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Petraeus or Betrayus?
What was that? What did he say? In his newest tome of yellow journalism, Obama's Wars, Bob Woodward quotes General David Petraeus as saying,
You have to recognize also that I don't think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It's a little bit like Iraq, actually. . . . Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives.
That's what he said and that's why we are where we are: Baraquagmire.
We don't fight to win; we just fight to keep from losing. Is that about it, General?
ReplyDeleteWe can't win for losing as the ol' saying goes. Every war is a loss for everyone but the war complex which makes more and more money the longer the wars go on. They also are losers in the long run, but are so greedy and hyped up with patriotic fervor that they can't see the forest for the trees.
ReplyDeleteIt may or may not be left to the generals to recommend on the (expansion of) military missions, but the President doesn't have to go along with whatever they say? Does he?
ReplyDeleteWhy did the big O keep Gates?
ReplyDeleteHe not only kept him once, he kept him twice.
Gates is a cold war warrior that was null and void on his analysis of the Soviet Union.
He is Papa Bush's Spartan.
Patreus can not be denied. O can not fire him. O gave Patreus a free reign. Patreus, Shillary, and Gates are all in the same nation building camp.
The Big O has two choices.
Go along to get along and turn the page. Something he does very well.
Or he can start anew. I am sure O has read up on JFK.
BTW. I guess we will never see those Bush/Cheney/Rummy war crimes investigations that he promised while he was the Manchurian Candidate.
The page has been turned.
Do not think for a minute that I agree with Petraeus but he is a career soldier and he is doing what his disposition and training are telling him. You might as well ask a rock to sprout limbs and grow leaves.
ReplyDeleteIt's the Commander-in-Chief that calls the ultimate shots and if he ain't up to giving the right orders to the generals, well thats a whole other issue.
NOBODY (not even the British) has ever been able to control all of Afghanistan. They, and even the Russians with all their military might, failed to gain control of the country except in Kabul and a few other urban centers. Our continued presence there, with the hope of pacifying and transforming the country into a western-style democracy, is only a pipe dream for neocons and the military/industrial complex. GET OUT NOW!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what's more despicable, the President's cynical decision to sacrifice American lives for transient political gain....or the flat-out refusal of his flunkies over at MSNBC to hold his tootsies to the fire (neither Olbermann nor Maddow have even mentioned Mr. Woodward's book, for example). They're both pretty frigging bad, I'm thinking.
ReplyDeleteThey finally admitted that all nine aboard the helicopter that 'crashed' wee American soldiers.
ReplyDeleteBut I guess it is all right because this is the Wizard of O's "good war".
They will not hold his puppet strings to the fire no matter what.
Speaking of holding feet to the fire, I see that Dr Haagendazs has done a good job with your feet, Mr. Hart!
ReplyDeleteR-Zone, was it a crash or a shoot-down?
ReplyDeleteBeach, you are right. 100%!
ReplyDeleteAs is Messenger!
ReplyDelete"Broker Hart"! It rings true!
ReplyDeleteVig, I always appreciate input from my more liberal colleagues. You know that, right?
ReplyDeleteYeah, you need that input so you can broker it! I get it, Mr. Hart. I get you. You're running a brokerage over there. I got it.
ReplyDeleteHere's what bothers me most: Guys like Petraeus will swear up and down that they care about the troops, yet they'll continue to put the troops in a position to be killed, in a war they know is virtually never-ending. American patriotism is weird.
ReplyDeleteNobody has a monopoly on wisdom or the truth. Not even progressives. And, really, what is all this getting wrapped up in a single word nonsense? Perseverate much?
ReplyDeleteBroker, you miss the whole point. And this drivel of yours,
ReplyDelete"Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom or the truth."
goes to the HeART of your pathetic confusion.
It's not a question of who possesses the truth. It is a question as to what is true. We all have, theoretically, an equal opportunity to arrive at what is true. That doesn't mean it - truth - can become a possession. That means we have to struggle together or apart, to find what is true. But you are somehow scoring (brokering) degrees of possession. You are trying to make it a sport or a game of points for one side or another. In so doing, Broker, you trivialize everything you touch.
