Comments on: Video: Petraeus, McConnell not quite eye to eye about surge plans

By: Hot Air » Blog Archive » 2009: An Iraq odyssey

Hot Air » Blog Archive » 2009: An Iraq odyssey — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 04:31:11 +0000

[...] What they’re describing sounds too involved to be pro forma contingency planning but Petraeus and his team can’t seriously believe they’ll have a chance to put it into action with Republicans already itching for September to roll around so they can abandon ship. Mitch McConnell has all but promised to push Baker-Hamilton when it does, and once he heads for the lifeboats he’ll take plenty of others with him. So either they’re leaking this now for political leverage, to make it harder for Congress to withdraw as many troops as it would like after Petraeus’s progress report (”but there’s already a plan in place!”) or it’s an insurance policy to which Bush can point after they pull the plug to claim that Congress abandoned the mission before the new strategy had a chance to work (”but there was a plan in place!”). [...]

By: Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: “We never even considered an insurgency,” says Keane

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:06:23 +0000

[...] I’m lifting this from Danger Room so I’ll send you over there for background. A tough watch, needless to say. Keane, incidentally, co-authored the plan with Fred Kagan last year that later became the blueprint for the surge. Kagan told Time today that he sees some progress, especially among the Sunnis and their attitudes towards Al Qaeda, but that they’ll need until the end of the year at least to see real progress. Watch the video of Mitch McConnell from this morning if you haven’t already; he doesn’t sound warm to the idea, but it might not matter. The “second surge,” engineered by overlapping departing and arriving troops, could ensure elevated troop levels through New Year’s. [...]

By: Phil Byler

Phil Byler — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:39:09 +0000

General Petraeus is the one iun whom we should full confidence. As for Mitch McConnell and Jim Gilmore, to h3ll with them.

By: tomas

tomas — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 18:24:18 +0000

You can’t be stuck on stupid your whole life.

By: Freelancer

Freelancer — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 17:41:05 +0000

One of our major problems was taking to narrow a look at history. Every time we liberated a people from a tyrannical regime, they rose up and heartily embraced their freedom.

The “logical” presumption was that the Iraqi people would follow this historical behavior.

Two ginormous problems with that presumption:

1. Those Europeans we liberated in the past had known freedom before those wars of occupation, knew what it tasted like, what it cost, and were glad to have it back. Even the Russians still had a not-so-distant history of a free society to draw upon. Much of the arab world has lived under one form of oppression or another for many centuries, including theocratic governments and indocrinating schooling (if any), which has prepared them only to obey their mullahs, imams, and other assorted clerics. They don’t understand liberty as we do, which makes them more susceptible to the “strongest man rules” way of thinking.

2. Other nations that we have had a hand in liberating from tyranny included a sense of shared familial ancestry with us, and therefore a measure of tacit trust that we were doing the right thing. By and large, arabs are taught to hate, despise, and distrust the evil, decadent Westerner. This makes it far more difficult for them to believe that our purpose is noble, and that our desires are for them to have a better future.

By: Jones Zemkophill

Jones Zemkophill — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:24:22 +0000

Petraeus is an excellent general. and the first one to command our forces in Iraq that actually understands the complexities of a post-invasion anti-insurgency style of warfare.

It’s too bad somone like him wasn’t in charge of the pre-war planning or much of this could have been avoided.

Bush, Rumsfield and previous commanders were more… Patton-esque rather than MacArthur/Marshal esque.

By: csdeven

csdeven — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 15:13:34 +0000

Why is there a rush to go back to the policies of the 1990′s? Sitting around waiting for the bad guys to get a bigger power base in the ME is ridiculous.

By: tomas

tomas — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:59:43 +0000

The wrong people will be blamed for this

By: VikingGoneWild

VikingGoneWild — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:56:42 +0000

Nothing like having congress over see a war seeing how they have done such a wonderful job with monitoring immigration law enforcement.

Wade on June 18, 2007 at 9:38 AM

Well Said!

Let’s see, whose opinion do I believe and respect more?
A professional military officer or a professional liar?

By: rplat

rplat — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:16:13 +0000

Who’s in charge of this mindless mess we call “congress”.

By: Attila (Pillage Idiot)

Attila (Pillage Idiot) — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:11:09 +0000

Jim Gilmore is a presidential candidate? Did anyone tell his wife?

By: CP

CP — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 14:01:43 +0000

I’m so sick of Congress.

By: Wade

Wade — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 13:38:10 +0000

Nothing like having congress over see a war seeing how they have done such a wonderful job with monitoring immigration law enforcement.