Monday, September 10, 2007

Ya gotta feel bad for the guy

I do feel bad for General Petraeus, no matter what I might think about him, the war, GOPs, W, politics in general. I was listening to NPR today, which had a live broadcast of him defending his findings about "the Surge" (wasn't that a soda a bunch of years ago?) to a joint session in Congress. Basically a bunch of politicians lining up to take potshots at him and get their bullshit posturing in so they would have a soundbite for the punters back home. Sure a simple "Is this working? Prove it." would have ben adequate, instead of questions like, "Do you think our effors in Iraq are aiding al-Qaida?" Gee, what do you think?

I don't know why so much effort is being put into this report. Well--in theory I do, but since we're all agreed the soldiers have to come home SOME TIME (right, right?), eventually there is going to come a time when there is no American presence in Iraq, and that's the point we have to worry about, not right now if we're "winning" or not. Sooner or later, that power vacumm is going to happen, and when it does...

Damn. Talk about your thesis-defence from hell.

Meanwhile, hamsters.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

My Dad made an interesting point about war. In order to succeed you have to go in full force, conquer, set up a government and leave...none of this wishy washy security, training, coaxing the people to set up a constitution. They need leaders. They had a ruler. We disposed of him. Pull out now--civil war...and maybe that's the solution...that way, eventually someone will put a leader back in place. Of course it won't be a USA approved leader. But that's what this is all about the US best interest anyway isn't it. Fuck the Iraq people. Sad that on 9/11 the people suffering the most now had absolutely nothing to do with the attack.