It takes David Gergen several hundred words to get to the real points of his op-ed:
The people who have written the most searching books about his national security policies — Panetta, Gates, Hillary Clinton, and Vali Nasr — didn’t come into this administration as neophytes searching for the brass ring. Each of them had already won distinction for their years of public service.
Panetta and Gates had purposefully moved far away from Washington and wanted to stay away. They had to be persuaded to serve this time — and they did so mostly out of love of country. (As defense secretary, Panetta frequently flew to California for weekends just so he could be home again.)
Even if their books have had some sharp things to say, they thus deserve a reasoned hearing on the substance — not a flaying by people half their stature and with half their experience. (By the way, have you heard any White House aides thank Panetta lately for serving as the chief mastermind in the search for Osama Bin Laden?)
I think it’s pretty hard to hear the brouhahas over these insider “kiss and tell” books without taking away one of two conclusions. Either Bob Gates and Leon Panetta are writing mean, untrue things about the Obama Administration to sell books or the White House really does make its foreign policy decisions solely based on domestic political calculus. You be the judge.
I think they are covering their asses. Had everything gone right, none of them would be saying that they tried to sell the president the wrong policy. If they thought this was going to do this much damage, they should have said something at the time.
They loaded the gun. They watched the president shoot it, and they helped drag off the body. Now that the stench has caused people to notice, they are claiming that they advised that it was a bad idea to aim so high.
They need to reach down and see if they have a pair of balls. Apparently not.
Dana Milbank calls Panetta’s book a “stunning disloyalty.” Apparently any criticism of a sitting administration is disloyal regardless of all the good things said. It was the same with Gate’s memoir – he had several criticisms but also much praise. Like the OTB comment section, heresy and failure to be a 100% team player is a punishable offense.
Intellectual honesty forces me to start with the drab disclaimer – who really knows, we weren’t there? But I get paid to make judgments, not state the obvious or hold my cards tight.
Having seen a good 7-8 Panetta interviews I think it’s the latter. I also note carefully the comments of military types. Obamas formula seems to be play safely to the political base and accomplish what he can through Chicago-style back room dealings, doj protection and executive order………and dare anyone to challenge him from the safety of the cocoon of political correctness and media cover.
Even further, Obama appears to be the classic risk avoider. He is paralyzed into inaction for fear of failure (I know, bin laden. But he dithered for months on that. And was it really that risky? It’s the ultimate scalp to have) and a classic corporate player. Always there when it goes right, “never heard of that” or “I’m outraged” ( outraged !!) when it doesn’t.
These are limited shelf life behaviors. It’s over.
I erased a thought. It’s one thing to push an agenda in, say, Furguson, mo. Another in the big leagues – the Middle East.
Right, Leon Panetta loved his country so much that his agency started spying on members of Congress. He was just a reluctant guy, pulled back into the game, and now he has to write about what went wrong!
Believe what you want to believe, but on issues like Iraq, nobody has actually said how they would have kept troops in Iraq, other than by waving a magic wand, and ‘making a deal’. The Iraqis did not want us there, and they certainly did not want American forces there as an occupying force not subject to any laws, which was the only possible way that Americans might have been in the country. The Panettas of the world were not bred to deal with these things. They were made for an earlier era.
So this is just an ailing sector of the establishment bitter that the younger part has completely supplanted it. Nobody had any better ideas about how to deal with the fallout of Iraq II; operators like Panetta can make a buck and get some credibility from operators like David Gergen after the fact, but no member of this geriatric operator class has any clue what’s going on in the world. They’re just looting what they can before the opportunity closes.
I do not have any great love for President Obama, but I am usually bashing the Obama bashers. I find it most despicable that his advisors would turn on him and stab him in the back. The only reason is to cover their own ass. They could be writing the same books offering an honest assessment of President Obama without trying to cover their asses. The problem is that this book is going to make them look as bad as him.
Cheney, Rumsfeld, and most of Bush’s people were honorable people. If they wrote books critiquing the Iraq war, I would expect them to use “we” to include themselves in any bad decisions being made, and they could depersonalize any other criticism.
I suspect that VP Cheney was not happy about pre-surge Iraq, and he may not have been happy about a lot of the plans. I have no idea. I find it hard to believe that everybody thought it was the best plan, but to my knowledge, nobody has been blaming anybody else. General Shinseki did resigned over his disagreements, and that was honorable.
The reason that Marines and other military people have little use for civilians is that civilians are not honorable people. As a Marine, I know that the Marine next to me may hate my guts and wish me dead, but if I am injured, he will risk his life to get me to safety. I know he has my back. Period. That is honor.
How quickly people forget. The books written during Bush’s, Clinton’s and Reagan’s admins were at least as bad, and probably much worse.
I read the Gates book. It is a mix of criticism and praise. Not having read the ones by Clinton and Panetta, I suspect they are much the same. Sounds about right to me.
