I look for Petraeus to eventually quit the Obama administration
By John Amato Wednesday Nov 12, 2008 3:00pm
Digby had a really interesting post up about Obama's meeting with General Petraeus in Baghdad some time ago.
[Q] I have been collecting accounts of your meeting with David Petraeus in Baghdad. And you had [inaudible] after he had made a really strong pitch [inaudible] for maximum flexibility. A lot of politicians at that moment would have said [inaudible] but from what I hear, you pushed back.
[BO] I did. I remember the conversation, pretty precisely. He made the case for maximum flexibility and I said you know what if I were in your shoes I would be making the exact same argument because your job right now is to succeed in Iraq on as favorable terms as we can get. My job as a potential commander in chief is to view your counsel and your interests through the prism of our overall national security which includes what is happening in Afghanistan, which includes the costs to our image in the middle east, to the continued occupation, which includes the financial costs of our occupation, which includes what it is doing to our military. So I said look, I described in my mind at list an analogous situation where I am sure he has to deal with situations where the commanding officer in [inaudible] says I need more troops here now because I really think I can make progress doing x y and z. That commanding officer is doing his job in Ramadi, but Petraeus’s job is to step back and see how does it impact Iraq as a whole.
My argument was I have got to do the same thing here. And based on my strong assessment particularly having just come from Afghanistan were going to have to make a different decision. But the point is that hopefully I communicated to the press my complete respect and gratitude to him and Proder who was in the meeting for their outstanding work. Our differences don't necessarily derive from differences in sort of, or my differences with him don't derive from tactical objections to his approach. But rather from a strategic framework that is trying to take into account the challenges to our national security and the fact that we've got finite resources.
Read the full interview. I love the fact that Obama stood up to the mighty Petraeus and said if I'm the President, I make the calls in the end and not you. Bush used the good General to take the heat off himself for the disaster that is named Iraq and Afghanistan so that anyone disagreeing with Bush was actually attacking Petraues and by extension the military.
What a coward Bush is. It'll be a wonderful day when he is gone, but I think what this interview signals to me is that when the time is right, Petraeus will quit his job and turn into a full-on political machine. He's a darling of the right, and if you witnessed any of his briefings you know that he will love being in the limelight.
I think there is nearly zero chance that Petraeus is apolitical and I would bet good money that he is positioning himself for a role in shaping policy. His willingness to be used by the Bush administration proves it in my mind. in fac, his recent protestations of being above politics are actually very cunning --- if the country devolves back into angry partisanship, which it will (it always does), TMCP will be positioned to be the apolitical outsider with the leadership experience to lead us out of the darkness. There is no doubt in my mind that when he looks in the mirror he sees President Petraeus.
My suggestion to Obama: Watch your back.
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When he looks in the mirror, he says, "I have met the enemy"
The thing I hate most about the military is the glorification of
people like Patreaus and his career officer class. Have you ever
seen or been to shindigs these guys put on? OMG, spare no expense
for the
tools of the plutocracy. Oh and on 9/11/2001 where was our multi
trillion dollar defense system? Hmmm? Ever asked yourself where $300+
billion dollars a year does for you??
These creatures feed on words like honor, strength and leadership
while pointing a weapon at an old Iraqi woman. Men and women born
in trailer parks and ghetto's and mansions and military bases all
united in a common urge to splatter someone, anyone, all over the
street. Patreus is a senior administrator of the Imperial Guard!
Obama should hand him a broom and a mop.
You have ZERO idea what it takes to be in the military, zero. How dare you say that:
"These creatures feed on words like honor, strength and leadership
while pointing a weapon at an old Iraqi woman. Men and women born
in trailer parks and ghetto's and mansions and military bases all
united in a common urge to splatter someone, anyone, all over the
street."
Until you have walked the walk don't you dare vomit your drivel about our military.
to the truth...especially with an all-volunteer force...and in particular about the ways the language of patriotism, honor, etc, are used to manipulate and rationalize behavior...
don't romanticize warriors, please. they're dangerous enough when we treat 'em as 'protectors.' Even worse when we make 'em into heroes...
the only heroes are the guys who die for their buddies, imho...
