DUTY - by Robert Gates, confirms what most have suspected

[Pilgrim]

​Speaking of good books, DUTY - the new one by Robert Gates to be released on Jan 14 looks like one that will be well worth the money. From his description of what goes on in the Obama White House, we shouldn't be surprised when the public elects and re-elects an inexperienced, unqualified, left-wing radical to the highest office in the country. It will be interesting to witness the commentaries from those who actually served with the military in Afghanistan and are in a position to offer their opinions on the book without retribution from the Obama mafia. Hopefully the GOP can find some way to keep the Pipsqueak POTUS and his kindergarten cabinet from screwing up too many other foreign policy issues over the next three years - but I'm not holding my breath.

Gates, a Republican, writes about Obama with an ambivalence that he does not resolve, praising him as “a man of personal integrity” even as he faults his leadership. Though the book simmers with disappointment in Obama, it reflects outright contempt for Vice President Biden and many of Obama’s top aides.

...Gates continues: “I was pretty upset myself. I thought implicitly accusing” Petraeus, and perhaps Mullen and Gates himself, “of gaming him in front of thirty people in the Situation Room was inappropriate, not to mention highly disrespectful of Petraeus. As I sat there, I thought: the president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand [Afghanistan President Hamid] Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama?s leadership in ?Duty? - The Washington Post

 

[RLENT]

​Speaking of good books, DUTY - the new one by Robert Gates to be released on Jan 14 looks like one that will be well worth the money. From his description of what goes on in the Obama White House ...

Oh ... I suspect that he's going to have a lot more to say about what goes on in the White House than just what goes on solely under Obama:

Within the Republican Party, a substantial faction still refuses to acknowledge and may not even believe that the Iraq War was a historic catastrophe that weakened America. So it is worthy of note when a former secretary of defense who served under Presidents Bush and Obama writes this in his forthcoming memoir: ...

(Article continues at link below)

Robert Gates: The Iraq War Undermined U.S. Efforts in Afghanistan - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic

And yes - it does look like it could be interesting.

Now ... how are you coming on the explanation of that whole "going to war in Iraq was defending the Constitution" thing ?

Are you making any headway at all ?

Or do you remain completely stumped on the matter ?

 

[LDB]

A man of personal integrity?

 

[Pilgrim]

A man of personal integrity?

That must be the "unresolved ambivalence" part. Maybe Gates is trying to imply that Obama is a well-intentioned fool.

 

[muttly]

#Barryvotersphonyconcernaboutconstitution.

 

[Tennesseahawk]

That must be the "unresolved ambivalence" part. Maybe Gates is trying to imply that Obama is a well-intentioned fool.

Jimmy Carter Jr?

 

[RLENT]

I'm sure that this little tidbit will just give the old Mayflower 'Monger chills and set his stomach churning:

Wars are a lot easier to get into than out of. Those who ask about exit strategies or question what will happen if assumptions prove wrong are rarely welcome at the conference table when the fire-breathers are demanding that we strike—as they did when advocating invading Iraq, intervening in Libya and Syria, or bombing Iran's nuclear sites. But in recent decades, presidents confronted with tough problems abroad have too often been too quick to reach for a gun. Our foreign and national security policy has become too militarized, the use of force too easy for presidents. Today, too many ideologues call for U.S. force as the first option rather than a last resort.


On the left, we hear about the "responsibility to protect" civilians to justify military intervention in Libya, Syria, Sudan and elsewhere. On the right, the failure to strike Syria or Iran is deemed an abdication of U.S. leadership. And so the rest of the world sees the U.S. as a militaristic country quick to launch planes, cruise missiles and drones deep into sovereign countries or ungoverned spaces.

#dontgetwoodjustyet

 

[Pilgrim]

Jimmy Carter Jr?

Obama has surpassed Carter as the worst POTUS of modern times. Only a clueless, callous fool would commit troops to battle with uncertain objectives and no commitment to their success.

Leveling one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief sending forces into combat, Gates asserts that Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,” Gates writes in “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.”

