Panetta being attacked for being honest

Funny how everyone who points out the wrongdoings of this admin are attacked and belittled.

http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/fmr-obama-spokesman-panetta-sad-dishonorable-small-and-petty_810789.html

Panetta is brilliant and experienced. His criticism should be heeded. However, in the end disengagement and chaos which was entirely predicted and will proceed will win the day. His efforts in CIA and the capture of Bin Laden are worthy of much praise. He also has a much better understanding of threats to America than those who attack him. However, disengagement is messy and risky, and prolonging the inevitable serves little long term strategic purpose for America. The Middle East nation states are all strained and effectively impotent.

He's not being attacked for being honest.

He's being attacked for being a fucking liar.

But he has a book to sell, so I guess anything goes.

It’s an interesting take for a number of reasons. First off, it contradicts pretty much everything Leon Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a November 2011 hearing on the Iraq withdrawal. During that hearing, Panetta blamed the failure to arrive at an agreement on Maliki’s inability to garner political support:

   "Actually as Director of the CIA, I had talked with Prime Minister Maliki regarding this issue, and then when I became Secretary of Defense, I had a number of conversations with him as well in which I made very clear, along with General Austin and Ambassador Jeffrey, that it was extremely important that we needed to have a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), that we needed to have immunities for our troops, that we needed to have that protection. He believed that there was possibly a way to do this that did not involve having to go to the parliament, to their council for approval."

   "It was very clear, among all the attorneys here, that we absolutely had to have their approval through their parliament if we were going to have a SOFA that provided the kind of immunities we needed. I cannot tell you how many times we made that clear. I believe the Prime Minister understood that, and it was at the point where he basically said I cannot deliver it, I cannot get it through the parliament that we were then left with the decisions that were made."

Panetta also flatly denied accusations that the administration had prioritized complete withdrawal over security considerations:

   JOHN MCCAIN: Now, maybe they [Iraqi political leaders] were not telling us the truth, Mr. Secretary. But we have a relationship with them that goes back many, many years, and they have always told us the truth. The truth is that this administration was committed to the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and they made it happen.

   PANETTA: Senator McCain, that is just simply not true. I guess you can believe that, and I respect your beliefs.

   MCCAIN: I respect your opinion.

   PANETTA: But that is not true.

   MCCAIN: The outcome has been exactly as predicted.

   PANETTA: But that is not how it happened.

“Iraqi domestic politics made it impossible to reach a deal,” wrote Colin Kahl, the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. “Maliki was willing to consider going to parliament to approve a follow-on agreement, but he was not willing to stick his neck out. Other political factions would have to support the move, and the support wasn’t there.” Kahl concluded that “there was little the administration could have offered or threatened to change their calculations. It was simply too toxic, politically, for Iraqi politicians to accept.”

Panetta obviously feels differently. Or rather, he feels differently now compared to how he felt three years ago. At the 2011 hearing, Panetta reminded the senators time and again that the U.S. had been negotiating with the sovereign nation of Iraq and had to respect the decisions of its political institutions. “This is about negotiating with a sovereign country, an independent country,” Panetta said. “This was about their needs. This is not about us telling them what we are going to do for them or what they are going to have to do for us.” After a number of Republican senators had pressed him on the residual force, Panetta finally snapped and took out his frustrations on then-Sen. Scott Brown. “I get the impression here that somehow everybody is deciding what we want for Iraq and that that is what should happen,” he said. “But it does not work that way. This is an independent country.”

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/02/panetta_v_panetta_former_defense_secretarys_conflicting_accounts_of_the_iraq_withdrawal/

Panetta objected to a total withdrawl from Iraq......along with the entire DOD. He was told to shut it down....Obama knows best!

There is no imminent threat... there is no congressional approval... there should be no military intervention. Period.

Anyone that rationalizes obama taking these illegal actions is complicit to a WAR CRIMINAL..!! Lol... ya fuckin sheep.

I for one, applaud Obama's decision to pull our troops from Iraq. Why should we pay in blood or money to help one side or another in the centuries-long battle between Shiites and Sunnis?

At worst, Isis will control a huge chunk of territory that will be dominated by Sunnis. And their biggest enemy will be Iran -- home base for the Shias.

Same as it was before Saddam!!

Saving Christian, Kurdish, Sunni or Shia Arabs from one another isn't our business!

Screw America Inc.!!

Omigod now even that Uber pacifist Jimmy Carter is talking like but ch me up too. Before long the only brave men will be the lifelong republicans Sal and sea oat and obama.  Everybody else in the country will be cowardly scared cats. Lol

Sal wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:Panetta objected to a total withdrawl from Iraq......along with the entire DOD. He was told to shut it down....Obama knows best!

Revisionist history.

The disagreement was over the number of troops in the residual force, not whether there should be one.

Really?



"My fear, as I voiced to the President and others, was that if the country split apart or slid back into the violence that we'd seen in the years immediately following the U.S. invasion, it could become a new haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the U.S. Iraq's stability was not only in Iraq's interest but also in ours," Panetta writes. "I privately and publicly advocated for a residual force that could provide training and security for Iraq's military."


He said that Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy advocated that position - which was shared by military commanders in the region and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Panetta writes - but found that Mr. Obama's team at the White House "pushed back, and the differences occasionally became heated."

"Those on our side viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests," he said.

Liberals lie as usual
And the eat
Their own

Sal wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:

Sal wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:Panetta objected to a total withdrawl from Iraq......along with the entire DOD. He was told to shut it down....Obama knows best!

Revisionist history.

The disagreement was over the number of troops in the residual force, not whether there should be one.

Really?

Yes.

The DoD was pushing for a force of 10,000 or more, and the administration insisted on no more than 3,000.

And Panetta?

Sal wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:

And Panetta?

Apparently, it depends on when you asked him and if he has a book to sell.

And as long as he is not on the payroll, uh Sal?

Exactly Joani... let's call it the enormous opaque black line of transparency.

Look at the treatment of the fast and furious whistleblowers... snowden... the holder supeonas of the media to find leaks... etc. The people protected by the govt didn't speak. Hell... we've been lied to directly and ZERO recourse or outrage.

Flatex is the perfect example of the hypocrisy... but seagoat is gaining on the last turn.

Wordslinger wrote:I for one, applaud Obama's decision to pull our troops from Iraq.  Why should we pay in blood or money to help one side or another in the centuries-long battle between Shiites and Sunnis?

At worst, Isis will control a huge chunk of territory that will be dominated by Sunnis.  And their biggest enemy will be Iran -- home base for the Shias.

Same as it was before Saddam!!

Saving Christian, Kurdish, Sunni or Shia Arabs from one another isn't our business!

Screw America Inc.!!

Wordslinger, you're misspelling your signature again. How did that happen?

Here is The Amerika, private train of the namesake of your signature.

Sal wrote:

Joanimaroni wrote:Panetta objected to a total withdrawl from Iraq......along with the entire DOD. He was told to shut it down....Obama knows best!

Revisionist history.

The disagreement was over the number of troops in the residual force, not whether there should be one.

Say what? You really believe that don't you? And you talk about revisionist history?