Well, one promise among many Obama has yet to fulfill, is the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” And if Rep. Ike Skelton has anything to say about it, a repeal will not happen (H/t to Logistics Monster), as this headline indicates,Skelton Opposes Repeal Of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’. That’s jake, really:

The leading House Democrat on military policy said Friday that he opposes repealing the law that bans openly gay people from serving in the military.

Seventeen years ago, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) played a major role in crafting the controversial law known as “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” When President Bill Clinton wanted to lift the ban preventing gay people from joining the military, Skelton opposed the move. The end result was a compromise under which gay service members would conceal their sexual orientation.

Now, after President Barack Obama pledged during his campaign and first year in office to repeal the law, Skelton finds himself on the opposite side once again.

“I am personally not for changing the law,” he said during a C-SPAN “Newsmakers” interview that will air Sunday.

Because the military is engaged in two major conflicts, in Afghanistan and Iraq, changing the law would create “disruption” that can cause some “serious problems,” Skelton said during the interview.

See, to me, that seems like the PERFECT time to repeal this oppressive, unjust bill. Don’t we NEED more people who want to serve their country? I would think so, but apparently, Skelton doesn’t see it that way:

He said the full House Armed Services Committee won’t hold a hearing on the repeal of the law. Rather, the Personnel subcommittee will hold the hearing at some point this year.

Skelton also said he would oppose efforts to repeal the law in Congress — setting the stage for a potentially intense debate within his own committee with Democrats who want to see the law repealed.

Meanwhile, Skelton’s Senate counterpart, Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said that the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on the issue at the end of January.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen are prepared to testify before the Senate.

Gates said at a press briefing that there are continuing conversations within the Pentagon about “implementing the president’s intent.”

Obama has come under increasing pressure from gay-rights advocates to move on the repeal. Gay-rights advocates are eyeing the change in law for this year, but it is unclear how Obama will proceed. The Pentagon has moved slowly on the issue and there have been reports of internal dissent on how fast changes to the law should be instituted.

Great. This doesn’t bode well for the repeal of this intolerant law given Skelton’s position, and Obama’s continued unwillingness to address this issue. I, for one, am not at all surprised, and I sure am not holding my breath for it to change.

Once again, yet another promise for change that has gone by the wayside. Many of us knew it; too many believed it. Now, here we are – not even the same place we were before since Skelton is coming out against repeal. Anyone else sick of these machinations?

So, just what was in this bill:

The Senate passed a defense appropriations bill Saturday as the chamber’s Democrats cleared the decks for its healthcare reform legislation.

The $636 billion Pentagon budget and added unrelated amendments including extension of unemployment benefits for fiscal year 2010 passed the Senate overwhelmingly with a vote of 88-10. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) was joined by nine Republican senators in opposing the bill.

The vote came after a contentious cloture motion on the defense spending bill passed early Friday as Democrats accused Republicans of slowing the defense bill’s progress in order to impede their healthcare reform package.

Only three Republicans voted to move forward with the defense bill then, which helped beat back a GOP-engineered filibuster.

Despite the legislation funding wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the tune of $128 billion, much of the debate on the defense bill has centered around the Democrats’ reform push for the healthcare reform legislation instead. In an effort to finish the healthcare bill before the end of the year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has been keeping the Senate in session late at night and through the weekend. GOP senators, in turn, have said that Democrats are pushing the bill too quickly before it can be properly considered.

Well, yeah – I don’t think one has to be a Republican to speculate as to WHY the Democrats are in such a hurry that they cannot take more time for, I dunno, READING THE DAMN THING first, or forming committees to study the long range impact, particularly cost, etc. But hey, that may just be too reasonable for them:

“The majority knows that the more time the public has with the bill, the more they know about it, the less they will like it,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on the Senate floor Saturday before the defense vote. “This is a rush.”

Democrats countered by saying their colleagues across the aisle have concentrated on delaying their bill and have not come up with their own plan to change the healthcare system for the better.

