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SecDef: A Patriot With Guts
FEENIX
Member Posts: 10,559 ✭✭✭
New York Post
June 12, 2008
Gates The Great
By Ralph Peters
MIRACLES do happen: A Bush Cabinet officer has proven not only competent, but wise, honest, independent and courageous.
That man is Defense Secretary Robert Gates - who just may be the best SecDef this country has ever had.
If only he could stay on into the next administration, he might rival our greatest Secretary of War, Elihu Root, the crucial military reformer of the early 20th century.
Gates is just and deliberate, but he's wonderfully tough when it's time to make hard decisions. In his brief tenure - since Dec. 18, 2006 - he's stood up to each of the services when they deserved it.
Even more crucially (and dangerously), he's been willing to face down the plutocrats of the defense industry - the thugs in $3,000 suits who've robbed our military for decades, stealing your tax dollars.
Gates' most-recent demonstration of patriotic guts involved firing the Air Force secretary and chief of staff.
They had it coming. The secretary was oblivious and inert. The chief of staff, Gen. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, thought that the only Air Force missions that mattered were supporting Lockheed Martin and fighting attempts to expand the use of cost-effective UAVs (a k a "drones").
A member of the Air Force's notorious "fighter-pilot mafia," Moseley pushed bankrupting buys of aircraft-without-an-enemy, such as the F-22 - then refused to send that platinum-plated piece of junk to Iraq, where its defects and limitations would've been exposed before the buy was complete.
Meanwhile, Moseley and the dozing service secretary continued to neglect our nation's nuclear deterrent - even after repeated embarrassments showed that mission and safety standards had eroded almost to Soviet levels.
Moseley always had an excuse for every security breach. But Gates wasn't interested in excuses. Instead, he applied a military axiom: "The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters."
Gates not only faced down the Air Force's entrenched fighter-pilot mafia, his new choice for Air Force chief of staff reflects that service's real missions: Gen. Norton Schwartz made his bones flying transport aircraft and in special operations - two disciplines that matter.
While Moseley's fair-haired boys drilled very expensive holes in the sky over Nevada in $330 million aircraft that never flew a combat mission, the in-the-fight Air Force of transport crews, special operators, ground controllers and ground-attack pilots were at war.
Gates fired the prince and put the pauper on the throne - then went in person to a series of Air Force bases to tell blue-suiters why he did it.
Nor does Gates "pick on" the Air Force. On the contrary, he may be the best friend the Air Force has had in decades. He just raised a stop sign in front of those willing to cut Air Force personnel to the bone to keep funding ever-more-expensive, ever-less-relevant aircraft. This SecDef wants a robust Air Force that can fight.
He holds the other services accountable, too: Questioning the cost and utility of the Future Combat System - a divisive issue within the Army itself - Gates "went Missouri," demanding evidence of how this $200 billion package would contribute meaningfully to the range of conflicts we face now and will face in the future.
The Navy and Marine Corps have had to answer tough questions, too. Everyone gets a fair hearing, but if Gates remains unconvinced, he'll go high-noon with the vested interests. And his decisions always favor our troops in combat.
When the generals decided not to buy vehicles designed to deflect roadside bombs - since they might not be useful in future conflicts - Gates overruled them. In the view of this SecDef, protecting our troops now is more important than fantasies about tomorrow.
That said, Gates respects his generals just as he values the privates. He just won't tolerate substandard performers. His motto could well be "Never imperious, always curious."
In other words, he's the anti-Rumsfeld. As SecDef, Donald Rumsfeld surrounded himself with yes-men. Gates seeks out the best men.
Rumsfeld assumed he knew everything. Gates understands that learning never stops.
The Rumsfeld Pentagon ran a propaganda organization that amounted to a self-licking ice-cream cone. Gates disdains self-promotion.
When the going got tough, Rummy sent his underlings out to take the hits. When Gates makes tough decisions, he stands in the line of fire himself - as he did last week in front of those Air Force audiences.
While the Rumsfeld Pentagon was subservient to the defense industry, from Boeing to Blackwater (to say nothing of Halliburton and the like), Gates insists on giving our troops - and taxpayers - the best value for our defense dollars. (The contractors hope to wait him out.)
Rumsfeld was a bully. Gates is a warrior.
Few Americans will miss the Bush administration. But the men and women in uniform will miss Bob Gates. He's the model of what a public servant should be.
Ralph Peters' new book, "Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World," will be published on July 4.
June 12, 2008
Gates The Great
By Ralph Peters
MIRACLES do happen: A Bush Cabinet officer has proven not only competent, but wise, honest, independent and courageous.
