Via Friday-Lunch-Club
"... “Don’t forget that the office of the Secretary of Defense [sees its role as to] ride herd on the uniformed personnel,” the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Patrick Clawson said. Part of their job "is to keep the uniformed military [from] speak[ing] out on policy issues.”
The suggestion is that Gates’s showing of high honor to the Israeli defense chief may have been a message to those specifically in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Central Command to, in essence, clam it. ............ At a joint Gates-Barak media appearance at the Pentatgon Tuesday, Israeli Channel 10’s Gil Tamari asked ... “Secretary Gates and Minister Barak, …. if you can just explain us, why do you host this press availability now?" Tamari asked. "Is it because this administration would like to portray a feeling of business as usual with the Israeli government when the general perception, as you well know, is that business is not so usual between Israel and the United States right now?““And … is the real perception of the Pentagon -- that, like [Centcom commander] General [David] Petraeus suggested, that the United States is paying a price with the life of American soldiers when Israel is not reaching peace with the Palestinians?” Tamari continued.
Gates jumped in to answer the second question.
“First of all, General Petraeus did not say that the lack of progress in the peace process is costing American lives,” Gates said. “And no one in this department, in or out of uniform, believes that.”
Posted by G, Z, or B at 8:25 PM
Uprooted Palestinian
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