Robert Gates to Be Replaced As Defence Secretary in 2011

[EAS_Intrepid]

Apparently, Robert Gates (Republican) is to be replaced as Secretary of Defence of the USA and thus "director" of one of the largest Armed Forces in the world.
Leon Panetta, currently chief of the Central Intelligence Agency, will step up and take over the job.

At the same time General David Petraeus, currently Commanding Officer of CFrog and any other US-Soldier deployed to Afghanistan, will succeed Leon Panetta as head of the CIA. Petraeus' successor will be Lt.General John Allen (Deputy Chief of the US CENTCOM).

BBC News - Petraeus , Panetta to lead Pentagon

Wow. Quite a lot of people being pushed around to other jobs. The changes will be put in place over the latter half of 2011. Petraeus said he want's to stay in Afghanistan for the Spring/Summer campaigns.

I just wondered: Shouldn't there be a clear diversion between Intelligence services as the CIA and the Armed Forces? Why Petraeus? He was CO of the 101 Airborne during the Iraq war... Why someone Army (or military) to head the CIA? Maybe Petraeus would make a better DoD boss than a CIA guy...


On another note: Hamas and Fatah (the two main factions of the Palestinian political scene) have released press statements about a contract between the two former rivals to cooperate. General elections for a parliament and a President are to be held. Since the Hamas still wants to eradicate Israel (the only Jewish nation on our small blue planet) and is backed by Iran and the Lebanese terrorist organizaion Hizbollah this might lead to heigthened tension in the Middle East.

BBC News - Palestinian rivals Fatah and Hamas

 

[thunderfoot]

Central Intelligence Agency has always been closely linked with the DoD. Its primary task to to detect, analyze and help prevent external threats to the United States, its allies and interests. There are a great many people in a US military uniform who work directly or indirectly with and for the CIA every day. It has been this way since the Agency was founded from the consolidation of all the wartime intelligence apparatus just after WWII. CIA Director, while an important job, is not a Cabinet level position. GEN Petraeus is a good choice. At this job level good oversight, administration and resource management skills are just as important as leadership abilities. And GEN Petraeus has proven twice now he has all of these.

The US military must by law answer ultimately to the President and by extension, the citizenry who elected him. It is clearly written within US law the Secretary of Defense cannot be an active, serving officer. It can be a senior flag rank officer who is retired from active service and it is considered highly desirable whomever becomes SecDef has served in uniform at one time or another. But this last is not a requirement.

 

[Amateur]

I have to admit that my knowledge of American politics is rather, well, non-existent. What, exactly, is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat?

Is it anything like the difference between the Conservatives and Labour (for those of you that know British politics. I apologise if I have just confused a lot of people ), but it's starting to bother me that I don't know the difference with all this mention of Republicans and Democrats. The names don't really help either; at least from my point of view.

 

[Majestic]

I have to admit that my knowledge of American politics is rather, well, non-existent. What, exactly, is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat?

Is it anything like the difference between the Conservatives and Labour (for those of you that know British politics. I apologise if I have just confused a lot of people ), but it's starting to bother me that I don't know the difference with all this mention of Republicans and Democrats. The names don't really help either; at least from my point of view.

That makes two of us, here in AUstralian the two main parties are Labour and Liberials, Labour is currently in the Federal position of Prime Minister, however up till 2007 it was Liberials for like 10 odd years.

Labour is more for the people, while Liberial is more for the Comapnies and corporations, pretty much Labour is who I always vote for.

However Amateur I too am interested in knowing the answer to this question.

 

[Amateur]

Labour is more for the people, while Liberial is more for the Comapnies and corporations, pretty much Labour is who I always vote for.

Change 'Liberal' to 'Conservative' amnd 'Companies and Corporations' to 'People who had a rich father or ancestor and live a life of luxury paid for by their family' and you have the British system. We also have the Liberal Democrats, but they don't seem to know what side they're on...

Isn't good, honest politics great?

 

[CABAL]

I have to admit that my knowledge of American politics is rather, well, non-existent. What, exactly, is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat?

Republicans are usually described here as conservative, and Democrats are described as liberal. Republicans are right, Democrats are left. I can post links to their websites if the mods allow. They at least look like they have sections for outlining their positions.

 

[Adm_Z]

Well, stupid windoze update closed my browser and I lost my post, so Cabal beat me to it. Anyway, I was going to post quoted from wikipedia.

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP (Grand Old Party). The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S. political spectrum and is considered center-right, in contrast to the center-left Democrats.

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's social liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum.[1][2][3] The party has the lengthiest record of continuous operation in the United States, and is one of the oldest political parties in the world.[4] The party had 72 million registered voters in 2004.[5] Barack Obama is the 15th Democrat to hold the office of President of the United States.

In my opinion, it is simply summed up by this:

Democrats are Liberal. They, or most would like a larger government that takes care of whatever the people agree that they universally need. This, in term usually means higher taxes.

Republicans are Conservative. They, again for the most part, want the smallest possible government and want to have less taxes so they have more money and freedom to take care of themselves.

Again, my opinion and generalization.

 

[EAS_Intrepid]

In my opinion, it is simply summed up by this:

Democrats are Liberal. They, or most would like a larger government that takes care of whatever the people agree that they universally need. This, in term usually means higher taxes.

Republicans are Conservative. They, again for the most part, want the smallest possible government and want to have less taxes so they have more money and freedom to take care of themselves.

Again, my opinion and generalization.

Which is funny, as by German definition the Republicans would be "liberal". Here liberal means: less involvement of the gov't on federal or state level, low general taxes etc pp.
However, our center-right and center-left parties (Christian democrats and Social Democrats respectively) have several resemblances to the US parties. But we have more parties involved in the public discourse and in parliament and gov't.

 

[Atlantisbase]

In my opinion, it is simply summed up by this:

Democrats are Liberal. They, or most would like a larger government that takes care of whatever the people agree that they universally need. This, in term usually means higher taxes.

Republicans are Conservative. They, again for the most part, want the smallest possible government and want to have less taxes so they have more money and freedom to take care of themselves.

Again, my opinion and generalization.

I would also add that Democrats tend to be in favor of higher spending and more government regulation. They are generally seen as the social liberals as well, supporting (though not universally) abortion, same sex marriage, stem cell research etc.

Republicans tend to believe in laissez-faire and push de-regulation along with lower taxes and are socially conservative.

Of course it's hard to generalize the stance of these parties because there are actually many subdivisions in stances and they tend to shift around a lot with regards to which group among the larger party is most influential.

For example, in the most recent Congressional elections the very conservative, so called "Tea Party" faction of the Republicans was quite prominent when just two years previous the Democrats and more liberal Republicans had been on top.

On top of that, the personal beliefs of individual members (and by members I'm referring to politicians not voters) may differ in one place or another from the overall group.