Little lizards in tropical areas of the Pacific change color to blend in with their environment. Robert Gates, Washington insider, and former Secretary of Defense under both Presidents Bush and Obama, was a little man who took on many characteristics of the lizard that changed colors, except he did not “crawl on his belly like a reptile.”

Gates allegedly lied for Bush and lied even more for Obama. The Secretary of Defense is the only person between the Commander-in-Chief and the Joint Chiefs of Staff who has the authority to protect the military from illegal, unwise, and unconstitutional orders. Gates apparently did nothing to protect the military from unsound decisions by President Obama while he had the responsibility to do so, but now, from the safety of academia, and it is too late to make a difference; he is critical of his former boss.

Gates, like Sec. Def. McNamara under President Johnson in Vietnam, has the blood of American soldiers on his hands. Both could have insisted on winning the wars and securing the peace before the American people became weary, but they failed to do so. Failing to do so, they should have ‘manned up’ and resigned and told the American people the truth at the time. Instead, they went along with the continuous shedding of blood and no will to allow our troops to win. This is unforgivable. Hopefully, someone will ask Gates some tough questions during his book tour.

Gates is a smart man and has to know that Obama held him on as Secretary of Defense in order to have a scapegoat for decisions made regarding wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Iran, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere.

Rather than risking his job and reputation by living up to his oath of office and speaking out at the appropriate time, it appears that Gates saved his material for a lucrative book deal that will make him a multi-millionaire.

Floyd Brown, writing for the Western Center for Journalism, came close to expressing my views in a January 9, 2014, piece.

“Robert Gates’ tenure as Secretary of Defense looked something like a scene from ‘Groundhog Day,’ the movie in which Bill Murray is condemned to live the same day over and over. But instead of living the same day over and over, Gates just told the same repetitive lies. Yet, now that he’s left D.C., he’s finally telling the truth; and it’s left Capitol Hill with mixed emotions.”

The book is titled, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.

This man has worked for 6 presidents and held high-level jobs at the CIA and National Security Agency as well as the Pentagon.

The Gates book is being released later this week. All the publicity is based on quotes released as publicity by the publisher. Taken in context they may be virtually meaningless.

His strongest criticism was apparently regarding Congress: “I saw most of Congress as uncivil, incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibilities (such as timely appropriations), micromanagerial, parochial, hypocritical, egotistical, thin-skinned and prone to put self (and re-election) before country.”

Gates apparently dislikes Joe Biden: “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

A career academic politician and bureaucrat, Gates is effective at doublespeak. He levels serious charges at Obama and in the same book reportedly commends him for making the right decisions.

Gates wrote that Obama, “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”

Most veterans know that the Clintons and Obamas loathe the military and only use them for political backdrops. Gates shed some light on that attitude regarding the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Hillary told the President that her opposition to the (2007) surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. The President conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying.”

Veterans who lost limbs and comrades in Iraq are furious about Obama’s abandonment of that country to the enemy. The only way they can strike back at those who betrayed them is to work to replace members of Congress who supported Obama.

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