Former Secretary of State has written a book and today and excerpts were published in the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. There are some harsh words for George W. Bush, but the masks are pulled off of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and they serve only to reinforce what many of us have believed about the two of them.
About Bush:
President Bush always detested the notion, but our later challenges in Afghanistan—especially the return of the Taliban in force by the time I reported for duty—were, I believe, significantly compounded by the invasion of Iraq. Resources and senior-level attention were diverted from Afghanistan. U.S. goals in Afghanistan—a properly sized, competent Afghan national army and police, a working democracy with at least a minimally effective and less corrupt central government—were embarrassingly ambitious and historically naive compared with the meager human and financial resources committed to the task, at least before 2009.
Obama, naturally, lied about listening to the commanders on the ground:
For his part, President Obama simply wanted to end the “bad” war in Iraq and limit the U.S. role in the “good” war in Afghanistan. His fundamental problem in Afghanistan was that his political and philosophical preferences for winding down the U.S. role conflicted with his own pro-war public rhetoric (especially during the 2008 campaign), the nearly unanimous recommendations of his senior civilian and military advisers at the Departments of State and Defense, and the realities on the ground.
And when that didn’t go well Obama just wanted out:
The continuing fight over Afghanistan strategy in the Obama administration led to a helpful, steady narrowing of our objectives and ambitions. Still, I witnessed a good deal of wishful thinking in the Obama administration about how much improvement we might see with enough dialogue with Pakistan and enough civilian assistance to the Afghan government and people. When real improvements in those areas failed to materialize, too many people—especially in the White House—concluded that the president’s entire strategy, including the military component, was a failure and became eager to reverse course.
Joe Biden again showed his ability to be on the wrong side of everything:
But if I had learned one useful lesson from Iraq, it was that progress depended on security for much of the population. This was why I could not sign onto Vice President Biden’s preferred strategy of reducing our presence in Afghanistan to rely on counterterrorist strikes from afar: “Whac-A-Mole” hits on Taliban leaders weren’t a long-term strategy. That is why I continue to believe that the troop increase that Obama boldly approved in late 2009 was the right decision—providing sufficient forces to break the stalemate on the ground, rooting the Taliban out of their strongholds while training a much larger and more capable Afghan army.
Then, a very important comment:
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…
Obama’s political advisers held enormous sway with national security decision:
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, though I believe never a decisive one, in virtually every major national security problem we tackled. The White House staff—including Chiefs of Staff Rahm Emanuel and then Bill Daley as well as such core political advisers as Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs —would have a role in national security decision making that I had not previously experienced (but which, I’m sure, had precedents).
Seems almost anyone could call a four star General on the phone:
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.
Here’s something else many of us knew:
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…
The really nasty stuff is in WaPo:
Gates 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.
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.”
Biden? Condescending? Who could imagine that?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWM6EuKxz5A[/youtube]
A relatively young and arrogant administration with a leader who never served in any of the services. Where have I heard that before?
“All too early in the [Obama] administration,” he writes, “suspicion and distrust of senior military officers by senior White House officials — including the president and vice president — became a big problem for me as I tried to manage the relationship between the commander in chief and his military leaders.”
Then Gates lets us know what ought to surprise no one- that Obama and Hillary were playing politics with wars:
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.”
Obama thought nothing of making implicit threats against the ranking military whom he did not trust:
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.”
And we learn that the White House staff was running the Libyan operation:
“I never confronted Obama directly over what I (as well as [Hillary] Clinton, [then-CIA Director Leon] Panetta, and others) saw as the president’s determination that the White House tightly control every aspect of national security policy and even operations. His White House was by far the most centralized and controlling in national security of any I had seen since Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger ruled the roost.”
It got so bad 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.”
And finally, Gates came to know something a wise man noted previously:
“I felt that agreements with the Obama White House were good for only as long as they were politically convenient.”
Sound familiar?
So there it is. Barack Obama prefers the easy course. He wants credit for everything that goes well and you can’t locate him when things go badly. Obama wants out of Iraq and Afghanistan and doesn’t care how they will end. Iraq will fall to Al Qaeda and create a terrible national security threat. Obama hasn’t spoken to Afghanistan President Karzai since July and the Status of Forces Agreements remains in limbo.
