UPDATED BELOW
The commander of CENTCOM, Adm. William Fallon, resigned today. Here’s coverage from the New York Times, Washington Post, and Josh Marshall.
Just when we thought the Cheney/Rumsfeld axis might be losing its grip . . . alas, no. If you’re not enjoying $109/barrel oil and early recession — hoo boy — just wait until they attack Iran.
UPDATE: At The Washington Monthly, Kevin Drum writes:
Holy cats. Less than week after Esquire’s admiring profile of CENTCOM chief Adm. William Fallon — admiring, that is, if you think dissenting from Cheneyesque bellicosity is admirable — Laura Rozen reports that he’s stepping down. Not being warlike enough carries a heavy price in this administration.
More here. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, says the New York Times, “labeled as ‘ridiculous’ any speculation that the admiral’s retirement portends a more bellicose American approach toward Iran.” You betcha.
UPDATE: By the way, I’ll bet that no military officer ever again speaks to Thomas P.M. Barnett, who wrote the Esquire piece. Fair or not, he’s gotta be radioactive after this.
UPDATE 2: The suspicion that Fallon opposes the administration’s policy on Iran goes back to last September, when he told al-Jazeera that the “drumbeat on Iran” was “not helpful” and “not useful.” Shortly after that, Barnett approached Fallon to begin work on his profile.
Today, SecDef Gates said this about the idea that Fallon was at loggerheads with the administration: “We have tried between us to put this misperception behind us over a period of months and, frankly, just have not been successful in doing so.”
So I wonder: did Fallon and Gates see the Barnett piece as a way of fighting “this misperception”? Did they figure that Barnett was a sympathetic writer and Fallon would be able to set him straight during their time together? And were they then stunned when the piece appeared and not only failed to fight the misperception, but actively amplified it? And does Fallon blame himself, or does he think Barnett screwed him?
Just wondering.
The Esquire piece is here.
Our war too many goes on and on and will help to end our brief run as superpower as its cost exceeds 4 trillion dollars, money largely borrowed for the far east, wiyh China, South Korea, and Japan hold most of it. We dont have it as out national total debt load is close to or exceeds our current GNP. This couldnt come at a worse time as our nation was already in considerable decline.
Its purpose was to secure the Iraqi fields and a source of cheap oil for the next 20-30 years as the Saudi fields have probably peaked, and their is concern the country could fall into hands of extremist or its fields sabotaged. They also wanted to hand the fields over to American companies to control.( They would make billions in profit.) It is a hedge to counter the Fra East quest for oil.
The problem is it didnt work, the oil never flowed and we now we owe even more to far east, more extremist than ever, oil is appraohing 110 a barrel, OPEC is sronger than ever, the world hates us, etc. It is a complete failure far worst than Vietnam, which oour grandkids will be paying for. It shorten our prosperity bt at lesat twenty years.
BTW, we are not entering a simple recession it is a the first worldwide recession at best, depression probably, totally economic collpase perhaps.
These guys really screwed up. BTW I am forth generation Republican.
Not only did they screw up, i4a, they’re incapable of learning from their screwups. And don’t even think they need to.
Worst. President. Ever.
why don’t you get your facts straight:
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/me_iraq_03_11.asp
Fallon last week was testifying before Congress that Iran was under mining Iraq, hardly the work of someone who thought Iran was harmless.
and you do realize that in acquiring nukes, enriching uranium is the hardest part of the process. After that, weaponizing that is relatively easy and they are still working on the missiles, also known as the delivery system.
Kingfish, maybe we could send Charlie Ross over there where he could kill them with his killer scowl!
Jeez, kingfish, what kind of rightwing rag is “World Tribune”? I’ve never heard of it, or any of its opinion writers except Bob Novak.
Maybe you oughta read that Esquire story before you pop off so big. In it, Fallon says of Iran (my paraphrase, but very close), “These guys are ants. We’d crush ‘em.”
I swear, I can’t get over how easily you lot scare.