“That is what they have to offer to the American people. Not ideas, not solutions, but delay,” said Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) in response. He then went through a variety of reforms the Senate healthcare bill would achieve.

The successful passage of the defense bill in the Senate now clears the way for Democrats to finish their work on the healthcare reform bill. The House had already easily passed the defense bill on Wednesday with a 395-34 vote.

Oh, Dick (Durbin, that is), why play the blame game in an attempt to not be held accountable for your role in this unwanted, short-sighted, payout to insurance companies and Big Pharma?

Well, I imagine we’ll be debating this for some time to come, this whole Health Care issue, and how it will REALLY affect us. Once they have it all written down, that is.

But even an article on the Defense Appropriations bill is more about the so-called Health “care” bill than Defense. There is a reason for that I think (UPCOMING SATIRE ALERT).

Believe it or not, there is one thing Obama WON’T sign in the Defense Appropriations Bill. Frankly, I don’t understand it one bit. This, to me, looks like one of the all-time coolest, most awesomest, niftiest defensive creations EVER. Oh, if only the following was from a real news organization as opposed to The Onion:

Am I right, or am I right? Totally wicked awesome, isn’t it? Too bad they had to take out the pool, though. Ah, but it is not to be, sadly. One damn thing Obama won’t spend our money on. Oh, he’ll fly back and forth to Copenhagen for a CLIMATE summit after just having flown to Europe a week or so before – talk about your carbon footprint (remember, it isn’t just Air Force One that goes on these trips), but will e allow the Dragon Tank? Noooooooo. Sheesh!

Hopefully, this attempt at levity has brought a bit of a smile to your face, and given you a break, if just for a moment, from the other bullshit which, sadly, is all too real. There will be time enough to discuss it again, but I, for one, on this Solstice Eve, could use a bit of humor. Hope you enjoyed the respite, too!

The contents of which we pretty much already know at this point (thus raising the question why we still have to listen to Obama), a whole bunch of people are protesting the expected surge. One group is Code Pink:

Another person who thinks we care what he has to say is Michael Moore, that arrogant, sanctimonious windbag (okay, okay – I admit it – I own Fahrenheit 9/11 and used to like him), who seems to think he is both a military strategist and a member of the Intelligence Community. He wrote Obama a letter laying it all out for prior to the speechifying. Moore says Obama should NOT listen to the generals on the ground regarding Afghanistan because we are a civilian nation. In other words, he thinks the generals should be told what to do by the likes of Moore, apparently, as opposed to listening to the people who are actually in theater. I guess Moore missed it when Obama was campaigning and made the claim that Agfhanistan was going to be his primary focus in the War on Terror. Oh, right – no one actually listened to what he said, just the melodic, dreamy way in which he said, it.

Excuse me – I have to go throw up now.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s Obama in his own words (you won’t have to wait long for it):

It gets better. Moore, with his apparent connections to the Intelligence Community, claims there are fewer than 100 members of Al Qaeda still in Afghanistan. Now, I know a bunch of people have gone to Pakistan. I get that. But, where the hell is Moore getting this information, which, if true, I assume might be classified? I’m just wondering.

Te letter goes on (and on). Feel free to click HERE if you care to read any more of it.

You can watch the speech tonight, if you wish. Or you can read this NY Times article and get the scope. I can bottom line it for you: 30,000 troops over 6 months, not as many as Gen. McChrystal wanted, but big surprise there. And, Obama will set a timeline for when the US will start pulling back those reinforcements. You’re welcome!

Bottom line, Mr. Moore, and Code Pink – Obama s actually keeping one campaign promise, even though he dragged his feet for months before he did it. Believe you me, no one is more surprised than I am. And maybe now you know you should have actually paid attention to the “Words, Just Words” that were coming out of his mouth during the campaign and not being lulled into your Obama LaLaLand of Happy Rainbow Unicorns. Just a thought.

