imagesWashington is all in a buzz with the explosive revelations in a book set to be released on Jan 14th, by former defense secretary Robert Gates, who harshly criticizes President Obama as commander in chief in his memoir.

In his book, Gates criticized President Obama’s leadership style and commitment to the Afghanistan war. Early in 2010, he believed 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.” As stated by Gates in ”Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.”

President Obama, after months of vigorous debate with his top advisors, committed over 30,000 U.S. military personnel during his own surge strategy into stabilizing Afghanistan. Gates commented the president was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,” but writes, “I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission.”

Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, then candidate Obama had repeatedly voiced his opposition to the war in Iraq. He routinely commented that the Bush administration had taken its eye off the ball and instead should have focused on finishing the good war in Afghanistan.
Too often Gates commented, Obama never fully trusted the military leadership and their options he was presented with.

Tuesday Evening, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said Obama “deeply appreciates Bob Gates’ service as Secretary of Defense, and his lifetime of service to our country.”

“As has always been the case, the President welcomes differences of view among his national security team, which broaden his options and enhance our policies,” Hayden said in the statement. “The President wishes Secretary Gates well as he recovers from his recent injury, and discusses his book.”

This is highly unusual, if not rare, for a former cabinet official (especially a key official in the nation’s national security apparatus) to write a book detailing his experience, while the president he served is still in office.

Gates has always been respected by members of both political parties and served every president since Nixon, except Clinton, in various national security positions. He came on in the last two years of the Bush presidency, replacing Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense to salvage the Iraq War. Gates oversaw the surge of U.S. military forces in stabilizing Iraq.

In the book Gates doesn’t just level his venom at the president; he had deeply harsh words regarding the Vice President and many key administration officials. He leveled sharp accusations at Vice President Biden who is accused of “poisoning the well” against the military leadership.
Gates, speaking of the Vice President, said, “I think has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades”

One of the most charged accusation was leveled at both the president and Hillary Clinton, when 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.”

Congress is also not safe from criticism, as Gates complains on how members treated witnesses called to testify to the various committees’ in a despicable in degrading manner. Each member wanting to play judge, jury and executioner that goes against every ounce of civility.
This book has set off a shock wave across the Washington D.C. belt wave, as both sides are utilizing this book to push their own ideology and looking at the contradictions in the book. Gates mentioned that he wanted to resign back in 2010, but stayed on at the request of the president.
He also mentioned that despite the criticisms of the president on Afghanistan, he was right on his decisions.

Of then Secretary Clinton, he described her as being “smart, idealistic but pragmatic, tough-minded, indefatigable, funny, a very valuable colleague, and a superb representative of the United States all over the world.”

As someone who served in the Marines in both Iraq and Afghanistan this brings shocking revelations as the president sent thousands of troops to Afghanistan and many were either killed or wounded all in a cause he never believed in. The highly disturbing aspect was that the decisions being made were based on political decisions or how it would look during the presidential campaign.

The book also places Gates in a difficult position, if what he writes is accurate, then why didn’t he resign in protest of the presidents lack of commitment to his own strategy.

This is especially true when he comments, “I will always have a special place in my heart for all who served on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan—most in their 20s, some in their teens. While I was sitting in a hotel restaurant before my confirmation hearings, the mother of two soldiers then in Iraq came up to me and, weeping, said, “For God’s sake, bring them back alive.” I never forgot that—not for one moment.

Then why did he stay on while troops were dying for a cause the president didn’t believe in? I guess to those serving we are expendable and Washington has no idea of the sacrifices of the troops they send into battle; all for a cause they don’t believe in! How fitting!