Changes in the Military?

There had to be one. We all knew this was going to happen. If the Democrats won back the House and Senate, someone was going to lose their job. But who would it be? Well, it turns out that the axe went to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The main reason was of course Iraq.

When we look to the elections, it was the Iraq War and the decrease in public support for it that was a major issue for the Democrats in the past election. For the past couple of years, regardless of how the war was going, Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were always talking about how well the war was going. It didn't matter if 20 soldiers died in a month or 200, they were not going to change the way the War was being administered, because they knew better than everyone else how to run this war and how dare you challenge them on that. Unfortunately, this policy didn't work out so well in the public's eye, and caused the Republican Party's control of congress because of their support of the War.

So, to save his party and his legacy, President Bush now needed someone to step aside to claim that he could change, Rumsfeld was his man. But who is going to take over this important role? Who will be the one to come in with fresh eyes and help push for the changes that are needed to not only turn the Public's support back for the war, but also turn our struggles to a victory for success in Iraq? We're told it is none other than a former Bush Sr. appointee, Robert Gates.

So, let's forget about the fact that Gates was involved in one of the more notorious scandals of the past generation (Iran-Contra), or that he is considered a Bush crony by some or that when he was the Director of the CIA, the Secretary of Defense was Richard Cheney (otherwise known as V.P. Dick Cheney). Let's forget about all that. Why? Because Bush is telling us that Gates is going to come in and do a fantastic job as Secretary of Defense and get us back on track in Iraq and rein in the Pentagon.

I have a hard time believing President Bush. Not just because of everything stated above, but because I just don't trust President Bush. He has lied to me and the rest of us for too many times (this can be an entirely different article, so we won't get into any specific's here). While this automatically makes some of us skeptical, there is another reason: Pre-emptive war was not Rumsfeld's idea, it was Cheney's. Dick Cheney has always been pulling levers behind the scenes, and his relationship with Rumsfeld was key to pushing that policy through. So, why does that relationship matter? Because Cheney has worked well with Gates in the past and was probably central to selecting Gates as Rumsfeld's successor, which means, we are not going to see anything new, just the same botched foreign policy that has dragged down the Bush administration.

So, if Gates was chosen to truly bring in new eyes and fix the situation, great. I hope that he does. However, let us not be fooled for too long like we were with Iraq, otherwise it might be 2 more years and another election before we get real change.