Oops - article published too soon
It seems the usual suspects are rushing to undermine the progress report of General Petraeus, before he even gives the report. A recent article, including the usual unnamed military source has this to say.
Critics, including one recently retired general, are privately calling him “General Betraeus” on the grounds that he is too ambitious to deliver a balanced report on the war.
Yep, real impressive tactics there, especially the title. Clearly, people are setting the matter up to be that if Petraeus actually gives a report with more positive than negative, it isn't balanced, therefore he lied. In other words, anything that isn't as useful to these people as they would like it to be, will automatically be declared null and void.
The silliness of the article continues with trying to pin the strategy on Bush.
Opponents of the troop surge believe that President George W Bush has been hiding behind Petraeus’s reputation for too long. “The president says the surge is the ‘Petraeus’ strategy. Petraeus should say, ‘No, I work for the president. This is his strategy’,” said Korb.
Because George W. Bush wrote the Army manual on counter-insurgencies? At least the article notes who authored that manual, in the next paragraph.
Petraeus, who studied at Princeton and co-wrote the US army’s new counter-insurgency doctrine, is widely regarded as one of the brightest soldiers of his generation. He has an impressive grasp of military history - including British operations against 1950s Malayan insurgents and in Northern Ireland during the Troubles...
The article includes what some have said is expected from the report. However, it would appear the article was printed a bit too soon with this:
Crocker is said to have almost given up trying to persuade Nouri Al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, to come to a political accommodation with the Sunnis and is concentrating his efforts on wooing tribal sheikhs.
But this report on the 19th shows there is improvement.
Iraqi PM tells Sunni tribes: 'We must unite' (Thanks to Captain Ed)
Iraq's prime minister, a Shiite, flew to Saddam Hussein's hometown Friday and told Sunni tribal chieftains that all Iraqis must unite in the fight to crush al-Qaeda in Iraq and extremist Shiite militias "to save our coming generations."
With the U.S. Congressional majority increasingly antsy to get out of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki's bold incursion into Tikrit — a city once pampered by Saddam, its favorite son — underlined the prime minister's determination to save his paralyzed government from collapse and prevent further disillusionment in Washington.
The sharp alteration of political course — a willingness to travel to the belly of the Sunni beast and talk with former enemies — suggested a new flexibility from the hardline religious Shiite.
An excerpt from Captain Ed's commentary but be sure to read all of it.
Maliki didn't stop there. He made what looks to be a clean break with Moqtada al-Sadr yesterday, signing an accord with the Kurds and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. The coucil commands the Badr Brigade, which has fought Sadr's forces in the south for control. Maliki apparently has co-opted them into the government, isolating Sadr even further than ever after the radical cleric pulled his ministers from Maliki's government.
Of course the upcoming report is going to have negatives along with the positives. However, that some rush to post an article with a ridiculous title, that does what it can to preemptively undermine the report, says quite a bit about their motivations, none of which is good.
This determination to cut and run, only serves the goals of our enemy. Some are just too foolish or uninformed to see otherwise, others are so narrow-minded as to fully intend that. Hopefully, a sad combination of such people will not become large enough to pull defeat from the jaws of victory and ruin what chances we now have for a great victory against Islamic extremism. If it does, we and our children will have to pay the costs, greatly exceeding what he have paid thus far.
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Filed under: NewsPolitics -- Islamofascism -- Iraq
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Author: Mark K. Sprengel | 8:39:00 AM |
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