Petraeus Bolsters Obama Position »
Posted By Aidenag 1 year, 1 month ago in Political NewsThroughout McCain' s presidential campaign, he has wrapped himself in the mantle of Gen. Petraeus, proclaiming himself his leading advocate. Yet during a talk Wednesday about Iraq , Petraeus repeatedly made statements that bolstered the foreign-policy proposals of Sen. Barack Obama.
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Aidenag
Photographer by day, news junkie by night. My main areas of interest are politics and the environment.
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ameliog1 year, 1 month ago
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capecoralMComment removed: Retracted by user6 Replies
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donald511 year, 1 month ago
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cape, it doesn't specifically and your ignorance is validated!
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But, our gradual departure from Iraq will gradually allow more forces in Afganistan to be used as necessay against the real perpetrators of 911.... finally, Dumya's "cut and run" from Afghanistan will be reversed!
Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan failed due to resources already being dedicated to Iraq - Naylor wrote a great book on it, "NOT A GOOD DAY TO DIE". Anyway, like tora Bora Dumya let over 1200 taliban/Al Qaeda escape the Senikot valley to pakistan!
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not2needy1 year, 1 month ago
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OMG. ROFL!
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I bet everyone around Johnny is catching hell right now.
Besides bashing Obama, General Petraeus is the only other thing he had to talk about.
His campaign is unraveling like a cheap sweater right now.
This is hilarious.
My Friends, Wink! -
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cowboygrandpa1 year, 1 month ago
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McCain doesn't understand the ground war.
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How could he, he wasn't taught that.
I doubt if he even paid attention to the tactical, and strategic ramifications of ground offensives.
Nor can he even begin to understand the dialy hell of war on the ground, when he flew back to a carrier and had hot meals, a clean bed. With miles of the ocean to protect him from the mud,blood, and daily grind of being worn down and pounded into the grunt on the ground.
War is easy to discuss when you do not partake of the bitterness of it daily.
No disrepect the POW, but I know many grunts that never came home.-
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techsupport1 year, 1 month ago
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I think you're right, Grandpa. I think if Sen. McCain had been on the ground in Viet Nam he wouldn't be so obsessed with such vague civilian notions as "victory" and "success" in the arena of war. He might understand that losing the lives of American soldiers in conflicts that don't directly involve defending our homeland can never equate to such nebulous concepts.
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Instead I have a strong feeling that Sen. McCain's main motive is one-upmanship (sic). He knew a long time ago that he would never become the revered Admiral that both his Father and Grandfather were. He knew his only path to historical glory that would place him above them would be as Commander-in-Chief. As a President during wartime he would simply have to be able to claim "victory" or he would never be seen as their equal.
He's also completely enamored with this concept of "surge." I think he just likes the word or something. I mean, he keeps bringing it up over and over. Does the word "surge" really poll that well with the American people? Could we expect more "surging" all over the planet if Sen. McCain were to become President? To me, the word means "throwing more soldier's lives at the problem." I have the utmost respect for the Men and Women of our Armed Forces. My wish for them is that as few as possible will need to die on behalf of our country. Through his shunning (or even mocking) of diplomacy and heavy promotion of this "surge" concept I can only conclude that Sen. McCain does not share my view on national defense.
My take on Sen. McCain is that he basically puts, contrary to his campaign claims, "McCain First." Even the debates seem to bear this out. I've noticed that he starts almost every answer section with a reference to himself, i.e. "I went to..." or "I have experience..." or "My friends..." or "My fellow prisoners..." (sorry, couldn't resist that one). He spends a lot of time and energy talking about himself, but precious little talking about us. It's been mentioned before that he has not, in two debates, used the phrase "middle class" yet. I think, to extend your thought on ground troops to a broader political scope, Sen. McCain is entirely out of touch with the "mud, blood, and daily grind of being worn down and pounded into the grunt" of the middle class. A failing economy "is easy to discuss when you do not partake of the bitterness of it daily." -
mntnman444Comment removed: Spammer, Hard Banned5 Replies
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donald511 year, 1 month ago
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Cowboy, that is why most of the vets in the swiftboat commercials were in fact air force pilots... out of touch with real ground warfare and sycophant repugs willing to lie about anything to further repug goals!
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It was the indiscriminate killing by these pilots and lax rules of engagement on artillery (with same infantry atrocities) that turned the populace against us in Vietnam and is what we are experiencing in Afghanistan. Heck our own pilots killed how many allied Canadians one night in a restricted no fly zone in Afghanistan, and not withstanding the killing of innocent Afghan wedding parties? -
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Tangent0011 year, 1 month ago
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I thought the height of disrespect was when, during the debate, McCain put on the mantle of a front line grunt, when he said "...and your fellow citizens and pick you up and put you back in the fight..." Playing the Vet card? To the hilt!
