Haven't read it yet but if it's anything like Robert Gates book " Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War " or Leon Panetta's "Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace", it will expose that Barack Obama is the worst Commander in Chief in America's history. I've already read Gate's book and already purchased Panetta's book but have just thumbed through it so far. "Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace" looks like it will not be so kind to the Bush administration but will confirm the total incompetence of Obama as CnC. Barack Obama has a lot of American blood on his hands because listening to Valerie Jarrett and Susan Rice who have been directing America's national security and foreign policies and not listening to the generals and admirals of our U.S. military. 88 Days to Kandahar: The CIA in Afghanistan >" Following the 9/11 attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency was tasked to lead the campaign against Al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan. There were some initial successes, as the Taliban was driven from its strongholds and a new Afghan government rose to power. Yet the process was often chaotic, confused and haphazard. Operating at full throttle, constantly improvising, we seldom had occasion to stop and consider what we were doing, or how. That sentence from the new Afghanistan War memoir 88 Days to Kandahar by Robert L. Grenier, the former CIA chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, could serve as a summary of much of the book (Simon & Schuster, 2015). Although Grenier claims to find romance in the profession of intelligence, there is little or nothing romantic about the experiences he describes here. Instead, its one damn thing after another, often coming at an excruciating cost. Far from clandestinely orchestrating events, he and his fellow CIA operatives are mostly at the mercy of circumstances beyond their ability to control. Miscommunication, petty jealousy, equipment failures, manipulative colleagues, bureaucratic rivals, and fickle allies all make an appearance in this blow-by-blow account of the opening CIA campaign in Afghanistan. The truth was that I was caught, once again, in the fog of mutual incomprehension between Washington and Islamabad. Mr. Grenier himself seems like a decent sort, competent, and well-intentioned. But his story is mostly sad, and disturbingly fatalistic. As I look back, I fail to see how the history of the past dozen-plus years could have been different, he writes. Those initial successes against the Taliban were both fortuitous and easily misunderstood. There was hardly any genius at work in defeating a primitive army, employing primitive tactics, with uncontested airpower and precision-guided munitions. With the Bush Administrations subsequent decision to go to war against Iraq in 2003, U.S. policy making became ever more incoherent and misguided, in Greniers telling. As the CIA representative to the NSC Deputies Committee, I had a front-row seat on some of the most disastrous foreign policy decisions in our history. It was a deeply disillusioning experience. The meetings I attended at the pinnacle of the foreign policy bureaucracy were notable for what wasnt said, rather than what was: mendacity and indirection were the orders of the day, Grenier writes. It only got worse as operations in Afghanistan dragged on. Yet the Obama Administrations decision to withdraw U.S. forces on a fixed, predetermined schedule regardless of other strategic considerations is a fateful mistake, he says..."< continue -> http://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2015/02/88-days-grenier/ http://www.amazon.com/88-Days-Kandahar-CIA-Diary/dp/1476712077/ Gates book. -> http://www.amazon.com/Duty-Memoirs-Secretary-at-War/dp/0307959473 Excerpt from review: >Touching, heartfelt...fascinating...Gates takes the reader inside the war-room deliberations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and delivers unsentimental assessments of each mans temperament, intellect and management style...No civilian in Washington was closer to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than Gates. As Washington and the rest of the country were growing bored with the grinding conflicts, he seemed to feel their burden more acutely...."< Exact quotes from "Duty" >" With Obama, however, I joined a new, inexperienced president determined to change courseand equally determined from day one to win re-election. Domestic political considerations would therefore be a factor, though I believe never a decisive one, in virtually every major national security problem we tackled. The White House staffincluding Chiefs of Staff Rahm Emanuel and then Bill Daley as well as such core political advisers as Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs would have a role in national security decision making that I had not previously experienced (but which, I'm sure, had precedents)..."< >All too early in the [Obama] administration, suspicion and distrust of senior military officers by senior White House officials including the president and vice president became a big problem for me as I tried to manage the relationship between the commander in chief and his military leaders.< >"As I sat there, I thought: the president doesnt trust his commander, cant stand [Afghanistan President Hamid] Karzai, doesnt believe in his own strategy, and doesnt consider the war to be his. For him, its all about getting out,< Panetta's book. -> http://www.amazon.com/Worthy-Fights-Memoir-Leadership-Peace/dp/1594205965 Excerpt from review: >" Leon Panettas new book seems to walk the line of both wanting to support and admonish the latest administration at the same time. Partial memoir and in part critique of the president comes less than two years after Panetta retired as Secretary of Defense. As the Director of the CIA from 2009 to 2011, Panetta obviously had deep insight into Americas actions abroad. Looking back at his tenure, Panetta makes the case that Obamas decisions and leadership style have made the war against the Islamic State more difficult through Obamas refusal to push the Iraqi government into keeping a residual force which resulted in the ISIS rise,..."<
