Former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates criticizes Obama in his Memoir by Frank De Varona

Former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates criticizes President Barack Obama and members of his administration in a just published memoir called Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (2014). This is the first book that describes in great detail the Obama administration’s policy deliberations by a person who served in the Cabinet. Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was appointed secretary of defense in the last years of President George W. Bush administration. He was kept in this position during the first two years of the Obama administration. Gates served 4 1/2 years as defense secretary.

Gates describes in his memoir that President Obama approved the surge in Afghanistan in December 2009 by sending 30,000 additional soldiers and naming General David Petraeus as the top commander over the objections of Vice President Joe Biden and White House staff. In recalling a meeting held in the White House Situation Room in March 2011, Secretary Gates wrote the following: ” As I sat there, I thought: the president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand Afghan president Hamid Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.” In subsequent White House meeting Gates explains that President Obama began criticizing, sometimes emotionally, the way his policy in Afghanistan was being implemented.

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David Petraeus

This is an incredible statement that a United States president would send our Armed Forces into battle without believing that the war could be won or that the strategy that he had approved would be successful. Astounding also is the fact that he had no confidence in the very competent and intelligent commander General David Petraeus that he had appointed. How could the president put our brave men and women in uniform in harm’s way, if  he had no faith in achieving victory? How does Obama dare to look at the relatives of our dead soldiers and the severely wounded soldiers in the eye? Every member of our Armed Forces who reads this book would have nothing but contempt  for President Obama.

Already many high ranking retired admirals and generals have criticized severely the infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama administration and the rewriting of the manuals used by the military, Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and CIA. These manuals have expunged any criticism of Islam or Islamic terrorists. Moreover, the Marxist Southern Poverty Center wrote a manual comparing Catholics, Protestants and certain Jewish congregations as being worse than Al Qaeda and the KKK. This manual was used in training military reserve officers in Atlanta, Georgia. Why did the established media not publish this information that was reported by several newspapers in Great Britain?

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The Islamic Society of North America, an American-Islamic group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, has the ear of the White House via Mohamed Magid (right), a trusted administration advisor on issues ranging from immigration to counterterrorism policy. Photo courtesy of New Media Journal.

Obama always described the war in Afghanistan as the right war to pursue and yet he doesn’t consider this war to be “his war.” When is the president going to assume responsibility for his actions ? The buck never stops with Obama, every failure of his administration is the fault of somebody else. Never before the United States had a president who never assumes responsibility for his misguided foreign and domestic policies. Never before the mainstream press has given a president so many free passes for his accumulated failures as Barack Obama.

Secretary Gates describes Joe Biden as a “a man of integrity” but a person  who “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign-policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” He also criticizes the White House inner circle for its “controlling nature and micromanagement and operational meddling to a new level.” Secretary Gates describes his constant policy battles with Vice President Joe Biden; Tom Donilon, national security advisor; and Lieutenant General Douglas E. Lute, who was in charge of the military policy in Afghanistan.

Secretary Gates explains that Hillary Clinton supported the surge of troops in Afghanistan, but he was surprised when he heard Secretary Clinton stating that her opposition to President George Bush’s Iraq surge “had been political,” since she was running against anti war Senator Barack Obama in the Iowa primary in 2008. In the same conversation, Gates writes that President Obama “conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge has been political.” Gates remembers, “to hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.” This is appalling since when national security decisions have to be “political?” We now know that if Hillary Clinton becomes president in 2016 her decisions on national security issues would be political as opposed to what is the right to do for our nation.

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President Obama with Vice President Biden.

It is very unfortunate that Secretary Gates did not speak out or wrote about these issues that are included in his book when he retired as Secretary of Defense. It is possible that more people would have voted against the Obama-Biden ticket in the presidential election of 2012. These two incompetent national leaders needed to be exposed to the American public prior to this election in the best interest of our nation. Gates should not have waited so long to expose the incompetence of the Obama administration.

Secretary Gates explains that he almost quit in September 2009 after a White House meeting. He writes the following: “I was a deeply uneasy with the Obama White House’s lack of appreciation, from the top down, all the uncertainties and unpredictability of war. I came closer to resigning  than any other time in my tenure.” He also accuses members of Congress for the Inquisition-like treatment of administration officials.

None of these terrible disclosures surprises this writer. In his book America in Decline published on January 8, 2014 and available at Amazon, this writer describes in great detail the complete failure of Barack Obama as Commander-in-Chief and as president. Barack Obama misguided national security and foreign policies have placed our nation in great danger.

As explained in America in Decline, Barack Obama is the first Marxist and hidden Muslim president in the nation’s 230 year history. Obama has been surrounded and has been associated during his entire life with communists, socialists and radicals who hate deeply our beloved nation and our armed forces.

One of his closest collaborators and friend is the communist and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, who together with his wife Bernadine Dorn, placed 30 bombs throughout the United States when they were part of the terrorist organization Weather Underground. Ayers and Dorn and other terrorists were preparing a bomb in New York City to detonate at Fort Dix, New Jersey, the military base that was sending soldiers to fight in Vietnam. Fortunately for our soldiers, the bomb exploded killing several terrorists. Ayers and Dorn became fugitives for many years. When they were taken to trial due to a technicality they were found not guilty. Weather Underground had declared war upon the United States due to our involvement in Vietnam. How can you trust President Obama in supporting the military when he has associated for many years with these two terrorists who hated the United States and wanted to kill our soldiers?