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earthlingerer1 year, 1 month ago
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Petraeus is a master of tactics and strategy. He has seen the battle fought in his mind one thousand times, and the outcome has appeared the same for long time.
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He KNOWS Obama will win the presidency, and he's already starting to warm up the lips to kiss Obama's butt, and get his nose good and brown.-
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donald511 year, 1 month ago
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Your comments apply only to Odierno, a true Bushie! Petraeus took a heck of a chance with pushing the surge counter to Dumya's 4 years of failed strategy in Iraq! But, in the end since the politial goals have not come from the surge success, then the surge ultimately is a failure!
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Condi, told congress she couldn't even support the surge... and the Repug politcal effort in and around Iraq has been negligible... The Bushies put the mission of diplomacy always on the milltary there - their crony foreign policy of condemning from afar and just throwing in the troops as been an absolute failure.
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beavith11 year, 1 month ago
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let's all go back to reading comprehension school folks. i guess we see what we want to see.
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you can rewrite that headline to say "Petreaus agrees with McCain. Obama seeing the Light" or some such.
of course a surge wouldn't work in afghanistan. according to O it still hasn't worked in iraq.
it won't matter anyway. an O administration will walk away from iraq and afghanistan because we need to spend our money here in america.
O doesn't get it. hes' never gotten it. he talks real good... all he has to do is sell, sell, sell...-
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pcknowledge1 year, 1 month ago
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Do you know what a surge is? It's our government paying of Iraq's militia & maybe the Sunnis or the Shiites (like McCain, I don't know the difference either) to fight alongside our troops. How long do you think we can keep up the "surge?" Can you guess how much money our government has spend on the "surge?"
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When do you think it will end?
What will we win there? -
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sinophil491 year, 1 month ago
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beavith - A "victory" in Iraq is meaningless because the cause of the insurgency and the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks is in Afghanistan.
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Think about it. If YOU were living in Afghanistan, would you want the Americans to focus their forces in Afghanistan and search for you and fire missiles into your cave? Or would you want the US forces far away in Iraq fighting all the brainwashed flunkies and mercenaries you can send over there?
Osama bin Laden is a masterful tactician. He saw Bush obsessed over Iraq. So he did whatever he could to keep Bush pinned down in Iraq. You Bushie followers have fallen into the same trap and can't see your way out of Iraq.
Osama bin Laden thanks Allah everyday that Bush stopped thinking about him. -
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Tangent0011 year, 1 month ago
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Discussion over the surge was not the 'take-away' I got from this.
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"Petraeus said, “You have to talk to enemies.”" THAT'S Obama's 'win' here. I have yet to see McCain discuss anything other than military solutions. Indeed, a HUGE part of assessing the Iraq surge as a success was the diplomatic moves that played out at the same time.
When, exactly, did Obama say the surge hasn't worked. I find a quote saying "no doubt it's cutting down some of the violence". What he SAID was, he wasn't convinced the surge worked better than if more emphasis had been placed on diplomacy. Given that the most precipitous drop in violence occurred after the brokered cease-fire and paying the insurgents not to attack US troops, I think his assessment has some validity.
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HomerJS49Comment removed: Abusive
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Republicrat1844Comment removed: Retracted by user5 Replies
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hyperbola1 year, 1 month ago
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This has been evident for some time now.
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McCain is deluding himself over the 'surge'
John McCain is desperate to talk about the surge rather than the splurge. His Iraq war is set to cost one trillion dollars, and his deregulation-mania has cost hundreds of billions. So in order to maintain his facade of being "tough on spending", he needs to shift the subject. That's why he has tried to shrink the debate about the Iraq War to one small question. Not: did Saddam have Weapons of Mass Destruction? Not: did Saddam have links to 9/11? Not: why do 70 per cent of Iraqis think the presence of US troops make them less safe and they should go home now?
McCain knows he will lose those arguments, so he wants us to talk solely about whether the surge of US troops last year has been successful. But a hole was just blown in that argument – and blood is rushing through.
Those of us who got Iraq wrong have a particular duty to honestly describe what is happening now. A major study by the distinguished scientific journal Environment and Planning A has just revealed the real picture. The Republican nominee claims the US troops have stopped the violence by their physical presence. To test this, Professor John Agnew and his colleagues used the same techniques the US government has adopted to monitor ethnic-cleansing in Burma and Uganda....
