Original Proposal - Leon Panetta’s Worthy Fights and President Obama’s Military Force Authorization - March 11

Our next meeting is Wednesday evening, March 11, at the Salt Lake Public Library (210 East 400 South) in Conference Room C.

Our focus will be Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace by Leon Panetta [Penguin Press 10/7/2014 – 467 pages sans notes & index – available from your local library or for $13.29 + $3.99 shipping through Amazon.com – Amazon’s price is $26.25 + shipping but below Amazon’s price click on “71 New from $13.29” and order from chs625].

Leon Panetta was (1) a Democratic Congressman from California 1977-1993 (House Budget Committee Chair 1989-1993); (2) President Clinton’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 1993-1994; (3) President Clinton’s Chief of Staff 1994-1997; (4) President Obama’s CIA Director 2/13/2009- 6/30/2011; and (5) President Obama’s Secretary of Defense 7/1/2011-2/27/2013.

Since “60 Minutes” on 9/21/2014, “Worthy Fights” has created a veritable firestorm in the national media -- and in the form of “push back” from Vice President Biden in stark contrast to standard Obama Administration reaction to books by former Administration Officials that the Obama Administration “never does book reviews”!!!

The two explosive issues discussed by Leon Panetta in “Worthy Fights” and on “60 Minutes” are his contention that The Islamic State (aka ISIS aka ISIL formerly AQI or Al Qaeda in Iraq) is the direct result of (1) President Obama’s refusal to accept his advice and the advice of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, CIA Director David Patraeus and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey to arm the Syrian moderate rebels 3 years earlier, and (2) President Obama’s refusal to push for a residual force of 10,000 American military personnel in Iraq in 2011 over the objections of himself, Hillary Clinton, David Patraeus and Martin Dempsey.

The reason for the media firestorm???

As both an Obama loyalist AND a Clinton loyalist, Worthy Fights is viewed by the media as providing cover for Hillary for what might be viewed as two pivotal foreign-policy disasters when she was Secretary of State.

So it is ironic that only 32 minutes after President Obama’s Request to Congress for an Authorization for Use of Military Force Against ISIL was posted on http://www.WhiteHouse.com, the attendees of our 2/11/2015 meeting voted to focus on Worthy Fights for our 3/11/2015 meeting. [And, no, we weren’t aware at the time of the posting but we knew the AUMF was imminent.]
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