MoveOn Moonbats Slander Petraeus...surprised?

I have been vocal that I think Bush screwed up royally in Iraq and I'm generally not a big fan of the military brass, but I find their attack on Gen. Petraeus deeply offensive. Reasonable people can differ about the best course of action, but it is totally out of bounds to suggest that a general is acting treasonously simply because he doesn't favor an immediate pull-out.

 

Petraeus Responds to MoveOn.org

By Amanda Carpenter
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The top military commander in Iraq responded to an advertisement the anti-war lobby MoveOn.org published in the New York Times that accused him of betrayal at the National Press Club Wednesday morning.

Army General David H. Petraeus told a group of reporters: “Needless to say— and to state the obvious—I disagree with the message of those that were exercising the First Amendment right that generations of soldiers have sought to preserve for Americans. Some of it was just flat, completely wrong and the rest was at least more than arguable.”

On Monday morning, when Petraeus and Crocker made their first appearance to testify before Congress about progress being made in Iraq, MoveOn.org bought an ad in the New York Times that carried the large title: “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?”

“He is just trying to cook the books for the White House,” the ad said. “Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.”

The spot also characterized Petraeus as a “military man constantly at war with the facts” who “will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war.”

Throughout the week, anti-war protesters, largely represented by Code Pink, interrupted Petraeus’ and Crocker’s three Congressional hearings. One sign carried outside the hearing rooms said: “GENERALS LIE, CHILDREN DIE.” On the first day of hearings, nine protestors, including Cindy Sheehan, were arrested by Capitol Hill police.

When Petraeus and Crocker testified to the House on Monday, the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee Rep. Ike Skelton (D.-Mo.) severely rebuked those who sought to interrupt his hearing and warned them they would be prosecuted. When protesters interrupted the Foreign Affairs committee hearing on Tuesday, however, Chairman Sen. Joe Biden (D.-Del.) said nothing.

The same group of protesters followed Petraeus and Crocker to the National Press Club Wednesday. One protester was dressed as Satan. He wore a face mask to resemble President Bush and carried a sign said: “I’ve got Petraeus by the SOUL.”

After the Moveon.Org advertisement ran on Monday, Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) introduced a resolution which “strongly condemn[ed] personal attacks” against Petraeus and indicated support for all members of the Armed services. When it was offered Wednesday on the Senate floor, the Democratic Majority Whip, Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) used a parliamentary move, called a point of order based on “germaneness,” against the measure to prevent the Senate from voting on it.

 

From the halls of Malibu to the shores of Kennedy

By Ann Coulter
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Democrats claim Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress on the surge was a put-up job with a pre-ordained conclusion. As if their response wasn't.

Democrats yearn for America to be defeated on the battlefield and oppose any use of the military -- except when they can find individual malcontents in the military willing to denounce the war and call for a humiliating retreat.

It's been the same naysaying from these people since before we even invaded Iraq -- despite the fact that their representatives in Congress voted in favor of that war.

Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down," warned Americans in the Aug. 30, 2002, Los Angeles Times of 60,000 to 100,000 dead American troops if we invaded Iraq -- comparing an Iraq war to Vietnam and a Russian battle in Chechnya. He said Iraqis would fight the Americans "tenaciously" and raised the prospect of Saddam using weapons of mass destruction against our troops, an attack on Israel "and possibly in the United States."

On Sept. 14, 2002, The New York Times' Frank Rich warned of another al-Qaida attack in the U.S. if we invaded Iraq, noting that since "major al-Qaida attacks are planned well in advance and have historically been separated by intervals of 12 to 24 months, we will find out how much we've been distracted soon enough."

This week makes it six years since a major al-Qaida attack. I guess we weren't distracted. But it looks like al-Qaida has been.

Weeks before the invasion, in March 2003, the Times' Nicholas Kristof warned in a couple of columns that if we invaded Iraq, "the Turks, Kurds, Iraqis and Americans will all end up fighting over the oil fields of Kirkuk or Mosul." He said: "The world has turned its back on the Kurds more times than I can count, and there are signs that we're planning to betray them again." He announced that "the United States is perceived as the world's newest Libya."

The day after we invaded, Kristof cited a Muslim scholar for the proposition that if Iraqis felt defeated, they would embrace Islamic fundamentalism.

We took Baghdad in about 17 days flat with amazingly few casualties. There were no al-Qaida attacks in America, no attacks on Israel, no invasion by Turkey, no attacks on our troops with chemical weapons, no ayatollahs running Iraq. We didn't turn our back on the Kurds. There were certainly not 100,000 dead American troops.

But liberals soon began raising yet more pointless quibbles. For most of 2003, they said the war was a failure because we hadn't captured Saddam Hussein. Then we captured Saddam, and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean complained that "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer." (On the other hand, Howard Dean's failure to be elected president definitely made America safer.)

Next, liberals said the war was a failure because we hadn't captured Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Then we killed al-Zarqawi and a half-dozen of his aides in an air raid. Then they said the war was a failure because ... you get the picture.

The Democrats' current talking point is that "there can be no military solution in Iraq without a political solution." But back when we were imposing a political solution, Democrats' talking point was that there could be no political solution without a military solution.

They said the first Iraqi election, scheduled for January 2005, wouldn't happen because there was no "security."

Noted Middle East peace and security expert Jimmy Carter told NBC's "Today" show in September 2004 that he was confident the elections would not take place. "I personally do not believe they're going to be ready for the election in January ... because there's no security there," he said.