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/10/08/mccain-i... -
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hyperbola1 year, 1 month ago
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We should keep in mind that most of our state propaganda about Afghanistan is also a delusion.
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Time To Face The Facts On Afghanistan
For those who savor historical irony, the Soviet Empire collapsed in the years 1989-1991 because of an implosion of its economy brought on by a ruinous arms race with the United States and the heavy costs of occupying Afghanistan.
Seventeen years later came the turn of the world’s other great imperial power, the United States. Lethally bloated by runaway debt, and burdened by 50% of the world’s military spending, the house of cards known as the US economy finally collapsed.
... Attacks on US and NATO convoys are even beginning at the port of Karachi. The prospect of the US spreading a war it can’t win in Afghanistan into Pakistan is military and political madness.
Startlingly, Gen. McKiernan appeared to break with Bush administration policy by proposing political talks with Taliban and admitting the war had to be ended by diplomacy. The military men know this war cannot be won on the battlefield. McKiernan’s predecessor told Congress that 400,000 US troops would be needed to pacify Afghanistan....
... The current war in Afghanistan is not really about al-Qaida and `terrorism,’ but about opening a secure corridor through Pashtun tribal territory to export the oil and gas riches of the Caspian Basin of Central Asia to the West. The US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are essentially pipeline protection troops fighting off the hostile natives..
Both Barack Obama and John McCain are wrong about Afghanistan. It is not a `good’ fight against `terrorism,’ but a classic, 19th century colonial war to advance western geopolitical power into resource-rich Central Asia. The Pashtun Afghans who live there are ready to fight for another 100 years. The western powers certainly are not.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/10/08/time-to-...-
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hyperbola1 year, 1 month ago
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Seven Years in Afghanistan:
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From War on Terror to War of Terror
What began as a “War on Terror” with waves of bombing attacks on Kandahar and Kabul October 7, 2001 has long since become a War of Terror, inflicted on the peoples of Southwest Asia, generating and strengthening resistance movements (“insurgencies”), enraging local allies and even alienating regimes of Washington’s own creation. The Canadians and Europeans have long since tired of it. So have the American people, despite the failure of the corporate media to expose the Big Lies that Cheney and Bush continue to promote in order to justify their Terror War.
Despite the popular war-weariness, both presidential candidates while praising the surge in Iraq unquestionably support the expanding war in Afghanistan. The attack on Afghanistan, used by the neocons as the bridge to an occupied Iraq, has committed the entire political class to an impossible project. Barack Obama talks tough about strikes in Pakistan to shore up the Afghan effort. Once the hope of a wing of the anti-war movement, the senator from Illinois has shown himself as much a spokesman for imperialism as McCain or any other mainstream politician. Seven years down the road, there’s no end in sight. No hope except for the “fool’s hope” that public opinion in the imperialist countries, plus the inevitable resistance of the Afghans to foreign control, plus the military judgment that the war is not winnable will bring this “good war” to an end.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/10/07/seven-ye... -
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sinophil491 year, 1 month ago
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hyperbola - "It is not a 'good' fight against 'terrorism,' but a classic, 19th century colonial war to advance western geopolitical power into resource-rich Centraql Asia."
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Brilliant. Best damn sentence in this entire discussion board.
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markmawn21 year, 1 month ago
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Honestly, I feel this is a negative for Obama. Petraeus does not have the same audience he once had, so he is siding with the force that could win. A general does not run the country, nor his opinions. Obama seems to be falling prey to this paradigm, I dare say, as well as the 100% Israel can do no wrong policy.
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tchef1 year, 1 month ago
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The problem with Israel is that if you dare say anything critical about them in this country you are immediately labeled an anti Semite. Our support of Israel is one of the major causes of all of our problems in the Middle East. But the Israeli lobby is so strong in this country that no politician dares say anything against them. We send them a lot of money in support and give them a lot of military technology and yet they spy on us. And have been caught doing so several times.
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Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the Jewish people or their faith. I just don't agree with our unquestioning support of Israel. -
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donald511 year, 1 month ago
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Mark, itsn't it great that you and earth (above), obvious repugs, would both be accusing Petraeus of siding with who might be in the White House next? Yes, you fools always believe in doing what is expediant, regardless of the rule of law or one's concience, and you expect others to do likewise... how un-American of you, but so typically repug!
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tchef1 year, 1 month ago
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Obama has been right in his assessment of this war from the start. We should have never went in. We where all deluded by the Bush administration (some of us weren't unfortunately I wasn't one of them) that they where a direct threat.
