"Obama's Hawk" . . A man who should NOT stay on. . .

[annabanana]

From The Nation, Jan 7:

In the spring of 1971, a young Marine captain named James L. Jones stood guard as part of a phalanx surrounding the Capitol, with shoot-to-kill orders should antiwar protesters try to storm the building. According to Boys of '67, a recently published biography written by his cousin, Jones, a decorated Vietnam combat officer, brooded about "the Jane Fondas and Jerry Rubins of the world" as he scanned the marchers for any sign of a long-haired Navy lieutenant, John Kerry, whose condemnation of atrocities by US troops rankled him. In Vietnam Jones had served as aide-de-camp to gung-ho Maj. Gen. Raymond Davis, whose plan for defeating North Vietnam included "invading Laos, Cambodia, and the DMZ," said Jones sympathetically.

~snip~

Today Jones--a retired general and former Marine commandant who headed the US European Command and was commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--will be at Obama's elbow in the White House as national security adviser. It's hard to imagine a less likely choice to be Obama's go-to guy on foreign policy. Hillary Clinton, Obama's nominee for secretary of state, and Robert Gates, his nominee for defense secretary, are already widely considered to be tough-minded hawks. But Jones is probably the most hawkish of all, and he seems least compatible with Obama.

~snip~

Jones pays lip service to Obama's oft-stated campaign pledge to pull US combat forces out of Iraq over sixteen months. Not long ago, however, Jones was of a different mind. "I think deadlines can work against us," he said in 2007. "And I think a deadline of this magnitude would be against our national interest." His views on Iraq during the run-up to the war aren't known, though it's reasonable to assume that, like Gen. Anthony Zinni, a former Centcom commander, Jones was skeptical of the neoconservative-promoted war. According to Bob Woodward's State of Denial, in 2005 Jones warned the man who was soon to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Peter Pace, that he faced a "debacle" in Iraq. But when many retired generals began to denounce the Bush administration's Iraq policy in 2006, Jones pointedly demurred. "I do not associate myself with the so-called 'revolt of the generals,'" he said.

Regarding Afghanistan, where Jones is a proponent of a troop surge, he's shown himself to be credulous at best. Repeatedly over the past three years he's touted the view that a newly arriving brigade would turn the tide, Vietnam-like, and repel the Taliban. And time and again he's cast doubt upon the plain-as-day fact that the Taliban are resurgent. It is worrying--again echoing hawkish arguments about the Vietnam War--that he links failure in Iraq and Afghanistan to loss of face: "I personally don't believe that the United States can afford to be perceived as having not been successful in either Iraq or Afghanistan, and I think the consequences for such a perception or such a reality will be with us for years to come in terms of our ability to be a nation of great influence in the twenty-first century."

MUCH more at link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090105/dreyfuss

side note: I am SO happy to see Katrina vanden Heuvel in a talking cube on MSNBC's 1600 lately. She knows her stuff and has a clarity of expression that is very valuable in getting progressive frames "out there". .

[RC]

1. We need, above all else to get the Hawks out of positions of power in our government

War is not the answer. War is not a sports game like football where the players and spectators can expect to live to play another day.
That is why Hillary is a poor choice for SOS. Peace is the answer. For that we need diplomacy, not threats.

[annabanana]

2. afternoon kick. . .. .

[annabanana]

3. one more kick in search of a rec. . . . n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. The Domino Theory redux. It isn't just a "perception" that we're weak. We are weak.

The reason we're both weak, and perceived as weak, is because we insist on trying to run the world by involving ourselves in unwinnable wars.