LETS CALL DEMOCRATS WHAT THEY ARE…ROUND#2
General David Petraeus is a four star general with 30 years of decorated service in the United States Army, which includes having been shot and severly injured. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal. He holds a Ph D. from Princeton University. He is the chief author of the Army’s definitive counterinsurgency. He has spent years studying counterinsurgency and Iraq and when he was appointed by Bush to be the new Supreme Allied Commander in Iraq he received unanimous approval and accolades. He has spent several years studying Iraq and has more direct, personal knowledge than anyone on the planet about the current security situation in that country.
According to Democrats, he’s a liar. According to MoveOn.org, he’s a traitor.
Here is what they said.
Florida Rep. Robert Wexler: Petraeus has resorted to “cherry-picking” to arrive at the statistics he used to demonstrate our progress in the region. He suggested the general had been “selectively massaging” the data to come up with his key assertions.
Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin: Gen. Petraeus has “carefully manipulated the statistics.” He wondered if “the report had been written by White House aides” even after Petraeus, under oath, insisted that no one in the administration had previously seen, nor approved of the assessment.
Democratic Conference Chairman Rahm Emanuel: Before even hearing testimony, Emanuel said ” the Petraeus report could win the Pulitzer for Fiction or the Nobel Prize for Creative Statistics.
MoveOn.org spent hundreds of thousands of dollars telling the world through advertising and PR, that Gen. Petraeus, the United States commander in Iraq, would “Betray Us”.
Republican Roy Blunt said this:
“If ever anyone deserved the full attention and deep respect of the U.S. Congress, I’d submit that Gen. Petraeus would be that person. And considering how important an issue our success or failure in Iraq is to this Congress, our troops, and the American people, you’d think the general would’ve received a captive audience the moment he arrived in Washington this week. Too bad Democrats had already decided in their own minds that what he came here to say didn’t matter much….when faced with the opportunity to set politics aside and educate themselves on a vital matter of foreign policy and national security, too many of my Democratic colleagues decided the more prudent course was to dismiss, denounce, or flat-out defame the commander they had demanded fly in to brief them.”
Keep in mind NOBODY!, not one of the elected officials mentioned in this post, not the New York Times, not MoveOn.or, NOBODY is offering any credible evidence to contradict Petraeus’ testimony, which is based on comprehensive data collection by the military and compared to and compiled with, data collected by the Iraqi government and other private entities both in the US and abroad.
These unprincipled Democrats called the leader of our troops in Iraq a traitor. You, the American people, must call them to task for this outrageous behavior.
Who is our enemy? It’s time to call the Democrats what they really are…..you tell me the word.
The Other Side Says: September 14th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
all i need to say is Colin Powell.
nutslikebush Says: September 15th, 2007 at 12:48 am
A huge number of Republicans are on exactly the same page as the Democrats on this one though, Buck. Being against this war is a bipartisan sentiment these days.
The Other Side Says: September 15th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
its worth mention that petreus’ assessment isn’t the focus of defining the surge’s success, its crocker’s. crocker said that the iraqi government is “dysfunctional”. he had nothing good to say about political reconciliation but everyone is talking about the military success. even petreus said that there is no military solution in iraq. yet bush will take petreus’ recomindations even though they do not lead to a political solution.
even the liberal media is fixated on the military assessments. you hear petreus’ name more than crocker’s. but the al-anbar example doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of iraq (fyi buck, by arming the sunni militias, america is pretty much partitioning iraq into states of militias). bush said he would hold the iraqi parlaiment accountable but that hasn’t happened. bush gave iraq until september to remedy the government. it may have been an unreachable goal, but bush made it, along with the benchmarks. iraq’s government failed to meet the benchmarks therefore the surge failed.
if failing the important benchmarks means continuing the war, then what incentive does iraq have to reform? so bush will continue the surge until it is forced to end with little hope of accomplishing anything political. but i guess the benchmarks that were so important in january aren’t that important anymore, just read what the administration said on friday about the benchmarks.
Clara Says: September 17th, 2007 at 4:32 am
Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM) called Patraeus “an *ss-kissing little chickensh*t” to his face .
I’d think you’d call Admiral Fallon to task for such a “traitorous” insult. I mean, you believe that’s defamation of character, right? Of course, he’s senior to Patraeus, so maybe it’s okay? I mean, if he called you “an *ss-kissing little chickensh*t” would you be flattered because he’s someone you may worship and whose boots you might love to lick?
Regarding the Patraeus/Bush return on success nonsense, do you ever read anything coming out of Iraq? Ever read any Iraqi bloggers? In this day and age, what with the internet being global and all, if you’re so stupid that you have to depend on what Patraeus or President Bush tell you to get an accurate picture of reality on the ground in Iraq, and you simply want to write right-wing propaganda to feed your hate, then you’re lazy, crazy and intellectually dishonest. Thank God you guys are now a solid minority.
