Official Washington loves departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates; politicians and pundits alike hang on his every word, applauding his “candor” and praising his “courageous” spending cuts. But military budget expert Winslow T. Wheeler says Gates’s record doesn’t match his press clippings.
Category: Obama Administration
Time to End the Afghan War?
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other Bush-43 holdovers are pressing President Barack Obama to delay a meaningful drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and continue the counterinsurgency war, but the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland argues that a rapid withdrawal is…
How Pakistan Punked America
For most of the Cold War and during the “war on terror,” Pakistan has manipulated U.S. presidents as part of its own great game as the Islamic republic circumvented U.S. laws to build a nuclear arsenal and to support some…
Neocons Trade Medicare for War
Exclusive: The American neocons are again on the upswing as they undercut peace initiatives from the Obama administration and gain Republican support for maintaining massive Pentagon spending, in exchange for limiting senior citizens’ access to Medicare. As Robert Parry reports, the…
Petraeus Pads Success Against Taliban
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan who is seen as a shoo-in to become the next CIA director, appears to have wildly exaggerated the number of Taliban fighters captured last year by padding the totals with Afghans…
Manufacturing Fear on Iran Nukes
By embracing false or unproven allegations about foreign adversaries, U.S. policymakers may believe they are looking tough or pleasing some important constituent group. But they are also creating a situation that can get out of hand and get lots of…
Skating to the Financial Abyss
Even as another potential Great Depression looms, the U.S. political/media system seems incapable of addressing the crisis and devising coherent answers. Instead, the old partisan and lobbying games dominate the political world and obsession with trivia commands the news media’s…
Three Deadly War Myths
Exclusive: The U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have involved myths pleasing to Official Washington — about its own wisdom and the evil of the enemy — but these false narratives have caused President Barack Obama and other U.S. policymakers to base decisions on illusion rather…
Ellsberg on Pentagon Papers Release
On the 40th anniversary of Daniel Ellsberg leaking the Pentagon Papers, the Nixon presidential library is touting its release of the entire set, including a section on Vietnam peace talks that Ellsberg withheld to avoid disrupting the negotiations. The misimpression…
Can Obama Escape from Afghan War?
Holdovers from the Bush administration, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus, boxed President Obama into a counterinsurgency “surge” during the 2009 policy review for Afghanistan. Now, Obama has a chance to go in a different direction, but…