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Picking Up the Pieces: A Sober, War-Time National Security Cabinet Takes Shape

As they were introduced and made brief remarks this morning, it was hard to envy the team of national security aides President-elect Barack Obama announced today at the Chicago Hilton. President Bush and Vice President Cheney broke the national security apparatus. Are retired Marine Corps General Jim Jones, Obama's designated national security adviser, Sen. Hillary Clinton, the next secretary of state, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who Obama has asked to stay on, up to the task of fixing it? In the midst of two wars, and the most ominous economic crisis in half a century?

Obama expressed confidence in the pragmatism and competence of the bipartisan national security team he had assembled, and the event conveyed sobriety and awareness of the enormous task ahead, more so than any excitement at the prospect of a new, more cooperative and internationalist national security vision to come from Washington. The team he picked reflected the subdued moment: pragmatists over ideologues, managers and technocrats who get things done. These people represent a far cry from the Bush era's hardline, uncompromising, us-versus-them, bellicose rhetoric and often miserable incompetence.

"In this uncertain world, the time has come for a new beginning – a new dawn of American leadership to overcome the challenges of the 21st century, and to seize the opportunities embedded in those challenges," Obama said. "To succeed, we must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power: our military and diplomacy; our intelligence and law enforcement; our economy and the power of our moral example. The team that we have assembled here today is uniquely suited to do just that. They share my pragmatism about the use of power, and my sense of purpose about America’s role as a leader in the world."

General Jones, who has served as a Marine Corps commandant, as NATO's supreme allied commander, and, most recently, as Bush's Mideast envoy (trying to assess efforts to build up the Palestinian security forces), is widely respected both abroad and within the turf-conscious national security community in Washington. (A native Kansan, Jones went to high school in France, where his father was stationed as a military officer and speaks fluent French.) Jones is "a good guy," says one former US intelligence official who dealt with Jones during the first Bush term on a European-related issue. "He's politically tuned into Hillary. He's pretty smart guy, speaks French....They like him in Europe. He's a well-respected, good man, a square guy and a good marine. He'll handle the job better than Stephen Hadley."

Other appointments Obama announced today include his long-time campaign foreign policy adviser Susan Rice as US ambassador to the United Nations, which will again be a cabinet level position; Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of homeland security; and Eric Holder as attorney general. It's worth noting that Obama did not announce a director of national intelligence or director of the Central Intelligence Agency among his other national security appointments today. The reported top candidate for the job, John Brennan, withdrew his name from consideration last week, after coming under criticism in the left blogosphere for allegedly defending the CIA's harsh interrogation practices while serving as an aide to former CIA director George Tenet.

Comments

Clinton and Gates are going to fix what they helped break? Which one of them was against the war in Iraq?

I guess Obama can just say he's being pragmatice rather than admit that he just lied to every single voter who voted for him on the basis of his claims about Iraq.

Posted by: milano on 12/01/08 at 12:00 PM Respond

milano observes: I guess Obama can just say he's being pragmatice rather than admit that he just lied to every single voter who voted for him on the basis of his claims about Iraq.

Yep.

Posted by: GVC on 12/01/08 at 12:09 PM Respond

yep. no 'change' a comin! not only is u.s inc staying i iraq and afghanistan, since this country is now ruled by the military, fully expect the invasion of iran, prob next year. shifting the tax burden to the rich? yea, obama lied about that too.

their are 2 answers to this problem: taxpayer revolt, revolution.
obviously, you can't or won't vote your way out of this, UNLESS you vote in 3rd party candidate next time, IF u.s inc. hasnt started ww3 by then.

Posted by: john on 12/01/08 at 12:22 PM Respond

Notice any other examples of continuity with the Bush administration?

Anyone notice that Obama isn't going to Georgia to campaign for Martin in the runoff against Chambliss? It seems that Lieberman is the only Democrat Senator that Obama cares about.

Woe, woe is us...

Posted by: JG on 12/01/08 at 2:29 PM Respond

Yep...McCain would have been better.

Ugh...say what you want about Getz, but he did negotiate our withdrawal from Iraq. Or did you people fail to recognize that this is happening and that we have been in negotiations with the Iraqis as to the terms for over a year now.

Quit cryin' you babies. The difference between "now" and "then" is that these people work for Obama NOW. When you get lemons, you don’t bitch and moan that you should have gotten bananas ...you get over it and make your frackin lemonade.

But some people rather gripe than getting’ on with it.

Posted by: kirkbrew on 12/01/08 at 3:51 PM Respond

Yep...McCain would have been better.

Nope. McCain simply wouldn't have been much different.

But some people will act like it's all OK, as long as it's their chosen wing of the Oligarchy who's doin' it. We should shut up and go along with it.
It's only an atrocity when it's perpetrated by the other wing.

