Defense Secretary Gates Plans His Own Exit Strategy from Pentagon

Defense Sect. Gates said he is leaving January of next year. Respecting his service we are thankful he has decided to leave.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0816/Why-would-Defense-Secretary-Robert-Gates-want-to-retire

Often if one announces a plan to leave an employer on a schedule one finds oneself out the door the next day or two. Could this happen to Secretary Gates?

Without 3000 rich people dying each year through terrorism it is hard to say that the perennial occupation of Afghanistan is a necessary policy. If a WTC were being trashed every year then most Americans would support the wastage of a generation of prosperity assuring the rich that the pea under the mattress can be fixed. That might be easier than arresting Osama Bin Ladin and Mullah Omar of course, yet if we leave the area they will probably come out of their caves to gloat and swell thus presenting higher target sillohettes than at present.

Secretary Gates and Chairman of the joint Chiefs Mullins have each made eyes at one another at Senate hearings in support of gaying up the military. We hope that Sect Gates 'coming out' of the Pentagon does not follow a swilling off ending of 'don't ask don't tell' foisting an openly gay policy on the nation as an agent of socialization.

We prefer he take General Petraeus with him. Those of us poor in the civilian sector without jobs do not all desire unelected mouthy generals commenting on political policy for United States military deployments abroad. A good General is one with his mouth shut before the media.

Americans like to have a competent professional military cadre, yet they also want them to support democracy rather than Banana Republic. The 10 years war of Afghanistan is not against the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, but against shoeless Taliban getting richer perhaps along with the Muslim OPEC world and contributors while the counter-insurgency guru is limited to strategies that spend money like water.

Ike had a right to comment on war policy and economics--yet he seldom troubled Roosevelt. Patton had a loose tongue, yet he was also a winner rather than a bureaucrat deciding to McClellanize U.S. policy with interminable requests for more and more money and troops. Non-sustainable war economics are as much of an attack on the people of the United States as economic damage caused by the Taliban.

Though the Halliburtons and KBRs got rich during these protracted, incompetently designed neo-war/nation rebuilding efforts it does not follow that it is beneficial to U.S. interests. I do not regard General Petaeus as competent for designing a sustainable political or economic system for Afghanistan. I believe the skill set required is more of an anthropological, sociological, political philosopher, historian range rather than that of military though military competence is also required. The President and Secretaries of State are responsible for the lack of intelligent design in their Afghanistan policy and there is little prospect that competence from the U.S. Government is forthcoming.

We hope the next SecDef has creative thought about containment and de frapping of terrorist assault potential from that region while simultaneously cutting back on the cost of such necessities. Without a far higher ratio of ecologically renewable economic development to war personnel in the U.S .Afghanistan budget there is little reason to expect a sustainable post-American Afghanistan with a benign modern government.