David Petraeus as Nutroots Hero? (updated)
posted at 9:41 am on June 1, 2009 by CK MacLeod
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Around two years ago, over the period that General David Petraeus twice testified on the US “Surge” in Iraq, the attempt to undermine him got personal – not just in the notorious “General Betray Us” ad from moveon.org, but in efforts to undermine his reputation, to cast doubt on his competence and his integrity. At present, however, though he’s known to be a Republican and earns the respect and even adulation of military-respecting conservatives, he is effectively one of Obama’s generals. It was therefore entirely predictable that the nutroots would try to make a political “wedge” out of his recent statements to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and on detainee interrogation.
Even if, like most HotAir readers, you don’t spend much time in the Think Undergound Daily Talking Points Kos Salon, you may have gotten dosed by one or more of our remaining trolls or surrogate trolls with something like this:
[Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh's] scurrilous attacks on Colin Powell have even been supported by the fringy base of the Republican Party. But what about General David Petraeus? He’s been a GOP icon who they’re praying will run for president and bring them back to power. Well Limbaugh, Rove and Cheney may all prefer each other over Colin Powell, but General Petraeus is in line with the mainstream of American thought that torture is the wrong approach and that Guantánamo should be shut down.
The above comes from Howie Klein’s Down with Tyranny, a blog that, with typical disregard for historical fact, deploys an apocryphal quote supposedly from Sinclair Lewis as would-be anti-fascist epigraph. John Amato at Crooks and Liars is more feverishly netrootsy:
General Petraeus just threw a wrench in the whining conservative rants against torture [sic] and the closing of Guantanamo Bay… I guess the Cheney/Limbaugh crowd will not like this very much. Will they actually come out against him? I think so. It’s their way. I’m waiting for Rush to start attacking him very quickly. Maybe he’ll say something like “Gen. Petraeus has been infected with Socialism and is now lost to us.”
Amato may want to take another whack at this whackery, since he obviously doesn’t really want to position conservatives – whining or ranting – against torture. I’ll leave it to the reader to conjure an image of someone both ranting and whining at the same time, wrench obtrudant – but keep in mind that even a skilled professional blogger like Andrew Sullivan rants and whines only by turns, never simultaneously.
More to the point, both Amato and Klein, and those who preceded and have been echoing them, are projecting their own penchant for snap judgments, oversimplification, reflexive overreaction, and factual confusion onto General Petraeus – and onto conservatives including Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, me, and probably you, too.
Here’s what the two are going on about – from the radio transcript:
RFE/RL: As you know, General, the debate over Guantanamo and enhanced interrogation techniques has become “Topic A” in Washington. In your view, does the closing of “Gitmo” and the abandonment of those techniques complicate the U.S. mission in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the overall struggle against violent transnational extremist groups or does it help it?
Petraeus: I think, on balance, that those moves help it. In fact, I have long been on record as having testified and also in helping write doctrine for interrogation techniques that are completely in line with the Geneva Convention. And as a division commander in Iraq in the early days, we put out guidance very early on to make sure that our soldiers, in fact, knew that we needed to stay within those guidelines.
With respect to Guantanamo, I think that the closure in a responsible manner, obviously one that is certainly being worked out now by the Department of Justice — I talked to the attorney general the other day [and] they have a very intensive effort ongoing to determine, indeed, what to do with the detainees who are left, how to deal with them in a legal way, and if continued incarceration is necessary — again, how to take that forward.
Unnoted by the nutroots is the General’s typically judicious and even-handed initial phrase: “On balance…” (Some might even call it a “hedge.”) Here’s a helpful translation for those rushing forward to their pre-fabricated conclusions: On balance implies stuff on one side, and other stuff on the other side.
I’m not going to put words in Petraeus’ mouth, but it’s clear that he recognizes that either special detention of out-of-uniform combatants and terror suspects, or the “rough” interrogation policy, or both may have served a valid purpose, or, at worst, that reasonable people might have thought so and, under changed circumstances (circumstances creating a different “balance”), might be right to think so in the future.
