Monday, February 28, 2011

Defense Secretary Gates warns against future wars like Iraq, Afghanistan - BostonHerald.com

Defense Secretary Gates warns against future wars like Iraq, Afghanistan - BostonHerald.com: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned Friday that the U.S. should avoid future land wars like those it has fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not to forget the difficult lessons it has learned from those conflicts.

"In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ’have his head examined,’ as Gen. (Douglas) MacArthur so delicately put it," Gates said in a speech to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

As Gates prepares to leave office later this year, his speech could be read both as a judgment on the difficult missions the military has taken on over the past decade — and a prediction that future conflicts would look radically different."
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