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The Quiet Fury of Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
An anonymous reader writes "Activities, technologies, equipment, or other matters regarding the U.S. Department of Defense are a common topic on Slashdot, both as stories and in discussions. Despite that, we seldom see stories regarding the senior leadership of DoD as we do for technologists, the political branches, and lately the NSA. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who served under both Presidents Bush and Obama, has released a rather biting memoir of his tenure as the Secretary of Defense. The Wall Street Journal has an excerpt: '... despite everyone being "nice" to me, getting anything consequential done was so damnably difficult — even in the midst of two wars. I did not just have to wage war in Afghanistan and Iraq and against al Qaeda; I also had to battle the bureaucratic inertia of the Pentagon, surmount internal conflicts within both administrations, avoid the partisan abyss in Congress, evade the single-minded parochial self-interest of so many members of Congress and resist the magnetic pull exercised by the White House, especially in the Obama administration, to bring everything under its control and micromanagement. Over time, the broad dysfunction of today's Washington wore me down, especially as I tried to maintain a public posture of nonpartisan calm, reason and conciliation. ... difficulties within the executive branch were nothing compared with the pain of dealing with Congress. ... I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned, and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.' — More at The Washington Post."
Nothing surprising.. basically he is just telling us what we already know about US politics in the modern age.
He knew what it was like long before he got that post. What was he expecting, a sudden influx of invisible pink unicorn poop?
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
I have a hard time taking what I've read of the criticism online already seriously. Is it really so damning the Obama didn't consider Afganistan "his war", and "wanted to get out"? Or be "skeptical" of the plans put in place by the military leadership?
I mean it sounds like what we heard in the 2000s from the bush administration where enough patriotism and "believing in the troops" was what it took to make a war work. Expecting that from the common person is annoying and immature, but expecting it from the president sounds extraordinarily naive.
This is the problem of everyone who tries to work with other people, it's something you see at every job where your interests are not aligned perfectly with everyone else's. If you think that's bad, try dealing with an HOA.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The most frustrating part of this to me is that people die - both combatants and not - as a consequence of decisions made by these clowns.
We actually did reduce military funding. Twice even. It's not completely politically untenable like taxes that target the plutocratic class as much as the working and middle classes.
This is actually quite interesting. We have now moved from 'everyone knows' to someone has actually spelled it out.
There are a lot of ordinarly people out there who are not in the 'everyone' category and may now become aware of this.
My the universe bless you with a micromanaging supervisory chain with matrix organization thinking.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned, and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.
He never said any of this publicly while holding his position because he didn't want to lose his job. I feel that most politicians and cabinet appointees feel this way, but they always hold it all in until they leave office and are ready to author their "tell all" memoir. Maybe if someone actually spoke the truth while in office the problems plaguing our government would have a better chance of being addressed.
Of course since they are all "prone to put self (and re-election) before country" they would never dare to challenge the party line. Robert Gates included.
Its news that human beings are self interested, ignorant, and vain? How did this ingenue become secretary of defense?
Here's a news flash for Bob Gates: People in Washington, running the gov. are no better/worse than the general populace. People don't suddenly become 'better' because they get elected to office, or go work for a congressman, or the white house. When you take the job of Secretary of Defense, you get paid for three things:
1. Up holding your duty to the constitution
2. Setting an example for your subordinates
3. Navigating the politics of government
If you don't want to compromise yourself, these things are all thankless arduous tasks. They wear you out. It goes with the territory. Cry me a river Bob Gates.
You really need to look into the re-election rate of incumbents.
Yes, there is a trickle of new-comers... but the bulk of them remain unchanged year-to-year.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
That's upper middle class high "income" earners, who pay out the ass. Plutocrats pay less than you, since their new money for the year is (almost)entirely capital gains.
we can't get competent people to run for public office in this country. Over the years I have worked many times with local, state and federal government agencies. Almost universally, the experience Gates had has mirrored my own. Incompetent management, grandstanding, petty interdepartmental feuds, smothering regulations and endless meetings. If I could sum up the entire experience in a single word it would be this: frustration. Is it any wonder that we can't get talented people to run for public office? High achievers are used to getting things done. Some of them come to Washington thinking that they can cut through the rubbish that slows everyone else down. Good luck with that. I'm sure that many in the press will paint Gates as some sort of grumpy malcontent. But he's actually doing us a favor.
"Resist the magnetic pull exercised by the White House"? Uh...idiot your job is to enforce the President's policies! If you find that your disagreements are that broad, you resign. You make your case, defend it as well as you can, and if the boss says "F it, I want to do it this way," you accept that as the way leadership works. The concerns of a President are larger than that of any Secretary. The top guy is the one ultimately responsible for outcomes so it's always easier for the junior officers to come up with daring, risky plans.
Crying about the self-interests of Congressmen? Uh...that's what Congress is!
While I agree with his complaints about how our government is functioning, he's not the one bearing the brunt of partisan warfare.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The news is that he was recently interviewed in WaPo on this subject.
but yes i think members of congress should be limited to 3 terms 2 in office and 1 in prison
i also think that if a member of congress gets money from an industry group then they should be BANNED from working in that industry for 15 years (not counting any prison term).
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"Duty" offers the familiar criticism of Congress and its culture, describing it as "truly ugly." Gates's cold feelings toward the legislative branch stand in stark contrast to his warmth for the military. He repeatedly describes his affection for the troops, especially those in combat.
