And most importantly, it is none of Biden’s or Boxer’s or any other American’s business how Iraq is configured, or how Iraqis run their lives and their country.

Please contact your Senators and tell them not to support this bill!

[< ]A HREF=”HTTP LINK GOES HERE”[>]NAME OF LINK GOES HERE[< ]/A[>]

Example:

[< ]A HREF=”http://noquarterusa.net/”[>]Larry Johnson’s No Quarter blog[< ]/A[>]

– just remove the brackets [], and the code is all there

Oh, and I heard that the General Betray Us moniker originated among U.S. soldiers under Petraeus’ command over in Iraq, long before the MoveOn ad and before it was used against Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican, who was called Senator Betray Us by another Republican.

I believe our soldiers in Iraq came up with this derisive name for General Petraeus in response to our soldiers having their tour in Iraq extended from 12 months to 15 months, as well as stop-loss measures and multiple tours. Having enlisted and served in the U.S. military years ago, and having participated in late-night bull sessions discussing officers, I find this credible.

The General, a fitness compulsive who excels at pushups, has given much time to hosting congressional delegations and providing journalists with interviews, which he often conducts amid the stirring atmospherics of his airborne command helicopter.

He observed that American public opinion often wavers during a protracted conflict, and he quoted General George C. Marshall’s admonition that “a democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War”; his tone betrayed a hint of professional irritation at weak-kneed tendencies among the people [HMMMMMPH!]. Still, Petraeus could see that not all counterinsurgencies are easily won, no matter the public’s fortitude.

Um, so maybe the proper conclusion is that democracies have no business fighting counterinsurgencies. And I don’t know why Petraeus is using Northern Ireland as an example. The point is, the Brits eventually gave up there and sensibly looked for an exit strategy.

on another topic.. that WAPo story about the missing nukes.. Even though it’s alarming they stored non-Nuke weapons in the same bunker as the nuclear bombs..Wouldn’t you at least store them on opposite sides of the bunker? It seems like a real mess up there in Minot ND.
And what good does it do to Bar code Nuclear weapons if the system doesn’t work? Does FED-EX need to train the Air Force? How about using radio ID tags? My gawd these are nuclear weapons and the technology seems to be stuck in the 60’s.

fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars

Whatever the number is, “multiple” means ANY number greater than one. My guess is, they would see ‘more greater’ as better than ‘less greater’.

I don’t know of a specific relationship between Petraeus and PNAC, but his view would seem to enable making this happen.

According to the Bush Doctrine, just as many as They want!

What the hell does this mean?

Petraeus saw the [Powell] doctrine as potentially unrealistic because small, nasty wars—where there would be no “clear-cut distinction between peace and war”—seemed to him the coming trend. He quoted approvingly former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger’s belief that the United States should not limit itself to fighting only “popular, winnable wars.”

How many more wars are they planning?

More likely, the General sees himself as scrapping toward a moderately intolerable mess in Iraq, as an alternative to utter cataclysm.

If we combine this with the recent WH rhetoric changing our goal from “victory” to “success”, the only missing piece is for WH to redefine “success” as a “moderately intolerable mess”. Sounds like a useful argument for a Dem POTUS candidate.

So what about the current Dem front runner by double digits? During Hillary’s round of the Sunday talk shows, she told Wolf Blitzer:

I don’t believe we should continue to vote for funding that has an open-ended commitment, that has no pressure on the Iraqi government to make the tough political decisions they have to make, or which really gives any urgency to the Bush administration’s diplomatic efforts.

A quote to remember, which either means she’s announcing she’ll vote no on funding for continuing current policy, or she’ll find an excuse to accept that policy is changing, which would leave her open to be called a liar. I suspect she intends to follow through and vote no. Whatever else she is, she’s not stupid.

And in other military opinion, according to AP
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070924/ap_on_re_us/iran_us;_ylt=AgH7YSnpwXS0fYgDMYSq1Xms0NUE

“This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me, which is not helpful and not useful,” Adm. William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command, told Al-Jazeera television, which made a partial transcript available Sunday.

He was speaking to the possibility of attacking Iran. Parallel to Hillary, he’s either stating he’s against giving the order to attack, or he’s setting himself up to be called a liar. Will he take a career hit over an order to attack Iran?

P.S. Dear Editor, New Yorker: Would you PLEASE, for the love of Pete, get a decent search engine? At the New Yorker site, I searched for “Coll Patraeus” and couldn’t find

it’s pEtraeus. with an e.

also, don’t know if they like the + thingie. eg, coll + petraeus.

~~~
and disgusted in st. louis….if you’re in stl we’re probably not too far from each other. email me if ya want.

susan, i authorize you to give disgusted in st. louis my email address.

Thanks Susan for pointing out this great article.

Try Petraeus in the search engine - all kinds of stuff comes up.