Oh, just in case you don’t know this about me, I am not a war hawk, not by a long shot. But on this, going after the people who attacked us, I think we are right, Code Pink and Michael Moore notwithstanding. Do I wish we had accomplished our mission there already? Absolutely. Should we leave before we do? No. That sends a dangerous message – people can attack us, and after a while, we’ll just give up on finding them. These are patient people. They will wait until our guard is down. I don’t see how we can afford not to continue in Afghanistan until the job is done. Can you?

[...]

Here’s some Feith fun from Pat Lang:

Patrick Lang told a hilarious story the other night, for example, about a job interview he had with Douglas Feith, a key architect of the invasion of Iraq.

It was at the beginning of the first Bush term. Lang had been in charge of the Middle East, South Asia and terrorism for the Defense Intelligence Agency in the 1990s. Later he ran the Pentagon’s worldwide spying operations.

In early 2001, his name was put forward as somebody who would be good at running the Pentagon’s office of special operations and low-intensity warfare, i.e., counterinsurgency. Lang had also been a Green Beret, with three tours in South Vietnam.

One of the people he had to impress was Feith, the Defense Department’s number three official and a leading player in the clique of neoconservatives who had taken over the government’s national security apparatus.

Lang went to see him, he recalled during a May 7 panel discussion at the University of the District of Columbia.

“He was sitting there munching a sandwich while he was talking to me,” Lang recalled, “which I thought was remarkable in itself, but he also had these briefing papers — they always had briefing papers, you know — about me.

“He’s looking at this stuff, and he says, ‘I’ve heard of you. I heard of you.’

“He says, ‘Is it really true that you really know the Arabs this well, and that you speak Arabic this well? Is that really true? Is that really true?’

“And I said, ‘Yeah, that’s really true.’

“That’s too bad,” Feith said.

The audience howled.

“That was the end of the interview,” Lang said. “I’m not quite sure what he meant, but you can work it out.”

Feith, of course, like the administration’s other Israel-connected hawks, didn’t want “Arabists” like Lang muddying the road to Baghdad, from where — according to the Bush administration theory — overthrowing Saddam Hussein would ignite mass demands for Western-style, pro-U.S. democracies across the entire Middle East.

And some Lang on Wolfowitz:

“I remember talking to [Paul] Wolfowitz, in his office, in the Pentagon, and telling him — this was after the propaganda build up had started, before the war. I said, ‘You know, these guys are not going to welcome you.’

“He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘For one thing, these guys detest foreigners, and the few who really like you are the least representative of the various breeds of people there. They’re going to fight you, then, if you occupy the place there’s going to be a massive insurgency.’”

“He said, ‘No, no, they’ll be glad to see us,’” Lang continued. “This will start the process of revolution around the Middle East that will transform everything.’

No, Lang told Wolfowitz, “that’s not gonna happen. It’s just an impossibility. They’re not like that. They don’t want to be us.”

Not everyone agrees with all of Lang’s views about the Arab world, but on this issue he was prescient, of course, as were almost all experts on the region outside of the neocon faithful.

How come we learned so much of this dispute only after the war?

And Lawrence Wilkerson on Tenet and “Curveball”:

Wilkerson provides a damning clue.

In February 2003, Powell’s top aide relates, he “spent five of the most intimate days of my life, and five nights, without sleeping, as did my team, staring into . . . the face” of George Tenet, Tenet’s deputy John McLaughlin, and other top CIA officials working on Iraq, at the agency’s headquarters at Langley.

It was the eve of Powell’s now infamous speech at the United Nations detailing Iraq’s alleged biological, chemical and nuclear programs.

“One of the things Secretary Powell and I told Mr. Tenet and Mr. McLaughlin at the outset of our frenetic five or six days, trying to get ready for the U.N., was ‘multiple sources.’ We will not take anything and put it in this presentation, unless there are multiple, independently corroborated sources for the items we’re putting in the testimony,” Wilkerson said.

“That was the going-in position.”

Subsequently, he learned that there was but “a single source for the mobile biological laboratories; that his code name was Curveball; and that there were several very key dissents as to this individual’s testimony, during or before the preparation of the secretary of State.”