The rest of Petraeus’ language – closing down Gitmo in a “responsible manner,” in accordance with an “intensive” legal effort, emphasis on the “message,” etc. – is in keeping with the image of a general officer who has decided on a particular strategy not out of squeamishness or weakness or ill-considered expediency, but after careful thought, with an emphasis on his current mission and responsibilities. You could perhaps read into these and past statements a set of deeper feelings and beliefs somewhere in the vast area to the left of Bush-Cheney ca. 2002-3, but you will never find the unhinged condemnation that is, of course, the very ground in which the nutroots were and remain planted, nor will you find the empty and demoralizing posturing that’s the specialty of our Self-Critic-in-Chief, Mr. Obama.
As for “torture” – even broadly defined to include certain faddish water sports – other than the talkshow hosts who make book on it, no one’s been pushing for it other than Jack Bauer, and he’s not real – even while poll after poll show a majority of Americans (and up to 90% of other respondents of other nationalities) favor preservation of a last resort/in extremis torture option, just like the President appears to.
Many if not most conservatives – including, for example, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney – implicitly support both positions: Close Gitmo if and when it can be closed, presuming there are good alternatives; treat detainees humanely and appropriately. Most Americans feel about the same way, though we may differ about the practicalities and about the desirability of caving into pressure. In going further, attacking those who strove responsibly but imperfectly to keep us safe, Barack Obama found himself in a self-abusively moralizing minority. Luckily for him – as well as for our people in harm’s way, and sundry allies and bystanders – he was scared straight by Petraeus’ colleague General Ray Odierno just at the point of no return on plans to release inflammatory detainee abuse photos. He’s been dancing backwards ever since.
If Petraeus comes out in favor of Obamanomics, massive expansion of the public sector, open borders, and the indictment of John Yoo, or declares the Bush-Cheney Administration a “terror state,” or describes the death by exposure of “born alive” abortion victims as “on balance” a necessity, then, sure, lots of us would say, “Thanks for your service, General, but you’re in the wrong party.” But he’s done none of those things. In the meantime you’ll probably be able to count the number of conservatives who peremptorily reject him over his RFE/RL remarks on the hand that you have left over after counting those of us who rejected Sarah Palin over her “non-traditional” lifestyle – another problem dreamed up for conservatives by leftwingers who seem never to have met one.
***
UDPATE: Three relevant items of interest:
1. Why’d Obama switch on detainee photos? Maliki went ballistic
The above article, at McClatchy, adds background to the depiction of Obama having been “scared straight” regarding release of detainee abuse photos. Although the headline and lede put the emphasis on Maliki’s reaction, the article itself describes a wider reaction, with Odierno playing a critical role. Maliki plotzes, Odierno confirms, Obama caves. Total speculation: If officials are spreading the idea that it was Maliki primarily, it may be because someone didn’t like the notion advanced by in-the-know lefties like Thomas Ricks that Obama was getting “rolled” by his generals.
Andy McCarthy at the Corner provides about the strongest reaction I’ve seen so far from the right critical of Petraeus. I think McCarthy and Petraeus are to some extent talking past each other – for reasons already discussed at length in the comments – but I think Petraeus would do well to speak with a little more care about how his messages are received on the home front. (OMG – now someone’s going to say I’m trying to purge him!)
3. Poll: Most oppose closing Gitmo
Though the poll appears pre-cooked – generally addressing a specific alternative to Gitmo, transfer of the inmates to the US, that we already knew was deeply unpopular – it stil underlines a significant disjunction between, on the one side, “elite opinion” and standing policy, and, on the other, popular opinion. When I suggested above that “most Americans” supported closing the facility, presuming good alternatives, I might have noted that most Americans would likely support closing their County Jails if there were “good” alternatives.
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Excellent post.
Of course, this means the bint known as “skanklet” will post some near-unintelligible ebonics-laden rant to bolster her reputation as a complete douchenozzle.
