Mr. Woodward has a distinguished career of peeling back the facade of America and revealing the dirty underwear beneath, Obama’s War, was released on Sept 25, 2010. (I am currently seeking a copy of this book, and may have an audio version available to you soon.) The few reviews that I have read reveal the disintegration of the infrastructure of our government. This destruction of our Constitution has left us with the malaise that is our government today. This has happened over time and in a lot of instances, has been subtle, and in others, not so, IE. 911. Whatever form taken the end result is a imperialist, fascist government with an inner circle controlling most of what is on the national agenda today. As can be seen through a cursory reading of the reviews, it is apparent that the power in the United States today, is not with the President, nor is it with the Congress, these two branches of government have been reduced to a custodial role of maintaining the facade of what once was the Unites States of America. The real power lies with the Military-Industrial Complex whose manipulating arm, the C.I.A. set the events in motion which will best facilitate the wishes of Corporate America. The histories of these events are public record, Viet Nam, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Click here for details.
The C.I.A. has stated there are approximately 100 al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and the United State has sent 100,000 troops to rid Afghanistan of these terrorists! Oh, by the way, that’s not a misprint, one hundred is the number and the reason we are spending billions a day and losing our sons and daughters, it’s for 100 terrorists. Does this seem confusing to you?
OW’s theme? Afghanistan: should we stay — and for how long; or should we go — and how fast?
Woodward books states General David Petraeus saying that Team Obama was “fucking with the wrong guy” when he felt he had been done dirt. Oh, yes, this came after a glass of wine. Makes you wonder what the general really thinks.
In stark terms, this is a story about President Barack Obama (the commander in chief) at loggerheads with his uniform service chiefs (the alleged hired help). Obama’s chief adversaries: Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Petraeus, the onetime Iraq commander now running the show in Afghanistan.
The military brass, according to OW, are a gang of insubordinate subordinates (Surprise! Surprise!), failing to give Obama the exit plan he repeatedly requested. (Maybe the prez wasn’t polite enough? Did he say, “Please”?)
There is no mistake that the military wanted an open-ended engagement in Afghanistan and the White House didn’t – and still doesn’t.
Some highlights: retired Marine General James Jones, the president’s national security advisor, calls Obama’s political team the “campaign set,” the “mafia,” the “politburo,” and — my favorite — the “water bugs” . . . Before naming Hillary Clinton secretary of state, political aide David Axelrod asked Obama was he sure he could trust her . . . “I’m not doing ten years,” Obama told Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Clinton . . . “I’m not doing nation building,” Obama also said in OW. “And I’m not spending a trillion dollars.” (Then why did he give the impression during the presidential campaign that Afghanistan was a “good” war – as opposed to the “bad” war in Iraq?) . . . Two days after Obama was elected, one of the nation’s top spies told the president that the US had developed the capability to react to developments on the ground with greater speed than was widely realized, “They talk, we listen. They move, we observe. Given the opportunity, we react operationally.” . . . US intelligence says Afghan President Hamid Karzai is a diagnosed manic-depressive. (Is it better to have an “ally” on meds as opposed to drugs? I wonder.) . . . The CIA has a secret 3000-member-strong army in Pakistan (I knew about the secret army, but not its exact troop strength.)
The republican machinery had broken down under the weight of imperialism, the central government had become powerless, the provinces had been transformed into independent principalities under the absolute control of their governors, and the army had replaced the constitution as the means of accomplishing political goals. With a weak central government, political corruption had spiraled out of control, and the status quo had been maintained by a corrupt aristocracy, which saw no need to change a system which had made its members rich. Click here for more history of the Roman Republic
