The Wars of Robert Gates

The Wall Street Journal ^ | January 10, 2014 | ROBERT M. GATES

[Hojczyk]

For the first several months, it took a lot of discipline to sit quietly at the table as everyone from President Obama on down took shots at President Bush and his team. Sitting there, I would often think to myself, Am I invisible?

During these excoriations, there was never any acknowledgment that I had been an integral part of that earlier team. Discussions in the Situation Room allowed no room for discriminating analysis: Everything was awful, and Obama and his team had arrived just in time to save the day.

Our discussions soon turned to the war in Afghanistan. My years in the Bush administration had convinced me that creating a strong, democratic, and more or less honest and competent central government in Afghanistan was a fantasy. Our goal, I thought, should be limited to hammering the Taliban and other extremists and to building up the Afghan security forces so they could control the extremists and deny al Qaeda another safe haven in Afghanistan.

This pressure for an early decision on a troop increase had the unfortunate and lasting effect of creating suspicion in the White House that Obama was getting the "bum's rush" from senior military officers—especially the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Michael Mullen, and Gen. David Petraeus, who was then running the U.S. Central Command—to make a big decision prematurely. I believed then—and now—that this distrust was stoked by Vice President Joe Biden, with Deputy National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and some of Obama's other White House advisers joining the chorus.

[ZULU]

Not if the GOP picks up ENOUGH seats in the Senate and House and purges RINOs like Linda Graham and Mitch McConnell, among others.

Then its IMPEACHMENT time, followed by INDICTMENT time!!!

[GeronL]

and what makes you think Gates can be trusted to tell the truth in the book when he spent so long as a foot stool to the Liar in Chief??

[rlmorel]

There were a few things in this article that pissed me off, but oddly, it was this segment that really irritated me:

"..."In conclusion, Mr. President, this is a seminal moment in your presidency," I wrote. "If you elect not to agree to General McChrystal's recommendations (or my alternative), I urge you to make a tough-minded, dramatic change in mission [in] the other direction. Standing pat, middling options, muddling through, are not the right path forward and put our kids at risk for no good purpose..."

See, it isn't that I disagree with that statement, I actually DO agree with it. It is him referring to our military as "our kids".

Grrr. They are men and women. Many of them are kids at heart, but they have earned the right to be called men. It is typical liberal-speech.

[Theodore R.]

If the American people cannot even bear to vote out the two McCs, Cornball, Loveable Lindsey, Lamar!, Cochran et al, they can hardly do what is needed to survive.

[binreadin]

“Gates would not have changed the course of history if he had quit. It would have been forgotten within a week as the NYT led media quickly moved onto something else. McChrystal stepping down lasted about two days in the media...Gates would have been the same.”

I certainly understand your cynicism, but Gates, with all his time with the CIA and Dept. of Defense could have used the drip-drip-drip method now being employed by Snowden, without divulging classified information. Just the knowledge he has of the parties involved, and their behavior, could have been leveraged. It is not honorable to be loyal to people who know no loyalty and have no principle. It is time for good people to stand up and make a difference.

[griswold3]

We’re dealing with a bunch of bureaucrats. No principles, no character, just what is politically expedient at the moment.

[Irenic]

“Is it a lack of respect for me?”

“Are [Petraeus, McChrystal and Mullen] trying to box me in?

What is wrong? Is it the process?

Are they suspicious of my politics?

Do they resent that I never served in the military?

Do they think because I’m young that I don’t see what they’re doing?”

***********************
Pretty insecure, isn’t he?

[binreadin]

You are absolutely right. It’s time for us to push back, hard.

[MacNaughton]

6 Robert Gates’ is the person who is most responsible for the ending of “Don’t ask, don’t tell. Gates championed homosexual behavior in the military, and now heads the Boy Scouts. It is people like Gates who are destroying the country.

As others have wrote here on FR, Gates thinking regarding the repeal of DADT might have been that he could influence matters to cause the least damage in our military. I think we can all agree now that his efforts were futile and misguided. Gates won't become the BSA national president until the end of MAY this year. Like others have said, I think Gates will crash the last, and remaining barrier in BSA, i.e., change the membership rules to admit open homosexual adults as leaders during his 2-year watch as BSA national president.

[SueRae]

I ordered the book the first few minutes I heard. I hope to have it next week. I had the pleasure of meeting him, a year or so before he was asked to come back to service as Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush. My impression then...I liked him immediately. He’s a a frontline Cold Warrior; I was fortunate to have been working behind the scenes way down the food chain..but I’ll always be a Cold Warrior.

I don’t think he can stand Washington. I’ll bet he only came back as a favor to Bush 41 and his sense of Duty kept him in. I’m amazed that he stayed as long as he did. The only adult in the room during the 0bama administration. It must have been appalling. He had plenty of criticism for the Bush years too from a few of the excerpts I’ve seen. Looking forward to reading the whole book.

[luckystarmom]

I have friends from A&M that know and really like Gates, one just reired as a colonel in the reserves.

Not sure what to make about him..

[binreadin]

I don't doubt that he is a pleasant, considerate, kind man. However, he was the head of the military that was under attack from both within the country and without. The military needed a real leader with backbone and the courage to say, at the time it needed to be said, that the lives of our young men and women were on the line and that political posturing was not acceptable. It needed to be said loud, and hard, and rudely, and it needed to be said to every paper and radio station, every television station and through every pulpit in this country. Instead we got a bureaucrat without the courage to stand up for what was right. Gates could have retired long before then.

[elpadre]

I think he was out of place in politics - regardless of what others on this site say, I believe, basically, it is an honest book.