17 years and counting. It takes a lot to be in today's military, in any military. Not all people in today's military are looking to kill, some serve their country because they are proud of their freedoms and serve to protect that.
I romanticize nothing, we live the life. Pretty funny this comes up one day after everyone shouts their support for the "troops" during their day off work.
Sickens me.
Many countries and cultures have idolized 'the military' through out the ages and they all went down the same road, and met the same fate.
Democracy and civilization dies, and something nasty emerges.
AND IT'S ALREADY HERE.
As a Vietnam vet who served from Feb 1966 to Feb1968 ,I have been asking the same question for the past 40 years! What the fuck does killing people(any people)military or civilians have to do with honor?I bet you don't know one end of a rifle from the other and you have probably never even fired a gun of any type and if you have , you've never killed anybody!Well guess what? I know that I had 1 face to face kill in Vietnam and I can assure you that there is NOTHING honorable about killing or injuring another human being! It's all about kill or be killed! Honor and military id truly a contradiction of terms!
Militarism - (noun) 1. The principle of maintaining a large military establishment. 2. The tendency to regard military efficiency as the supreme ideal of the state.
One can object to militarism without blaming ordinary members of the military. I'm a staunch opponent of militarism with a particular objection to its American manifestation, because I believe that we, as a constitutional republic, have a special obligation to set an example for the world and resist the tendency to sanctify military officers.
That said, as a working class person, I know all too well that most members of the military have no control over policy, are limited in their ability to speak out and have largely bought into a bill of goods they've been sold by those who seek to exploit them. This is all the more reason why those of us outside the military, veterans and non-veterans, have a greater responsibility as citizens to ensure that the military always remains subordinate to civilian leadership & that we, as a democratic society, resist militarism.
I truly enjoyed reading your response to this piece...Petraeus is a MAJOR POS....forget the broom, he needs to clean the house of every Mothers house in Iraq on his hands and knees while begging forgiveness for the atrocities ordered by him and his trained monkey bush on the innocent civilians of Iraq after he begs forgiveness from the Mothers of the brave US soldiers who gave their lives for the outright LIES...put the bastard on the front lines of Afghanistan with tissue paper for body armour...next stop the Hague
President Obama should ASK for his resignation. He's CLEARLY a REPUBLICAN PARTISAN For all practical purposes he campaigned in uniform for George Bush. He appears on FOX all the freaking time. He is NOT the right man for the job, and if he has any honor he will quit.
He's never served in combat (i.e., as a leader or commander of a combat unit).
He's best at gaming the military-political bureaucracy.
He's a clever little weasel who is held in contempt by a lot of high-ranking military officers, both active and retired.
No doubt he's been groomed to run for office, at taxpayer expense.
OMG what if Patraeus becomes the new Republican flag-bearer in 2012?
The thought of Petreaus/Palin in 2012: there be monsters here.
If Obama does it right, he will have endured the toughest 8 years a POTUS ever will. He will have to deal with rightist adversaries like a healthy person in a city full of zombies.
bush has destroyed everything he has touched
and before he leaves office, he is set in completely
destroying the morality, economy and the constitution
of the United States. with his threat to sign
90+ more of his fucking
illegal signingsdirectives,he is set to make sure that Obama will has a hard if
not impossible task of establishing national healthcare,
stabilizing the economy, or bringing home the troops.
bush/cheney are the real enemy combatants of the
United States. i have said this for 5 yrs now,
why doesn't anyone listen. the whimps pleosi and
reed, need to be replaced with strong ethical leaders
for each house.
this country deserves great leaders now like Obama
and not fucking assholes like bush, pelosi and reed.
and Obama is being cordial in response.
Which means Bush skates.
More of the same.
With more polish, intelligence, likability.
Welcome to Bush 2.3.
Since when was cordiality defined as conspiracy or acquiecence?
You did what you did.
I'll do what I do.