Remember that Obama called Afghanistan the "good war" during his campaign, obviously a political ploy. This is an individual that doesn't understand foreign policy, to say nothing of military operations. Although the book hasn't yet been released, this seems to be one of Gates' main points, as mentioned in the quote about the conversation between Obama and Hillary:

He writes: “Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. . . . The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.”

Those who haven't been in the military don't understand the severity of this concept. Imagine being given orders to enter a combat zone within which you may or may not have committed support - your life is on the line here, and depends on the judgement of a CIC that holds his military commanders in condescending contempt. Maybe those of us that served during the Viet Nam era might understand, along with the parents of those who died serving the political ambitions of somebody like LBJ or Barack Hussein Obama - both liberal Democrats.

 

[layoutshooter]

You would have to go back much further than LBJ to find the roots of the problems we are dealing with today.

 

[zorry]

Gates is working on his next book;

HOW TO SURVIVE AN IRS AUDIT

 

[layoutshooter]

Gates is working on his next book;

HOW TO SURVIVE AN IRS AUDIT

Or even worse.

 

[Pilgrim]

Another perspective on Obama's incompetence

That mission was ordered by Obama himself. Why would Obama put 30,000 additional troops in harm's way to carry out an effort he believed would fail? The most plausible explanation is that he wanted to appear muscular by signaling support for the Afghanistan war -- which Democrats had long cast as the "good war," vis-a-vis Iraq. "We took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan," etc....

As a presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama inaccurately predicted that the US military's Iraq surge would make matters worse. Sen. Hillary Clinton later grilled Gen. David Petraeus over the policy, stating that his assessment of its results required a "willing suspension of disbelief." Gates, who is widely respected and trusted across the political spectrum in Washington, now states that both former Senators privately acknowledged that they were playing cynical politics with the war effort. In other passages, Gates seethes over "breaches of faith" by the president, including getting sandbagged on 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' and budgetary matters. He also expresses exasperation over his perception that far too often, politics reigned supreme in Obamaworld...

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2014/01/07/robert-gates-memoir-obama-hillary-privately-admitted-opposition-to-iraq-surge-was-politicallymotivated-n1773127

Bottom line is the only thing that mattered to Obama, Biden, et al was getting him re-elected for the 2nd term. If Obama's immediate family weren't affected, all was good - maybe. Wouldn't it be poetic justice if his incompetence resulted in his daughters getting drafted into the military due to the possible future military crisis he created? He doesn't seem to be concerned right now about the men and women in the military that he sends into harm's way for the sake of his political gain.

 

[RLENT]

Only a clueless, callous fool would commit troops to battle with uncertain objectives and no commitment to their success.

You say this in apparently complete self-unawareness ... not realizing that it is exactly people like yourself that promote and enable it.

#unintendedconsequences

 

[Brisco]

Gates is working on his next book;

HOW TO SURVIVE AN IRS AUDIT

Or even worse.

One Name comes to mind...............Could Gates be this Administrations Vince Foster.

 

[layoutshooter]

One Name comes to mind...............Could Gates be this Administrations Vince Foster.

I would put NOTHING past ANY administration. They are all out only for their own power, glory and enrichment and would stop at nothing to achieve those goals.

 

[RLENT]

I would put NOTHING past ANY administration. They are all out only for their own power, glory and enrichment and would stop at nothing to achieve those goals.

So ... do you have a revised time frame for when they will begin rounding up all the political opponents and interring them in camps ?

I only ask because it appears that we are about 5 years past your initial estimate at this point and I'm trying to make plans.

 

[aristotle]

The union of Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama,Sr. , of Kenya, foisted upon the American people a one-man sleeper cell now sitting at the apex of power. That Robert Gates would serve in this administration is all we need to know about him. Switch hitters like Gates, and David Gergen, are troubling in that their allegiance is easily swayed, usually tracking the most recent election. Gates helped to implement Obama's radical agenda. I could respect Gates if he had resigned under protest. Instead, he's cashing in.