Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama’s leadership in ‘Duty’

[PragmaticLiberal]

Source: Washingtonpost

In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama’s leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

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.”



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/robert-gates-former-defense-secretary-offers-harsh-critique-of-obamas-leadership-in-duty/2014/01/07/6a6915b2-77cb-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html?hpid=z1

[geek tragedy]

1. "for him it's all about getting out"

Sounds like high praise to me.

[phleshdef]

2. That sounds like the President being rational to me.

[former9thward]

14. It is too bad he did not act on it.

[elleng]

3. NYTimes review here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101682059

WaPo story/review is by Woodward, dumping on Pres. Obama. NYTimes quite different.

[Vincardog]

4. head of the CIA by George H.W. Bush and became secretary of defense under George W. Bush

This moroon ginned up the propaganda to get us into 2 illegal immoral wars.
Why exactly would any rational person listen to him?

[elleng]

5. Cheney, Rumsfeld, PNAC ginned up that propaganda,

not Gates.

[Vincardog]

6. Right he forcefully spoke out and condemned their lies.

[Octafish]

7. Gates is lucky he's not in prison busting rocks.

Iran-Contra Report

Chapter 16

Robert M. Gates

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_16.htm

The guy escaped justice when Poppy pardoned Cap Weinberger and the other, uh, officials.

Why Gates got to stay on as Secretary of Defense after Jan. 20, 2009 still has me wondering.

[rusty fender]

8. Good on Prez Obama!

He is spot-on the Afghanistan situation. Any military strategy in Afghanistan was doomed to fail.

[former9thward]

15. Why did he condemn Americans to die there?

If he thought it was going to fail he should have withdrawn forces then and there.

[TwilightGardener]

9. Gates didn't know what to do either, with Iraq or Afghanistan. He just wanted to do

whatever Petraeus and McChrystal said, and thought Obama and Biden should respect that and defer to the generals. Turns out, Obama and Biden had the right instincts--the surge barely did anything meaningful, Karzai is even less trustworthy now, and the public is sick of war. Pretty classless of Gates to release this now.

[octoberlib]

10. I don't know if any of you have read Michael Hastings' book The Operators,

but Hastings wrote that Obama ordered a policy review done on the situation in Afghanistan as soon as he took office and decided to get the troops out. Of course , the Pentagon did everything they could to fight this , including planting fake articles in the media and conducting psy ops on visiting Congressmen. Hastings asserts that the Pentagon had the Obama admin so boxed in that they couldn't do what they wanted to do,namely get the troops out. The relationship between the military and the Obama admin has never been an easy one, according to Hastings.


Here's Hastings being interviewed by Chris Matthews

[proverbialwisdom]

18. Gareth Porter: Gates Conceals Real Story of “Gaming” Obama on Afghan War

http://warisacrime.org/content/gates-conceals-real-story-“gaming”-obama-afghan-war

Gates Conceals Real Story of “Gaming” Obama on Afghan War
by Gareth Porter

Posted on 10 January 2014 by davidswanson

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 2014 (IPS) - Criticism in the memoirs of former secretary of defence Robert M. Gates of President Barack Obama’s lack of commitment to the Afghan War strategy of his administration has generated a Washington debate about whether Obama was sufficiently supportive of the war.

But the Gates account omits two crucial historical facts necessary to understanding the issue. The first is that Obama agreed to the escalation only under strong pressure from his top national security officials and with very explicit reservations. The second is that Gen. David Petraeus reneged on his previous commitment to support Obama’s 2009 decision that troop withdrawal would begin by mid-2011.

<>

Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan. His new book “Manufactured Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare”, will be published in February 2014.

[octoberlib]

19. Interesting. Thanks for posting! nt

[CherokeeDem]

11. Well... Mr. Gates....

This is quite telling to me...

concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

I consider this high praise for President Obama, this was not his war and he should only be concerned with 'getting us out.'

I also think the President having doubt about the success of their strategy shows a man with realistic expectations.

Poor Secretary Gates... I'm actually quite surprised... I thought he had a bit more class than this. I suppose once a Republican, always a Republican.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Yeah, yeah..we'll still that war if we can find the Ho Chi Minh trail.

As for "getting out", he's leaving out a word. Should be, "Getting kicked out" just like in that other war we lost.

[spanone]

13. blah blah blah...buy my book... blah...blah...blah..buy my book... blah blah blah

[tavernier]

16. No surprise that Andrea Mitchell would smirk this

on the national six o'clock news. She is still trying to cover up the sins of her long ago deceased husband. ... Oh, sorry; he only LOOKS deceased.

[Jeneral2885]

17. Why bash Gates?

Sure its popular to withdraw from all the wars but its not like Obama knows the best for military or NS options. And look where Samantha Powers is now post-Gates? Obama was waiting to surround himself with friends rather than sound advisers.

An