generational campaign" entailing "many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world."

The U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Georgia would be laughable if not so ominous for the future. I read statements of the President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense. With the subsitution of a few nouns I saw how the past is coming back to bite. Indulge me:

"Russia {The U.S.} is putting its aspirations at risk by taking actions in Georgia {Iraq} that are inconsistent with the principles of those institutions," Bush said.

"Those institutions" refers to "international institutions" in which Russia desires to be a major player.

  The cost of energy has gotten America's attention again. Will we learn from the past, take steps in the present, and plot a course for the future? Three recent news stories caught my eye recently, and they fall on those axes. Read on for some links and musings about electric cars, the synergy of rails and roads, and changes at the top of the USAF don't mean backing away from alternative energy - or do they?

Follow me below the fold to find out.

Good news: Pressure from Rep. Waxman to enforce Dr. Kaye Whitley's subpoena to testify on how the DOD is preventing and responding to incidents of sexual assault in the military have paid off: after first blocking her from attending a House committee's hearing, the Pentagon is allowing Whitley to testify. Bad news: the DOD continues to ignore a very specific responsibility they have been tasked with in order to fully address this issue.

I expect that people find it hard to deal with emotionally sensitive issues. I may even expect that many people would want to shield themselves from it.

But I won't tolerate elected and appointed officials who run and hide when they not only have the power to do something about it, they have the explicit responsibility of doing something about it.

It really isn't (on my mind) all that much, but the headline, though too obvious to be used, was still too tempting to be ignored.  Still, I think my grandmother was born there; she had no fond memories of the place and, with so many other Jewish families, got out when she could and arrived, thankfully, in Boston, around the turn of the 20th century, very young.

But the thought arises that the Bushies have decided that reviving the Cold War on the way out might be a fun thing to occupy their last few months.  I don't think so, however.

¶The United States has more musicians in its military bands than it has diplomats.

¶This year alone, the United States Army will add about 7,000 soldiers to its total; that’s more people than in the entire American Foreign Service.

¶More than 1,000 American diplomatic positions are vacant because the Foreign Service is so short-staffed, but a myopic Congress is refusing to finance even modest new hiring. Some 1,100 could be hired for the cost of a single C-17 military cargo plane.

The quotes are from a column with the same title as this diary, written by Nick Kristof and appearing in today's New York Times  In this piece. Kristof argues that we overinvest in military toolsand underinvest in diplomatic tools, which results in a foreign policy which is often ineffective and unnecessarily antagonizes the rest of the world.

And he relies upon the words of our Secretary of Defense to bolster his argument.

I watched No End in Sight again the other day. And the part that angered me the most this time through was the realization of how long Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Powell, and Armitage have been influencing policy. So I did a quick audit of some of the Bush Administration's top Cabinet members and officials. Most of this information was taken from Wikipedia and I checked most of the sources listed. I highlight the total number of years active, but the dates these people were active is also noteworthy.

I shall let the evidence speak for itself.

(Anyone else I should audit? Let me know.)

This diary will continue discussing how Bush/Cheney have used historical precedents during their administration, and, how the same people continue to come back to haunt us, that I started in Part I.

So, without further ado...

There are days when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates makes you glad there's a guy in that office who's at least trying to keep Dick Cheney and the Crazies in their box.  Other days, Gates says stuff that makes you want to scream.  When he warned recently against a risk of "creeping militarization of some aspects of U.S. foreign policy," I wanted to scream "Yo, Rip van Winkle!  Eisenhower told us all about it 47 years ago."

How many of you know that on June 5th, 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that he was appointing a task force to oversee the nation's nuclear arsenal, and the nuclear procurement process?

Didn't know that? Well, it's true. Don't feel bad though. The MSM only reported high level resignations at the air force, and gave sketchy details about some of the lax accountability with regard to nuclear weapons.

But there is far more to the story. And, if you heard Gates' press conference on C-span, and happen to know a little background, you would understand that something a lot bigger than a shake-up of air force leadership is happening.