Please, broaden your horizons. Do it for the troops.
Buck Evinger Says: September 18th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN I INTRODUCE YOU TO CLARA….
THE NEW POSTERCHILD FOR THIS WEB SITE!!!!!!
The Other Side Says: September 20th, 2007 at 2:07 am
again i mention colin powell. america’s case for the war in iraq was placed on powell’s credibility. and the majority of what he said was false. so america is supposed to trust another four star general with another case for this war? bush has no credibility on iraq anymore and he needed someone who people would believe. of course that strategy only implies to people who agree with bush, unlike general shinseki.
Zach Says: September 20th, 2007 at 9:21 am
God Bless you CLARA!!!!!
Are you married. Cause if not…….
And you make a very good point on the democrats looking for authouritative figures for what is happening in Iraq
nutslikebush Says: September 20th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Clara’s quote by Fallon originated in an Inter-Press Services Article (Below). According to the report, Fallon told Petraeus [in March] that he considered him to be “an ass-kissing little chickensh*t” and added, “I hate people like that”, the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
The Washington Post reported this weekend that there is an internal military debate, described as “Armageddon,” brewing between Petraeus and Fallon because the two men have “profoundly different views of the U.S. role in Iraq.”
To remind readers, Fallon is chief of Central Command.
Just FYI, Buck etc.
The Other Side Says: September 21st, 2007 at 3:48 pm
as this saga of petreus continues, it gets more frustrating. the reason why petreus and crocker were chosen to speak to congress is because bush had no credibility on iraq. bush has always spoken about the strategy in iraq and now, all of a sudden, he has a four star general speak. and by throwing a military man into the political meat-grinder that is congress, bush opened petreus up to scrutiny.
however, when petreus comes under needed political scrutiny, the kind that was missing during the run-up to iraq, republicans get outraged. they consistently bring up the moveon.org advertisement to avoid a debate about iraq. the ad was distasteful, but it has been talked about way too much. congress even voted to condem it.
republicans seem to think its okay to swift-boat a veteran of iraq, but its not okay to critisize petreus. why should the democrats be demonized for oversight? this debate is too important to trust a bush appointee to give the full picture. democrats learned from history that important military decisions need to be discussed.
Buck Evinger Says: September 23rd, 2007 at 1:29 am
Other Side. Petraeus and Crocker were not “chosen” to speak by Bush. Congress, during Petraeus’ confirmation hearing, DEMANDED that Petraeus appear before them to report on the effects of the surge. Then when he did. They called him a liar.
A political special interest group, SwiftBoat Vets, called a political candidate, John Kerry, a liar during a political campaign. That is politics. For sitting memebers of congress, who control the budget strings of the military, to call the leader of America’s military forces who are actively engaged in war a liar…is outrageous. Do you really, really not see the difference?
Anytime the Democratically controlled congress wants to, they can bring the Iraq war to the floor for debate and vote to withdraw funding…Anytime…they just lack the courage to do it.
nutslikebush Says: September 23rd, 2007 at 4:00 am
The problem for Petraeus, however, is that many of his facts were wrong according to other reliable sources. He didn’t really source his facts and clearly did some serious cherry-picking to make the surge results ook a lot better than they were in reality.
nutslikebush Says: September 23rd, 2007 at 4:08 am
I think that the problem is that the administration, Petraeus Maximus, and the republic (I leave off the last two letters of their name now, like they do with the democratic party - just for symmetry) have redefined the word “working.” In virtually every respect, Iraq, from the standpoint of Iraqis, has gotten worse over the past 6 months. Most importantly, they have no real government, no reliable security, no clean water, no electricity, food is scarce, there are horrible outbreaks of contagious deadly diseases, no medicine, few doctors, no business people, they are occupied by an invading force of infidels, they think that they are in hell. Other than that, the surge is “working” just fine.
nutslikebush Says: September 23rd, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Buck,
According to your previous position (adopted from von Clausewitz), war and politics are equivalent. Therefore, you must think that Petraeus is just another politician and thus fair game. But that would require you to be logically consistent.
JACKSON Says: September 24th, 2007 at 12:52 am
I know Iraq sucks, but on that same token how some people make it look better than what it is most people make it look worse than it truely is. There is progress here in Iraq, not enough to win the battle, it will take alot more for that. Yes some Iraqis hate us but the news never reports on the majority that appreciate us here. The Iraqi government sucks, but remember when Germany lost it took 10 years for Germany to get it’s act together. Unfortunately everyone has miscalculated and expectations were set to high. But we are doing our best on the ground, it’s the people back home and in Washington that need to get their s**t together.
nutslikebush Says: September 24th, 2007 at 2:57 am
I’ll tell you what! If that lame brain in the White House gets us into a war with Iran, he must be impeached the next day.
nutslikebush Says: September 24th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Jackson,
I agree with you for the most part. I think the military has done a spectacular job. That is not in question by anyone. The problem is that we are not going to be able to steer the Iraqi political process - so it is a total crap shoot with bad odds.
