Comments on: General Betray-us’s PR Gambit

By: simon

simon — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 23:05:21 +0000

I don’t snark about “spineless democrats” because I believe they are on the same page as the republicans. They approved the war, they have no intention of defunding the war and they have signed on for the next war with Iran

Yeah, I agree.

They all get their campaign money and such from the same sources.

By: Demetris

Demetris — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:46:26 +0000

Cool.

By: Kuni

Kuni — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:16:57 +0000

Petraeus has played this “Stuff is getting better in Iraq” game before.

Six weeks before the 2004 election, Petraeus wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which he lied and said that there had been “tangible progress” in Iraq, and that “Momentum has gathered in recent months.”

We all know how that worked out.

And the DoJ’s site has many examples, starting as far back as 2003, of Petraeus misleading on how well it was going in Iraq at the time he made the comments.

By: Linda

Linda — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:44:19 +0000

I don’t snark about “spineless democrats” because I believe they are on the same page as the republicans. They approved the war, they have no intention of defunding the war and they have signed on for the next war with Iran. And, they are not spineless when it comes to attacking the left (just ask Nader and the Greens).

That Iraqi in the article who was fawning over betrayus and saying we must avoid another “911 by Iranians” sounds like a plant. I heard one on MPR saying how important it was for the Iraqi government to do what the Americans wanted particulary in regard to the oil law. No Iraqi would talk like this guy.

By: Jerome

Jerome — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:22:49 +0000

I will be voting for whoever is not running as a Dem. or Pub.

By: Jerome

Jerome — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:21:52 +0000

I have voted Libertarian or third party since Nixon. I want my vote recorded in a column that say I dislike both the Dems and Pubs. Until Pubs and Dems stop voting for the lesser of two evils (evil is Still evil)and saying that voting third party is throwing your vote away we will always have a one party system with two mascots.
My beef with the Libertarians and third party people is that they wait until the big dogs start to campaign when they should be knocking on doors the day after an election preparing for the next one.
The Libertarians main problem is they spread their money too thin trying to be in every race in every State. I subscribe to the field of dreams theory. Get a President and they will come.

By: HoosierHoops

HoosierHoops — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:28:42 +0000

susanuNPC:
Shirin, while I empathize with your feelings, we can’t afford to throw the baby president out with the bathwater. Even if it’s not the cutest, best behaved baby, we gotta hang with it and positively encourage it to do the right thing.

Exactly right Susan..
BTW.. I hope you are feeling better.. Good luck with everything..
We certainly don’t want to put you on the injured reserve list

By: chris

chris — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 08:06:55 +0000

here’s the comment I sent to Megan Greenwell.

“could you just let Petraeus write your schmooze piece for you? You are acting as a tool in a PR campaign and while writing about a “journalism” student, you just seem to have become void of any sense of responsibility to the reader. I need not come to the conclusion that Petraeus is a failure or that he isn’t acting on the up and up to see many areas where he clearly is challenged and has made mistakes that are important to note.

This is a glosser piece and you shouldn’t write this sort of drivel for the masses. Your article doesn’t even approach the question of whether Wesley Morgan is being used to promote a “success”.

The numbers do not indicate success. Generals calling for disbanding the police isn’t a success. Iraqi casualties are on the rise for several months in a row. The towns that are experiencing decreases in violence…are abandoned. The amount of Iraqi refugees to the US is peaking, and to the neighbor countries is in the millions….

But you’re going to write a fluff piece..what a shame.”

By: Leslie

Leslie — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 05:13:34 +0000

What if General Betrayus’s report to Bush and Congress said this:

Mr. President:

The United States Army and Marine Corps achieved their principal mission of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his government. We did so with dispatch and minimum loss of life. We were then confronted with a massive insurgency which U.S. civilian officials, including yourself, did not anticipate and for which we have not been given adequate personnel and resources. There is little if any prospect of resolving this insurgency anytime in the next decade, if not longer. Further, continued engagement in Iraq’s civil war distracts us from our most urgent mission in Afghanistan and erodes our stature in the world. Therefore, it is my recommendation that all U.S. forces be withdrawn from Iraq in an orderly but expeditious manner. In the event that this recommendation is not accepted, I have attached my letter of resignation from the United States Army.

David Petraeus

General, United States Army

By: SusanUnPC

SusanUnPC — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 23:05:34 +0000

Thanks, MEP. I’ll Tivo it.

As for those who’d not vote if they don’t get their pet candidate: I guess it’s considered more righteous to be stubborn than to begin to get the troops out — which any of the Democratic candidates will begin to do once in office. Not voting is tantamount to voting for the Republican candidate who’ll perpetuate the war and, if Bush doesn’t hit Iran, the next Republican president surely will. Good god. What selfish thinking.

I thought the idea was that fewer and fewer U.S. troops = fewer Iraqi casualties. Therefore, an incremental withdrawal = fewer Iraqi casualties.

(’course, ethnic cleansing will surge with U.S. withdrawals. Maybe it’s just that no scenario will suffice. Maybe it’s more important to find any American plan inadequate than it is to turn Iraq over to the Iraqis.)