Gates Stays at Defense

George Bush's Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates, will also be Barack Obama's SecDef. Although Mr. Gates would love to get out of DC and get to Seattle for some well-deserved rest, he will hang on at the Pentagon for another year or so. Some have called this a “rolling transition,” others an acceptance of the GOP's talking point that Democrats are lousy on defense. The truth is this makes the inevitable withdrawal from Iraq-Nam a bipartisan move and a stroke of brilliance.

Back during the McCarthy era, the right loved to ask “Who Lost China?” Naturally, China wasn't America's to lose, but the fact that pro-western Chiang Kai-shek got kicked out by Mao's communists irked the Republicans in America. They argued that the Democrats were soft on communism and as a result, America lost China.

Another bit of rightist revisionism has taken place over the last few years regarding the war in Vietnam. Some on the right have decided that the war wasn't lost after all until the cowardly Congress cut off weapons to the Saigon government in the mid-1970s. That, they argue, emboldened the North Vietnamese to attack and overwhelm the free South. In actuality, the North was going to attack in any case, and one cannot believe that the Saigon forces with US weapons could stop them. After all, the 500,000 US forces under General Westmoreland only managed a battlefield stalemate. The South was doomed no matter what.

This brings the discussion to Iraq-Nam. President-Elect Obama has promised to get US forces out of that country within 16 months of taking office. This resonates with the recently negotiated Status of Forces Agreement that the US and the Green Zone government have made, suggesting that the US leave by 2011. The withdrawal of US forces will not mark the end of strife in Iraq-Nam. It will merely mean that the locals are in charge of the mess. As the mess grows worse, those who want a continued occupation will start to blame the administration for ending American involvement in Iraq-Nam.

If the US does get out in a year or so, the question hanging in the air will be “Who lost Iraq-Nam?” It is for this reason that it is vital for Mr. Gates to remain at the Pentagon for at least a year. The answer to that question becomes “America,” or “George W. Bush and Field Marshal Donald von Rumsfeld,” or “nobody” -- because Iraq-Nam was never America's to lose anymore than China once was.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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