The Other Side Says: September 24th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
buck, the reason why democrats cannot bring the iraq debate to the floor is because of the republican filibuster. thats the reason why democrats need to get the sixty votes and not just a majority. thats why the democrats have been ineffective as the majority, they cannot muster enough republicans to vote for cloture. as a result, neither the house nor the senate can actually vote to pass any of the bills, they keep voting to end the filibuster. this republican minority is on track to set a record for the most filibusters. the sad thing part is that america only sees failed bills and unfairly blames the democrats. it is the republican obstructionism that is preventing many of the iraq bills to even be debated.
buck, the democrats have the support of the majority of the country on their side of the iraq debate. to say they lack courage because they are being blocked by everyone (republican minority and a bush veto) is a cheap shot.
however, it is true that many democrats are afraid to withhold funding because of the republican fear campaign (i.e. withholding money would leave the troops without the necessary supplies). but i bet if democrats did withhold funding, buck would be all up in arms about that.
nutslikebush Says: September 25th, 2007 at 1:19 am
Bollinger did an excellent job introducing Ahmedinejad today.
video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5476215919949031975&q=Lee+Bollinger+Ahmadinejad&total=8&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
JACKSON Says: September 25th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I just read Army Ranger Snipers are being charged for baiting insurgents to their kill zone. So now America again puts soldiers in harms way were they have to fight an enemy who blends in with the population, who fights by no rules, has no ethical standards and because our snipers are making the enemy come to him they are considered as entraping the enemy and it is unethical. I want this to burn in your thoughts - it’s easy to tell soldiers who are fighting and dying everyday about ethics and morals especially while you are at a coffee shop BSing with your hippie friends. Honestly, if you were in a situation were your life and your soldiers lives were at stake I think you would do anything possible to insure their lives kept. But maybe not because of your freedom and your rights and your ethics and morals you might just let all your soldiers die. I wish I could swap my soldiers with the Americans who decide how we fight, I wish I could swap my soldiers for all thos people who say “we have to fight with a higher standard than our enemy”. As soon as they start dying and realizing how unfair it is they will be begging the soldiers to come back. I am getting tired of fighting for my country and having my country tell me, but you gotta fight him with only 10% innitiative, one arm tied behind your back, and be careful not to hurt him to bad or your gonna loose the fight. I am starting to feel like seriously America doesn’t want us to win. I am not defending straight up civilian murders, those people should be prosecuted but baiting your enemy into your kill zone is good tactics and it probably won’t work anymore because the bleeding heart liberals just let our enemy know our tactics. But because I want my enemy to come to me so I don’t have to bother the civillians, because I want to interrigate the enemy to get intel, because I want to kill my enemy, because I want to survive my enemy trying to kill me, I am a monster. And you with your freedoms, your coffee, your morals and ethics sitting on that leather sofa watching CNN your the heavenly ghost of all that is good. Let’s trade places, but your response, we not suited to fight or we chose not to fight, then you should choose to let the people who are fighting, fight. You should also keep your judgements of soldiers to yourself, most Americans could not understand what these soldiers, my soldiers go through on a daily basis, especially if their lucky enough to see another day. I vent here because many soldiers never had the oppertunity to tell you how pist they were because they died protecting your freedom and your morals. So drink a latte for a fallen American soldier the next time you go to StarBucks, for those poor Rangers why don’t you protest their freedom, you seem to protest about our enemie’s…
nutslikebush Says: September 25th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Dan Carlin had some interesting comments on how the Ahmedinejad visit should have been handled. Listen to “Give ‘em enough rope” (Sept 24) here: dancarlin.com/
Carlin’s my kind of guy. He likes a good fight and thinks that Ahmedinejad was perfectly set up to take a hard shot to the chin if any of our politicians had the courage to take a swing at him.
dab Says: September 27th, 2007 at 2:01 am
And MoveOn.org’s question about Petraeus is somehow more offensive than than what Republicans did to Max Cleland….how? Or, for that matter, to John Kerry’s Vietnam service and Purple Heart?
Hypocrite scum.
Celumnaz Says: September 27th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Yes it is. Petraeus is Active duty and *Cannot* respond to those who Demanded he be there so they could call him a liar before he could speak.
