Would you consider hiring O.J. Simpson to work as a crime victim's advocate? How about O.J. as a probation officer? The prospect of O.J. serving in a law enforcement capacity is ridiculous. But decisions like this are made on a regular basis in the U.S. government, particularly since Presidents choose people for important foreign policy jobs by recycling old war horses from prior administrations.

I have written about this before in showing how the Bush administration is hiring people from the Reagan and Bush I administrations. Not everyone from those administration has blood on his hands, but the worst of the worst seem to bob to the surface every decade or so.

Having gotten rid of Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense, George W. has brought in a guy that we all forgot about, who was in up to his ears in the Iran-contra scandal of the 1980's, Robert Gates. True, Rumsfeld is substantially responsible for the debacle in Iraq, as recent books have chronicled his mismanagement and arrogance. And the latest news is that he "authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison's former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday." But Gates? What's his crime?

It may seem quaint today but back in the 1980's, before the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. was engaged in a lengthy cold war with the Russians, a conflict that allowed the U.S. government to engage in the most irresponsible foreign policy possible simply by citing the need to deter communist aggression. That aggression was sometimes real, but it was often imagined, and that was the pretext for U.S. intervention in Central and South America.

The central focus of this aggression during the 1980's was Nicaragua, a little country that posed no threat to anyone. But when the people of Nicaragua chased out the U.S.-backed dictator in 1979 and the Sandinistas took power that year, our government declared war against Nicaragua and organized a terrorist army, the Contras, to overthrow the Sandinistas. The Reagan administration dutifully classified the Sandinistas as Communist, shoe-horning that definition against a government that was elected in 1984 and had the support of the population. Not that it matters; people in other countries have the right to run their own affairs, right? We have no right to dictate that another country adopt the government of our choice.

Except that we do this all the time. Nicaragua was a threat because it turned away from American foreign policy, disallowing U.S. elites from controlling its resources. Foreign policy professionals and ideologues seized upon Nicaragua as the next battleground, making this small country the center of the universe. Here's a general overview of the U.S.-Sandinista relationship for which we should all be ashamed. Here's another. Just Google some of these buzzwords to read more about the U.S. war against Nicaragua in the 1980's and you will find that our current attempt to dominate the Middle East is nothing new.

So where does Gates fit into all of this? He wanted to bomb Nicaragua. Only a real sicko would propose this, but that was the environment during the 1980's when the Reagan administration declared that country a threat to our national security. Bombing Nicaragua would have been illegal and disasterous. Killing thousands of foreigners never seems to be a concern of the guys who pull the trigger, but any thinking person should be appalled by this revelation.

There's an old saying: killing one person is murder. Killing 10,000 is foreign policy. In a rational world, Gates would never find his way to the Pentagon to replace Rumsfeld. Just as O.J. Simpson would never be hired as a rape crisis counselor.