At the first presidential debate in September 2004, Sen. John Kerry used his closing statement to criticize the scheduled Iraqi elections saying: "They can't have an election right now. The president's not getting the job done."

About the same time, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he doubted there would be elections in January, saying, "You cannot have credible elections if the security conditions continue as they are now" -- although he may have been referring here to a possible vote of the U.N. Security Council.

In October 2004, Nicholas Lemann wrote in The New Yorker that "it may not be safe enough there for the scheduled elections to be held in January."

Days before the first election in Iraq in January 2005, The New York Times began an article on the election this way:

"Hejaz Hazim, a computer engineer who could not find a job in computers and now cleans clothes, slammed his iron into a dress shirt the other day and let off a burst of steam about the coming election.

"'This election is bogus,' Mr. Hazim said. 'There is no drinking water in this city. There is no security. Why should I vote?'"

If there's a more artful articulation of the time-honored linkage between drinking water and voting, I have yet to hear it.

And then, as scheduled, in January 2005, millions of citizens in a country that has never had a free election risked their lives to cast ballots in a free democratic election. They've voted twice more since then.

Now our forces are killing lots of al-Qaida jihadists, preventing another terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and giving democracy in Iraq a chance -- and Democrats say we are "losing" this war. I think that's a direct quote from their leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, but it may have been the Osama bin Laden tape released this week. I always get those two confused.

OK, they knew what Petraeus was going to say. But we knew what the Democrats were going to say. If liberals are not traitors, their only fallback argument at this point is that they're really stupid.

 

ABC/BBC/NHK Poll: Nearly 70 Percent Of Iraqis Say Escalation ‘Has Worsened’ Their Lives



Overall conditions:

39 percent say “their lives are going well,” down from 71 percent in Nov. 2005.

23 percent say things will be better in a year, one-third of the Nov. 2005 level.

23 percent report “effective reconstruction efforts in their local area,” down 10 points since March.

On the U.S. presence:

79 percent oppose the presence of coalition forces, unchanged since winter.

63 percent say it was wrong for the U.S. to have invaded Iraq, up from 52 percent in March and 39 percent in Feb. 2004.

47 percent now favor “immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces,” a 12-point rise since March.

-----------

Iraq is really coming along well for those people.

The doozy had to be :

Senator John Warner (R-VA), on Petraeus' strategy in Iraq: “Does that make America safer?”

Petraeus: “Sir, I-I don’t know, actually."


Someone forgot to give the good general the patented neocon propaganda card to read from linking the continuous fighting in Iraq and how safe America is because of it. And the financial cost to this war is what $500 billion now? For what?

 

More political grandstanding by idiot politicians. An irrelevant question to be asked of Bush, his administration, and everyone that voted for the war authority, not the General. The General has nothing to do with that, and it's not his concern.
More to the point, the fact that Dem leaders stand in silence while move on spews their bullshit is far more treasonous than the General giving his status report. The one thing that Dems can fuck up next years, "sure thing election" is to continue associating themselves with the radical left.

 

I'm not a John Warner fan, but doesn't his question go to the only justifiable reason for being there? I understand that he was trying to toss the General a softball and moreover, I don't know that Patraeus is qualified to answer it anyway. But still, if that isn't our objective, why are we there?

One of the problems with President Clinton was his proclivity to put the military into these can't win nation-building missions. They are not suited for it, and there is little to no benefit to our country from them. Yet here we are, spending a fortune on what has become the mac daddy of nation-building exercises. And what will we get in the end if we "win?" A fundamentalist islamist country with enormous oil revenues aligned with Iran.

On the other hand, following the democrat strategy of "surrender now" will likely produce a terrorist haven in Iraq, a tremendous PR victory for al qaeda and an even more dangerous Iran-Iraq axis.

Certainly it is a big mess, and neither party has an attractive solution.

 

Seems that Admiral Fallon (head of Centcom) is on the same page as Moveon:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39235
"Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior. "

Was Admiral Fallon telling the truth, or slandering General "Betray us?"

 

The Betrayal the American people have suffered has come at the hands of the Democratic Congress. George Bush never claimed he was going to do anything but bring us into war. This Democratic Congress on the otherhand was brought into power, ending a decade of Republican rule, specifically because they promised the American people they would get us out of Iraq, and they would do it quickly. They have done nothing, they have not even tried to do anything unless you could "Non binding resolutions" saying "We don't like you" as something. Petraeus is an American Soldier doing his job to the best of his abilities given the number of straight jackets he has had put on him from every side, no Betrayal there. Again, the only betrayal I see is from the democratic party against those who voted them into power.

Brandon

 

Bush is in charge and has been in charge.

Why are you blaming Congress?

The US Congress is a irrelevant rubber stamping body of corruption.

As with everyone that Bush has appointed, Petraeus was appointed not because of competency, but because he is a loyal ass licker.

Religious fringe lunatics who now control the levers of power are the problem.

It's people like you who voted for Bush. The problems afflicting the US begin with you. Look into the mirror, that's where the problem is located.

The irrelevant, incompetent Congress is not the problem.



U.S.-IRAQ: Fallon Derided Petraeus, Opposed the Surge
By Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Sep 12 (IPS) - In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.

Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

 

it really blows my mind how many people voted for this catastrophic presidency just because he was the republican/religious choice

how could any normal person be such a colossally bad judge of character and motive? the average person is extremely manipulable (not directed at you brandon)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S3xeMNJMRg

people who obsess over left/right are suckers