... I always (and probably will always) view Gen. Petraeus as the "survivor" of the Bush-Cheney purges of our Military leadership. Either through removal or resignation, every General above him with the good sense to disagree with the White House War Plans and the integrity to say so vacated Petraeus' path of ascendancy.
In other words, Petraeus is either the highest-ranking officer who is either stupid enough to agree with the Bush-Cheney way of doing things or is unprincipled enough to go along despite misgivings, in exchange for personal advancement.
To his "credit" I assume it is the former, rather than the latter, and I do expect he'll be retiring sooner rather than later.
One question I have is whether or not our decimated military leadership will see the "unretirement" of any of those previously purged.
What the hell is a general talking at a right wing group for? If he is supposed to be apolitical he was supposed to know better. Get his ass off Iraq.
Breaking one of the golden rules of serving soldiers or even reserve soldiers, no politics in uniform.
Grunts get court marshaled or have their discharge status changed if they do a fraction of this.
OMG, before we shipped out to Panama and eventually nastier places
in Central America, our Sergeant Major sat the entire battalion
down for a lecture on the role we would play in saving our
hemisphere from communist aggression. He didn't get court
martialed. Politics is Soldiering, soldiering is politics!!
What happens in a pep talk inside the mil, to a serving or reserve officer/grunt doing politics in uniform outside the mil.
Go google up what happened to the various discharged but still on the reserve lists people who are busy in the anti war movement.
Theres been many attempted and actual court martials and discharge status changes.
Step outside your mil firewall and go google reality.
a primary with Petreus vs. Palin. That ought to be fun. (Rubs hands together)
More like Petraeus/Palin 2012...
But first the primaries. Tee hee.
The one needed by bean counter officers when they want senior staff positions, ie the combat medal, placed demo charges masquerading as mortar attacks dont count as combat.
The journalists account of that 'attack' doesnt match up with the official version.
the hot air from those two will increase global warming.
(To Liberty Lover @15:21)
Post-Election-Withdrawl-Syndrome:
The feeling of general depletion and emptiness in the few days after a presidential election. Caused by the sudden withdrawal of any campaign coverage, sound bites, or pictures of babies being kissed. May be accompanied by aimless clicking on news websites looking for something to read.
*NOTE: This condition has been observed in people whether their chosen candidate won or not.
Wife, to her Doctor: "I'm worried about my husband. Ever since the 4th, he's just been sitting at home wandering the New York Times and CNN for hours on end."
Doctor: "I wouldn't worry about it. He probably just has an acute case of PEWS. He should be back on his feet by the end of the week."
Here's a little video to explain:
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_w...
Perhaps just a wee bit. ;)
I am getting my life back together though... there's laundry to do, de-cluttering to do, bailing out AIG (again !!!!!) and just a smidge of re-regulating... just busy busy busy with things I should have done months and months ago. ;)
Dwight Eisenhower.
Much depends on what happens in the world and how successful Obama is at containing America's neocon imperialistic drives and instead truly addressing terrorism. EVERYTHING rides on this. We don't need a blurring of the line between government and the military, which is what Bush enabled by essentially giving Petraeus a free hand. If Obama is strong against terrorism in the world and works with other countries to contain and/or subdue it and keeps us out of perpetual war, he will have earned his CIC stripes.
Petraeus may grab for the golden ring anyway. I suppose the silver lining is that he'd be in competition with Sarah Palin for the presidency. The two of them running for the presidency certainly suggests a cognitive dissonance that would occur among Republicans.
If Petraeus would be stupid enough to back stab Obama he would be sacked faster than Detroit Lion quaterback and he his great carrer would be over and his legend done with. His pol obj are done with also, he is a lap dog of Bush and that will be burned onto his cheek to bear for the rest of his life.
He's a neocon hack. Pick his brain,then...OUT.
So there's nothing in his brain worth picking.
