In this book, the military leaders time and again state that if Afghanistan is perceived as being lost, then the Islamic extremists have won. In fact, the Secretary of Defense was quoted by Woodward from a top-secret memo saying that Gates changed his goal from "defeating the extremist insurgency" to "disrupting and degrading the Taliban." The question is: could this information possibly empower the Taliban?
Surprisingly, Woodward seems to admire that President Obama kept pressing the military for his desired option, not one that was realistic. He reports that the president stated that "none of the options looked good ... it's unacceptable. He [Obama] wanted another option ... They are not going to give me a choice." Why didn't Woodward criticize Obama for constantly pressing the military to give an answer the president wanted? Fran Townsend's opinion, as a former homeland security advisor to President Bush, is that after presenting all realistic options, "you owe the President your honest assessment even and especially when it is not what he wants to hear." Although the president kept pressing the military to give a number he wanted, at the end of the day, the military refused, since advisors must stick to their realistic opinions.
Maybe Americans should be grateful to Woodward since he points out that President Obama does not want advice unless it fits into his assumptions. Woodward also highlights all the infighting among the advisors and displays how cutthroat they can be. John Podesta, a member of Obama's transition team, referred to Obama as "Spock" since "[h]e was unsentimental and capable of being ruthless." Jim Jones, the former national security advisor, was constantly described as being weak and not proactive, and he was constantly circumvented. Dennis Blair, the former Director of National Intelligence, described the CIA and Panetta as "an organization that's like a really fine trained, not very smart, dangerous animal that needs to be controlled very closely by adults." Ambassador Eikenberry refused to allow the new CIA Kabul station chief, an operative who saved Afghan President Hamid Karzai's life in 2001, to meet with Karzai alone. Even though powerful people in the Obama administration told Eikenberry to stand down, he initially refused because of his petty power plays.
Gee but isn't Bobby Woodward such a patriot?!
Doesn't matter a gnats ass if his TOP SECRET revelations have a negative impact upon national security, as long as the book sells and sells and sells.
Used to be a word to describe such a man...
Coward? Not the one I'm thinking of. Traitor? No. SOB? No.
I've absolutely had it to here with the criminal element that would harm our country so its time for the devil to start calling in alla them souls he's been trading for.
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