Robert Parry agrees with me about Gates - a Bush toady and a closet hawk

not that it wasn't painfully obvious from gates' remarks yesterday...

Since the Gates confirmation vote on Dec. 6, however, Bush and Gates have signaled that they have no intention of extricating the U.S. military from the Iraq quagmire. They still insist on nothing short of "victory" or "success," no matter how unlikely those ends and no matter how much blood must be spilled over the next two years to avert defeat.

At his swearing-in ceremony on Dec. 18, Gates endorsed Bush's contention that a U.S. military withdrawal without victory in Iraq and Afghanistan is unacceptable.

"All of us want to find a way to bring America's sons and daughters home again," Gates said. "But, as the President has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility, and endanger Americans for decades to come."

Gates also made clear that U.S. forces would remain indefinitely in Afghanistan despite the eroding military position of the U.S.-backed government there.

so, we add afghanistan to the "permanent war" list, and, if the following pans out, we may be adding a few other countries to the list soon...

In his brief speech, Gates also went out of his way to echo Bush's call for a more aggressive U.S. military that can intervene quickly around the world.

"I was impressed by how deployable our military has become since I last served in government" as CIA director in 1991-93, Gates said. "The President said that one of his top priorities was to help our military become more agile, more lethal and more expeditionary. Much has been accomplished in this; much remains to be done. This remains a necessity and a priority."

So, Gates is onboard with Bush's "stay-until-victory" plan for Iraq and is enthusiastic about having a "more lethal and more expeditionary" U.S. military.
Though soft-spoken and mild-mannered – especially when compared to his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld – Gates sounds in substance more like a closet hawk than a closet dove.

terrific... this is precisely what i was afraid of with gates... another rumsfeld, but with a charm school degree...

and where was our new democratic majority during the confirmation...?

But the Democrats failed to probe any of Gates's inclinations at his Dec. 5 confirmation hearing. They failed to nail down his precise thinking on any aspect of the war strategy or even secure a guarantee that the Pentagon would turn over documents for oversight hearings.

Among many gaps in the questioning, the Democrats didn’t press Gates on whether he shared the neoconservative vision of violently remaking the Middle East, whether he endorsed the Military Commissions Act’s elimination of habeas corpus rights to fair trials, whether he supports warrantless wiretaps by the Pentagon’s National Security Agency, whether he agrees with Bush’s claim of “plenary” – or unlimited – powers as a Commander in Chief who can override laws and the U.S. Constitution.

When Gates did stake out substantive positions at the hearing, he almost invariably lined up with Bush. Though insisting that “all the options are on the table,” Gates rejected any timetable for military withdrawal as some Democrats have recommended.

Desperate to present themselves as "bipartisan," the newly victorious Democrats also avoided any impolite questions about Gates's history of deceptiveness or his role in politicizing the CIA's analytical division in the service of right-wing ideologues in the 1980s.

what i've seen since the election does not comfort me one bit... i am dreading the start of the new session of congress next month...

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