Stimpson, your point is reflected by a number of comments on this thread. Personally, I identify most closely with what Beach and Messenger have put out: whatever the generals propose, suggest, and advise, the check stops on the POTUS's desk. Whether he like it or not.
ReplyDeleteTruth is definitely the goal, even though it is an elusive one. However, having taken the link to Hart's blog, I see that BROKER is the word Hart himself used to describe what he does. That's what I take to be someone like Larry King's goal. Now to say that Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom or the truth. is kind of a nonsensical statement, which excuses the sayer for wrestling with the question, WHAT IS THE TRUTH? on a given issue. Whatever is said about anything anywhere, his response is "Okay, well, that can't be the whole truth." But what if it is? Would Hart recognize the whole truth if it hit him in the face?
ReplyDeleteWhat if the truth is actually very close to what we see and what the General says. We will be fighting extremist terror and our children will be fighting this. Whether it's in Afghanistan, Iraq, England, India, Italy, here. It's an awful truth. It's damn right depressing. But more and more I think we have to do it the best way we know how...and that's what I'd like to focus on.
ReplyDeleteCritics and analysts who honestly, diligently, and as objectively as they can apply their standards consistently across the board REGARDLESS OF POLITICAL AFFILIATION (for example, criticizing a "Progressive" when he accuses Senator McCain of being a North Vietnamese collaborator) ARE NOT "playing games". They are, yes, trying to be an honest BROKER (my God, grown men making a big deal over one word) between the deliverers of the message (i.e., the sellers) and the recipients of that message (i.e., the buyers). Playing games? No, we would much prefer to save that crap for the caricatures/political extremists of the world.
ReplyDelete"Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom or the truth." You know who said something very similar, Mr. Proxy? Elena Kagan said something very similar....at her Supreme Court nomination hearings. Hm, I wonder if that will preclude HER from "wrestling with the truth on any given issue"......The whole truth? THE WHOLE TRUTH? For Christ's sakes. You show me just one person who has a bee-line on that and I will flat-out genuflect.
ReplyDeleteHart, Who accused Senator McCain of being a North Vietnamese collaborator? Was he/she self-identified as a Progressive? Or a liberal, or was it a leftist? Or is that just you painting with a wide Republican brush? As for Kagan, what do I care what she's saying while she's peddling her ass to get confirmed to the SCOTUS? What I want to know is what you're peddling your ass for?
ReplyDeleteMcCain was accused of being a Vietnamese collaborator at Lydia Cornell's site by a self-proclaimed progressive and not a single other like-minded person made a peep about it. What does that tell you?.....Oh, and, just for the record, fella', I don't paint with any kind of a brush. That's something else I save for the caricatures/ political extremists.
ReplyDeletePinks, thanks for being on point, but do you really think our once-great USA has enough resources to simultaneously fight three wars all the way across the world?indefinitely?
ReplyDeleteNon-Partisan, don't bother Hart when he's brokering in he said-she said. He doesn't have answers; all he offers is more gossip.
Saying that Senator McCain was a North Vietnamese collaborator - THAT is gossip. Striking it down, even when it may not be politically inexpedient for you (i.e., I ultimately voted for Mr. Obama) - that I believe to be more along the lines of principle.
ReplyDeleteBroker, it is gossip. It is insignificant he said-she said. It is so trivial, you haven't even yet identified the writer.
ReplyDeleteLydiacornell.com 4/07 It was either Lydia herself or some douchebag sock-puppet named Larry.
ReplyDeleteLOL! "Lydia Cornell"! ? ! ?
ReplyDeleteNow that's a name which would launch a thousand ships!
Broker, you lack gravitas!
You better be careful that Lydia doesn't see that. She doesn't care for it when people question her celebrity. So, you never saw her in "Too Close for Comfort"? She was frigging hot in that....back in the 80s.
ReplyDelete