An Interview with GEN David Petraeus
By streiff Posted in War — Comments (18) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Blogs are slowly but surely making the transition from observers to news makers. Our own Victoria Coates and Jeff Emanuel will be traveling to Iraq and reporting on developments (click to donate).
Richard Lowry posting at Op-For landed an interview with General Dave Petraeus. Check it out.
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An Interview with GEN David Petraeus 18 Comments (0 topical, 18 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
if you spent half as much time reading the story as shooting your mouth off, you'd wouldn't make such an ass of yourself.
The writer isn't Rich Lowry of National Review. They only mention his background twice in the story. I can see how you missed it.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
Silly me.
Of course, making that mistake just totally invalidates everything else I said. Because, as anyone reading my post knows, everything I said is totally dependent on the writer being Rich Lowry from National Review and not some other writer who has boosted the war and is now saying things like 'dire' in regards to the situation.
Obviously, it was all about Rich Lowry and not about the whiplash of 'we're winning' versus 'dire,' or about the Iraqis themselves.
Perhaps I'll take a trip to Europe and acquaint myself with Dhimmitude as penance for skimming the article a bit too quickly.
Because you ignore the interview and base your critique on it being Rich Lowry of NRO. Really, they said who the guy was twice. It really demonstrates you never read the article, say Lowry's name and had a near aneurysm. If you won't read it, why should anyone take your view on it seriously?
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
You wrote an entire bitter post about how this article shows that conservatives (as exemplified by Lowry) are changing their story on Iraq; but when it gets pointed out to you that your framework for said post is based on a mistake, you decide to get huffy about it. A simple 'oops' and 'my mistake' would have been smarter.
Sheesh.
Moe
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
I'd want to be a contributor?
Some stuff on Red State is decent, especially the social conservatism.
I agree with the articles slamming Dhimmitude in Europe and defending traditional Christian values.
But, too much here I can't abide to actually put my name on the top line.
1. It's not "Petraes". It's "Petraeus".
2. This is a whole different richard Lowry, not the NR one.
3. There's been a lively argument going on between those who wanted to stay the course and those who wanted a new course with the attendant tactics, strategy, personnel, etc here on RS and elsewhere. You would have to be an idiot, or a member of the MSM to miss that.
Thanks for posting this, great interview.
spell checker! That's awesome of you to point out, also, that I missed the author's name.
And the lively debate on Red State? I must say, I seem to have missed that on the part of most major contributors. I'm sure if I Google hard then I'll come up with most major contributors putting out pieces that tracked the administration's line at the time, which was the general flow of right-wing punditry.
If you'd like to know where to begin, you might want to actually go for the discussion itself rather than the spelling.
Just a suggestion, though.
The fact that Septembergurl forgot to capitalize richard Lowry, for example, should not be used to belittle the content of her comment.
It's always fascinating when one of you guys comes back. Validates the whole purpose of the site: if we're ticking you off to the point that you feel the compulsion to reregister, we must be doing something right.
Bored now.
The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC.
As a very minor contributor to RS I've actually made your argument re Iraq/Rumsfeld etc many times but I guess I don't count *sniff*
The only people who truly know what's going on in Iraq are the people there. Bush's big mistake was letting Rummy run this war into the dirt and killing our chances in 06. Now Bush is paying the price with a Democratic congress. Rumfeld ignored the generals or the generals were clueless. Either way, Rumsfeld wasted 2 years and now we're starting over from scratch. Bottom line: Of course bloggers and pundits are going to give the "stay the course" line. They don't have a clue what's really going on. Even guys like Michael Yon probably only know half of the real story.
Where to start? Of course, we're hardly "starting from scratch" in Iraq--I know we take these things for granted now, but you might recall that we've deposed Saddam and he's been tried and executed. The Iraqis wrote a constituttion and elected a government which has proven more stable than the government of Italy. We have trained ISF that can now participated in a meaningful way in the recent security initiative, which is a major difference from previous efforts. All this occured while Mr. Rumsfeld, as you so eloquently put it, was running the war into the dirt. Yeah, that's really starting from scratch.
And just out of curiousity, how do you have the full picture when Michael has only half?
"I'm kind of old-fashioned. I like to engage my brain before my mouth." Donald Rumsfeld
that progress has been slow and the past 4 years have established the basis for moving forward. That would be three alternatives to consider, and a positive one, so I can see how you overlooked it. Too much work.
