dagblog - Comments for "Robert Gates’ Narcissistic Notions of “Duty”"

You've pretty much summed it

oldenGoldenDecoy — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 17:40:29 +0000

In reply to I felt obligated somehow to

You've pretty much summed it up . . .

The interviewer wasn't chucking softballs... It was more like blowing soap bubbles.

~OGD~

I felt obligated somehow to

Anonymous LULU — Sun, 19 Jan 2014 04:21:23 +0000

In reply to If you've nothing better to

I felt obligated somehow to watch it through. At the time I didn't think I did have anything else to do but I quickly came to see that almost anything at all would have counted as more worth while. Nobody to blame but myself, I could have quit. But, after watching it all, I at least felt perfectly comfortable with my confirmation bias having been confirmed in spades. Gates is a self-serving, self-congratulating, self-pimping, ------- who knows how to plant a smear disguised as a compliment in everything he says. He never left any doubt about who he considered the smartest man in any room. He looked and sounded like a public-relations Mad Man version of Doctor Strangelove.
I have often wondered how closely these things are co-ordinated and choreographed. If I somehow found myself on that stage with a pie in my hand [a cow pie would be best] and as much as Gates deserved it, I think I would have nailed the interviewer with it.

If you've nothing better to

oldenGoldenDecoy — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 23:17:41 +0000

In reply to Robert Gates’ Narcissistic Notions of “Duty”

If you've nothing better to do folks...

Something like ... maybe ... watching paint dry . . .

Here's Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at CPAN who spoke yesterday about his memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War. Interviewer is Chris Mondics, Correspondent Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington DC.

It runs 1 hour and 11 minutes.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/DutyMe

~OGD~

Lulu, good find. Too bad

NCD — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 19:18:24 +0000

In reply to Robert Gates’ Narcissistic Notions of “Duty”

Lulu, good find. Too bad Gates couldn't do Duty at one of the insanely isolated US compounds on the Pakistan border, see The Outpost, a true tale of an absurd 'counterinsurgency' post that was later abandoned after many sent there wound up dead.

Did Gates mention he was upset about not being on that hot Lebanese babes email list along with Petraeus and the other US General? Who were busier with her and their media image than with caring about the guys who died in a another useless war (see book above)? If Obama 'had little faith in the mission', so does anyone with a few functioning brain cells.

I note the guy at the Counterpunch link has a book, National Insecurity, The Cost of American Militarism, isn't the money why they do it?

Gates' view of Ambassador

A Guy Called LULU — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 17:30:24 +0000

In reply to US 'tried to oust Hamid

Gates' view of Ambassador Holbrooke is interesting and reminds of our previous discussion about Vali Nasr's book where Holbrooke is said to be all about diplomacy. Gates says Holkbrooke was also about manipulation.

Nasr says: "The truth is that his administration made it extremely difficult for its own foreign-policy experts to be heard. Both Clinton and Holbrooke, two incredibly dedicated and talented people, had to fight to have their voices count on major foreign-policy initiatives."

If Gates is to be believed then Holbrooke and Clinton might have had trouble being heard but were certainly not completely stifled in their attempts to actually act according to their own policies. They apparently were able to implement their policies in an attempt to affect Afghanistan outcomes, policies that included meddling in the democratic election of a foreign leader. Gates says Holbrooke's methods and actions were obvious to Karzai. That meddling may have had a smart intention but it was hardly diplomatic in its method.

http://dagblog.com/link/inside-story-how-white-house-let-diplomacy-fail-...

Gates might just be a bit about manipulation his own self. In the past, about policies and now, about his legacy.

A spokeswoman for the US National Security Council said Gates's account was untrue. "I worked for Ambassador Eikenberry at the time, watched all of this up close and personal, and that's just categorically false," Caitlin Hayden said in an email response

Like many people with a

artappraiser — Sat, 18 Jan 2014 10:34:14 +0000

In reply to Robert Gates’ Narcissistic Notions of “Duty”

Like many people with a strong view about Robert Gates' new book, Duty, I have not read it.I did, however, attend a reporters' breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor where the former defense secretary spoke for an hour. Gates confirmed what was obvious from the excerpts of his book. His views about Presidents Obama and Bush are varied and complex and far more positive about both than the initial reports suggested. "I have the growing feeling over the last week that my book has become like Lenin," he said. "You can find in it whatever you want to support your position."

from John Dickerson @ Slate, Jan. 17, 2014

in a short article about how Gates answered his question on what qualities make a good president.

