Gates Hammers 0s "Leadership Duty"

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

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.”
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Gates writes of Biden, "I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."
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Gates 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.”
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An Excerpt From Robert Gates' 'Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War' - WSJ.com

All too often during my 4½ years as secretary of defense, when I found myself sitting yet again at that witness table at yet another congressional hearing, I was tempted to stand up, slam the briefing book shut and quit on the spot. The exit lines were on the tip of my tongue: I may be the secretary of defense, but I am also an American citizen, and there is no son of a ***** in the world who can talk to me like that. I quit. Find somebody else. It was, I am confident, a fantasy widely shared throughout the executive branch.
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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.
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Discuss amongst yourselves
 
#2
#2
I'm sure there's a lot of truth in there, but I tend to take these hostile books from former advisers with a grain of salt. Sounds like what Scott McClellan did after leaving the Bush Administration. If the situation was so egregious, just resign and blow the whistle immediately.
 
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#4
#4
He also says that Obama's decision to go forward with the bin Laden raid was the bravest decision he'd seen in the WH in four decades.
 
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#5
#5
No big surprise that decorum, leadership, or common sense is absent from the current White House.
 
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lawgator1 said:
He also says that Obama's decision to go forward with the bin Laden raid was the bravest decision he'd seen in the WH in four decades.
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Yeah, sure, like whatever dude. IF I was president I'd do the same damn thing. That doesn't mean O is a "brave" decision maker in my book. Did Gates mention in his book that Obama IS the "WORST President EVER" because everyone (almost, save a few sheep) knows now that's the case & a bad policy making President on domestic & foreign affairs?
 
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W.TN.Orange Blood said:
Yeah, sure, like whatever dude. IF I was president I'd do the same damn thing. That doesn't mean O is a "brave" decision maker in my book. Did Gates mention in his book that Obama IS the "WORST President EVER" because everyone (almost, save a few sheep) knows now that's the case & a bad policy making President on domestic & foreign affairs?
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The left reaches for any hope of a silver lining to Obama's presidency because they realize they weren't on the right side of history and he will go down as one of the biggest blunderers.
 
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lawgator1 said:
He also says that Obama's decision to go forward with the bin Laden raid was the bravest decision he'd seen in the WH in four decades.
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Score 1 for O! Yeahhhhhhhhh.

What else ya got? So far that 1 single accomplishment is so far outweighed by the damage he and his administration has done it's meaningless.
 
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lawgator1 said:
He also says that Obama's decision to go forward with the bin Laden raid was the bravest decision he'd seen in the WH in four decades.
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Proves the criticisms weren't just sour grapes, if he also commended where he felt it was appropriate.
 
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hog88 said:
Score 1 for O! Yeahhhhhhhhh.

What else ya got? So far that 1 single accomplishment is so far outweighed by the damage he and his administration has done it's meaningless.
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I often wonder if killing him was our best recourse. Following him and killing everyone he communicates with would have been more effective, imo.
 
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tim said:
I often wonder if killing him was our best recourse. Following him and killing everyone he communicates with would have been more effective, imo.
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I believe that's what we were doing, no need in killing him when we were monitoring him and taking out his network. AQ probably got wise and communication started drying up plus Obama needed a win for political points.

I don't believe for a second there was ever a capture first order, it was kill from the jump.
 
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lawgator1 said:
He also says that Obama's decision to go forward with the bin Laden raid was the bravest decision he'd seen in the WH in four decades.
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As far as I can see this was the only FP success of his administration.

The book tells what we all saw - Obama is playing at being president.
 
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#14
#14
Osama bin laden is dead & GM has been bailed out. Famous words from the VP who's a total embarrassment & a total buffoon when he speaks on anything. Some of those jobs weren't really shovel ready to begin with after spending taxpayers money of $900 billion dollars....hahaha.....shows Obama's happy side of wasting hard earned taxpayers money. I could go on & on with a list of stupidity & no Leadership qualities & a waste of American dollars to fund he & Moochelle's vacations all over the world.
 
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GAVol said:
I'm sure there's a lot of truth in there, but I tend to take these hostile books from former advisers with a grain of salt. Sounds like what Scott McClellan did after leaving the Bush Administration. If the situation was so egregious, just resign and blow the whistle immediately.
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I agree in general but Gates has a long history of solid service both in and out of the public sector. I think he merits more credibility than a McClellan who was in over his head in his job.

If you look at how we "handled" status of forces negotiations, etc. what Gates is saying just confirms what we saw going on.
 
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W.TN.Orange Blood said:
Osama bin laden is dead & GM has been bailed out. Famous words from the VP who's a total embarrassment & a total buffoon when he speaks on anything. Some of those jobs weren't really shovel ready to begin with after spending taxpayers money of $900 billion dollars....hahaha.....shows Obama's happy side of wasting hard earned taxpayers money. I could go on & on with a list of stupidity & no Leadership qualities & a waste of American dollars to fund he & Moochelle's vacations all over the world.
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Since the taxpayers own GM, shouldn't we have all gotten a new Cadillac or something?
 
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W.TN.Orange Blood said:
Yeah, sure, like whatever dude. IF I was president I'd do the same damn thing. That doesn't mean O is a "brave" decision maker in my book. Did Gates mention in his book that Obama IS the "WORST President EVER" because everyone (almost, save a few sheep) knows now that's the case & a bad policy making President on domestic & foreign affairs?
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So you want to just accept without question every criticism of Obama and reject cavalierly every praise.

Gotcha.
 
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#19
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Orange_Crush said:
Proves the criticisms weren't just sour grapes, if he also commended where he felt it was appropriate.
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I don't disagree and I accept his criticisms and his perspective on them.

I hardly think it is any secret that Obama is personally and professionally conflicted over Iraq and Afghanistan, and I can certainly imagine a scenario in which he on the one hand has to place authority to get something done in the hands of the military but on the other hand dislikes the hand he has been dealt and is skeptical of the military's interests in the situation.
 
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#22
#22
lawgator1 said:
I don't disagree and I accept his criticisms and his perspective on them.

I hardly think it is any secret that Obama is personally and professionally conflicted over Iraq and Afghanistan, and I can certainly imagine a scenario in which he on the one hand has to place authority to get something done in the hands of the military but on the other hand dislikes the hand he has been dealt and is skeptical of the military's interests in the situation.
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your description is not what the article says - you are leaving out the very critical role of what's best for Obama politically driving the decision making. That's why we have a leadership issue.
 
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#24
#24
volinbham said:
your description is not what the article says - you are leaving out the very critical role of what's best for Obama politically driving the decision making. That's why we have a leadership issue.
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Politics plays a significant and sometimes decisive role in a president's approach to military action? And the military resents that?

No way.
 
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