Thank you, Robert Gates.
Anyone who studied Obama’s personality, Marxist philosophy, and background would understand that he is totally unfit to lead a Democratic Republic; a conclusion that Robert Gates finally figured out after getting up close and personal with the Obama regime.
From Fox News.
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in his upcoming memoir, has harsh words for President Obama’s leadership style and commitment to the Afghanistan war, accusing the president of losing faith in his own strategy.
……The tone of Gates’ book is a break from Washington decorum, in which former Cabinet members rarely level tough judgments against sitting presidents.
Gates writes 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.”
The book, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” is scheduled for a Jan. 14 release by the Knopf DoubleDay Publishing Group. Excerpts, confirmed by Fox News, were first reported by The Washington Post and New York Times.
The 70-year-old Gates writes that Obama appeared to doubt his own strategy in Afghanistan to the point of being “outright convinced it would fail.”
Obama deployed 30,000 more troops to stabilize Afghanistan before starting to remove Soldiers in mid-2011, after months of tense discussion with Gates and other top advisers.
……In an essay Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal apparently to promote the book, Gates also writes that Obama’s “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 … the nearly unanimous recommendations of his senior civilian and military advisers at the departments of State and Defense, and the realities on the ground.”
Gates, a carryover from the Bush administration who worked for every president since Nixon, except Clinton, said that underneath his notoriously calm exterior he was frequently “seething” because he felt Obama and his team had neither trust nor confidence in him.
Like the rest of the DemProgs, Obama viewed support of the war against Islamic terrorism as political pragmatism, not serious foreign policy.
Gates found this revelation to be ‘dismaying’.
The new book, “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” recounts (Hillary) Clinton telling Obama her opposition to Bush’s 2007 troop surge in Iraq was a political decision, made because she was trying to match Mr. Obama’s anti-war sentiment in their primary campaign.
“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,” Gates wrote…
And Gates recounts how, as the president lost faith in Gen. David Petraeus’ handling of hostilities in Afghanistan, he – Gates – lost faith in Obama’s commitment to accomplishing much of anything.
‘As I sat there,’ he recalls, ‘I thought: The president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand [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.’
Hey Robert, Obama declared years ago that “victory wasn’t necessarily the goal”, or weren’t you listening?
From a Wall Street Journal essay adapted from his book:
……It is difficult to imagine two more different men than George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Clearly, I had fewer issues with Bush. Partly that is because I worked for him in the last two years of his presidency, when, with the exception of the Iraq surge, nearly all the big national security decisions had been made. He had made his historical bed and would have to lie in it. 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 (although, in fairness, his sharp-elbowed political gurus were nearly all gone by the time I arrived). By early 2007, Vice President Dick Cheney was the hawkish outlier on the team, with Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and me in broad agreement.
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).
Obama’s collection of advisers should have been a big red flag. Valerie Jarrett for instance, was part of Bill Daley’s corrupt Chicago political machine. She was responsible for bringing self-described Communist Van Jones into the White House as Obama’s environmental “Green Czar”. David Axelrod, Obama’s former communications director, has a radical background similar to Obama’s and is well known for using vicious tactics against political opponents.
Who did he think he was dealing with?
I never confronted Obama directly over what I (as well as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-CIA Director Leon Panetta and others) saw as his 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.
I had no problem with the White House driving policy; the bureaucracies at the State and Defense Departments rarely come up with big new ideas, so almost any meaningful change must be driven by the president and his National Security Staff (NSS), led during my tenure under Obama by Gen. James Jones, Thomas Donilon and Denis McDonough. But I believe the major reason the protracted, frustrating Afghanistan policy review held in the fall of 2009 created so much ill will was due to the fact it was forced on an otherwise controlling White House by the theater commander’s unexpected request for a large escalation of American involvement. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request surprised the White House (and me) and provoked a debate that the White House didn’t want, especially when it became public. I think Obama and his advisers were incensed that the Department of Defense—specifically the uniformed military—had taken control of the policy process from them and threatened to run away with it.
……The relationship between senior military leaders and their civilian commander in chief is often tense, and that was certainly my experience under both Bush and Obama. Bush was willing to disagree with his senior military advisers, but he never (to my knowledge) questioned their motives or mistrusted them personally. Obama was respectful of senior officers and always heard them out, but he often disagreed with them and was deeply suspicious of their actions and recommendations. Bush seemed to enjoy the company of the senior military; I think Obama considered time spent with generals and admirals an obligation.
Gates is being disingenuous when he says “Obama was respectful of senior officers”. Obama hates the military and has done everything he can to eviscerate and inflict damage. General McCrystal was fired after criticizing Obama’s incompetent handling of the war in Afghanistan, and pointing out that his mission was to defeat the Taliban; something Obama clearly forgot.
Gates said: “The only military matter, apart from leaks, about which I ever sensed deep passion on his part was ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.'”
Figures.
And remember this?
The Dhimmi-in-Chief gives consolences to the families of muslim terrorists, he ordered a religious funeral for Osama Bin Laden, he disrepected the wishes of military families by using the return of the remains of fallen American troops as a photo op, he classifies domestic terrorism against the military as “work place violence”, and he wanted to prosecute CIA interrogators for doing what it takes to save American lives. To top it all off, the asinine ROE he approved in Afghanistan endangers troops. The craven assclown has no intention of winning the war against Islamic aggression and terrorism.
‘Respectful’, my ass.
If Gates was seething as much as he claims, he should have quit a long time ago. Obama’s foreign policy is an epic fail; something that became self-evident at his first G8 Summit in 2009.
Gates’ own foreign policy strategy is checkered. In 2010, he started a campaign of gagging military leaders from expressing concern over Obama’s half-assed, ham-strung policies. In 2011, he told the Iraq government to ‘show restraint’ against an Iranian terrorist group that made its way into a refugee camp.
He also describes Joe Gaffemeister Biden as “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” That’s just one of Biden’s flaws. He thought it would be a good idea to divide Iraq into three separate (Sunni/Shiite/Kurdish) sections. Biden’s unfiltered gaffes are the stuff of legend; not the good kind, either. Patriots who want the government to honor the Constitution are “terrorists” and job creators “don’t build the economy”.
The book doesn’t reveal much that we don’t already know. Obama, Biden, and the rest of the White House cabinet are abject losers and Gates didn’t have the guts or the integrity to tell them to go to hell and leave while he still had the chance to salvage some dignity.
Related article:
SARG…there seems to be a typo in the header of this thread…did I really see the word LEADERSHIP???…that’s jist wrong…
Excellent!
Typical hypocrite. Waited until he was safely(?) out of the line of fire before opening his mouth — obviously in hopes of raking in a pile of money. Disgusting . . .
John,
That is certainly true. That’s why I said what I did in my closing comment.
SFC MAC
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