(I re-edited this in a hurry as I hold my stomach about to throw up, but read on, I think it is now coherent - despite my rage!)

It makes me sick to the stomach to read about the stupid press people at camp Obama reiterating how both McCain and Obama both love the troops, support the troops, and all that bullshit. This stupid press department did the same during the primaries, leaving me wondering exactly which candidate they were working for. While the primaries involved battling against fellow Democrats, and a delicate balancing act indeed that was, particularly when battling a woman, this is the general, and the Rethugs need us never, not once be their spokesperson for any of their virtues (if there are indeed any)
cnn's skewed coverage

This staying above the fray will just never work with Rethugs, and this is the perfect example of why this should never have been allowed to happen! I honestly don't know that the Obama candidacy can survive this onslaught!

I have no idea who came up with the brilliant idea of covering up for Condi, Gates, Bush and Co! I can just picture the Clintons and all Clintonistas now saying, "I told you so! He couldn't battle the Rethugs and this is an example! "

There has been some buzz about the possibility of Senator Obama keeping Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense should he become the 44th President of these United States.  The buzz was natural as a result of the huge contrasts between former Secretary Rumsfeld's tenure and that of Secretary Gates.  It also helps that Secretary Gates actually shares a lot of the same world-views as Senator Obama.  I'm in agreement with former Secretary of the Navy, Richard Danzig;

"My personal position is Gates is a very good secretary of defence and would be an even better one in an Obama administration."

As we all know Obama has been taken heat by the MSM and the McCain campaign for saying that he would "refine" his Iaq policy after visiting Iraq.  However, Obama is sticking with his plan of withdrawing 1 to 2 brigades per month to try to get all combat forces out of Iraq in 16 months taking into account what is happening on the ground as well as the Iraqi government themselves who want a timetable for withdrawal.

Well according to Newsweek in the next month there will be a forthcoming Pentagon-sponsored report that will recommend and even STEEPER DRAW DOWN IN LESS TIME.

http://www.newsweek.com/...

I smell a real debate going to be happening in the Fall on the Iraq War and Obama will be the victor.

While it is being bruited about that the Administration is planning for a somewhat earlier withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, if Secretary Gates is counting on protecting the bases with robots and drones, he might want to think again.

In any event, the United States Air Force is demonstrating lots of enterprise.

Just a quick hit here.  Thought this column by Dana Milbank deserved some notice.  

Milbank reports on the firing of the new public affairs director at Arlington National Cemetary.  Basically, she was fired for trying to allow the press to have access to funerals at the cemetary.  

This is from The London Times, so...

In defiance of traditional party labels, Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, may ask the defence secretary of President George W Bush to stay on if he wins the White House.

Obama’s top foreign policy and national security advisers are pressing the case for keeping Robert Gates at the Pentagon after he won widespread praise for his performance. The move would be in keeping with Obama’s desire to appoint a cabinet of all the talents.

Say what you like about McCain's policy incoherence -- his major on-the-record flip-flops (Bush tax cuts, warrantless wiretapping, exempting the CIA from torture prohibitions, immigration reform, offshore drilling, etc. etc.), his open disavowals of supposedly current policy positions (not privatizing the existing social security program, eliminating the alternative minimum tax, refusing to bail out homeowners), his ventures into fantasyland (League of Democracies, offsetting hundreds of billions in tax cuts by eliminating earmarks).

The fact remains: he was right about the surge. Not necessarily about what to do next, or what our long-term goals in Iraq should be, but about the need to reduce violence and reach a minimum level of stability before we could expect any political progress. He was not just lucky-right; he was right because he understood the military requirements, and how a measure of military success might give the Iraqi government room to maneuver.

What I wanted to write about this morning was how history has fairly definitively demonstrated that the privatization of the delivery of public goods and services has failed the ostensible purpose of improving quality at a lower cost.

But then, a quick tour through the latest news about the United States Air Force led to a considerable detour.  For, while Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is making speeches about all our military services being more open to civilian critique, some people seem to have gotten the wrong message from his recent efforts.