Comments on: Petraeus and Crocker Back on the Hill

By: Iliya Pavlovich

Iliya Pavlovich — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:13:08 +0000

Thomas feel free to point any figure in politics (past, present or future) who has NOT been skilled in the trade you named. It just might come as a package – I can’t go beyond the obvious merits that this man has amassed at a fairly young age.

By: Anthony Flood

Anthony Flood — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:03:34 +0000

Yesterday Congressman Ron Paul asked the General and the Ambassador point-blank whether in their view the President had the authority to wage war on Iran without the consent of Congress. It was a trick question, but the “professor” had the right to ask it on behalf of his employers (at least he knows for whom he works), and the “grad students” flunked their orals. Focusing on the word “Iran,” the company men responded as those who know only on which side their bread is buttered: “Sir, my job is Iraq.” That is, they reacted to Dr. Paul’s question as though to answer it required legal expertise, as though it was a who’s-in-charge-in-case-the-President’s-missing, wake-the-AG-and-the-Chief-Justice-in-the-middle-of-the-night type crisis dramatized in movies like “Air Force One” or episodes of “24.” This man, whose academic credentials so impress other commenters, at whose command lies such immense firepower, could not answer Dr. Paul’s question immediately and unambiguously in the negative. This dismayed Dr. Paul, as it did those who watch with horror and nausea as all traces of the former republic’s cocoon continue to fall away to reveal the bloody empire beneath, whose agents, lobbyists, and blogging propagandists, mentally impaired by “realpolitik” swill, snicker at those who would dare ask for the Constitutional justification of their lie-based racket, just as a garden-variety racketeer might explode at anyone who had the temerity to point out that the racketeer was jaywalking.

By: Thomas Miller

Thomas Miller — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:34:09 +0000

Hey Ilya,

The outgoing CentCom commander Admiral Fallon reportedly told Petraeus that he is an “asskissing chickensh*t”. I think he was in a better situation to appraise the merits of the General than you or I are.

By: Iliya Pavlovich

Iliya Pavlovich — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:44:31 +0000

For my money General D. Petreaus (if that’s the right spelling), is doing the best he can under very unfavorable circumstances, but his flair, eloquence and mild-mannered approach do not smell of an assault commander of the 101st Airborne. Perhaps a sliver from his biography does hold up to the scrutiny of a typical “Senate hearing” – I don’t see much IQ present in any of the Senate hearings but that is our own fault. As the citizens of this country we have to protect it from stupidity, greed, ever-hungry power gluttons who will twist any hearing to suit their goals. The good general is doing a good job on a bad day. Last Sunday NYT edition went as far to suggest that the nation is possibly looking for an “Eisenhower type salvation” from the present nightmares.

After all a little blurb on the General offers the following:
“Petraeus was the General George C. Marshall Award winner as the top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College—class of 1983. He subsequently earned a Masters Degree in Public and International Affairs (1985) and a PhD (1987) in International Relations from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He later served as Assistant Professor of International Relations at the U.S. Military Academy and also completed a fellowship at Georgetown University. He has a BS from the U.S. Military Academy—class of 1974—from which he graduated as a distinguished cadet (top 5% of his class).”

No chump change in my view.

By: roho

roho — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:17:36 +0000

Bla, bla, bla,bla, bla,bla………..hold the line untill McAmnesty is in office!…..Bla,bla,bla,bla………bla,bla,……..Buy us some time, bla,bla,bla. John has been briefed! Bla,bla,bla.

Fascism is around the corner and we need more time!

By: james

james — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:32:44 +0000

Are Americans stupid for voting McCain as Republican frontrunner? I mean there apposed to massive immigration into the US, against the Iraq war and concerned about the US debt yet they vote for McCain who is the most pro immigration advocate in the senate, promised more wars specifically Iran which will be harder to pacify than Iraq and will result in a skyrocketing US debt.

By: NGPM

NGPM — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:13:17 +0000

“This is why the smartest thing the Democrats could do in 2008 is cede the election to John McCain.”

Well, that’s exactly what they seem to be doing, judging from the candidates they’ve put forward. Then they can have two bombs–the economy AND a lost war–to pin on two successive Republican presidents!

The prospect of knocking the GOP out of power for a full half-century is very appealing. Too bad it will be accompanied by five decades of soft-socialist hate-crimes legislation.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:45:19 +0000

Djordje,

I think the problem is eventually going to be when the Marines in those bases start looking at their watches and grumbling about the supply convoy being late. Then the word comes that the convoy was destroyed, or came under heavy fire and had to turn back. So with food and ammo running low, the decision is made to evacuate and all the astonished Americans back home watch on CNN as the Marines sprint for the Chinooks ahead of the falling mortars and the militiamen scaling the walls.

The “surge” consists of the US paying both sides to arm themselves against each other which is keeping the peace in the same way that MAD kept the peace during the Cold War. Will this state of affairs continue indefinitely? It’s hard to see how it can with so much at stake for the group that gets to control the oil. Second question, can the US troops in the middle of this cauldron stay aloof as this multi-sided conflict takes shape around them? Again, I doubt it; you’ve got to bribe one side or the other to let the supply trucks through. You can try bribing everybody, which is what we’re doing now, but that’s inherently unsustainable too.

The whole thing is a barely-contained mess that cannot stabilize. We don’t have the money or the will to keep the lid on things, and human nature won’t allow it in any event. This is why the smartest thing the Democrats could do in 2008 is cede the election to John McCain.

By: Lee

Lee — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:55:33 +0000

Am I the only one missing something. What democracy needs an ARMY to forge and maintain itself out of itself. Armies are for effecting sovereign theft from a neighbor, or for the enslavement of and theft from the masses by the wanna be elite. I notice that the militias don’t seem to have a problem attracting and controlling recruits. And how is it that 500,000 Iraquis can’t control a couple thousand Al-Quaeda. I don’t see Saudi Arabian or Iranian armies pouring into Iraq which would elicit a need for a defense. We will not be disengaged from Iraq and its future clones until we learn that the State is not the perfection of man. All the Yankee Puritanism in the world will not save or perfect one man.

By: Djordje

Djordje — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 13:31:51 +0000

All this talk of ‘withdrawing ‘ and ‘disengagement’ is moot. The 4+ permanent bases, which never seem to be mentioned in any of these debates, located in remote regions of Iraq are there for a reason. The US is going to maintain a significant military presence in the region for the long term, all talk of bringing the troops ‘home’ notwithstanding.