Petraeus: His Master's Voice

Time magazine's headline for it's last issue: "How much longer?" That is the most stupid question I can imagine. Why doesn't Time magazine go ask the insurgents and terrorists "how much longer"?

Would you put down your gun and "hateful ideology" if a foreign force occupied America?

But they're going to stay there and proudly serve until their job is done. And they will have the support of the majority in this country.

Seem kind of utopian for us to commit our forces until peace and love reigns through the Middle East. The soldiers will continue to have the support of America so long as most Americans don't have to pay a price unlike during WWII. They will still drive their SUVs with their yellow ribbon magnets that claim their support for our troopers. However, as more coffins start coming home to Main Street, USA, it will dampen your kind of bluster.

The general and ambassador gave lots of statistics and facts in their 17 hours before Congress. But the only metric that would convince me is two: the number of daughters that Bush is willing to sacrifice on the altar of liberty in Iraq on behald of the United States. Of course, that will never happen.

By the way, what about you? Have you served or are your children serving in Iraq?

Any member of Congress that thinks they know how to run a war - which, by the way, is NOT their job - from thousands of miles away in a nice comfortable office with his shiny leather shoes and expensive suit is suffering from severe dementia and possibly even brain damage. Congress simply cannot second-guess General Petraeus because Congress isn't there and doesn't know what's going on. They are not military men, they are politicians. They have no basis on which to second-guess Petraeus' proposals other that posturing and grandstanding.

Wrong. Since when do soldiers make military policy? It is yet another constitutional principle that the president has gutted. It looks to me that Petraeus is part of the echo chamber-- his master's voice-- and has the same credability another soldier had a generation ago-- General Westmoreland. There are people like Senator McCain who think we should have stayed in Viet Nam to "finish the job" and that 58,000 American lives were not enough. He doesn't make clear as to what what staying the course in Viet Nam would have accomplished in hindsight. It certainly would not have prevented the Cambodian genocide, and Republicans such as Nixon and Kissinger at that time were adament that their policy had nothing to do with what happned in Cambodia.

But, who cares, right? Leave them alone and let them deal with it. They'll work it out. So what if the Shiites go on a massive ethnic cleansing campaign and al-Quaeda sets up their new world headquarters in Iraq? As long as our soldiers can come home and we can save some money, who cares, right?

That is right. The prevention of ethnic cleansing has never been our goal. If it was, we would be in Dafur. It's not our business to umpire civil wars with hatreds that go back a thousand years and to nation build. We need to get out now.

Tomorrow, the president will announce troop cuts but qualified to "conditions on the ground." I predict that the conditions will be such that the troop levels will be pretty much where they are now.

Who will it hurt? Not the Democrats, who are counting on the president to maintain his policy so that they can get control of all branches of the government. Not the president who wants the vindication of history by ensuring that presidents that follow him are tied to his interventionist neo-con policies. Not his supporters who continue to place support for the president above love for this country. The only people who will be hurt will be the troops and their families. They will continue to bleed. Only about 4,000 American have died thus far in Iraq. My guess is that the numbers have to increase by a factor of ten-- 40,000 or more perhaps due to an expanded war into Iran and Syria-- before America comes to its senses.

If I was an Iraqi with any intelligence, I wouldn't be taking up arms against the force that deposed Saddam Hussein.

But why? They may not be fighting for bin laden but they might be fighting for things that we don't understand-- the temples of their gods and the graves of their fathers.

We're not there trying to shove Christianity down anyone's throat, nor are we trying to take over. We're cleaning up after our ass kicking of Saddam and trying to re-establish a central government. As soon as things are calm, we're outta there.

But do they understand that? I was going to say that I understand that, but as a matter of fact, I'm not sure that's true. I think the model for Bush is permanent occupation along the same lines as we have in South Korea, Germany, and Cuba. It's not for nothing that we are building the biggest embassy in the world and are signing multi-decade contracts. In fact, in Bush's speech, he suggested as much-- that this may be a multi-generation effort in Iraq.

I served in the Army during the first gulf war. I don't have any kids but if I did, I would proudly support their decision to serve the country and go to Iraq to fight. Because it's the RIGHT thing to do.

I salute your service, but not your judgment.

Petraeus has been given a job to go to Iraq and gain success. The stuffed suits give him an objective and he decides how to accomplish it. The suits can't tell him what to do and HOW to do it, period.

Sorry, that isn't how the consitution works, as MacArthur found out.

These are your words. "Only" 4,000. So then if "only" 4,000 have died, then what's the big deal? What's wrong with sticking around awhile and kicking some more insurgent, Islamic jihadi ass?

I'm being ironic. Someone asked Petraeus, to paraphrase, will your actions make us safer? He said in effect "huh, I dunno".

