Petraeus, Bush, Congress and the Iraq War

General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker testified in front of Congress the last few days and the whole thing has made me delve deeper into a depression at the current political landscape than I ever thought possible. There are a few take-a ways that I just have to mention here, as they disgust me to no end.

At the hearings on Tuesday Sept. 11th, Senator Warner (a Republican) asked General Petraeus if the Iraq War has made (or is making) it safer overall for the U.S. Don’t forget, General David Petraeus is the head of the entire Iraq War campaign, so if anyone should have a handle on this, he should. Astonishingly and sadly, Petraeus’s answered that he “didn’t know”. First, he should know. I mean, he’s got around 150,000 troops risking their life and limb every days under him, and for what? This may be the first time a top military leader has said this regarding a foreign American war.

What’s even sadder is that I suspect his “I don’t know” answer really means “no”! At this point, only the blind still believes that the Iraq War has not actually given more reasons to hate America and helped recruit new terrorists. Petraeus knows that the Iraq war has been nothing short of a catalyst for American hate. Bin Laden got his wish, to get a semi-permanent American military presence in the Middle East to act as a lighting rod for all unemployed, uneducated young Muslim men.

The second thing that drives me crazy Petraeus’s testimony before the U.S. Congress is what The Daily Show with Jon Stewart showed last night. It showed clips, one after the other, of various George W. Bush statements about the “surge” and the current state of the American occupation of Iraq interspersed with Petraeus’s testimony. The two of them obviously are reading from the exact same script. Once in a while Petraeus would use a synonym to alter the message slightly from his Commander in Chief’s, but he’s basically parroting the ‘official’ White House spin.  MoveOn.org printed a headline that said:

“Gernal Petraeus or General Betray Us?”

Lastly, and this is really pathetic, when Petraeus or Bush or any of the other Neo-con’s talk about what is going to happen with the war, what exactly the “surge” will do, or how things are going to turn out, they always say that no one can predict the future. They say it’s impossible to know what is going to happen, only that we can hope and plan on “success”. Of course they have not defined “success”, nor can they. It’s a moving target for Bush that has slowly descended from giving Iraq a free and Democratic government to now simply reducing car bombings.

So Bush, Petraeus and company cannot predict the future if we stay in Iraq, they admit it. But these same people can perfectly predict the future IF we pull out! They know that chaos will be imminent. They know it will be disastrous. They know it will be horrible for the region and for the U.S. I just love how they pick and choose when they can predict the future and when they can’t based on what serves them best.

What’s the saddest of all is that American’s are coming home with missing limbs or in body bags, all for nothing. I am duly impressed with the courage and loyalty of our American soldiers for carrying out their duties overseas, but I wish they were home safe and sound instead, and protecting America.

The Iraq War has been the greatest recruiting tool for Al Queda EVER! What are we doing there?! Why didn’t we spend the money that we wasted in Iraq on protecting our borders here in the U.S.? Petraeus has all but said the Iraq war has not made the U.S. safer.

By the way, if you’re interested, read an article in latest issue of Rolling Stones called The Great Iraq Swindle

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