Arkansas Watch

Amazing the audacity of some leaders

Defense Secretary Robert Gates (www.

newsweek.com/2011/06/19/ the-defense-rests.html) is stepping down. I found his reasons instructive. Let’s listen...

“I’ve spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower, and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position,” and “To tell you the truth, that’s one of the many reasons it’s time for me to retire, because frankly I can’t imagine being part of a nation, part of a government … that’s being forced to dramatically scale back our engagement with the rest of the world.”

Is anybody else out put off by the man’s attitude?

He was part of the ruling class that spent this nation into penury, but if we the people don’t keep offering his lordship an endless supply of blank checks, why then we just aren’t good enough for him to stick around!

He works for an administration that was voted in partly because it promised to reduce American interventionism. When it got in power it did not just continue the Clinton/Bush policy of global meddling, it increased it. Now they are bombing countries without even bothering to consult with Congress, perthe U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Act.

Yet, Gates displays not a trace of shame. In his view, the fault is not with him and his associates for spending us to ruin, or even in giving us more war when they said they were going to bring peace. His view is that we are just too cheap for a class guy like him.

The desire of our ruling class to intervene in endless conflicts, with the U.S. State Department meddling around the globe, is a major reason why we have to cut back spending now.

Instead of regretting his major role in that stupendously mistaken strategy, Robert Gates runs off in a huff because we are not willing to borrow more from the Chinese to continue it a little longer.

Yes, that is the plan of our current rulers, Republican or Democrat. Just keep borrowing money from the Chicoms (Chinese Communists) to bomb people around the world until our credit runs dry! Yeah that sounds like a strategy - a strategy that will leave us broke, out of bombs and facing an angry world.

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Editor’s note: Mark Moore is the lead writer for an Internet blog on matters pertaining to Arkansas culture and government, Arkansas Watch, and on Tuesday nights is the host of an Internet-based radio program, Patriots on Watch He can be reached through The Times at prtnews@ nwaonline.com.

Opinion, Pages 4 on 07/06/2011