PimFortuynsGhost on June 1, 2009 at 10:04 AM
so, unlike max boot, petraeus is not yet up for purging? what is the actual standard for banishment? i thought any show of respect for geneva is an automatic disqualifier from the
conservative movementrevolutionary brigades.yes! it means that he’s considered both sides, and still disagrees with you.
unlike obama, who uses the same language out of squeamishness and ill-considered expediency. the only question is, did petraeus get rolled by obama, or is it just a merry coincidence that, taking such different paths, they reached the same conclusions?
talk about squeamish wording, dude… i wonder what else you could possibly read into this:
and this:
maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t agree with cheney.
sesquipedalian on June 1, 2009 at 12:02 PM
I spent 24 years in the Navy and I’m a retired Master Chief – I worked with many flag officer’s like Petraeus. I know the “knife and fork” protocol they live by – and the core values they follow.
The one thing that most military officers of high stature hate the most is talking to the press about political subjects. It has to be done though on occasion and when it happens the officer will ALWAYS remind himself that he must SUPPORT the Commander In Chief in whatever he has said, or ordered previously.
That is the NUMBER ONE rule that Petraeus follows each time he is forced in front of a microphone with the press.
Now – you may ask that – how can an officer SUPPORT in words that which he doesn’t support in his heart?
Well, there’s several tricks. The first is – vagueness in the response. “Do you support closing Gitmo?” …
My response, as a flag officer would be “Sure – as long as it’s done responsibly and I know it will be”.
Let’s dissect that. First of all – who among us has a problem with closing GITMO if it’s done responsibly? The only problem I have as a private citizen is the fact that it can’t be done without creating GITMO some other place (like Montana) – and wasting a helluva lot of taxpayer money in the process. But a flag officer can easily rationalize that the tax dollars to close GITMO are not his problem. He can also rationalize closing GITMO because, in doing so – the military resources that are currently being devoted to the care and feeding of those prisoners will be freed up and can be used elsewhere by the military – and this is a significant “up side” for the armed forces.
If the President calls me into his office and says … “Hey Honda, I need you to support closing GITMO.” I would answer him – “You’re the President, and of course I support you in everything you do. If I disagree with you – I’ll do it here in private, but when I leave your office, I support YOUR plan Mr. President. If you ask me to do something I strongly disagree with – you’ll have my resignation – but I will go quietly – because I realize that the morale of the armed forces is at stake and it would be a disservice to those forces and this country for me to cause a stink that would compromise them.”
I would then ask him for certain reassurances about GITMO … “Mr. President, can you promise me that no detainees will be released back into the “wild” to become terrorists again?”
If the President assures me that he won’t allow any to be released to become terrorists again – then I’m aboard with his plan. Do I agree with the particulars of the plan? Nope. Are they important to me as an officer? Nope.
This is why asking a flag officer what he thinks about his CINC’s policy is utterly stupid.
What doesn’t surprise me though – is the same State Controlled Media that called David Petraeus a traitor – is now asking him loaded questions and using his answers to give credibility to Obama’s policies. I may warn here – that in this the Democrats should tread lightly – because a good flag officer is nobody’s chump. If Petraeus believes his reputation is being abused for political purposes to lend credibility to Obama’s – then the game will change.
Flag Officers can submit their resignation at the drop of a hat – and then, they are no longer bound to support anything the CINC says. If that happens – I think you may find that Petraeus could be one dangerous retired General.
HondaV65 on June 1, 2009 at 12:22 PM
HondaV65, I think your remarks are exactly on target, but at the same time I take Petraeus at his word that he really does believe – under current circumstances and considering his and effectively his CINC’s strategy – that what we can describe in shorthand as a “soft, internationalist” detainee policy is in our interest, and that more generally he’s on the side of dotting the internationalist i’s and crossing the t’s – on balance.
It wasn’t so long ago that Ronald Reagan signed us onto another soft internationalist policy, for reasons that were arguably quite sound at the time, but that may or may not still be. And you can be all for Gitmo and for a rough-as-we-feel-like interrogation policy and still acknowledge that there will be real costs to it. You can also acknowledge that a policy that made sense on balance in 2001-2 might not in 1988-9 or 2008-9. And you can be in favor of changing the policy and our “image” without feeling the need to indict and set yourself above those who supported a different policy.
It’s only the nutroots and people like sesquipedalian who imagine a black/white sado-conservatives vs. heroic anti-torture crusaders world, in which everyone has to line up all on one side or all on the other, forever and ever, no holds barred. I already explained what Petraeus would have to say, in my opinion, to cause conservatives to break with him. Additionally, if he made a point of taking pot shots at popular conservatives like, say Max Boot or David Frum, or like Colin Powell went as far as to endorse Obama – he would be walking himself outside the “tent.”