That man is Defense Secretary Robert Gates - who just may be the best SecDef this country has ever had.
If only he could stay on into the next administration, he might rival our greatest Secretary of War, Elihu Root, the crucial military reformer of the early 20th century.
Gates is just and deliberate, but he's wonderfully tough when it's time to make hard decisions. In his brief tenure - since Dec. 18, 2006 - he's stood up to each of the services when they deserved it.
Even more crucially (and dangerously), he's been willing to face down the plutocrats of the defense industry - the thugs in $3,000 suits who've robbed our military for decades, stealing your tax dollars.
Gates' most-recent demonstration of patriotic guts involved firing the Air Force secretary and chief of staff.
They had it coming. The secretary was oblivious and inert. The chief of staff, Gen. Michael "Buzz" Moseley, thought that the only Air Force missions that mattered were supporting Lockheed Martin and fighting attempts to expand the use of cost-effective UAVs (a k a "drones").
A member of the Air Force's notorious "fighter-pilot mafia," Moseley pushed bankrupting buys of aircraft-without-an-enemy, such as the F-22 - then refused to send that platinum-plated piece of junk to Iraq, where its defects and limitations would've been exposed before the buy was complete.
Meanwhile, Moseley and the dozing service secretary continued to neglect our nation's nuclear deterrent - even after repeated embarrassments showed that mission and safety standards had eroded almost to Soviet levels.
Moseley always had an excuse for every security breach. But Gates wasn't interested in excuses. Instead, he applied a military axiom: "The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters."
Gates not only faced down the Air Force's entrenched fighter-pilot mafia, his new choice for Air Force chief of staff reflects that service's real missions: Gen. Norton Schwartz made his bones flying transport aircraft and in special operations - two disciplines that matter.
While Moseley's fair-haired boys drilled very expensive holes in the sky over Nevada in $330 million aircraft that never flew a combat mission, the in-the-fight Air Force of transport crews, special operators, ground controllers and ground-attack pilots were at war.
Gates fired the prince and put the pauper on the throne - then went in person to a series of Air Force bases to tell blue-suiters why he did it.
Nor does Gates "pick on" the Air Force. On the contrary, he may be the best friend the Air Force has had in decades. He just raised a stop sign in front of those willing to cut Air Force personnel to the bone to keep funding ever-more-expensive, ever-less-relevant aircraft. This SecDef wants a robust Air Force that can fight.
He holds the other services accountable, too: Questioning the cost and utility of the Future Combat System - a divisive issue within the Army itself - Gates "went Missouri," demanding evidence of how this $200 billion package would contribute meaningfully to the range of conflicts we face now and will face in the future.
The Navy and Marine Corps have had to answer tough questions, too. Everyone gets a fair hearing, but if Gates remains unconvinced, he'll go high-noon with the vested interests. And his decisions always favor our troops in combat.
When the generals decided not to buy vehicles designed to deflect roadside bombs - since they might not be useful in future conflicts - Gates overruled them. In the view of this SecDef, protecting our troops now is more important than fantasies about tomorrow.
That said, Gates respects his generals just as he values the privates. He just won't tolerate substandard performers. His motto could well be "Never imperious, always curious."
In other words, he's the anti-Rumsfeld. As SecDef, Donald Rumsfeld surrounded himself with yes-men. Gates seeks out the best men.
Rumsfeld assumed he knew everything. Gates understands that learning never stops.
The Rumsfeld Pentagon ran a propaganda organization that amounted to a self-licking ice-cream cone. Gates disdains self-promotion.
When the going got tough, Rummy sent his underlings out to take the hits. When Gates makes tough decisions, he stands in the line of fire himself - as he did last week in front of those Air Force audiences.
While the Rumsfeld Pentagon was subservient to the defense industry, from Boeing to Blackwater (to say nothing of Halliburton and the like), Gates insists on giving our troops - and taxpayers - the best value for our defense dollars. (The contractors hope to wait him out.)
Rumsfeld was a bully. Gates is a warrior.
Few Americans will miss the Bush administration. But the men and women in uniform will miss Bob Gates. He's the model of what a public servant should be.
Ralph Peters' new book, "Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World," will be published on July 4.
Comments
But today it's always someone else's fault...[xx(]
hopefully the troops on the sharp end will notice a positive difference.
which ever way you want to look at it it seems as though he is sweeping with a new broom and that cant be all bad.
hopefully the troops on the sharp end will notice a positive difference.
Just so you know, I was not criticizing Gates' efforts in any way. I'm relieved that finally we have someone in the halls of government who is not afraid to take responsibility for things, yet somewhat saddened that what was formerly a common virtue has become such a newsworthy oddity.
