The book details how Obama is not trying to win the war as much as he was desperately trying to placate his progressive base, regardless of the safety of American citizens. At one point the POTUS tells Woodward directly
Woodward's book portrays Obama and the White House as barraged by warnings about the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and confronted with the difficulty in preventing them. During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said: "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."Holy Cow!! Tell that to the families of the terrorist attack's victims.
During a daily intelligence briefing in May 2009, Mr. Blair [former Director of Intelligence] warned the president that radicals with American and European passports were being trained in Pakistan to attack their homelands. Mr. Emanuel afterward chastised him, saying, "You're just trying to put this on us so it's not your fault." Mr. Blair also skirmished with Mr. Brennan about a report on the failed airliner terrorist attack on Dec. 25. Mr. Obama later forced Mr. Blair out.Obama's Wars, covers last fall's agonizingly slow Afghanistan strategy review last fall, Obama was more interested in mapping out an exit plan than winning the war. The book makes it clear that the U.S. military has been asked to achieve its goals in Afghanistan without the level of troops they requested and in an unrealistic time frame.
According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives.The book reports that the recommendations of the Military were dismissed.
Along with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan at the time, they kept pushing for their 40,000-troop option as part of a broad counterinsurgency plan along the lines of what Petraeus had developed for Iraq. The president is quoted as telling Mullen, Petraeus and Gates: "In 2010, we will not be having a conversation about how to do more. I will not want to hear, 'We're doing fine, Mr. President, but we'd be better if we just do more.' We're not going to be having a conversation about how to change [the mission] . . . unless we're talking about how to draw down faster than anticipated in 2011.The New York Times story on the book gives the reason for the President's desire not to commit to the war, and how the President asked the SCHMOTUS to argue against the Military's plan.
The president concluded from the start that "I have two years with the public on this" and pressed advisers for ways to avoid a big escalation, the book says. "I want an exit strategy," he implored at one meeting. Privately, he told Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to push his alternative strategy opposing a big troop buildup in meetings, and while Mr. Obama ultimately rejected it, he set a withdrawal timetable because, "I can't lose the whole Democratic Party."Forget everything else you may read about this book, about the infighting and name-calling going on in the administration, that happens in every administration, you need to remember just one thing. Instead of caring how to win the war in Afghanistan, and how to protect the homeland, the first priority of this President was to appease his party. That is not how you protect people.
The same President who was (and still is) willing to spend much of the last year and half going around the country to sell a health care bill to the public, much of whom will hurt rather than helped from the legislation, is not willing to spend any time trying to sell the public on an Afghanistan plan that will protect them at home.
By ignoring the needs of the Military Obama is sacrificing crucial U.S. national security interests and leaving the American people more vulnerable to future terrorist attacks. An early exit from Afghanistan would shore up al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorists and once again provide them with a safe-haven from which to conduct their deadly attacks against the U.S. and other nations. But none of that is the priority of this President, only support from is party is important. And that is a frightening situation.
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