Curveball, an Iraqi refugee, turned out to be a liar.

“None of that, ladies and gentlemen, none of that was revealed to the secretary of State, or to me, or to any member of my team, by either John McLaughlin or George Tenet,” Wilkerson said.

Tenet says in his memoir that he never heard of any serious questions about Curveball.

As readers of this column know , however, Tenet’s chief of European operations, Tyler Drumheller, insists he sent a flurry of warnings about Curveball to Tenet’s deputies.

Both can’t be right.

“Either George Tenet is lying through his teeth, or Tyler Drumheller is lying through his teeth,” Wilkerson says, “with regard to one of the most important pillars of Secretary Powell’s presentation at the United Nations: the mobile biological laboratories.”

We’re waiting now for a third CIA official to come forth with an answer.

Lots of people are dying because of the errors and idiocy perpetrated by Feith, Wolfowitz and yes, Tenet too.

– Steve Clemons

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has learned very little from the military trials and tribulations of the United States over the past 50 years. During that period, the United States has lost three costly and avoidable wars in Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, and the Middle East. These wars involved U.S. military forces for more than 12 years in Vietnam, more than six years (and counting) in Iraq, and eight years (and counting) in Afghanistan.

Despite our military, intelligence, and technological superiority, we were stymied by two countries that had no air force, no navy, no army, no air defense. We were able to deploy weapons of great lethality, sophistication, maneuverability, and firepower. Nevertheless, Secretary Gates wants to reorient planning at the Pentagon so that the United States could be positioned to fight more such wars.

Despite his previous lip service to ensure that the State Department and various civilian agencies get more involved in implementing American national security policy, Gates clearly wants the Pentagon to have pride of place in international areas outside the principal mission of military operations. He wants to expand the military’s role in equipping and training foreign forces, and for educating foreign officers.

He also wants to expand the nation-building programs that grew out of our egregious experience in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, which the Obama administration seems to favor for our involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Like his regional commanders, Gates seems to see the Pentagon as a “big Velcro cube that other agencies can hook to so we can collectively do what needs to be done” in such regional commands as the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Gates apparently would do nothing to reverse the trend of the recent past that allows general officers and particularly regional commanders to have more influence and leverage than their civilian counterparts in the implementation of American foreign policy.

The emphasis on adding to the ranks of the Army, the Marine Corps, and special forces and greater spending on low-tech weapons that are best suited for guerrilla or irregular warfare points to continued problems for American national security. Gates explained that he is “just trying to get the irregular guys to have a seat at the table and to institutionalize the needs they have.” Any shift in the direction of greater funding for such counter-insurgency operations as Iraq and Afghanistan is not encouraging.

The United States (and the Western community in general) can point to very few military successes in such operations and run the risk of large-scale and long-term occupations. We invaded Iraq six years ago when there was no connection whatsoever between that country and U.S. national interest, and now we are committing greater forces and resources to Afghanistan where there is no connection to our vital interests. President Obama and Secretary Gates want to move in the direction of nation building, although there is no operational strategy for involving the State Department and the Agency for International Development in stabilization and reconstruction in troubled areas.

Some aspects of the Gates’ doctrine are laudatory, particularly the decision to scale back spending on national missile defense; to create a professional procurement process; to cap production of the Air Forces’ F-22 fighter jet; to cancel production of a new presidential helicopter; and to reduce the Army’s Future Combat Systems. The effort to fix the procurement system is long overdue, and even Gates’ two previous budgets were mere straight-line projections of Donald Rumsfeld’s budgetary and procurement agenda.

The Pentagon’s weapons-procurement system has been a well-known disaster that presidential administrations and congressional committees have refused to address. In taking on the Pentagon’s inability to make hard choices in weapons systems or to undertake major reform, Gates is taking on President Eisenhower’s military-industrial-congressional complex.

