4.08.2008

Last Throes

I think we got a pretty honest assessment from Gen. Petraeus today. My more liberal and left of center friends will probably disagree with me on this though. However, I thought this time around the general was much more honest and out front with his answers than he was last time. There is no way this war can be summed up in Congressional testimony. And there's no way this war can be talked about without mentioning how we got here in the first place. And finally, I think the general laid it out best when he said the following.

PETRAEUS: It is very fair, Senator, and it's why I repeatedly noted that we haven't turned any corners, we haven't seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible.
Five years into a three week war this is where we stand. Fragile, reversible and ongoing. It boils down to what I said the other day. Republicans want to stay in Iraq forever. McCain's stance on Iraq is as long as we are incurring casualties we can't leave, but if troops aren't dying then we can stay forever. 100 years or 10,000 years doesn't matter to McCain and the GOP. They would gladly send their generals to testify before Congress every six months or so if that keeps their war going forever.

1 comments:

Kent said...

We agree on Petraeus' testimony, but you miss the point on Iraq and the so-called '100 years.'

We didn't leave Japan and look where they are as a country today.

Look at Europe.

And then look what happened after we left Vietnam. Look what happened after we left Iraq in '91.

Context is badly needed here. Taking anyone's comments out of said context harms the debate and misinforms people.