Barack Obama: Big on being President, small on Presidentin’
We know Obama is a liar. Gates has shown us that Hillary will not hesitate to play politics with the national security either.
We deserve better.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Perhaps this is the real reason so many high ranking military have been relieved. While they are true leaders and patriots, wanting only the best for the military, they have to kowtow to an idiot that is out to destroy the country and openly shows his contempt for them(the Military leaders).
It must be a real pleasure to work with people that have an objective to stab you in the back the first chance they get. Seems as if Gates had to have a permanent lookout for his back.
Unfortunately, you haven’t written anything really new about our leader and his court: Just an update.
I have to wonder if Bob Gates knew how Obama was getting personal and damning information on everyone so he could pull the trigger whenever he felt the need?
Obama certainly has done away with many military leaders.
I wonder what Obama could have had on Bob Gates that made this expose a better option than silence?
If Obama (through surrogates of course) slimes Gates with things only obtainable through illegal use of surveillance I bet Gates will make sure everybody knows what Obama’s been doing.
Far out in the weeds and I guess we’ll none of us ever know.
Having done 25 years in the army, Gates’ revelations are a “No Duh” .
The left detests the US military and does all that it can to weaken it. The only time the left sheds their crocodile tears over the military is to attempt to bludgeon a republican administration. Case in point, the endless creepy Iraq and Afghanistan death toll reporting when Bush was president, followed by media crickets over the increased death toll in Afghanistan (75% of US troop deaths in Afghanistan have occurred under Obama despite our having been there longer under Bush) under Obama. Add to that the near complete absence of coverage of the commie Code Pink freaks and the disgusting hack Sheehan since Obama was elected compared to the slavish devotion to those two freaks when Bush was president.
The left is completely untrustworthy. To believe otherwise is total self-delusion.
@Pete:
If Bob Gates had such objections to this Administration, he should have tendered his resignation and went public with his objections. He didn’t. He served his time, like the dutiful little lemming he was, and then bailed out, now looking to cash in on a “tell all” book.
@Pete: #5
As long as they get their free stuff, they don’t care about honest politicians.
Jay Carney has a beard covering a noticeable facial tic.
He had ”the book,” for 24 hours now but only focused on DIVERSION.
He has all sorts of comments about Gates’ view of BIDEN, but nothing about Obama and his failed policies.
He used the false dilemma of not being able to comment on ”every sentence” from the book.
No one asked him to.
But not one comment about what Gates said about Obama.
Just comments about diversionary things also in the book.
Seems Obama hasn’t gleaned anything really slimy on Gates…..yet.
But it is true that the entire Gates book is providing Obama yet another day’s DIVERSION from his failure of ObamaCare.
How Bob Gates’s memoir could haunt Hillary in 2016
Dr. Gates:
The White House’ latest directive, changing the rules on what is considered mental health treatment, will no doubt be used to disqualify veterans from having their second amendment rights once they return home.
#9
He wants the military to pay for their own medical care by using their private insurance. He wants to lower their automatic pay increases but raised federal employee’s wages, they can’t shoot unless fired upon even if they see the enemy setting up for an attack, he’s ready to charge any military personnel with any crime he thinks he can get away with, several times he has chosen not to visit the wounded when he could have easily done so, and he is firing top military personnel. How many others have figured out who’s side obama is on, and it ain’t the USA’s?
Yes federal workers are supposedly getting a one percent raise, the first in four years. Thelast time the military got a raise was in 2012.
You might want to focus on that military cannot have a bible on their desk, cannot speak about religion and chaplains can’t talk about Jesus. Military can’t say Christmas ( although the do anyway). Right now they are holding a board to kick out captains and majors (down sizing). These men and women are laying down their lives and they get kicked in the teeth for it.