Otherwise, from our last presidential candidate and last president on down, conservatives are in the main quite willing to support a leader who diverges from some mostly imaginary “hard line” on these and other issues, as against an alternative like Obama. Believing anything else, perpetuating the idea that people like Frum and Powell have been or can be “purged,” shows a greater commitment to self-serving fantasies, internalized enemy images, and projection regarding conservatives than to realistic political observation… but now I’m just repeating my original post, so I’ll leave it at that.
CK MacLeod on June 1, 2009 at 1:17 PM
Mac, I completely agree with you that Conservatives are some of the most forgiving people around. I supported McCain even though he didn’t support waterboarding. I supported him even though he had led the charge against amnesty – true, most of my support for him was expedited by the looming aura of something much worse.
And … of course – we now have the worst case scenario visited up on us. The next GOP candidate I support will have to be A LOT more bonafide than McCain was – but if it were Petraeus, I don’t think any support he has for closing GITMO would taint my inclinations to support him – as long as that is one of the only areas we disagree in.
But I will reiterate – we cannot know for sure the complexities of his opinion here as he’s backstopping for the CINC – as he should be.
CONSERVATIVES who previously liked Petraeus need to understand this – we do not know the complexities and nuances of his position on this.
If you need something to compare my point to here …
During the campaign Sarah Palin supported a lot of McCain policies that everyone knew she disagreed with. The only one she really talked about was ANWAR and that was just to show she was an independent thinker. Her support for McCain was understood by Conservatives.
We need to give Petraeus that same exact leeway here.
HondaV65 on June 1, 2009 at 2:09 PM
…says blogger who recently instructed prominent defense intellectual to consider “leaving his friends for greener pastures” because he dared to mildly criticize the former VP’s daughter.
i wonder where this self-serving fantasy comes from.
sesquipedalian on June 1, 2009 at 2:21 PM
What the hell are you talking about?
HondaV65 on June 1, 2009 at 2:34 PM
Twist my words again, and I’ll consider banning you from my threads. I made a qualified prediction about where Boot may be taking himself. Even if I desired to instruct him to do anything, I don’t pretend I have the ability to do so.
As for the “Purge the RINOs” people, I never claimed or would claim that the people given to self-serving fantasies existed only on the left. Arlen Specter, for example, has purged himself. Frum, Powell, Parker, Brooks, and others are free to build a movement or pursue political initiatives with or without the people they seem to despise. If they want to walk off the edge of the conservative planet and tumble into the void, that’s up to them. If we choose to laugh at, celebrate, or ignore their departure, that’s up to us. More likely, a good number of them will come scrambling back if and when they sniff more opportunity with conservatives than without or against them.
CK MacLeod on June 1, 2009 at 2:47 PM
He’s referring to this:
I’m not sure whether sesqui’s misinterpretation of the above sentence – or the rest of that piece – results from intellectual dishonesty or from intellectual limitations. Either way, it’s tedious.
CK MacLeod on June 1, 2009 at 2:50 PM
purge, i say.
of course you don’t, but “[Boot] disagrees with [Cheney's] point. In short, he’s effectively an Obama supporter – and in this context a hostile witness” implies that he or his views are no longer welcome or to be trusted.
the right wing is hell-bent on purging rinos from its ranks. it’s no fantasy to observe that fact. you’re only doing damage control for petraeus because he’d be too severe a loss.
sesquipedalian on June 1, 2009 at 4:12 PM
I have as much right to criticize Boot as he does to criticize Liz Cheney, or insult Ann Coulter and Mark Levin, or defend Obama.
If Boot is a defender of Obama’s, then it’s dishonest of him to pretend, as he did in the posts I criticized, that his “real” difference with her has strictly to do with her tone and word choice. He was speaking from unacknowledged bias. Everyone else can decide on their own whether they consider his views “welcome.” His own approach shows why I personally don’t trust them. That was my point, and apparently it’s gone over your head.
I don’t have the power to purge Boot. I do have the ability to purge you. I don’t want to have to do it, but if you’re going to quote me or for that matter anyone else, quote accurately.