His mentor and  preacher of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, also hated our military and despised our nation. The president and the First Lady Michelle Obama attended for 20 years the pro-Muslim and pro-communist black liberation theology United Church of Christ in Chicago. They listened without complaining to Reverend Wright denigrating our nation and praising communist dictators such as Castro, Chavez, and Ortega while comparing the brave United States Marine Corps to the Romans of antiquity who committed atrocities throughout the world. Both the President and the First Lady sat during those years listening to the anti-patriotic and racist incendiary sermons of their pastor and friend Jeremiah Wright. Once in the White House, Obama appointed many Marxists and socialists who hated our military to important positions in the White House and agencies and departments of his administration.

Barack Obama disdains the brave women and men that serve in our Armed Forces. He has fired honorable generals and admirals who disagreed with his misguided policies. He has ignored the advice of high-ranking officers in Pentagon as he pursued policies that place our national security at risk.

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LTG Jerry Boykin, US Army (Ret.)

Obama has no respect for our Judeo-Christian values and has declared war against Christians and Jews in the nation and in the Pentagon. After his re election Obama’s war against Christianity and religion has intensified and now he’s trying to shamefully eliminate religion from the Armed Forces in our nation. All of these anti religious actions by the Obama administration are unconstitutional. Retired Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin stated the following regarding the war against Christians in the military: “This has the potential to destroy military recruiting across the services as Americans realize that their faith will be suppressed by joining the military. Our brave troops deserve better. If chaplains and other personnel are censored from offering the full solace of the gospel, there is not religious freedom in the military.”

While President Obama severely cuts the budget of the Pentagon and signs agreements with Russia to reduce our nuclear arsenal, all of our potential enemies including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea continued to strengthen their military and modernize their weapons. Obama is responsible for America in decline and for the United States becoming  a superpower in retreat.

This writer hopes that God Almighty will protect our beloved nation during the three years that this Marxist president still has to complete his diabolical plan to fundamentally transform the United States to a socialist, bankrupt, and third-rate country.

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ABOUT FRANK DE VARONA

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Frank De Varona

Mr. de Varona was born in Cuba. At the age of 17, he participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion in an effort to eradicate communism in Cuba. After the defeat, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison and served two years. When Mr. de Varona returned to the United States, he continued his education and received a Bachelor’s degree in political science and economics and a certificate in Latin American Studies from the University of Florida. He earned a Master’s degree in social studies at the University of Miami and a Specialist in Education degree in educational administration and supervision at the University of Florida. He completed additional graduate work at the University of Florida, FIU, and Boston University.

From April to August 1966 and during the summer of 1968 Mr. de Varona worked as an escort interpreter for the U.S. State Department. In this position, he traveled with Latin American professionals from many fields throughout the United States. One of the visitor participants, Jorge Sánchez Méndez, became Minister of Industry and Vice President of Costa Rica.

Mr. de Varona had a 36-year distinguished career in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) as a social studies teacher; intergroup relations specialist; assistant principal; coordinator of adult education; principal of an adult education center, middle school and senior high school; region director for personnel and labor relations; region superintendent; associate superintendent responsible for the Pre-K-12, adult and vocational curriculum, alternative, magnet, community schools, adult and vocational schools, public radio and television, and student services; and interim deputy superintendent of schools for federal programs, equal education opportunity, food service and transportation. Mr. de Varona retired from M-DCPS, the fourth largest school district in the United States, in March 2012. Upon his retirement, he continued his career as a journalist and writer.

Mr. de Varona has written 19 books and published many articles in magazines and books in the United States and Spain. Mr. de Varona has worked as a contributing writer and/or editorial consultant for over 18 different publishers. In this capacity, Mr. de Varona has reviewed over 70 world history, world geography, U.S. history, civics, government, economics, Spanish, language arts, and elementary textbooks as well as biographies. King Juan Carlos I of Spain awarded Mr. de Varona the Order of Isabel La Católica with the rank of Encomienda in 1994 for his many books and articles regarding the Hispanic contributions to the United States and his work to include these contributions in U.S. textbooks.

Frank de Varona has written several articles; biographies; summarized documents; has written curriculum for school districts and conducted workshops for teachers and school administrators in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach Counties and New York City Public Schools.

Mr. de Varona He has been a consultant in Spain, Dominican Republic, and Honduras as well as various school districts in the United States. As a journalist, Mr. de Varona has written many articles on political, economics, national security, foreign affairs, Hispanic presence and contributions to the United States, historical and educational issues. He has produced four television documentaries for Channel 17. He was producer, director, and interviewer for a one-hour weekly program in Channel 14 from 1990 to 1992. He had a radio program called Hispanic Contributions to the United States in La Poderosa Radio Station from 2007 to 2008. He has appeared on numerous local, national, international television, and radio programs. He has conducted workshops at various colleges and universities and at national conferences. He has been active in state, regional and national organizations, he has been appointed to various state commissions by governors. He served as vice president, secretary, and treasurer of the Governor´s Hispanic Affairs Commission, Governor´s Commission on a Free Cuba, and Florida International Education Commission.

U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander appointed Mr. de Varona to the U.S. Department of Education National Council on Educational Statistics Advisory Committee under the administration of George H.W. Bush. He was invited to the White House on three occasions during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Earlier, he had served on the Advisory Board of the U.S. Department of Educational Southeastern Educational Improvement Laboratory. The Florida Secretary of State appointed him to the Florida Historical Markers Commission, Florida Cuban Heritage Trail Commission, and the Florida Historical Preservation Board. He is an author contributor to Bear Witness Central.

Frank is the Bear Witness Central Director for Miami. View My Blog Posts