HOW UNSENSITIVE IS OBAMA TO TAKE WAY EVERYTHING THEY HOLD DEAR TO THEM,
AND HE HIS RESPONSIBLE FOR MULTIPLE ACTS OF DESPERATION AS COMMIT SUICIDE ON THE GROUND OF WAR ITSELF,HE CANNOT COMPREHEND A SOLDIER WHO WANT TO PRAY WITH THE CHAPLAIN, BECAUSE HE DOESN’T FEEL NOTHING BUT SELF HATE FOR ALL WHO DISTURB HIM
BY TELLING HIM THE TRUTH ABOUT HIM,THEY ARE BEING DISCARDED FAST BY FORGING A DISHONOR ON THEM, HE DOESN CARE, AND HILARY PICKED UP ON HIS PROFILE,
BY TRAVELING ALL THE WORLD TO TELL THE LEADERS THAT THEY ARE SAFE WITH OBAMA,
HE AND HER ARE SOLD TO THE WORLD ORGANISATION AND WANT TO SHARE AMERICA WITH THE WORLD, IT OBVIOUS NOW,IT’S PART OF THEIR POLICY,
LIKE THAT AFRICAN WOMAN WHO EMIGRATED SOME FEW YEARS AGO ,REFUSE THE SCHOOL TO HAVE THE CHILDREN RECITE THE LAWS OF THE LAND, THE CONSTITUTION,
SHE HAD A FIT YELLING THAT SHE EMIGRATED BECAUSE SHE WAS TOLD AMERICA WAS A GLOBAL COUNTRY NO MORE BOUND TO THE CONSTITUTION, WHO ELSE CAN SPREAD THOSE LIES UNLESS TOLD TO DO IT BY HIGH COMMAND,
SHAME AND NO PUNISMENT IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE TRAITORS AND THE HIGHER THE RANK THE MORE THE PUNISHMENT SHOULD BE,
BOB GATES ONLY TOUCH THE CRUMBS, WAIT LONGER
THE REST WILL RAISE HIS LOYAL FOLLOWERS HAIR ON THEIR HEAD,
Everyone knows the phrase “War is a racket”, but fewer probably realize it comes from the title of books by decorated Marine Major General Smedley Butler. He used the phrase to describe his decades of dedicated service to multiple administrations and various wars. One of his quotes bears special mention here:
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
This from one of the most decorated soldiers of our nation, whose reputation is beyond reproach. Like Eisenhower’s warning some 30 years later, our country is not run by “liberals and conservatives” but by banks and corporations. It has been that way at least the past century.
If you truly want to know why our world is going to hell in a hand basket, Butler’s writings spelled it out back in 1935. There is a two-party system in this country, but it’s not the left versus right- it’s the “have yachts” versus the “have nots”. (ref. Max Keisner) Until that changes, nothing else will.
@h5mind: #13
As long as we have a campaigning system where the ones running for office need to use someone else’s money, the ones with the money will get what they want from the politicians.
We quit having a two-party system years ago. We now have a one-party system with two branches, and both branches are feeding off of the same roots.
h5mind
thank you fot this very interesting info,
and what come to mind is what do we do about it after reading those past corruptions,
he himself admit to have deliver to other COUNTRIES AND WHILE TAKING HIS EARNINGS ,
WHICH MUST HAVE MADE HIMSELF RICH LIKE THE WALLSTREET WEALTHY, HE NOW DECLARE TO RUN THE PEOPLE’S BUSINESS,
THERE IS MANY CITIZENS WHO WOULD HAVE NOT WAIT SO MANY YEARS TO PUBLICLY EXPOSE IT
AT THE TIME HE WAS DOING IT FOR THEM,
THAT TELL US OF THE RIGHT PRICE CAN BUY A LOT OF PEOPLE, IF THAT MONEY COME FROM THE PEOPLE’S MONEY, HE IS DECORATED FOR WHAT? IS IT FOR HAVING SCREW SO MANY PEOPLE IN THE FOREIGN COUNTRIES, WHO FRANKLY NEEDED THAT WALLSTREET MONEY TO FEED THEMSELVED, MANY ACTIONS, LED TO COUNTER ACTIONS, FOR HIS 30 MORE YEARS,
INTERESTING READ,
SO THAT PROVE THE REPUBLICANS ARE THE BEST TO RUN THIS AMERICA, BECAUSE
IT’S HARDER TO CORRUPT THEM, AS WE SEE NOW,