Gee, he hates the career politicians who constrain his freedom to act, and loves the people in his chain of command? I'm stunned. Really. You could knock me over with a sledgehammer.
Gates's severe criticism is even more surprising -- some might say contradictory -- because toward the end of "Duty," he says of Obama's chief Afghanistan policies, "I believe Obama was right in each of these decisions." ... The sometimes bitter tone ... contrasts sharply with the even-tempered image that he cultivated during his many years of government service ... In "Duty," Gates describes his outwardly calm demeanor as a facade. Underneath, he writes, he was frequently "seething" and "running out of patience on multiple fronts."
So he's saying highly placed officials are under a lot of pressure, try to do what they believe is right, are often in highly contentious situations, have to suppress their emotional reactions, and on sober reflection ultimately support each other? My goodness, these exciting revelations have me so wound up I may go over to the couch and have a little snooze.
Pop media trying to turn pedestrian normality into sizzling drama. Yawn.
You want to do something interesting, Gates? Surprise me. Tell me about your fight against the F-35. Tell me about how hard you fought, the times you really put yourself on the line, to get that boondoggle cut. Oh, you didn't? That's why we're still paying for that stupid porkbarrel piece of shit that you opposed? So you're saying you talk the talk, but didn't walk the walk. You want to get me excited about your dedication to America, show me you took a risk for what you believed in when doing so had no upside for you. Don't just whine about how hard it was because everyone else were jerks; I can get that story from every single person on the planet.
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Are you intentionally limiting this to politics for some reason? I wonder what Larry Ellison and Donald Trump have to pay their secretaries to put up with them. The fact that we have any separation of power at all between the economic, political, and religious realms is a relatively recent and welcome innovation IMHO. The natural state of humanity is a bunch of slaves under a hierarchy of masters with one at the top. That is what things revert to unless we work continually against it.
By "most Americans", I take it you refer to the dirt poor, who have nothing to pay, and to the filthy rich, who simply do not pay.
Working stiffs pay 25 to 33%. Note the word "working". People who WANT TO WORK, but can't find anything better than a minimum wage job only pay 15% - like Romney. People who fall into the 35% bracket are no longer "working".
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx
Please don't sing Romney's praises to me, for paying 15% taxes. I pay considerably more than that. Worse, like any other politician, he makes his money at our expense, THEN cheats on those taxes!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Living in Alabama, I have to wonder if some states have the maturity to be responsible for their own governance... I'm convinced that the only reason we have Interstates is that the Feds paid for all of it. And I say that as a believer in States' Rights... I just don't know how to let states have completely free rein and still have a decently uniform standard of living across the nation. Heck, we don't even have a uniform standard of living now...
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
I wonder if we shouldn't go the other way. Term limits have long been discussed, and have asymptotically-approaching-zero chance of passage since those who benefit from the system as-is would have to give up something. How about making Congress a LIFETIME elected position? At least then the non-stop campaigning and pandering would have no reason to continue. As it is, with re-election rates as they are (somewhere well north of 90% I believe), this wouldn't even represent much change in the institution.
Maybe then people would also pay closer attention to whom they are voting in. Okay, sorry, don't know what I was thinking there.
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
Gates is a conservative Republican.
I found his criticism to be mellodramatic and uneven.
One time Obama is a 'micromanager' and the next he's 'out of touch'
What galls me most is that he criticized the Obama admin. for questioning his generals hard and not accepting their pat answers. Like we're supposed to feel bad when a General in charge of a war gets his feelings hurt?
I *expect* strict oversight of the men making the direct decisions about wars, especially the double-boondoggles of Iraq and Afghanistan that Obama was given.
In the case of General Petraus, he damn well needed to be questioned, disrespectfully even, because of this whole mess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petraeus_scandal
Where was Gates's keen eye there? Did he admit *any* actual mistakes?
Thank you Dave Raggett
1) Nixon was not impeached. He quit before that inevitably would have happened. Back in those days Republicans were against Nixon because party loyalty didn't blind them so easily as it does today.
2) Nixon did many criminal things, only a few of which were being looked into at that time and some never were investigated like they should have been. Impeachment wasn't about the war.
3) The knowledge Nixon was a TRAITOR by conspiring with North Vietnam to prolong the war for his own personal gain was known BEFORE he was elected but Johnson was too much of a political coward to prosecute a presidential candidate fore treason (plus it would then be used as justification in the future as a political tactic by the unscrupulous.) This information wasn't known until the declassification of the Johnson tapes a few years ago... very few people knew about it. Yes, Johnson started that tape recording tradition which died with Nixon. Providing battle plans is treason, providing political plans and altering plans to aid the enemy is far far worse than say, telling them how to make a nuke.
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Thanks for the compliment, asshole.
And, what are the statutory rates on the dividends and such which people like Romney pay taxes on, again? Oh yeah, 15% - the second LOWEST tax rate on the chart. That is the statutory rate, as you point out - not the effective rates paid after the rich bastids take advantage of the loopholes and tax shelters. The only people paying lower percentages are those people who have nothing. Look at that 10% tax bracket again - an individual paying 10% can't afford to pay for much of ANYTHING. $9,000/year income? Let's get real - we spend half of that or more JUST FOR FOOD in my home! We pay about 1/3 of that JUST FOR ELECTRICITY.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br