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reallypsst1 year, 1 month ago
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The real reason we are in Irag is billions of dollars of private rebuilding contracts which dick chenny gave to his partners and the black water security force who protect them,I think these contracts exceed the amount of the bailout.
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Georgia501 year, 1 month ago
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This article offers valuable insights into the workings of the liberal mind. Check out the two paragraphs that immediately follow below. Note that while the first refers to Iran and its government, the second refers to Iraq and its insurgent groups. The author is counting on the functional illiteracy of the pied piper set to accept his commingling two entirely distinct military and political contexts into the singular issue of when and under what circumstances one sits down with the enemy:
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McCain, apparently perceiving an opportunity for attack, Tuesday again used Obama’s comments to attack his judgment. “Sen. Obama, without precondition, wants to sit down and negotiate with them, without preconditions,” McCain said, referring to Iran.
Yet Petraeus emphasized throughout his lecture that reaching out to insurgent groups — some “with our blood on their hands,” he said — was necessary to the ultimate goal of turning them against irreconcilable enemies like Al Qaeda in Iraq.
End quote.
Besides, McCain's primary point remains intact: Petraus and al-Qaeda leadership are in agreement that the central focus of Islamofascism is Iraq, not Afghanistan.
Finally, isn't it funny how much respect General Petraeus "Betray Us" suddenly has the split second these ilk smell an opportunity to exploit him? You can almost see their tiny little brains in overdrive "Do we hang him, or quote him? Damn it Dorothy! If only we had a brain!"-
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donald511 year, 1 month ago
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Georgia, your demonstrated bigotry and repug sycophancy on this forum have validated that you never pass up an opportunity to exploit anything ! Talk about hypocrisy to the maximum - you win the prize! Only tiny, bigoted brain is yours!
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The "Betray Us" had a question mark after it and was published before he testified to Congress. Forget the 911 Report saying no Al Qaeda in Iraq under Sadam, or connections to? Surge a success only if political success is brought about said Petraeus, and Dumya hasn't gotten his long term base or oil aggreements - therefore, another Repug failure! Petraeus also said Iraq can easily be a Shia'a theocracy like Iran.
Do you really enjoy being such an ignorant repug sycophant? -
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sinophil491 year, 1 month ago
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Georgia - I already wrote a post to beavith about the same topic. I will write a similar version here.
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Of course al Qaida and Osama bin Laden want us to focus on Iraq and stay away from Afghanistan. Osama was nearly caught at least once. He does not want us on his tail anymore. He is doing cartwheels in joyous celebration that we are bogged down in Iraq and do not have enough troops to hunt him down. He is playing us for fools so that we will stay far away from Afghanistan. The longer we stay in Iraq, the longer he gets to live.
All the insurgents in Iraq were dispatched by Osama to keep us tied down there.
It's a classic military maneuver. Get your enemy distracted in another objective, so you can accomplish your own primary objective.
This was used in the D-Day landing at Normandy. It was used by Gen Norman Schwarzkopf in the Kuwait attack. OBL has simply turned it on us this time. -
AbuAmirahComment removed: Spammer, Hard Banned
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craigatreap1 year, 1 month ago
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Wow, what a refreshing change. The vast majority of posts on here and well-thought out, informative and even where there's a difference of opinion, respectful and reflective. I'm (happily) surprised. seems that many of you have either researched or used your knowledge/experience to post your opinion. Okay, done gushing...
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My understanding of Obama's Afghanistan strategy is that he doesn't want to shift the military strength to Afghanistan, but increase numbers to go after specific targets. Knowing or at least being advised that the insufficient numbers already there will be met with too much resistance, he wants to shore things up with the intention of getting those targets and - like they say about a mob; cut the head off the body dies - suppress the "anti" sentiment and try to get the political situation to a detente. Of course, I could be supposin' too much...what do you more informed types think?-
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HannibalBarca1 year, 1 month ago
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Well Obama did say he would be willing to negotiate before using the big stick; something that shrub has picked up on and has done recently.
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Now even the Taliban realize they can not get back into power so they are considering talking peace with the Afgan Gov in Mecca.
You say cut of the head and the mob will die, but the Tailiban is not a mob; more of a religious ideal that uses whatever they think will work to get want they want, we call them terrorists, they call themselves Freedom Fighters.
No invading force has ever been able to occupy Afgan for any length of time, whether it was Alex the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Brits or who ever, so why is today any different.
Myself I think Hagar the Horrible has the best chance to succeed, so send him in.
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