Gates' only 'duty' was to war party

Talk about a tempest in a teapot. The press is having a field day hyping the alleged controversial criticism from former Defense Secretary Bob Gates, in his book "Duty", of President Obama's handling of the Afghanistan war. After watching Gates' bizarre interview on CBS Sunday Morning my opinion of Obama the war leader has gone up a bit. Gates' biggest criticism is that it appeared to him that Obama thought the Afghan war was lost and he was simply looking for a way out. He goes on to fret that Obama didn't have the "passion" to bring home a US victory. That is not criticism, that is praise and the media missed it. Appointed by President Bush in 2006 to replace the disgraced Don Rumsfeld, Gates shed crocodile tears for the troops he sent into battle to die for a ignoble cause that was senseless, unnecessary and doomed to failure. President Obama retained him after becoming President to provide both continuity and cover for his plan to wind down this colossal failure. Gates never could shed his loyalty to the war party, pretending that the war was good, necessary and winnable. Obama has walked a tightrope trying to extricate the US from this disaster without causing a mutiny in the war party which would go to extreme lengths to sabotage a necessary but hasty exist. Those folks are still stewing about Obama's promised December 31, 2014, Afghan pullout, and are demanding he keep a residual force of advisers there to pretend the US still matters. Gates never second guesses his willingness to prosecute murderous, unjust war and can't comprehend that a sane president would want to end it. Gates claims he finally quit because he couldn't look at the canon fodder he was sending into to the Afghan cauldron without getting misty eyed. Thank goodness. When it comes to duty for Secretary Gates, the war party came first and the troops were a far, far distant second.