CK MacLeod on June 1, 2009 at 5:06 PM
After reading General Patreus statement, my only sentiment was one of, humility, for lack of a better term.
I’m very much a Cheney-girl, in that I’m glad he’s defending himself, the administration and the actions taken after 9/11. That should have been done even during the campaign. Most people respect what Cheney is doing, even if they think he’s misguided or wrong. Even at their lowest point, neither he nor President Bush were thought of by most people as corrupt or evil. At worst, incompetent and/or trigger-fingered.
That said, if the good General were to elaborate a bit more, and I found him “somewhere in the vast area to the left of Bush-Cheney ca. 2002-3,” I would likely move in his direction because I think his knowledge and experience greater and more impressive than President Bush and VP Cheney.
But I have a ‘politics’ question. If he’s, more or less, the good soldier to the CiC’s wishes and agenda, what happens when or if he tries to run for office? Does his most recent talk present a problem?
Eirenic Rebel on June 1, 2009 at 6:28 PM
All this is being made much too complicated, and likely too expensive. As the “detainees”, bar a few, are not likely to be released from imprisonment anyway, just change the name of Gitmo to Fort Whatever and the name of Fort Whatever to Gitmo. Then the “detainees” will no longer be at Gitmo and won’t even have to be moved. Problem solved.
MB4 on June 1, 2009 at 6:36 PM
Melodrama much?
The fact is – no one’s been purged – so your point is really garbage. Specter is really the only victim of anything even remotely resembling a “purge” – and in his case he fell out of favor with Pennsylvania Republicans – who are hardly “far right”.
As far as speaking out against RINO’s – since when do Democrats have a right to rail against their “DINO’s” but Republican’s can’t speak out against their RINO’s???
Why – I saw an article this week from a lefty saying that Obama should resign – he’s an abysmal failure who’s done nothing but continue the Bush policies. I guess by this standard you would say that the “far left” of the Democratic party is trying to purge Obama?
Laughable – as is your point.
The fact is – there are plenty of Conservatives who still stand by Powell (why I don’t know – but they do). And most Conservatives will stand by Petraeus. Hell, most Conservatives stood by McCain – in spite of what the propaganda you’ve been so easily falling prey to.
HondaV65 on June 1, 2009 at 6:47 PM
Not to quibble, as I know there are practicalities, but always remember, when “push comes to shove”, that although enlisted take an oath to the President (and the Constitution), officers take an oath only to the Constitution, with no mention whatsoever of the President, and that is very much on purpose.
** “I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God.” (DA Form 71)
This is stark contrast to another oath .
“I swear by God this sacred oath that I shall render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich and people, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that I shall at all times be ready, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath.” **
MB4 on June 1, 2009 at 6:49 PM
CK MacLeod on June 1, 2009 at 5:06 PM
you don’t have the power to purge max boot from anywhere, but you posted the item in order to draw attention to his dissing liz cheney. you used phrases like “hostile witness” and suggested that he
i.e. he’s about to switch sides, as if it’s indeed black and white, with us or against us. boot, in fact did nothing more than calling for a civilized tone – as opposed to, say, cheney’s insinuating that obama prefers to weaken America’s defenses.
now you find petraeus in agreement with obama. assuming that petraeus would probably not advocate for something that would hurt America (on the balance!), he by definition disagrees with the cheneys accusing obama of doing just that. in a previous post, you quoted ricks about the generals “rolling” obama on some issues, which suggests that should they disagree on gitmo, petraeus would have no problem to either influence obama or make their conflicting views public one way or another.
in any case, if you think that petraeus favors the cheney-addington approach to gitmo and detainees in general, you don’t know anything about the man. the views he expresses here shouldn’t surprise anyone. yet you go into contortions like explaining the meaning of “on the balance” as if it actually makes any difference.
(and of course ann coulter is not a serious voice in politics. she’s got a persona to sell.)
sesquipedalian on June 1, 2009 at 6:55 PM
Wish I knew why the comments at CKM’s posts start veering off to the left, at least as viewed on my computer.