“I swear, I can’t get over how easily you lot scare.”
That, IMHO, is the worst sin of the present regime. In 2000, we were a proud nation with a confident outlook, the feeling we could accomplish anything and the envy of the world.
Today, we’re building walls instead of tearing them down, we’re afraid of “weapons of mass destruction” from a country that had little or no means to deliver them, we’re the joke of the world and, as Lotus said, we’re scared of everything.
Sigh.
TN lawyer, how the Bush-Cheney-neocon crowd has a shred of cred with anybody anymore is what beats the hell outta me.
How many times do you have to prove yourself an utter doughhead before some people get it?
Meanwhile, they’ve utterly trashed the whole concept of “the United States of America” for, probably, the rest of our lives and more. Lord only knows what we’ll pay for their idiocy — and that of the Congressional Dems who haven’t stood up to them.
It’s all a scare tactic, from the damn bird flu on and why is Pappa Bush in Korea. Fallon is smart, has wisdom, and knows the hell what is about to happen. Anybody that can Think knows we(The US)is in harms way, and Bush put us there.
scare?
Um, yeah.
Hezbollah killed 271 Marines. remember that? Hezbollah is controlled and funded by Iran. Iran has given Al Qaida training and support in the past before 9/11 (see breakdown by Gertz, a book the Bush admin. opposed), Iran is currently seeking nukes and improving its missiles to deliver them. Iran has trained and funded much of the counterinsurgency in Iraq which has killed American soldiers and innoccent Iraqis, something you seem to forget. I was againt going into Iraq precisely for all of the reasons for invading Iraq, Iran was the bigger worry.
I don’t think you get it. Countries like Iran have discovered outsourcing. They are not going to attack us with large armies. What they are going to do is get nukes to take control of their region so they can do what they want, and attack us through proxies like Hezbollah they fund train, and control. You want them passing out nukes or other types of bio or chem weapons to sleeper cells to use? and yes, therea re Hezollah sleeper cells in this country, not that that matters to you.
and world tribune is a decent rag that focuses on national security and foreign policy issues. I’d consider them alot more credible than your Kos website.
but go ahead and make fun all you want. When a nuke or nerve or bio agent attack occurs in this country, some of you will have some answering to do.
and I’m not going by what Bush-Cheney say at all. There are alot more sources of good info that give the same conclusions without listening to them.
Try not to hyperventilate, kingfish. Ya might stroke-out on us, and that wouldn’t be good a-tall.
actually I read the Esquire piece and he needed to go. He has NO clue about counterinsurgency doctrine, something that is true of much of the military establishment.
http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2007/07/counter-insurgency-for-beginners.html
could’ve written it better but you get the gist.
LOL!
I declare, kingfish, you amusin’ the stuffin’ outta me today.
just shows your general ignorance on counterinsurgency. COIN has worked for the last year and he seeks to undercut it. He is a friggin admiral who understands nothing about COIN. Much like the Israelis who put an Air Force general in charge of the Hezbollah conflict two years ago that had no clue about how to fight guerillas and thought he could just bomb them away.
Actually, kingfish, pre-Scruggs, I was pretty read-up on COIN. No doubt different sources than you prefer (Nagl and Yingling, for two), but there ya go.
kingfish, here’s an old post of mine (“old” meaning mid-October ’07) that reflects where I’ve been doing some of my COIN reading. (You won’t like it, of course, but there it is.)
oh really?
Why don’t you read Galula and then see if Nagl and Yingling didn’t cite him. You might be surprised. I can assure you that when reading Nagl you are reading Galula. and alot of what I say about COIN comes out of Nagl’s doctrine.
Oh, kingfish, hon, if I had to tell you where I think much of what you say comes from, it’d be rude, so let’s just drop this now, what say?
why don’t you tell me?
or are you going to rip off Hackworth again. or is it Ricks? and I tend to agree with those two quite a bit.
and I’m trying to figure out where you and I differ on COIN doctrine.