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Bob Woodward book details Obama battles with advisers over exit plan for Afghan war
WaPo ^ | 9/22/2010 | Steve Luxenberg

Posted on 09/22/2010 6:03:14 AM PDT by SonOfDarkSkies

President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.

...

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.

"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. "Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room."

Obama rejected the military's request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. "I'm not doing 10 years," he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. "I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."

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."

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; bobwoodward; genesperling; obamaswars; partisanmediashills; sequester; waronterror
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To: SonOfDarkSkies
My fondest wish for Zer0 is for him to RESIGN today..

...stop torturing the girls and even Michelle ma'belle...

...move back to Chicago to his mansion.....

...withdraw from all politics and "organizing" activities...

...and live happily ever after..

..and GTF out of our face.

If he will not do that...then I will be happy with seeing him drooling....his eyes rolled back in a fit of madness....in a strait jacket carried out of the White house by people from the psycho ward..

..forced to GTF out of our face.

21 posted on 09/22/2010 6:36:52 AM PDT by B.O. Plenty (Give war a chance...)
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Comment #22 Removed by Moderator

To: avacado
‘He certainly isn't doing everything to prevent another one.’

Every President has done that?

Illegal aliens have killed, raped and harmed more Americans than AQ has. There is no War on Illegals, only because the deaths and destruction is more drawn out.

But, we as a society has decided to live with death in exchanged for freedom and liberty. Every year tens of thousand of Americans are slaughtered on the road because of driving accidents and drunk drivers. That's life, and we have decided to live with it.

There will always be someone who wants to attack and hurt us. Simple odds, the fact that so few have been able to do it post 9/11 implies the threat is small or the security is so good. Your pick. The fact that we continue to keep a open border when we have the ability to militarize it, during a WOT, speaks for itself, either we are willing to allow the deaths of Americans for political gain, or we are willing to allow foreigners kill our citizens, in exchange for their workforce.

23 posted on 09/22/2010 6:40:44 AM PDT by Palter (If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it. ~ Mark Twain)
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To: Palter

Illegal aliens? I said this: “He certainly isn’t doing everything to prevent another one. Giving CIA interrogation data to al-Qaeda isn’t exactly protecting this country.”


24 posted on 09/22/2010 6:48:33 AM PDT by avacado
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To: Buckeye McFrog

I agree with both points. He says we can “absorb” a terrorist attack, and claims that he wants to prevent it.

But he won’t allow either action which will help us, wiping out the terrorist sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and protecting our own borders. Surrendering in Afghanistan will allow the terrorists to run training camps and build weapons. Allowing an unlimited number of illegal aliens and an open border will allow terrorists to infiltrate the United States and attack. If any state or city attempts to defend itself by enforcing the immigration laws, Obama sues them.

Whose side is the president on? He is leaving us totally undefended from terrorist attacks, and saying that we should “absorb” them.


25 posted on 09/22/2010 7:07:55 AM PDT by Siegfried X
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To: SonOfDarkSkies

Obama ignored all his generals, and created his own surrender plan.

President Obama urgently looked for a way out of the war in Afghanistan last year, repeatedly pressing his top military advisers for an exit plan that they never gave him, according to secret meeting notes and documents cited in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.

Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page “terms sheet” that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in “Obama’s Wars,” to be released on Monday.

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.


26 posted on 09/22/2010 7:12:56 AM PDT by Siegfried X
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To: Freeport

Screw it... Nuke pakistan... give India a green light to do it.

LLS


27 posted on 09/22/2010 7:27:16 AM PDT by LibLieSlayer (WOLVERINES!)
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To: SonOfDarkSkies
Obama rejected the military's request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. "I'm not doing 10 years," he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. "I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."

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."

This decision to deliberately absorb another 9/11/01 level terrorist attack rather than work to prevent it, if true, is an impeachable offense.

28 posted on 09/22/2010 7:42:20 AM PDT by Ronaldus Magnus
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To: SonOfDarkSkies

There are few things worse than fighting a war that you have no intention of winning. I think that is something we can all agree on.

We’ve all been saying this, but it’s interesting to get outside confirmation. Our troops are being put at risk, and dying at higher rates than they ever did in the Bush years, for no reason at all.

Another problem is lousy rules of engagement, and eagerness to courtmartial any troops who actually try to defend themselves. But for a thousand years, Just War theory has taught this absolutely basic rule: DO NOT FIGHT A WAR UNLESS YOU INTEND TO WIN IT.

THIS MAN IS EVIL. Pure and simple.


29 posted on 09/22/2010 11:30:34 AM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius.)
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To: TSgt
A classified exercise in May showed that the government was woefully unprepared to deal with a nuclear terrorist attack in the United States. The scenario involved the detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon in Indianapolis and the simultaneous threat of a second blast in Los Angeles. Obama, in the interview with Woodward, called a nuclear attack here "a potential game changer." He said: "When I go down the list of things I have to worry about all the time, that is at the top, because that's one where you can't afford any mistakes."

Cancelling Jack Bauer was a huge mistake.

30 posted on 09/22/2010 11:36:53 AM PDT by Leroy S. Mort
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To: avacado
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."

Speechless.

Interesting, if the left was who they actually claim to be, they would be very upset at that statement. Instead they "absorbed" it without comment.

31 posted on 09/22/2010 12:02:05 PM PDT by BerryDingle (I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
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To: CincyRichieRich

And 60 Minutes told Woodward take a hike.


32 posted on 09/22/2010 12:14:06 PM PDT by AGreatPer (Obama must go!!! NOW!!!)
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To: Cicero
DO NOT FIGHT A WAR UNLESS YOU INTEND TO WIN IT.

Unless perhaps our CinC is pulling for the other side.

33 posted on 09/22/2010 12:16:39 PM PDT by SonOfDarkSkies (Imam Rauf may be serving in the 'propaganda and obfuscation' MOS but he is still a terrorist!)
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