At any rate, I must endorse HondaV65’s comments. As a retired Naval officer, I recognize exactly what Petraeus is doing. He wouldn’t be mendacious for any consideration, but he will always labor, in his public remarks on policy, to demonstrate the max alignment possible with the civilian administration.
As CKM points out, this doesn’t mean he’s a wuss, and doesn’t mean he actually disagrees with admnistration policy. It also — and this is very important — does NOT mean he is criticizing or repudiating policy that was adopted 7 years ago, and that we have decided to change. We’re not in the same situation now that we were in 7 years ago. Circumstances change, and policy sometimes changes with them.
And THAT said, the larger truth surrounding all of this is that even if Bush were still in office, or McCain had been elected, Petraeus would have said virtually the same thing in that interview, because it was the policy of the US federal government to close GTMO as soon as we feasibly could, even before Obama was elected. Both Bush and McCain supported that policy.
In fact, if McCain had been sworn in in January, instead of Obama, we’d probably be closer to closing GTMO.
J.E. Dyer on June 1, 2009 at 6:56 PM
I’m not referring to any “oath” – I’m telling you how the system works – having spent 24 years within it.
And the Democrats know that’s how it works – when Petraeus went to Capital Hill to testify on the surge the Democrats knew he had good news and immediately began labelling his report “The Bush Report” – to signify that it had no independence from the White House.
They were right.
Now those same Democrats are using Petraeus for their own smoke and mirror upgrade to Obama’s credibility.
HondaV65 on June 1, 2009 at 7:01 PM
You need to take your personal vendettas elsewhere – you’re no where on topic here.
HondaV65 on June 1, 2009 at 7:02 PM
Hey Mac, can you explain what violations of the Geneva Convention Petraeus is referring to?
What protections are accorded to illegal enemy combatants captured on the field of battle without uniform or flag?
I was under the impression it was none, or less.
apollyonbob on June 1, 2009 at 7:44 PM
Petraus is playing his cards right, you don’t get the stars without being politically pleasing. He needs to watch his public words if he wants to keep them. Wait until he leaves the service, then there might be some clarity on what he really means.
theboss on June 1, 2009 at 8:21 PM
apollyonbob on June 1, 2009 at 7:44 PM
I’d love it if someone who can (accurately and fairly) quote chapter and verse on the relevant decisions, dissents, statutes, regulations, and policies off the top of his or her head took a whack at your question. I believe that the GCs initially leave treatment of Unlawful Combatants up to the laws of the states that apprehend them – and that a couple law schools worth of complexity and complication can be derived from that simple premise. Since we’re a constitutional democracy, nothing’s simple. I think the bottom line is that while we await further legislation and rulings, for better or worse we’re pretty much committed to treating the detainees with as many rights and protections a clever lawyer can locate for them.
The other bottom line is that these are novel situations, and our decisions are complicated by the very nature of the struggle between an advanced nation-state and non-state actors.
CK MacLeod on June 1, 2009 at 9:53 PM
I doubt it. I also take Petraeus at his word – and this may be naive of me I guess, but it’s backed up by those who know him or have spent much time with him – that he has no intention or desire to enter electoral politics.
That said, there’s a world of potential conflict between a president and his generals, as we’ve seen many times before, but as long as things are going relatively well, and no great adjustments and disagreements need to be worked out, there’s no reason for it to blow up.
CK MacLeod on June 1, 2009 at 10:12 PM
apollyonbob and CKM — as I read Petraeus’ comment on the Geneva Convention, what he meant was not to make a statement that the terrorist detainees fall under it, but that when he was in tactical command in Iraq, he ensured that interrogation guidance conformed with it.
We’re back to that distinction, here, between long-term detainees at GTMO, and persons captured and interrogated, on s short-term basis, by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The actual cases of misconduct and court-martial conviction involving military interrogators have been of the latter kind.
And it’s the field guidance for those latter interrogations that Petraeus was referring to in the interview. There is a sound basis for according them Geneva Convention treatment, as they are not known, on capture, to even be terrorists at all. In many cases they are terrified and unfortunate locals who got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Field interrogation is partly a matter of triage, to determine whom to let go and whom to detain longer.
