Gates the Rabshakeh

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/13/261419660/gates-obama-made-solid-decisions-but-was-swayed-by-factious-staff

Robert Gates is one of the nexus-players, one of the power brokers who navigate the spheres of power. Secretaries of Defense in particular wield massive multi-tiered influence in transcending the political, military and corporate worlds that make up the plutocratic Oligarchy of American Empire.

A career CIA official and director, a high-ranking NSA official and functional head of the US military for five years, his resume is impressive even intimidating.

In the private sector his credentials are almost as impressive with IT and energy industry connections as well as several multi-nationals.

I am unaware of the level of his religious devotion or affiliations. There are unsubstantiated rumours. Suffice it say I believe his religion first and foremost is a devotion to a deified vision of American power, but this would not separate him from most Evangelicals. And he has certainly thrown them a bone with his current publication and rounds on the media circuit.

While many debate the exact meaning of his narrative, primarily he exposes a president who comes across as lacklustre in both his Nationalist zeal and devotion to militarism. While some will see it as a broadside, it is in reality a subtle but very damaging attack which the Christian Right will feed on for months to come.

They're probably wishing he had waited until September to publish in order to aid in the 2014 Mid-terms and the success they will likely bring. But by that time the Healthcare Reform may have turned into a debacle beyond its already unbelievable malfunction and breakdown, and they may not need his boost.

Despite his apparent Christian affiliations, Gates has spent his career pursuing lies and murder. That isn't necessarily a slander. It ought to be, but in those circles it's simply a statement of the truth. It was his job.

If he's being truthful in these interviews he's a believer in his own organization's propaganda. His comments concerning Biden were particularly telling. He accused the vice president of being wrong on every foreign policy decision going back four decades.

Of course this is all question begging and historical revision. Many elites and military apparatchiks still seethe over the American defeat in Vietnam and weave myth concerning Reagan's military build-up and the end of the Cold War. They literally have foundations devoted to building his legacy... creating the myth for a man that today wouldn't make it through a Republican primary. But that doesn't matter. It's the legend that Reagan brought the 'morning' for America and defeated the USSR.

That's what they want even if it's a childish reductionism if not just a flat lie and work of fiction.

Ironically, it was when Reagan turned away from his first term policies....that led to peace and the beginning of the Cold War's end. It was when he embraced Detente that peace came. The USSR was not 'defeated'; it collapsed, and would have even if Jimmy Carter had won a second term. The defeat narrative has done much to contribute to the present tensions with Russia which is no longer playing the role of superpower but instead is trying to revert to its historical sphere.

Reagan's ridiculous 'Tear Down This Wall' speech in 1987 did nothing to accelerate the end of hostility. The Soviets did not tremble at this. They felt betrayed that after reaching so far and so close to peace a Mr. Magoo character playing cowboy tried to stir up trouble. They rolled their eyes and pressed on. They saw it for what it was....Hollywood.

Peace only came when Reagan began to abandon the Reagan Doctrine.

Gates knows these things. I suppose he could be willfully blind. But who knows? That's the problem with a professional and consummate liar.

What I'm concerned with is his ethics and his sense of 'duty'. You see as a Christian I have a duty to surrender my life to the Kingdom of Truth.

'Duty' or moral obligation to the state, especially an Imperialist state with functional values that are antithetical to the Gospel, is a betrayal of the True Kingdom.

I'm not talking about the Orwellian slogans about freedom and liberty. I'm speaking about America's real values that it communicates loud and clear to the rest of the world... power, violence, theft and hypocrisy. Those are the values of every empire that has ever existed. America is not unique. And every empire has produced scores of creatures like Robert Gates.

Christians ought to know this but they have learned the ways of the heathen and sold themselves out to serve the pagan gods.

Gates is perfectly personified by the Rabshakeh shouting threats at the walls of the cities the empire has come to conquer....threats and lies.

As a true believer in duty to America, and the way he speaks of her, it's like he's claiming all divine and moral prerogatives as other nations are intimidated, cursed, and sentenced to death.

He may think he's a faithful and dutiful Abner, or at the very worst a Joab who has served the nation, even though he's helped to bury some bodies.

He's a lord of Assyria, a Rabshakeh of a militant nation that includes all gods but subsumes them and subjugates them to the Ashur of America.

Only Assyria can compete with the United States when it comes to a completely militarized society. It's hard to find other nations who have invested in militarism on a level comparable to the United States. I could name a few regimes but I will really upset readers if I do that.

Biden apparently warned Obama about trusting the military brass and Gates seems to resent that. Who does he think he's kidding? Do you think Kennedy trusted Lemnitzer? Did Johnson trust Westmorland or Wheeler? They did to their peril.

After 17 April 1961 every president has had to realize that he may be the Commander-in-Chief but the Praetorians call the shots. It's better to appease them and join them rather than defy them. Obama seems to have been taught this lesson before he took the oath of office. But the Praetorians don't like him and want to insure they don't see his anymore of his kind any time soon.

Was the US right on Vietnam or the support of the Shah? Was America right on the end of the USSR? Grenada? Noriega? the Gulf War?

Gates thinks so and seems to detest anyone who would disagree.

And then he has the audacity to say he weeps for the troops. That's disgusting. What a travesty. What a scoundrel. He will have plenty of time to weep.

Ironically, when anyone came out of the Bush administration and criticized his disastrous war policies, they were shouted down for their treachery, daring to criticize a president during an ongoing war.

Why do I think he'll get a pass? Probably for the same reason they're screaming about Obama's recess appointments even when Bush and every other president has done so for decades.

They scream when Obama wouldn't defend DOMA when you can cite example after example of Republican presidents rejecting the constitutionality of certain laws and refusing to defend them.

They complain about executive orders even though the use of them has been part of the conservative project for the past forty years. Since the fall of Nixon, Republicans have sought to restore and advance the Unitary Executive. Reagan's attorney general Meese developed the signing statement allowing the presidents to interpret laws passed by congress. And yet they scream about the Democrats doing the same. Have they no shame? Do they have no integrity?

The Democratic regimes under Clinton and Obama have proved no better. They have no more veracity or honour. They are just as treacherous and evil.

These people are all vile but the vilest of all are those who profess Christ and yet serve these idols and revere these monsters.

I'm not upset with pagans for acting like pagans. I'm upset because Zion looks and acts like Assyria.

Gates will have his moment of fame, make a few million and sail off into the sunset to sit on some corporate boards. We can hope this is his swan song, but these players don't fade away. They just leap into another sphere and keep building their little black books.

Ah well, he can always teach a Sunday School class or something. I'm sure they'd welcome him with open arms and all but swoon as he teaches about honour, ethics or 'duty'.