Gates might be OK. I don't know one way or the other, but I haven't seen him do anything impressive yet. I know I don't like that perpetual smirk on his face.
with rank goes responsability, the higher the rank the more responsability. he is doing his job by getting rid of incompetent people, but it makes a refreshing change to see someone in authority making the decisions instead of covering up for the incompetant persons. hopefully the ones who come into these jobs now will actually do the job they get paid to do instead of leaving all the work to others.
it should hopefully filter right down to the grunt on the front line, if they know the people in authority actually care about them their morale will hopefully be better than ever before.
This reminds me of the decision reality phases ...
When faced with a 20-year threat, the
government responds with a 15-year plan,
in a 6-year defense program, managed by
3-year personnel, attempting to develop a
2-year budget, which in reality is funded
by a 1-year appropriation (which is
typically 1 to 6 months late), actually
formulated over a 3-day weekend and
approved in a 1-hour decision briefing
f22 = junk. if air superiority is already achieved with cheaper and older a/c, why did we need it.
thats why its a piece of junk.
Former Member U.S. Navy Shooting Team
Former NSSA All American
Navy Distinguished Pistol Shot
MO, CT, VA.
f22 = junk. whats its threat?
f22 = junk. if air superiority is already achieved with cheaper and older a/c, why did we need it.
thats why its a piece of junk.
I'm not the world's biggest fan of the F-22, but calling it junk is a little harsh, especially for the reasons given.
In my opinion, "good enough" isn't, so slagging it because its capabilities exceeds our current needs is not a legitimate argument, in my opinion.
If anything, I'd criticize it for the fact that in a wartime situation, it is so expensive and so many of its electronics are foreign-sourced, it will be dificult to keep them in the air or replace losses should the war drag on longer than anyone anticipates.
Our military had been justifiably oriented toward the Soviet threat since the post-WWII era. Shortcomings of this single-mission thinking by all branches of our military became evident during Vietnam, where we basically had to relearn tactics and develop needed equipment as we went along. All branches were forced to learn quickly in VN and managed to adapt, but took hard knocks in the process. We again saw this play out in the whole-different-kind-of-war we entered into in Iraq/Afghanistan.
The true problem is that within the AF there have always been two very seperate and distinct airpower cultures - fighters and bombers. Which side of this fence it's leadership comes from has tradionally determined the AF's way of thinking.
Since it's birth in '47, when the Cold War was just cranking up, every AF Chief of Staff came from a bomber background because strategic bombers and ICBM's were THE priorities. Due to their mindset air-to-air equipment and training more or less took a back seat, which became pretty evident during Vietnam. The AF's fighter/fighter-bomber loss rates over the north spiraled up when they faced the best pilots the Com-Bloc countries had to offer and it's reaction to this was slow. Notice the non-strategic air mission thinking Navy actually began their advanced fighter training program during VN ('Top Gun') before the AF. Flexibility just wasn't written into the AF's playbook and their fighter personnel had to come up with measures on their own without a lot of support.
This all flipped after the Cold War ended. The AF got it's first upper level leadership with a Tactical Air Command (fighter-jock) background in the early 80's. The 'fighter mafia' within the AF has always been a very tight knit community which looks upon their air-to-air mission as what the AF is really all about, with all other components existing simply to support this mission. Since that time they've made the same mistake as the former leaders and placed the AF's focus on their type of mission. It's important to prepare for the next conflict, which could very well involve state of the art air-to-air combat, but you have to fight the war you're in.
An example of this fighter-jock oriented thinking is the AF's view of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. AF leadership hasn't been a proponent of UAV's at all due to the fact they're unmanned. Despite the logic of the concept, these leaders have treated them as a threat to their entire existence as pilots instead of the entirely new arena for projecting air power these will inevitably become. They've grudgingly accepted them, but with some ridiculous concessions.
As an example, under current AF policies all those Hellfire missile armed Predators flying over SWA must be controlled by a rated pilot. They're prepped and launched by forward deployed personnel in Iraq/Afghanistan, but are actually being controlled by a pilot sitting at a console here in the US. Basically, you have a highly trained fighter pilot - of course dressed in his flight suit/flight gloves - playing a video game at some CONUS fighter base while a bunch of enlisted people launch and recover his aircraft on the other side of the world. These pilots even rack up flight-hours toward air medals for flying 'combat missions'. This is self-serving nonsense.
What we're seeing is Gates trying to drag the AF into the real world. It appears he's on the right track by doing away with the long standing fighter or bomber oriented leadership issue and instead appointing one with a Special Operations background. IMHO, that was a good move.