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Published on Wednesday, November 15, 2006 by TomDispatch
The Meaning of Gates: From Imperial Offense to Imperial Defense
by Michael T. Klare

There are many reasons why President George W. Bush might have wanted to replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with Robert M. Gates: To distance himself from the current military disaster in Iraq, to make the adoption of a new Iraqi strategy easier, to prevent further disunity within the military, or to clear the path for a revival of Republican fortunes in the 2008 elections. All of these may, in fact, have been contributing factors in Gates' appointment; yet, on a deeper level, the move can also be read as signaling a momentous shift in America's global posture -- from imperial offense to imperial defense.
For the past six years, the top officials in charge of American foreign and military policy have known how to play rough-and-tumble offensive football, but were simply clueless when it came to defense. However, just as every football team must, at some point, surrender possession of the ball and bring in its defensive specialists to stop the other team from scoring a touchdown, so the President has evidently at long last called for a changing of the guard. Far too late in the game, he's finally decided to send the defense onto the field for Team America. This is Bob Gates' historic mission.

After all the setbacks and spilt blood in Iraq, it's nearly impossible even to recall those heady days in late 2001 when President Bush and his acolytes announced that we were entering a new epoch of enduring American greatness -- a golden era in which the United States would use its overwhelming military might to spread its divinely-inspired values to the rest of the world.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1115-31.htm

[Ya-ta Boy]

I'm always dubious when we get too many sports metaphors in a political article. I guess I look for a little more insight than that.