A more promising development is in legislation sponsored by Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and John McCain (R-AZ), who want to create a director of independent cost assessments, who would have a senior staff with the authority to obtain data from weapons contractors and to ensure that costs are justified. The services, which are responsible for cost estimates on weapons programs, have never developed a professional staff to provide accurate cost estimates, let alone discipline profligate weapons manufacturers.

Last year, according to the Washington Post, the Government Accountability Office reported that cost overruns on the largest weapons systems totaled about $300 billion.

Sadly, the Gates’ doctrine still points to the United States as the “indispensable nation,” in the words of former president Bill Clinton and his secretary of state Madeleine Albright, endowed by providence with unique responsibilities and obligations.

Gates and presumably President Obama want the United States to be able to respond to any and all crises, even those that have no relevance to American national interests, let alone vital national interests. Gates wants to maintain the offensive orientation of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and obviously believes that American military power will preserve law and order.

In his inaugural address, President Obama emphasized that “power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.” It does not appear that Obama’s secretary of defense was listening.

Melvin A. Goodman,a regular contributor to The Public Record, is senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. He spent more than 42 years in the U.S. Army, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Defense. His most recent book is “Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.”

A source in Chicago informed me earlier today that John McCain will be meeting with Obama and his handlers tomorrow in Chicago in order to discuss the possibility of a Secretary of Defense appointment. That McCain will be in Chicago tomorrow is corroborated by an article London Times published one hour ago. The Times, however, claims McCain will most probably not be appointed to a Cabinet position. But he will be consulted on topics on which he and Obama have “common ground.” This certainly does not preclude the possibility of an appointment of McCain to Secretary of Defense.

Our source maintains that McCain will visit Chicago tomorrow in order to discuss the Secretary of Defense appointment. Even if Obama chooses not to appoint McCain to this position, it raises a series of questions:

• Why would Obama consult with someone who his campaign surrogates called a warmonger on his choice for Secretary of Defense?
• How would a McCain appointment to Secretary of Defense herald the new foreign policy Obama touts, especially when Obama characterizes McCain’s foreign policy as an extension of that of George W. Bush?
• How will Obama’s supporters react to the appointment of John McCain to Secretary of Defense?
• Why would Obama consider or consult with John McCain when he has consistently cited Chuck Hagel as the type of Republican with whom he could collaborate on defense and foreign policy matters?
• Does the knowledge that McCain will visit Chicago in order to discuss the Secretary of Defense position with Obama signal that Obama may not consider extending the tenure of John Gates, George W. Bush’s appointee, as Secretary of Defense?
• And how is prolonging Gates’s tenure “change?”
• Is Obama considering McCain for Secretary of Defense in order to make McCain’s Senate seat available to Janet Napolitano? Is this how Obama will secure a supermajority in the US Senate?

Obama desires to fashion himself as an Abraham Lincoln, as a man who can cooperate with his fiercest detractors. Appointing John McCain to Secretary of Defense would certainly continue the tradition of Lincoln of forging relations of cooperation and collaboration with one’s adversaries. While this is laudable, it does reveal Obama’s acute awareness of his lack knowledge of matters of foreign policy and defense. It also reveals that Obama never truly believed the criticisms he leveled against McCain during the general election.

Whatever the case may be, we know McCain will be in Chicago tomorrow in order to discuss the Secretary of Defense position with Obama. However one may feel about McCain’s stance on defense and on foreign policy, Obama’s supporters should find their candidate’s willingness to consult with a “warmonger” antithetical to the stance Obama assumed during the election. But then again, Obama has been anything but consistent, and his supporters certainly did not support him for matters of policy or of ideology.

I guess we will know if McCain was offered the position of Secretary of Defense tomorrow night or some other day next week. Will Obama ask McCain to complete the 63 page questionnaire? And will McCain complete it?

McCain will certainly serve his country in any capacity: his motives are not to be questioned. But we should question Obama’s motives for considering McCain for Secretary of Defense. Share your thoughts about the information our source related earlier today about McCain’s visit to Chicago tomorrow in the comments thread.