Petraeus: The Surge is Working, Premature Pull-Out Would Be Devastating

I think at this point there is a shift that has to be recognized....and that's "victory" in Iraq is not acheivable by our forces.

The goal isn't now to build a nation as it is to exit without leaving a human disaster or an even more bloody civil war.

So I think we should have a timetable for withdrawal now put into place, with a slow pull back now and a more substantial pullout beginning in a year - just in time for the 2008 elections to take the pressure of the GOP's running.

Nevertheless, it will give time for the Iraqi army to slowly take control, and hopefully we'll be down to support staff and training inside of 2 years.

 

You have been arguing against every previous commander on the ground, so maybe you can give us some tips when it comes to arguing against Patraeus.

Patraeus just did Bush's job of moving the goal posts yet again.

 

It seems like it, but it's not really a compromise at all. The US Army and Marines are out of men, according to the JCS. By April 2008 there will be no more fresh (or even semi-fresh) divisions to rotate in.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...7/07/31/AR2007073100990.html?nav=rss_politics

The surge is ending within 6 monthsr but not because anybody decided to end it or because "we won", but because it has to.

 

It is tough to argue with the guys on the ground, however the generalship has sovled this problem by ignoring the guys on the ground.

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

 

Well I am going to argue with the general on the ground.

You are crazy if you think things have gotten signifigantly better, ya sure they might be slightly better if you do something arbitrary like count the number of car bombs over a couple months. Or count the number of random people shot in the front of the head vs back of the head.

There are still tons of attacks across Iraq every day.
9 US soldiers were killed today.
There are still 2 groups of people in Iraq that hate each other, and that will not change with a good 'surge'
According to a BBC poll today, 57% of Iraqis endorse attacks on US troops.

I agree its a horrible time to pull out, however I also understand that it will ALWAYS be a horrible time to pull out, no matter if its next year, or 5 years, or 10 years, after we leave the crap is going to hit the fan because there are 2 heavily armed groups that hate each other, and no surge is going to stop that.

So the real debate is should we have 100K troops in Iraq forever, incurring 30 deaths a month and tons of billions of dollars maintaining the status quo or should we cut our losses and pull out.

It is ridiculous and immoral to ask young Americans to give their lives in a civil war on the other side of the world forever. We must get out now. Let the consequences be what they may. When you make horrible decisions like this war is you gotta just face the consequences instead of pushing them down the road with wasted money and lives.

 

Patraeus was the admin's guy going into this. Again, the previous commanders and guys on the ground have been ignored and argued against by you for years now.

 

Change doesn't happen in short periods of time, taking that into account, what we have seen is dramatic. That doesn't mean we can be successful, but it does seem we have a competent general now.

I think we put a timetable in place and begin preparations for withdrawal, that's a good idea just to put pressure on the Iraqi political leaders. In the meantime, realistically, a withdrawal can not happen quickly, it will take a least a year.

Finally, as someone else has said, we will be measured by what we leave in Iraq. Leave it a complete mess, and our nation's reputation will be tarnished for generations. People will point to this as a reason for us never to nation build - for better or worse.

 

Been there, done that... and here we are, repeating history, having learned nothing. Except that any idiot can be elected President if his daddy has rich and influential friends. Whoop-de-damn-do.



D&D. Impeach Dildo and His Battery.

 

James Fallows, from the Atlantic, has done some of the best, most in depth, reporting on Iraq. He puts the Petraeus testimony into perspective-


On Petraeus and Crocker from afar
11 Sep 2007 08:20 am

Central Asia is a difficult place from which to follow the Petraeus / Crocker presentations. As a real-time thinking-out-loud exercise, here are the expectations I bring and assumptions I apply before having seen or read the testimony and questioning or followed the after-action wrapups. More “informed” reaction, or at least more reaction, once I have returned to the land of TV, newspapers, and connections fast enough to support video streaming.

1) This is a bad role for the House of Representatives to play. By “this” I mean conducting an extravaganza-style, live-TV hearing with star political witnesses.

