Who is surprised at this revelation?
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.”
If President Obama seems eager to leave Afghanistan now, I guess knowing that he never really had confidence in winning makes this consistent with the president's views. But if so, I'll ask again--what was the bloody point of ordering two surges of forces in Afghanistan? At least 70% of our casualties in Afghanistan took place under President Obama.
Was the formerly "good war" just a holding action to get past his reelection campaign and past important Congressional elections that would affect him?
Gates' revelation is no surprise. I never felt that President Obama believed he was a war president with any interest in winning, and thought he judged every policy by how it affected his domestic policies.
UPDATE: Thanks to Mad Minerva for the link.
UPDATE: thanks to Pseudo-Polymath for the link.