"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling
in a manner that reflects politics at home in order to secure support from their citizens. Take for example the British government prior to El Alemain. For good and sufficient political reasons, Chirchill diverted men and material from General Aukenchek (sic) in North Africa to Greece and Crete. The divertd men and material was not sufficient to prevent the loss of Greece and Crete but, the loss of the men and material was sufficient to cause the loss of Tobruk.
With a dissatisfied populace and a developing opposition in Parlement, the British government had to act. Sacking Churchill was unthinkable so Aukenchek (sic) was removed and Bernard Law Montgomery was placed in command. Aukenchek (sic) had already planned for the upcoming battle of El Alemain and, except for a few minor changes, Aukenchek's (sic) tacics were responsible for the British victory although Montgomery got the credit.
In my opinion, Rumsfeld has been unfairly treated. Operating in a completely new kind of war, Rumsfeld has made mistakes but I believe that any one else would have made the same mistakes or more mistakes. The American military is engaged in a learning process in both Iraq and Afganistan. a learning process means that there is no "yellow brick road" of prior military activities that commanders can use as a guide. The troops on the ground are writing the manuals as they go.
Future historians will give Rumsfeld the recognition that his president and country has denied.
Pardon my spelling mistakes. I should not write before coffee.
"Interesting, what you don’t have there (Ramadi) is sectarian violence. What you have there is Al-Qaeda and other insurgent elements that want to return Saddam, create a caliphate [or] do any number of different things.”
For people who are supposed to be so dead set against each other, the Saddamites and the al-Qaeda thugs have a very symbiotic relationship. Must be the thug thing - birds of a feather, flock together and all that.
gotten Republicans in trouble over the past few years are in Rich Lowry's intro to the piece.
But, the official line from the party and on this blog was that the situation wasn't dire. We were winning, the bad guys were on the run, the tactics employed were sound, and that only lefty naysayers were prattling on about a civil war, etc.
In fact, as the line went, the situation in Iraq was being distorted by leftist news organizations who were systematically under-reporting U.S. successes while trying to sap public opinion and help the terrorists.
Now, of course, we have Rich Lowry of National Review calling the situation 'dire.'
Many conservatives have been thinking for quite a while that the situation in Iraq was not particularly rosy. Rather than meet that head-on, the administration treated us to slogans such as 'Stay the course,' until after the election when Rummy was sacked and we got the Surge. I'm fine with the 'Surge,' though it probably would have been a good idea a year or more earlier.
But, couldn't conservatives be forgiven a little whiplash here? "Everything is fine! Fine! Fine! Wait, it isn't, but our new strategy will fix it! The situation is dire, bleak even, but we will put it to rights!"
Straight talk before now out of conservative punditry would have been much appreciated.
Or, is Rich Lowry exaggerating now for effect and the truth is not so 'dire?' Is that a poor word choice?
Again, please forgive conservative confusion over this. Should I believe Rich before the election, or after the election?
Also, nice line about how if anyone can bring stability to Iraq it is Petraes.
Nice applause line, only one major problem with it.
The only ones who can bring stability to Iraq are the Iraqis. That's what this is all about. Not Petraes, not the U.S. military. In the end, it is all about the Iraqis. Either they will bring stability and learn to live together.
Or they won't. We may be biding time for the silent majority of Western-leaning Iraqis to build a stable, representative government that will respect human rights and provide a beacon of civil liberties for the region.
Or we could be helping an Islamist-minded majority Shia population beat down and control restive Sunni elements on the way towards birthing a mini-Iran.
Or something in between.
In the end, it is up to the Iraqis to decide this. On this blog, most posters are basically arguing a view of what they think the Iraqis to be. This is the view of 'Iraq the model,' that Iraqis are mostly secular, pro-Western, and ready to live in peace.
If you're wrong on that score, and it turns out that most Iraqis aren't much different than the nutcases who set Europe on fire over cartoons, then all of this pro-Democracy crusade goes up in smoke.
(I do find it somewhat instructive that some of the most anti-Islamic posters are also the most in-favor of the idea that Iraqis can build a stable Democracy. Our Muslims in Iraq must be different than that nasty other kind which are in the process of turning Europeans into Dhimmi.)
None of that has anything to do, actually, with General Petraes.
May God have mercy on us this Holy Week, and into the next year.