In any case, field interrogation by military personnel has to conform to the UCMJ standards of military conduct. Our soldiers are not allowed by the UCMJ to abuse even known terrorists whom they are holding in detention.
General Petraeus knows this distinction better than anyone. It looks to me like he is affirming the procedural integrity the military in the field has striven to maintain — without getting wordy and explaining at length how that is a different matter from the interrogation practices occasionally authorized at GTMO.
J.E. Dyer on June 1, 2009 at 11:32 PM
JED, your distinction between the gang at Gauntanamo and the garden variety detainees that Petraeus’ people are mainly dealing with in the field is well-taken, but I think at the same time, and in a non-contradictory, in fact mutually reinforcing way, his statements intentionally fold both questions back together again.
Aside from the fact that the question invited him to speak broadly, it was from RFE/RL, so his primary audience is also broad. Would I be wrong to assume that his answer would have been translated into umpteen languages and re-played repeatedly across several thousand miles? Yet at the same time he’s always speaking to his own people and anyone else who might be listening or reading, always communicating and reinforcing the same message integral to his counterinsurgency scheme: That his army, from top to bottom and side to side, plays by the rules, and that they’re good rules, and that everyone should feel just great about that fact (will be listened to if they have valid complaints, will be protected and well-treated, are safe if they have info to share, etc.).
At the same time, he’s typically very careful, at times even maddeningly so, about restricting his view to his own area of responsibility.
There was one moment, a typical exception for Petraeus, when his aversion to politics and his mission focus combined to force him off message and into politics. If you recall his September ‘07 testimony – he briefly caused a bit of a stir (thrilling to the netroots anti-surge types who otherwise were having their heads handed to them) when he declined to agree with the proposition that progress in Iraq made us “safer” in the US: “I don’t know, actually,” he said. He later sought to clarify the statement and his beliefs, among other things by explaining that he was completely focused on his mission, which was in Iraq, not the US.
Anything he says now has to be understood similarly, I believe. That doesn’t mean he’s prevaricating, it just means that it should be understood within the context of what he’s trying to achieve – which isn’t delivering a new Sermon on the Mount or opening the 2012 presidential campaign or massaging Obama’s poll numbers, though I trust he’d do any of that if he was convinced it would help (and protect) his troops and improve their chances of success.
CK MacLeod on June 2, 2009 at 12:12 AM
Actually, the Petraeus comment in the Congressional testimony on the surge was vintage Petraeus. He was 100% right that it was not his job to answer that question. Absolutely 100% right. The only thing he could have done was finesse the handoff better. It wasn’t his job — and it still isn’t today — to comment on whether the US is made safer by our policies in the CENTCOM AOR.
The answer to that question lies with the president, SECDEF, and the National Security Advisor. No one below that rank should be answering the question. What Petraeus should have done was NOT get the deer-in-the-headlights look, and refer his questioner to his seniors.
I don’t remember who asked the question, but it was a political stunt to ask it of a sub-theater commander. Petraeus, I guarantee you, learned from that interaction; but the most important things, about statesmanship, character, and leadership, he already knew. The Senator is the one who came off looking like a shabby poseur, trying to put a warrior who was actually achieving someone no one else on earth could, on the spot.
J.E. Dyer on June 2, 2009 at 12:13 PM
JED, as an aside, have you read THE GAMBLE? As I’m sure you’re aware, Ricks lets his biases and preconceptions get in the way, but he still provides a highly informative and for that matter sympathetic narrative of the events of 2006-8 around Petraeus – including the testimony. (Someday, someone will movingly dramatize it on film, and note that Petraeus was suffering throughout from an old parachuting injury that made sitting in those chairs for hours on end an agony.)
Here’s an article to refresh your recollection (as they say at such hearings): http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2007/09/12/2007-09-12_gen_petraeus_i_dont_know_if_iraq_war_hel.html
As you will see the question came from Sen Warner. Petraeus’ lack of finesse put him in the position of having to do something which, as you and I agree, he rightly didn’t want to do – offer a political (or politicizable) opinion about the overall strategy, even though it didn’t really go beyond something almost any commanding general, I would think, would want to communicate to the troops and to the world (that what they were doing was worthwhile).
CK MacLeod on June 2, 2009 at 12:50 PM