With regard to choosing a Republican as secretary of defense (remember that Bill Clinton did it too not just Obama), democrats are always afraid of being labeled leftist and by implication communist. I remember reading an article in Newsweek back during the first Gulf War by Gore Vidal in which he detailed how Republicans had shut down any kind of rational discourse on foreign policy using the cudgel of communism during Cold War era. Anitcommunism was the basis of JFK's and Johnson's policy. Anticommunism, blocked rational thought and made our foreign policy establishment see only in black and white. After cold war was over, we never went back to study the history and see that a lot of rhetoric was baloney. Obama chose one of those Cold War warriors Bill Gates to be his secretary of defense. This man was so ideologically driven that right up to 1989 he was denying that Soviet Union was collapsing. And he was the head of CIA at that time!!
Anticommunism, or seeing an arch enemy out there trying to destroy us has been the driving ideology of military industrial congressional complex. Now that communism is gone, we concoct new enemies, Islam, Iran and who knows what next.
With regard to choosing a Republican as secretary of defense (remember that Bill Clinton did it too not just Obama), democrats are always afraid of being labeled leftist and by implication communist. I remember reading an article in Newsweek back during the first Gulf War by Gore Vidal in which he detailed how Republicans had shut down any kind of rational discourse on foreign policy using the cudgel of communism during Cold War era. Anitcommunism was the basis of JFK's and Johnson's policy. Anticommunism, blocked rational thought and made our foreign policy establishment see only in black and white. After cold war was over, we never went back to study the history and see that a lot of rhetoric was baloney. Obama chose one of those Cold War warriors Bill Gates to be his secretary of defense. This man was so ideologically driven that right up to 1989 he was denying that Soviet Union was collapsing. And he was the head of CIA at that time!!
Anticommunism, or seeing an arch enemy out there trying to destroy us has been the driving ideology of military industrial congressional complex. Now that communism is gone, we concoct new enemies, Islam, Iran and who knows what next.