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/11/172037/541

He didn't exactly leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling of confidence. Seems to me that this is a key question. If it cannot be clearly be answered in the affirmative, then what in the heck are we doing there?

Hey butt-face tell us all what and who neo-cons are.....genius!!

I had no idea that my brother posted here. OK, settle down, and I'll clue you in.
neo-con has several meanings, all applicable only to Republicans.

1. neo comes from the Latin 'new'. con means convict. So, neo-con is a new Republican convict. There are many of these. Tom Delay is a good example.

2. con also means confidence as in shuster or scam artist, which, essentially is the entire Republican administration.

3. Finally, neo also comes from the Albanian "not" and con means conservative. Thus, neo cons are Republicans that give us non-conservative policies such as unfunded educational mandates, premptive wars and nation building, and the termination of irrelvancies such as Social Security and balanced budgets. Again, the entire Republican administration.

Thanks!

You're welcome.

Why would they think we want anything to do with their temples and graves?

I'm speaking metaphorically. In the war of hearts and minds, we are losing. Most Iraqis want the Americans out of their country for the same reason that most Americans would want foreign troops out of America if we were so occupied. We may see ourselves as acting with nobility to bring Jefferson democracy to Iraq. But the vast majority of those who live in Iraq see us as Christian crusaders, plunderers of their wealth, imperalists in the tradition of Rome and trhe the British, killers of their children, despoilers of their women. The scandals at Abu Garub and Haditha certainly didn't help to dispel that widespread perception, and it is no accident that more people in Iraq and Pakistan revere bin Laden their the current state leaders.

We will always have some kind of presence there at the pleasure of the Iraqi government, which was elected by the Iraqi people.

At the pleasure of the Iraqi government or the pleasure of our government? Some of the distrust in the Middle East comes from our involvement in trying to overthrow governments that we believe have policies contrary to our interests. Iran's hatred to America can in part be traced back to the coup d'etat in 1953 by the CIA and MI6 under Operation AJAX of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, the Prime Minister of Iran. And today Iran's hatred is fueled by a more recent policy of regime change-- a truely idiotic policy as it forces Iran to assume the very worse about America as it views its own existence is at stake reducing any incentive for moderation or diplomacy. Under the circumstances, Iran has considerable motivation in fomenting civil war in Iraq as a way to entrap the US in a quagmire while they build a nuclear arsenal. We ae forcing Iran into radicalism because our own policies are radical.

Congress does not run wars; that is the job of the President. Congress is trying to micro-manage something outside their scope of responsibility. If they don't like what's going on, then they can stop funding it. Why haven't they stopped the funding if this war is so terrible??

They haven't stopped funding it for the simple reason that they don't have the votes to sustain a veto. However, that is slowly changing. Congress will continue to assert itself to the point of micro-managing because it is so distrustful of the administration in its serial lies and also in its incompetence under Rumsfeld and Casey. None of this would have happened during WWII or during the Afghanistan invasion when there was a broad US consensus. Most congressman now believe that the administration's policies do not reflect the will of the people. And so they will seek to constrain its military policies more and more. However, just as a good fisherman will play out the line before snagging the trout, so too will they give the president what he wants as an expedient to achieving what they ultimately want-- Democratic control of government. It's a cynical rope-a-dope policy that is costing our troopers their lives, but it is a plan that accords with both what the president wants and the Democratic leadership want, and so it will continue.

The so-called "majority" of Americans who are against the war is a fallacy. With the help of the Defeatocrat party the Leftist media has propagandized the Iraq War, only reporting the most negative aspects of it.

It was the liberal media, such as Judith Miller of the New York Times, who propaganderized the Iraq war from the start.

Were America truly against the war there would be violence in the streets and massive demonstrations weekly.

Why? With only a few thousand dead and no draft, this war has touched few Americans. Most Americans simply don't care if your kids live or die in Iraq.

Right now all we have are some malcontent anarchists and fringe whackos, numbering in the hundreds, not the thousands meeting every 6 months or so in DC.

I seem to remember this echo from the 60s-- that somehow a bunch of scruffy hippies on the corner of Height and Asbury forced the 101 Airborne to surrender in Viet Nam.

The "majority" is wrong on the war. The right thing to do is continue the surge, defeat the enemy of America, within and without and then we will have peace.

Even General Petreaus states that he isn't sure that this will bring America greater security whereas former Fed Chief Greenspan is sure that this war is all about oil. Yep, it seems the right thing to do and it will definitely bring peace. (snort)

How many of you Defeatocrats have served in the military like I have?

Gee, I don't know how many fools want to fight them over there so they don't have to fight them here. You may want to ask some of your chicken-hawk young Republicans the same question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFGit_tZDqs