Leon Panetta made a fascinating disclosure in his congressional testimony on Thursday: He revealed that he had backed the proposal by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA Director David Petraeus last year to arm the Syrian rebels. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, revealed that he too was supportive. So if all of the major players on President Obama’s national security team were in favor, why was nothing done?
As Michael Gordon of the New York Times, who first broke the story about Clinton and Petraeus’s support for arming the rebels, put it: “The White House, however, was worried about the risks of getting more deeply involved in the crisis in Syria. And with President Obama in the midst of a re-election bid, the White House rebuffed the plan, rejecting the advice of most of the key members of Mr. Obama’s national security team.”
No one disputes that the president is commander-in-chief and as such has the right to overrule his advisers: the buck, after all, does stop in the Oval Office. But it behooves the president to more fully explain his reasoning, lest the assumption become prevalent that this was a decision made for political rather than strategic reasons.
What I am more concerned about is the fact that Hillary and Obama were missing in action when Benghazzi was going down and the Lame Stream Media continues to not report it.
I cannot agree more. We are getting different fragments of information from testimonies, some media comments, and some remarks from people involved. It creates an impression that White House is stonewalling under quiet media accommodations.
Obama was right. Better Bashir than his enemies. Keep our powder dry.
Mr Boot is one of a number of military”experts”who have never worn ar nuniform,the include ,Hansen,both Kagans,and the usual long list ofr nneo-con chicken hawks. Another several dozen Iraquis were killedr nyesterday ,no longer having our people to kill,the Sunnis,Shites, and r nKurds are merrily murdering each other,daily. Having pimped for ther nwar in Iraqi,a conflict that did little to enhance the security,and interestsr nof the U.S. or Israel,the remain undetered and want another conflict inr nthe mid-east. Have they no shame?
We all are entitled to our own opinions. Some of us wearied uniform and some of us didn’t, it should not preclude us from having an opinion on an issue. However, we should not get involved in Middle East until we have a clear objectives and exit strategy. I am against Syria involvement because it ethnic conflict, which is 1000 years old. We are not welcomed on either side.
Which to me puts in stark contrast even the role or credibility or the need for Obama to have a cabinet that needs Senate approval at all. He's clearly running his own ops from inside the Oval Office and working with a tiny handful of people to do it most of whom are 'personal advisers' and beyond the scope of any vetting process in the first place. What does it matter when SecDef and SecState could be replaced with pages on the White House website mouthing mindlessly the Doctrines of Chairman Barry?
It is hard to buy a view that we are not involved in Syria regardless Secretaries Panetta and Clinton testimonies. What was a job of CIA Annex in Benghazi? Who gives silent OK to Saudis and Qataris to give weapons or even provide weapons to rebels in Syria? Regardless all, USA continues to be a big player in the Middle East.