From The People’s perspective, a lot of decisions were made behind closed doors with the public seldom being given much information, or even an opinion for that matter.
As time goes by, it seems that we will always find people who are willing to shed some much-needed light on the situation, and in this case that person is Robert Gates. He served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011 and worked for the CIA for over 26 years.
He attended the secret meetings we never heard of and is in a position better than the vast majority of people to bring some actual truth to the table. In his autobiographical memoir, Duty, Robert Gates does just that, explaining his rather deep involvement in America’s wars and politics during his stint as Secretary of Defense.
In his book Gates does tell us a lot of things, meticulously describing all the important events and encounters he had during his five years. He discusses: his thoughts on the decisions taken by both administrations and what motivated them, his role when it came to advising the Presidents, critical negotiations with powerful figures, his opinions on the various members of both administrations and the influence they had/have, as well as the controversial topics mentioned in the opening sentence above.
He explicitly demonstrates how bureaucracy is infiltrating every aspect of life, how poor decisions or inactions often lead to very real detriments which can surely be felt on the frontlines. He even discusses his journeys into zones of combat to visit the troops and their commanders, and how he welcomed back home far too many flag-draped coffins.
Though Gates certainly isn’t completely impartial in his analyses, he does offer some extremely interesting insights that we probably would not have gotten from anyone else.
His opinions aren’t unfounded either; all of his hypotheses which cannot be definitely proven are supported by precise and factual observations, with the conclusions definitely not being jumped to.
I have to say that the style itself is a bit dry, but frankly, that is to be expected considering who the author is and the serious subjects with which the book deals.
Gates doesn’t merely deal in facts either though, as a good portion of this book is dedicated to his personal opinions on what the soldiers are doing in the frontlines, and how the politicians end up affecting them.
All in all, if you are interested in the politics and bureaucracy of the White House during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you simply cannot afford to miss out on this book… the extent of the information it contains is something to behold.
 | Robert Michael GatesRobert Gates is a university president and an American statesman who also held a position as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense and has served for over 26 years for the Central Intelligence Agency. Recently, he has published an autobiographical memoir of his experience while serving under both Bush and Obama in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. |
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