...good point!..lol (keep your enemys close..shhhhh)
and I'm glad Obama laid out his exit terms. being a tool of boosh is not a way of padding your resume. If he wants to be president, I guess he'll have to take credit for the 'surge' just like mccain. The stench of defeat will be terrible for him, especially since he can't take credit for anything good about the war, as if anything good about the war based on lies could ever exist.
he is a lobbyist for the MIC and he will remain there as long as his handlers and Obama let him.
make no mistake the MIC has the goods on Obama or he never would have been elected
Petraeus may be up the creek without a paddle if he wants to influence the administration after leaving.
From Obama's website:
you can tell how much humanity a man poseses by wether hes willing to waste a life for a useless cause, obama if he is sincere in his promiss to take afganistan because of a lie has little to recomend for his character, i wonder how many here or even if obama would sacrifice his kids for virtually nothing!
He's just like many in the military hierarchy, that care more about advancement, than about the elisted personnel. Not once did I ever hear him mention that the "Surge" was only a part of the decline in violence. He didn't mention that they were paying the Sunni Awakening to stand-down, and that Baghdad was virtually partitioned and had been ethnically cleansed by the Sunnis.
The strategy clearly worked for Eisenhower in his time, but there is a major difference now. Eisenhower actually helped win that war, and more importantly the peace. Petraeus on the other hand has failed to come up with a strategy that even appears like a success.
Mosul is currently going through the meat grinder, its the last unconquered (or out of the loop) and restless Iraqi city on the list to be pacified.
Population of 1.8 million and the third largest city in Iraq, expect 10-20% civilian casualties (dead and wounded).
This is the miserable reality of 'surges'
You are nuts
Eisenhower was always political (you don't get that many stars without it), but while wearing the uniform he was sufficiently non-tilted as to be courted by both political parties. Compare that to MacArthur. After having been virtual ruler of Japan, he went on to try to trump Truman and become virtual ruler of the U.S. Not only did he always want to be president, he seems actually to have considered himself president during the Korean war.
You're absolutely right. Petraeus is much more like MacArthur than was MacArthur, if that's even possible, and we all know how that all ended. Oh right, it didn't end. We still got troops in Korea.
I've been saying it for more than a year. Petraeus will retire next year and will either run for national office in 2012, or for the Senate in 2010. And, no, not as a Democrat.
I've always had the impression that Patraeus is a BushCo lapdog. I wouldn't be surprised if on inauguration day, all the nation's tv screens go blank to be replaced by a waving flag with martial music playing in the background. General Patraeus' head will then fill the screen telling Americans to stay calm and in their homes and that he is now in full control.
Although at least North was better at covering up his lies.
A small point -- General Petraeus isn't IN the administration. The only general officer who is a member of the administration, strictly speaking, is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is the president's personal military adviser (according to the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986).
Shag12 has obviously missed a lot of Petraeus' commentary. He is the first to say that much of the credit for the decline in sectarian violence is due to the "Anbar Awakening," the "Sons of Iraq," and so forth.
I'm sure he's "political" in the sense of having political preferences, but as a veteran of Iraq I have to say I've found him to be fair in his assessments. It was, after all, Petraeus who completely undermined McCain's "victory in Iraq" talking point by saying that (a) the Surge did not produce a "victory" in any sense of the term and (b) Iraq is not the kind of war that ends in a "victory."
anytime the preznitwit says your in charge, then you're in. that's it!!!
according to the New Yorker.
Rockefeller Republican = term favored by so-called RINOs like Snowe and Collins.
You have to wonder how many Republicans are willing to swallow that.
and a run for the republican nomination. He is reported to have expressed strong interest some time back in running. Who is going to run against him - Palin? She has no a chance. If Petraeus wants the nomination it is his.
Interesting post. However, I've always believed (perhaps wrongly, but nonetheless) that General Petreus and most other military were committed to their troups. With that being said, I would assume that Petreus would remain where he is for that reason as well as the prestige of potentially being successful in Afghanistan and Iraq. History will tell this story with Petreus as the hero, if all works out well in the end. What General could refuse that?
Please describe "success" in Iraq or Afghanistan for me.
Pentagon report says excessive military spending is a national security threat.