Excerpt from Dickerson's earlier piece (Jan. 9) to which he links in the above excerpt:

Those using Gates’ words to bash Obama or Bush are acting out the precise pantomime that Gates hates so much and that appears to be the central target of this book. His chief worry is that “moderation is equated with lacking principles and compromise with ‘selling out.’ Our political system has rarely been so polarized and unable to execute even the basic functions of government.” The ideologues tweezing snippets out of the reviews of Gates’ book for their never-ending slap fight are using the secretary’s authority to make their points. But if you’re going to use his authority in that instance, then you have to sit still for his larger verdict, which is that you and the zero-sum fracas you’re engaged in are what is ruining our government.

Beyond the irony, this is

artappraiser — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 17:56:54 +0000

In reply to 10 Gates Gripes You Haven?t

Beyond the irony, this is also a good example of what little real plotting we actually do as regards being involved in Iran/Israel tensions:

The Funniest Part of Robert Gates' Very Serious New Memoir
by Dave Weigel, Slate, Jan. 10, 2014

where sending an extra aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf can be a sort of afterthought, and is not necessarily part of any grand plan or plot to support Israel in attacking Iran or whatever...

Eikenberry's rep responding

artappraiser — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 17:28:02 +0000

In reply to US 'tried to oust Hamid

Eikenberry's rep responding above, apparently has something to do with intramural Obama admin fighting (beyond my capabilities in figuring it all out so far,) as there is this in the NYTimes today:

White House, in Gates’s Telling, Restrained Clinton
By Mark Landler, Jan. 10/11, 2014

[....] That battle provides one of the most revealing glimpses into Mrs. Clinton’s predicament. Mr. Gates describes how she vented in a White House meeting about the ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry, who she said was defying her and taking his orders from people in the West Wing.

Lashing out against the meddling by the White House and the National Security staff, Mr. Gates quoted her warning the president’s aides: “I’ll turn it all over to you and wash my hands of it. I’ll not be held accountable for something I can’t manage because of White House and N.S.S. interference.”

Despite her demand that Mr. Eikenberry and Mr. Lute be moved out, which Mr. Gates seconded, neither one was. “It had become clear that Eikenberry and Lute, whatever their shortcomings, were under an umbrella of protection at the White House,” Mr. Gates wrote.

While Mr. Gates described Mrs. Clinton as “un-fireable” because of her star status — a status he said he, too, enjoyed — his account tells of a White House that was unafraid to clip her wings [.....]

US 'tried to oust Hamid

artappraiser — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 17:19:14 +0000

In reply to 10 Gates Gripes You Haven?t

US 'tried to oust Hamid Karzai by manipulating Afghan elections'
Former defence secretary Robert Gates is quoted as saying in his memoirs that US tried to eject Afghan president in 2009
By Emma Graham-Harrison, theguardian.com, 10 Jan. 2014

[....] The Afghan election, eventually held in August 2009, was marred by widespread fraud and badly damaged Karzai's international reputation, but Gates laments that the US too was stained by underhand efforts to control the result.

"It was all ugly: our partner, the president of Afghanistan, was tainted, and our hands were dirty as well," Gates wrote. "Our future dealings with Karzai, always hugely problematic, and his criticisms of us, are at least more understandable in the context of our clumsy and failed putsch."

Senior diplomat Richard Holbrooke, then special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, paid public lip-service to the idea of a level playing field, but was working behind the scenes to ensure the opposite, Gates said. He first supported an unconstitutional three-month delay to the election and then, with the help of the US ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, backed Karzai's rivals, he alleged. Holbrooke aimed to push the poll to a second round that the incumbent would lose, but the candidate who got through cancelled the vote and conceded to Karzai.

"Holbrooke was doing his best to bring about the defeat of Karzai," Gates writes. "What he really wanted was to have enough credible candidates running to deny Karzai a majority in the election, thus forcing a runoff in which he could be defeated."

Tactics included advising candidates, attending rallies and organising high-profile photo opportunities, according to Gates, who is highly critical of Karzai elsewhere in the book.

He ponders if the president "listened to anyone but the conspiracy-minded", but points out that the Afghan leader could not have missed what Holbrooke was doing. "Karzai might not be a great president, but he sure as hell knew what was going on in his own capital and was well aware of the American efforts to unseat him," adds Gates.

A spokeswoman for the US National Security Council said Gates's account was untrue. "I worked for Ambassador Eikenberry at the time, watched all of this up close and personal, and that's just categorically false," Caitlin Hayden said in an email response [....]

Kudos to Gates for opposing

Aaron Carine — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 13:36:32 +0000

In reply to 10 Gates Gripes You Haven?t

Kudos to Gates for opposing the war in Libya.