I also find it very odd that you seem to not want domestic considerations when formulating foreign policy. While I don’t think we can turn Iraq into Sweden no matter what we do, maybe it really is possible if we occupy it for 50 years. However, even if you really believe it is possible to accomplish with a prolonged, large scale occupation, don’t you think you ought to at least consider whether or not Americans are likely to support and pay for such an occupation?
Steve
TB- Cheney and Rumsfeld are the antithesis of honorable. Cheney is the ultimate chicken hawk with his 5 deferments. Rumsfeld wasn’t willing to provide the needed equipment to protect our troops since it would blow the budget and show we couldn’t win this on the cheap. He had to be embarrassed into providing that gear. He never held any senior officers or admin people responsible for their failures. Compare that with Gates.
What I hope you meant to say, is that they are incredibly loyal to their cause and to each other. Also, why would they criticize Bush’s foreign policy when they were completely in charge of it until 2006?
Steve
I recognize that domestic politics always plays a role in foreign policy. Foreign policy is not always as subordinated to domestic politics as it has been under the Obama Administration.
@steve
If you want to count people who did not serve for whatever reason, you will eliminate a lot of people. I do not have a problem, but you will start with President Obama. I do not care about the reason or circumstances. He did not serve. Period.
You disagree with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. and therefore, you disparage them. It is not uncommon for those on your side. I could take apart most of the people you think are wonderful. I am sure you find it amusing when I turn the Bush praise into and indictment against him. I can do it just as fast against your guy. Try me.
As to equipment, I have a big problem with what military armament sellers, politicians, and political operatives deem appropriate. I do not even believe that most military experts have the mission as the priority.
The Defense Department budget cannot support the goals of the interventionists, but the interventionists are delusional. Rumsfeld was restructuring the military to work within those parameters. He was trying to eliminate the artillery and tanks by using air power instead. It looked to me like the Marine Corps close air support.
I meant that they were loyal to their country and boss. If they believed that what President Bush was doing was going to cause as much harm as Panetta did, I would expected them to have quit or to go down with the ship.
I realize that in today’s culture the Italian cruise ship captain that fled the sinking ship is considered smart, but to me, he is a despicable coward as is Panetta and the rest. You can have them all, but I would suggest you get a stab-proof shirt.
TB- Bull. Cheney, as I said, is the ultimate chicken hawk. It is a matter of fact, not conjecture that he got 5 deferments, escalating from college to marriage to kids just to stay out. He has since been a full time advocate for military intervention, something he would not do himself. The issue is not that he did not serve, I honestly don’t care about that, the issue is that he went to extremes to not serve in a war that he supposedly supported, and he continues to support full time war nearly everywhere. Next, add in his strong advocacy for torture, which has long been opposed by the military, both in the past and the present (see FM 3-24, or Petraeus’ Iraq COIN Guidance, quote below). I don’t think Cheney has a clue to the meaning of honor. Loyalty, yes, but not honor.
We knew in 2003 that Humvees were susceptible to IEDs. Troops were welding plates to them to try to add more protection. They were begging for better vehicles. Nothing much happened until Gates took over when he demanded, costs be damned, that the troops get MRAPs, and they got them. Gates documented this in his book. In case you think that was merely self serving it has been documented numerous times in other places. Honorable? Hardly. He, along with Cheney decided to ignore the wargaming done by Zinni. They sent fewer troops than we needed. They refused to provide the troops with the equipment they needed. All so they could keep costs done and try to come up with the war that “would pay for itself” that the administration had promised.
“- Live our values. Do not hesitate to kill or capture the enemy, but stay true to the values we hold dear. This is what distinguishes us from our enemies. There is no tougher endeavor than the one in which we are engaged. It is often brutal, physically demanding, and frustrating. All of us experience moments of anger, but we can neither give in to dark impulses nor tolerate unacceptable actions by others.â€
@steve
You either include all that did not serve or none. I am really not interested in your calculus. As to your torture, it is a joke. Holding somebody’s head under water may be your idea of a life altering experience, and if so, boo hoo. I suspect that the people being tortured by ISIS might think otherwise. I am sure they would like to be sitting on your comfortable sofa in your safe living room.
By the way, several thousand years of torture tells a little different story than the one told from a comfortable living room sofa. It does not work anything like you think it does. Breaking somebody is a matter of time, and if gang raping your wife does not work, we will move to your son or daughter. (We do check your answers.) The military does not use it for other reasons.
I do not mean to sound crass, but I left one high-risk job for another high-risk job. I got bored with murderers, armed robbers, and rapists, and I joined the Marines. I was in the first Gulf War and Somalia as a TOW gunner in an unarmored Hummer. There was a landmine incident and a couple of tank rounds plus small arms fire, and there was “drawing fire”. It is dangerous, and the infantry always gets the leftovers.
Representatives Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich had the perfect solution for troop safety, and it would have saved money.