A kind of “culture of poverty” disorder blights the performance of House committees when they are on TV. All politicians feel hungry for live TV coverage; Representatives feel starved. The President is on TV 24/7, and most Senators can get on every week or two if they really try. Most House members go months, years, or their entire careers with no shot at live national TV. Therefore they simply cannot help themselves when they have an opportunity to “question” witnesses before a national audience. They (almost) never ask real questions; they (almost) always burn their time giving little speeches. Every one of them knows that as a result their hearings are ruined as TV presentations, and – more important -- their witnesses are let off the hook. But it’s a tragedy of the commons, which no individual can prevent. I hope the first day’s session with Petraeus has proven me wrong here.

2) This is a truly terrible role for an active-duty general to play. President Bush’s decision to place David Petraeus in overall command* in Iraq gave Petraeus a large opportunity and an even larger burden. The opportunity is obvious: his fourth star, and command of a historically important theater. So is the burden; it is still hard to imagine this turning out as such a resounding success that Petraeus will look Grant- or Eisenhower-like, as opposed to dutiful and brave, in taking on the challenge.

But when Bush moved beyond looking to Petraeus for military guidance, to seeing him as the “New Jesus” who could solve the Iraq problem in toto, notably including the domestic American politics of the issue, he put a talented officer in a position with very few graceful ways out. Given that the Bush Administration built “what General Petraeus tells us in September” into the go/no-go moment for continued commitment to Iraq, Petraeus now faces these awkward realities:

* He is reporting to Congress on the success of a campaign that he is planning and supervising. You don’t need to know about the military’s can-do/zero-defects mentality, only about human nature and organizational realities, to see the problem here.

* His answers are being taken as proxies for a question no serving military officer should be asked in public: whether the effort for which he is asking his troops to fight and die is worth it. Officers leading troops must believe that what they are doing is worthwhile. If not, they cannot honorably ask those around them to sacrifice. If they are skeptical enough about the larger wisdom of the nation’s military commitment, they can resign.

After they have left active duty – more precisely, after they no longer are in active command of troops – they can make public statements about where it is and is not worth committing troops. There are many famous examples of generals who have left command expressing caution on this point: George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, Colin Powell before he went along with this war. But an officer currently asking his men and women to die for a cause? You ask him or her “is it worthwhile,” and there is only one answer you can possibly receive.

* His answers are placing him right in the middle of bitter partisan politics and presidential politics. In navigating the tribal tensions within Iraq, I bet Gen. Petraeus is shrewd enough not to let himself be positioned this way. Do I hear correctly that he is agreeing to an exclusive interview with Fox news? His whole approach to strategy in Iraq depends on being shrewder than that.

3) This is a terrible position for the country to be in. Let’s set aside the fundamental tragedy of today’s discussion: six years ago, immediately after the 9/11 attacks, would we have imagined that an open-ended anti-insurgent presence in a country that didn’t attack us would be the proper response? But apparently we have let the question become: are things getting better rather than worse in Iraq, with an expanded US presence? For the last year-plus, the real question remains: is there reason to believe that if we stay another year or two or three, the after effects of our withdrawal then will be enough better from today’s situation to justify the additional lives, costs, and friction of remaining committed through those years. There is more to say on this point, but before saying it I’ll wait to see some of what happened in the actual proceedings
-

* His overall command is notwithstanding the (rarely-heard-from) "czar" of the war, LTG Douglas Lute -- or the Sec Def, or the SecState, or the NSA Advisor, or the others who might theoretically have something to say here. Including the President.

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/09/on_petraeus_and_crocker_from_a.php#more

 

What *exactly* makes him more competent than the previous generals?

Rocket River

 

the problem is that this 'surge' won't last. if we could commit troops for 10 years at even higher levels fine. but we can't and we won't. so this is a stop gap delaying a genocide. which i guess is somewhat noble but not when the longer we stay, the more trained the insurgents/rebels/terrorists will be. and the more people will die when we pull out, which we inevitably will with the next administration.

 

TJ suffers from a common condition among chickenhawks. The fact that they lack the physical courage to fight in a battle that they claim is critical to America's security, and their sense of inadequacy and impotence brought on by this inner conflict, leads to obsessive military jock sniffing disorder (OMJSD). He thinks if he buries his nose deep enough, in enough military jocks, that even a little bit of their bravery might rub off on him.

Meanwhile, the rest of us, who don't suffer from this disorder, will continue to critically evaluate information, whether it comes from military or civilian sources.

 

I normally find you spining the right-wing agenda without end - but in this case there is truth in what you write.

 

Trader,

My brother went to Afghanistan as a US Marine. So, I am all for troops.

