Obama, after months of contentious discussion with Gates and other top advisers, deployed 30,000 more troops in a final push to stabilize Afghanistan before a phased withdrawal beginning in mid-2011. “I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission,” Gates writes.
If you as the Commander-in-Chief don't support the mission, you then truly don't support the troops.
It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president...
...the book simmers with disappointment in Obama, it reflects outright contempt for Vice President Biden and many of Obama’s top aides... Biden is accused of “poisoning the well” against the military leadership. Thomas Donilon, initially Obama’s deputy national security adviser, and then-Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, the White House coordinator for the wars, are described as regularly engaged in “aggressive, suspicious, and sometimes condescending and insulting questioning of our military leaders.
..."“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..."
Why would that be surprising, Mr. Gates? Everything Democrats do -- they invented "triangulation", after all -- is about personal power, not the country.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the central commander in charge of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, made remarks to the press suggesting he was not comfortable with setting a fixed date to start withdrawal.
At a March 3, 2011, National Security Council meeting, Gates writes, the president opened with a “blast.” Obama criticized the military for “popping off in the press” and said he would push back hard against any delay in beginning the withdrawal.
According to Gates, Obama concluded, “ ‘If I believe I am being gamed . . .’ and left the sentence hanging there with the clear implication the consequences would be dire.”
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.”
With Obama, it's all about Obama. That's all anyone needs to know.
...in a battle over defense spending, “I was extremely angry with President Obama,” Gates writes. “I felt he had breached faith with me . . . on the budget numbers.” As with “don’t ask, don’t tell,” “I felt that agreements with the Obama White House were good for only as long as they were politically convenient...”
...during internal debates over whether to intervene in Libya in 2011 that Gates says he felt compelled to deliver a “rant” because the White House staff was “talking about military options with the president without Defense being involved..."
...after Donilon and Biden tried to pass orders to Gates, he told the two, “The last time I checked, neither of you are in the chain of command,” and said he expected to get orders directly from Obama...
Highlights from The Wall Street Journal:
It is difficult to imagine two more different men than George W. Bush and Barack Obama...
... I don't recall Bush ever discussing domestic politics—apart from congressional opposition—as a consideration in decisions he made during my time with him...
...With Obama, however, I joined a new, inexperienced president determined to change course—and equally determined from day one to win re-election. Domestic political considerations would therefore be a factor ... in virtually every major national security problem we tackled...
...Most of my conflicts with the Obama administration during the first two years weren't over policy initiatives from the White House but rather the NSS's micromanagement and operational meddling, which I routinely resisted. For an NSS staff member to call a four-star combatant commander or field commander would have been unthinkable when I worked at the White House—and probably cause for dismissal. It became routine under Obama. I directed commanders to refer such calls to my office. The controlling nature of the Obama White House, and its determination to take credit for every good thing that happened while giving none to the career folks in the trenches who had actually done the work, offended Secretary Clinton as much as it did me...
You know what Obama inherited from Bush? A Fallujah without Al Qaeda.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
4 comments:
Why didn't he come out with this earlier? At least he came out before Hillary runs.
That's about right. Never forget what a democrat told me on the "Hill". EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL for Democrats.
More was said, but that poor democrat didn't know that he was talking to a Republican.
He just assumed that me being a wheelchair that I would be democrat.
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When our group was in power, the democrat's would, and did SUPPORT OUR ENEMIES. Many, Many times over.
Most people are complaining that he came out with it too early. Its out. Let's read it, digest it, debate it and act on it.
He had a duty to quit and tell the American people about his concerns. Instead, it is too late now.
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