The problem with the troop levels was that they disbanded the Iraq army and police force. These were what were needed. Once they took over, they should have kept everything except the top brass in place, and they should have started paying people themselves. You just change the management. As long as people are getting paid, things will work. They could have called Mitt Romney to explain how it works.
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are not the paragons of honor, but they are honorable. They are flawed, but they are not despicable. For the record, I would include Obama and Biden on the list.
What is really funny is that I will be one of the few who will attack the people bashing the guy you support, and there are going to be a lot of former Obama supporters who will be Obama bashers.
When will you turn on him?
I thought David Gergen brought up some good points supporting Panetta’s timing of his book, as well as the opinionated revelations made between it’s covers.
For one thing Obama naysayers have been consistently delegated to the trash heap of optimizing the partisanship tactics of political hacks, racists, and those who only want to undermine his presidency. Objective consideration of such comments has simply not been allowed to be fostered, let alone stand, without first generating generous doses of denial and repugnance, from adoring supporters and the MSM, to those daring to issue said contrary remarks. The books mentioned, though, do not fall into the usual spitted-upon categories of Obama enemies. Hence they appear authentic, baring witness to leadership qualities from those just outside the president’s bubble of self-selected WH advisors.
Gergen’s piece also reminded us of past chaotic presidencies, such as Nixon, where his back story antics were spilled anonymously by insiders to reporters who received much acclaim for their scoops of mishandling power and cover-ups behind the WH curtain. Consequently, Penetta is credited for lending a name and face to both pro and con insider perceptions, putting his own legacy, status with the democratic party and more, all on the line. Certainly, not all this was done for money!
Then Gergen discussed how the NSC’s numbers and power has grown, doubling from that of his predecessor, GWB. He believes that such power became “too centralized in the WH,” which has become a limiting “choke hold” on those contributing diverse or differing opinions from those of the WH. Perhaps, this lopsided consolidation of decision-making power in the WH inner circle was the primary reason only milquetoast attempts were made to get a SOFA with Iraq — the objective being to mollify those for the appearance of putting forth an effort, rather than really achieving the goal of guarding what had been accomplished in Iraq. It was Reuters who published Penetta’s controversial comments asserting it was clear to him that “withdrawing all our forces would endanger the fragile stability then barely holding Iraq together.” If this was a widely held assessment of Iraq, by those in the know, why would it be so defiantly dismissed by the WH — an originally exalted decision that was then quietly ignored in the recalculation of American’s role after ISIS emerged and Iraq fell apart. Ironically, Obama once again circled back, blaming only Bush, after he had already taken bows and credit for departing from a peaceful Iraq? Cognitive dissonance, maybe!
A final observation from Gergen, as to what really greases the Obama Adminstration’s operative goals, is the following:
@jan
A lot of people feel the same way about Snowden. They believe he is a hero. I think the NSA spying on US citizens was important to get out, but the way he did it was despicable. He claims it was not about him, but it was all about him. For some reason, he could not go to any number of Congress members who are publically against NSA spying, and additionally, he had to hand over a treasure trove of non related national security documents.
I would be be very careful who you get into bed with. When it is convenient, they will turn on you. Their tactic is to fling shit. You may notice the present debate I am having. I am defending the VP of your guy and the president of the other guy from shit flingers. Is that who you want to be in bed with?
These books are not accidents. They have strategic reasons for them, and they are not to help your side.
Tasty,
I’m getting the point you are making with your posts here — nobody is sans sin, it seems. It all depends on the circumstance as to how ethical or unethical someone is willing to be, and then rationalize the reasons behind it.
Frankly, though, when I vote for someone, it’s usually considering who will do the least harm and the most good for the position in which they are running. This means there are usually pros and cons, inperfection to be found in everyone’s history.
I think one of the biggest exceptions, though, to my luke-warm voting history has ironically been my wholehearted backing of Romney, who I was all in for. He seemed like an honest, capable person having a good head on his shoulders, little to personally gain from the office as he had already made it in life, and seemed willing to shift his positions according to the revolving nature of adversities facing this country. However, the last observation is what people slighted him on the most, especially dealing with abortion stances, and his involvement with HC in MA. But, politicos can turn even good people into morons by the rhetoric they introduce to public forums which people believe, and so it was with this man and his family.
One more thing… I think one of Panetta’s more astude statements was the Obama governed more by “crisis” than leadership. That’s why his timing is always late, and too little to make any definitive headway towards, resolving, solving or eliminating the problems at hand.
Regarding the growing ISIS threat, there were many missed opportunities to limit their advancements on capturing cities before they arrived and initiated combat in densely populated civilian areas. However, Obama chose to react and bomb after ISIS fully penetrated these areas, creating plausible outcomes of high casualty counts of innocents should the US then resort to excessive bombing.
It makes no sense…..except as a symbolic gesture that he’s at least doing something proactive, in response to various poll questions which question his ability to lead.