That being said, this President is a COMPLETE IDIOT. And I voted for him TWICE. So, I am probably a bigger idiot. No "lib" said they wanted to wait on Patreus. Chief Idiot decided that as the DECIDER all by his lonesome. His surge. His war. Every time I see that *******, I just want to scream.

To stay the course in Iraq is a total suicide mission. The people there don't appreciate ****. The government there is corrupt beyond repair. They will never get their act together. Millions of innocent women and children are being slaughtered by both sides for no reason. Iran is so much more dangerous that Hussein has ever been. Hussein went into another country in 1990 and got his ass kicked!! You actually think he was going to do something that can remove him from power? The guy is not a Zealot! He was a p*rn ADDICT if anything.

Sometimes, if you are going to be a great country, you need a Civil War. Every great nation has had one in their history. The different secs and all the different variations of religion that exist there have been there for over 1000 years!!!! What makes you and so many "NEO-CONS" (since you like to use Coulters "lib" word so much) have the arrogance they can change it?

No WMD's. No Al-Quaida. No greetings as liberators. NOTHING that this administration has said has been RIGHT or TRUE or ANYTHING. And I have to just bow my head and follow blindly? I did that in 2004 when I voted for this *******.

I know you Republicans think that war is the answer. Guess what? Its not.

The dumb **** attacked the wrong freakin country while his promises to bring Bin Laden to justice is justified by letting a Pakistani Army lead the "surge" in Tora Bora instead of sending in the US Military.

Dude, its ok to want to do the right thing. But this hasn't been the right thing from day one. Hussein was evil. But thats not our business then and never was. We needed to transform Afghanistan into the beacon of Democracy that essentially is a good idea.

But to go into Iraq was the biggest, most arrogant and most stupid move any US President has made. You are in the minority in America. Nobody believes this guys **** or any of his other minions anymore.

 

Unfortunately, Afghanistan only produces opium poppies, which is illegal in the States. So there is no chance that we want to transform Afghanistan into the beacon of Democracy.

 

no responses.

troll attempt failed.

abort, retry, fail?_

 

Why? Because Bush said so? If anything they probably felt threatened when we invaded Iraq …….think of it this way, if China invaded Mexico what would we do? Would we feel threatened? …

But then again extremism is a problem there…but are we responsible to stopping that? They weren’t the ones who attacked us….those guys came from Afghanistan training facilities…big difference in ideologies of those two….

The real problem exists in Northern Pakistan and Afghanistan, that’s the breeding ground for the extremist ideology (anti – U.S)…there needs to be a mass reeducation, if we spent the $$$ on the Iraq war towards this region things would be a lot different.

 

I am a conservative and this testimony puts real conservatives in a bind, because I am disgusted that a General would make a political determination for our troops instead of a military decision. Politically our objectives are to prop up the Iraqi govt. we installed. Military objectives have to do with protecting the US from military agression. Why is our military obligated to protect a corrupt government that our politics installed? There is no Constitutional reason for us to give our soldier's blood to protect an Islamic Shiite regime that will eventually be alligned against our interests.

I am more concerned about the General's cred. I wouldn't jump on his bandwagon, that would be like all the sheeple who supported Charlie Casserly- He must know more than the sheeple- he's the expert. I believe what he is saying, we need to keep 130,000 troops over there to protect the Iraqi govt. But that is a political decision and he should just be honest and say the politicians have ordered me to protect the Iraqi government and at the cost of American blood, that is what we will do.

If Iraq fell into full blown civil war it wouldn't be because of Sudaam Hussein, it would be because of our invasion. So I understand that it's a pickle of problem we created and we have some responsiblity to the Iraqi people for the mess we made. We put the majority Shiites in power, we have the minority Suni fighting as insurgents, the Kurds are still getting the shaft, we have increased the cause of terrorism inside Iraq 10 fold and we have no guarantee that there will be any benefit or positive result if we ever do leave.

We will complete our bases in Iraq, we are there to stage future actions with regard to the stability of Saudi Arabia and the large oil fields in the eastern border region, the pipelines are now going through to the Caspian Basin and eventually Iran has heck to pay.

So I think in the long run we are right on course with our objectives, though, they have never been honestly stated to the American people.

And I am sorrowed that our Generals have to be the propaganda mouth piece for ill conceived politics.