Today, General Petraeus, the war czar who has largely taken over leadership of the American military’s fighting in Iraq from once-Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, testified before Congress that the small benefits that have taken place in Iraq after all the sacrifices the military escalation (Bush calls it “the surge”) are “fragile”.
Petraeus said that if American soldiers are reduced to pre-escalation levels, Iraq could easily go rushing downhill into utter chaos.
How can an escalation that keeps on going for years on end be called a success? How can it be called a “surge”?
George W. Bush used to say that he was waging war in order to achieve peace. Logically, that’s a sloppy position at best. Now, empirically, General Petraeus has testified that the strategy of trying to achieve peace by fighting wars just doesn’t work.
Of course, if Barack Obama said that the work of the American military is “fragile”, the right wing personalities of cable television would accuse him of being unpatriotic and anti-soldier. For them, the nature of the truth alters according to its source.
It’s the same as the general ignorance of the voters in both 2000 and 2004. Suddenly they’re “shocked and awed” that their former America is no longer around. “Hey where’d my quality of life go? All i do is work and it never gets any better any more.”
Telling people “i told you so” doesn’t help the situation, and there’s still a lot of people that go along with the Republican/corporate agenda not realizing that it runs counter to their own best interests. i mean there is a LOT of ignorance out there, especially while the likes of Fixed News, the conservative horn-blowers and the reality twisters run their media viewpoint 24/7.
Also, don’t think for a minute that Petraeus and/or our military being there is any deterrent for a civil war flare up at any time. When MILLIONS of people are armed with guns and are used to generational tribal warfare, any occupying force is just in the way (temporarily, at best, and surrounded, actually).
Sun tzu says that no nation has ever benefited from constant war. The awareness is just starting to hit home for many.