The Independent Streak

Irony is For Suckers

By Spencer Ackerman 02/28/2008 09:21AM

Bob Gates is a smart man, so I'm sure he appreciates the irony here.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who arrived in Ankara, the Turkish capital, Wednesday night, told reporters he intended to advise Turkish leaders that their incursion into northern Iraq must last no more than a few weeks. He also planned to tell them that the military operation should be complemented by political efforts to resolve the grievances of the Kurdish minority in eastern Turkey.

But Turkey ruled out specifying a timetable for an end to the offensive.

"Our objective is clear, our mission is clear and there is no timetable until . . . those terrorist bases are eliminated," Turkish envoy Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters after talks in Baghdad with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

LOL! Shorter Bob Gates: No one invades Iraq 'cept us! Shorter Turkish government: Hey, what was your line? Oh yeah -- We will stay as long as necessary and not a day more! We reject timetables, and our commanders on the ground will tell us when we can responsibly draw down our troop levels!

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Comments:

skulzfontaine
Posted 02/28/2008 10:21am with

Spencer? I must strongly disagree with your conjecture that, “Bob Gates is a smart man…”. Bob might have been a smart man, once. Gates is no longer. Gates is a hack. Gates is a simpering poser. Gates would cast his sense of honor, duty, civic pride, and morality on the bon fires of Bush insanity. Gates is complicit in Amerika’s war crimes and crimes against humanity. Golly, that list would be comprehensively lengthy. Let’s just put that torture crap-o-la on the top and call it square. Nifty new photos rolling out about Abu Ghraib. Oh yeah, another fine day for the U.S. military and Bob Gates. Gates is at the top of the Pentagon food chain and he’s responsible. Doesn’t matter if the horror were begun under Donny ‘Dr. Death’ Rummy or not. Turkey gave Bob the diplomatic finger and Gates had it coming. Pompous, arrogant, and ignorant in that classic colossal sense. That’s our Bob. Ain’t he sort of cute? Yeah, in that mostly dangerously genocidal manner. Yeah, that sort of cute. War crimes tribunal baby, war crimes tribunals for the entire nasty Bush regime!

Spencer Ackerman
Posted 02/28/2008 12:02pm with

Skulz, don’t you think “smart” is a value-neutral adjective? Couldn’t a person agree with your critique of Gates—not saying I do, but still—and still think the guy is intelligent?

Spencer Ackerman
Posted 02/28/2008 12:03pm with

Also, you can’t lay Abu Ghraib on Gates, since it happened three years before he became SecDef.

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