In a press conference designed incredibly enough around answering questions raised by a book which isn’t even out yet, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insisted that there was too much being made of policy differences within the administration regarding the Afghan War.
In further comments related to Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars, Gates insisted he has absolutely no doubts about the current war strategy, despite mounting evidence that the situation has gotten dramatically worse since its announcement in December. Gates added that there was no real possibility of major shifts going forward.
The strategy announcement in December, with its massive escalation, was just the latest in a number of nominally different strategies announced throughout the nine years of war. All of them had roughly the same theme, more troops and more attacks, and had the same results, an ever worsening security situation.
But Woodward’s book suggested the decision was a matter of enormous contention, and President Obama himself was determined to have some sort of pullout strategy in place. Though President Obama initially made much of a July 2011 drawdown date, he has since disavowed it and officials are now openly talking about another decade of war in Afghanistan.
Give Gates a tank and let him go fight the war. He is a fatuous chickenhawk.