Life didn't deal a helpless Obama these lemons. They're his own, hand-picked, sour-face-puckering choices.
The responsibility for his choices rests with him. The buck (now worth about 3 cents..) stops with BHO.

But don't worry about that 3-cent dollar, folks, because he's going to keep printing 'em for bailouts until they're worth 1/10th of that!

Posted by: Droolius Sneezer on 12/01/08 at 4:13 PM Respond

I'm trying to figure out what all the b******* is about. What has Obama done to warrent such a bunch of negativity? I know there is a faction of people who are incapable of being satisfied with anything, anybody or any policy, but the reactions here really take the cake.

Posted by: Paul Miller on 12/01/08 at 7:22 PM Respond

It is still largely rule by the sayanim and the Knesset still runs the USA and its media.

Posted by: uigher on 12/01/08 at 10:54 PM Respond

What has Obama done to warrent such a bunch of negativity?

Ummmm, exactly NOTHING that appears to promote the substantial "Change" that his campaign kept selling. And EVERYTHING that gives us reason to believe that the only "Change" we're about to experience will be the nameplate on the Oral Office door, and some shuffling around of the Usual Suspects who've been running our gov't for their own benefit for decades.

Not only was this predictable, it was Predicted.

The truly sad thing is, just like so many "true believers" who thought George Bush was a Constitutional Government believing Fiscal Conservative when they voted for him, many Obama "true believers" are going to take two or more years and a total kick in the seat of the pants to realize they bought a pig-in-a-poke, and it isn't even wearing lipstick.

The evidence is mounting.
How long can you put off noticing it?

Posted by: I Can See What's Coming. Can You? on 12/02/08 at 9:48 AM Respond

What are you talking about? Please, please, please provide your short list of who he SHOULD have put into his cabinet? No names? People from the fringe that the Republicans could then gleefully have found dirt on so that they could throw up tons of road blocks to all of his policy initiatives? I suspect now that the trollosphere will be busy convincing the left that the really in the know people on the left have lost confidence in Obama already. Amazing. The s--theads never give up.

Posted by: Paul Miller on 12/02/08 at 10:50 AM Respond

A list was already provided for you on another thread.
Remember reading it?

Go on and refuse to acknowledge what you're seeing for what it actually is. Write off the people who warned you beforehand, and did so repeatedly right here on Mojo, as Right-Wing Trolls, now that they're pointing out how what they predicted is playing out before your eyes, if it makes you feel more confident in your guy.
I'm sure W.W.Wexler will be amused by such a characterization.

President Bush-Lite is a done deal anyway. It always was.

Hope you enjoy him, because I can see you'll keep excusing him.

Posted by: I Can See... on 12/02/08 at 11:09 AM Respond

I won't keep defending anyone if I don't like what they are doing. However, I might at least wait until, oh, maybe a couple of hours after their inauguration before righting off their entire presidency.

Posted by: Paul Miller on 12/02/08 at 11:35 AM Respond

Paul Miller writes: I suspect now that the trollosphere will be busy convincing the left that the really in the know people on the left have lost confidence in Obama already.

Actually, Paul, if you take a look at what progressive sites such as CommonDreams.org have been saying all along, you'll find that they had little confidence in him to begin with.

An example from last June:
www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/11/9558

One from as far back as April, '07:
www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/25/738

Other examples, at other progressive sites are not that hard to come by.

Posted by: GVC on 12/02/08 at 1:53 PM Respond

"Now, Sen. McCain and I do agree, this is the greatest nation on earth. We are a force of good in the world. But there has never been a nation in the history of the world that saw its economy decline and maintained its military superiority". -- Barack Obama, Second Presidential Debate, October 7, 2008

From The Telegraph(Lon.):
Barack Obama says US 'will maintain strongest military on planet', as Clinton confirmed top diplomat
President-Elect Barack Obama has declared that the United States should maintain the "strongest military on the planet", while aiming to restore his country's global moral leadership.

But the former Illinois senator, whose rise was built on his opposition to the Iraq war, delivered a message of surprising toughness that at times could have come from George W Bush.

Mr Obama said: "To ensure prosperity here at home and peace abroad, we all share the belief we have to maintain the strongest military on the planet."

OK, what - as they say - is wrong with this picture? The US is quickly going broke, the Pentagon budget is beyond out of control, hundreds of billions a year additionally are being spent on military actions pursuant to the "GWOT", the middle class has shriveled dramatically, unemployment is bounding upward, economists are saying, "worse times since the Great Depression", and Obama is channeling his inner Cheney? More "full-spectrum dominance"? Feh.

Posted by: barrisj on 12/02/08 at 2:09 PM Respond