[BO] I did. I remember the conversation, pretty precisely. He made the case for maximum flexibility and I said you know what if I were in your shoes I would be making the exact same argument because your job right now is to succeed in Iraq on as favorable terms as we can get. My job as a potential commander in chief is to view your counsel and your interests through the prism of our overall national security which includes what is happening in Afghanistan, which includes the costs to our image in the middle east, to the continued occupation, which includes the financial costs of our occupation, which includes what it is doing to our military. So I said look, I described in my mind at list an analogous situation where I am sure he has to deal with situations where the commanding officer in [inaudible] says I need more troops here now because I really think I can make progress doing x y and z. That commanding officer is doing his job in Ramadi, but Petraeus’s job is to step back and see how does it impact Iraq as a whole.
My argument was I have got to do the same thing here. And based on my strong assessment particularly having just come from Afghanistan were going to have to make a different decision. But the point is that hopefully I communicated to the press my complete respect and gratitude to him and Proder who was in the meeting for their outstanding work. Our differences don't necessarily derive from differences in sort of, or my differences with him don't derive from tactical objections to his approach. But rather from a strategic framework that is trying to take into account the challenges to our national security and the fact that we've got finite resources.
It is going to be amazing to have a leader that can formulate a coherent argument while speaking with authority and in a language that is both poetic and succinct! I am looking forward to hearing our new president speak- just speaking with such clarity will make great strides in solving what ails us...
Are we going to try to purge our military of the remaining strategists like the Republicans are trying to purge their intellectuals? Is that what the victory we have fought so hard for finally signifies? Ideological purity?
The Bush Administration politicized everything they touched. Before flying off the handle can we please see if our military generals were forced to be political by a brazen Republican Administration or were always Political beasts waiting for the stage?
See my post above for reference. Bear in mind that Petraeus is the "last man standing" after the ideological purge you reference. What does that say about him?
Maybe we don't know right now. We will learn more when we see how he responds to leadership that actually asserts itself beyond merely sifting through the deck for "yes men".
I support our troops and want whats best for them. Bring them home, give the care that they need, not only from physical wounds but also mental wounds that may never go away. What sickens me is the current VA system for a veteran to wait 4 months for a PTSD counseling is criminal. The Bush war machine has no planning, no end game, no long term support for the current and eventual needs of our Vets, but has the gall to question others patriotism biased on the republican rational.
Again its the Democrats that are left to clean up the mess the Republican have made of things. In the years to come as we need to invest more and more into helping soldiers returning from Iraq and the cost skyrockets , I'm sure the Republicans will say see I told you Democrats raised the taxes to support frivolous programs.
We need to kick all Republican out of office and make a law so no others can attempt to ruin the great country ever again.
You want to go---GO!!! The Iraq war is a crock of s#$%. It grinds up our soldiers and spits them out. End it.
Lying and spinning piece of shit republican.
Better yet, just give him the regulation combat 'boot' out the door on Jan 20, along with everyone else who kowtowed to 43's wishes. The voters said that's all OK.
to that!
Petraeus has been Bush's puppet and allowed thousands of soldiers to die without protecting them. He's the worse General ever. He even lied to Congress for the President. Obama knows and has watched the disgraceful conduct of this turn coat. It was sad to see our troops had no Generals that supported them but for the money and the promotions followed the Bush Policy. I look forward to a clean slate and new honest leadership.
I think America is less vulnerable to McCarthyism than to MacArthur-ism, going all the way back to our founding & the lionization of General Washington. We tend to place our military leaders on an unrealistic pedestal that's unhealthy for democracy. It's one of the romantic holdovers of the Roman Republic that we inherited from our founders. It's understandable - they were revolutionaries with an immediate need for leadership and honor from a military that was largely composed of militias. However, the successful result of that revolution was to subordinate the military to civilian leadership in the American republic.
Looks like it's long past time for another screening of, "Seven Days In May." President Obama could do a lot worse than to emulate Fredric March's fictional President in Seven Days In May. Whereas
Col. Ollie NorthGeneral Petraeus should be trying to live up to Kirk Douglas' honest Colonel, not Burt Lancaster's power-mad fascist General.Login or Register to post comments.