Kerry and Cleland, non-active, make their service political issues for themselves hoping it would help them get elected. “look at me! I can throw someone else’s medals over a fence and dishonestly stab my brothers in arms in the back at the same time!”
nutslikebush Says: September 28th, 2007 at 1:50 am
Our entire country has devolved into one continuous smearfest (just look at this site). The right smears the left, the left smears the right, I smear them both. The sad thing, in truth, is that there really isn’t a nickle’s worth of difference between the right and the left if you really look at them closely. But they are both populated by such retards, they don’t even know that they are spitting on their own reflection in the mirror. That goes for you LAL weirdos especially.
The Other Side Says: September 29th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
i wonder if jackson knows that over 70% of the military in iraq wants the us to withdraw. maybe in his section the soldiers want to stay and fight, but that isn’t representative of most of the military.
are the troops really more pissed at the opinion of most of america than the flawed strategy and pointless war that bush screwed up over and over? there are new reports saying that sadaam would’ve gone into exile if he could take $1 billion. but for whatever reason, that option failed. that means that the blood shed could have been avoided for 1 tenth of a percent of the projected cost of this war. are the troops pissed about that?
are the troops pissed the veterans affairs bureau is so full of red tape that their medical needs, including ptsd, cannot be attended to in a timely manner?
are the troops pissed that they need to stay in iraq longer than they are able to stay at home?
i’m addressing jackson and all of the pro-war people that still see dissent as un-american. the debate about iraq is shifting to reasons why america is still in iraq, not why we should withdraw. every reason to stay is based on hypotheticals. how do neo-cons know iraq will destabilize more than it is now? maybe the ethnic cleansing and millions of displaced iraqis will partition the country and stop the violence. no one knows, but any policy made by bush needs to be scrutinized more than ever before because he has lied too much, and still is.
i agree with nutslikebush, the partisan atmosphere of washington is preventing any progress (look at bush about to veto the schip program for ideological reasons). nothing will change as long as bush is in office. aren’t there enough reasons to impeach bush? hyper-partisan republicans impeached clinton for one mistake that hurt no one. how many mistakes has bush made that has killed people?
The Other Side Says: September 29th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
i think many people overlooked what the petreus ad actually said. it never stated that petreus was a traitor, it asked a retorical question, (general petreus or general betray us?). moveon.org spent $65 thousand, not hundreds of thousands to buy the space.
the ad put into question what petreus would say about the progress in iraq. they used the negative assessments of iraq by recent independent reports, nie and gao, to contradict petreus’ claims. they used reports by the new york times and the washington post to show how the numbers were flawed: car bombs don’t count and where a person is shot denotes sectarian or just crime. the ad said the associated press reported there were more deaths in the last three months than any other summer that america has been there. it also mentioned that the neighborhoods where violence has decrease has been ethnically cleansed.
it ended with “Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petreus is likely to become General Betray Us.” (direct quote) people get so uptight about the title and make knee-jerk assumptions. buck used the ad as fire for his self-fulfilling profecy that democrats are unprincipled and america’s true enemy, at least thats the inference the reader is supposed to think.
read the actual document before making accusations and don’t equate democrats with a left-wing organization. because they had questions about the report and didn’t automatically believe petreus, like the republicans, means they actually want the facts and the opportunity to debate the iraq policy.
nutslikebush Says: September 30th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Jackson,
no one is stopping you, obviously. We aren’t debating the military. We are challenging the civilian leaders who are making unwise decisions. Our conscience demands it.
JACKSON Says: September 30th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
The other side, My whole argument (and it pertains to any war, battle U.S. soldiers have fought, fight and will fight), was people who chose not to fight, who feel they are not suited to fight, and Americans in general, like to send men and women to fight a war then handicap them. They let them fight battles and never really give them what they need to succeed, then you judge them. We soldiers are more pissed that the American people make us fight an enemy with no ethics and morals and from their leather sofa tell us we have to be better than them. You can’t beat gorilla warfare with conventional warfare. As you can see their are more dog tags in the bucket. Feel my words, it has nothing political, it’s a cry for understanding, it’s a plea for America to get their S@#t together or more Americans are gonna die. Would you like to fight a war were you could get killed, but you had to so many limitations and restrictions meanwhile your enemy has free rain. Is that ethical. Or here woould you like to play a golf match were if you loose you and your buddies die if you win you might get your old job back, but you couldn’t swing full force and you were only allowed 2 puts, and everythime you had a good swing that gave you an advantage the judges deducted points or disqualified you. Thats why soldiers are pissed.
Lastly, I don’t like this war or any war for that matter, I would love to play with my kids or hold my wife, but America told me to go to Iraq. So let me, us do our job or send us home, but make up your mind.
The soldiers are pissed by alot of things, but the Ranger story just added another log to the fire. When are you guys gonna be on our side…
nutlikebush Says: October 2nd, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Jackson,
it is the code of military conduct that you are protesting. Not civilian opinion. The code itself restricts you from doing what it os that you seem to want to do in Iraq to Iraqis.
JACKSON Says: October 2nd, 2007 at 9:59 pm
I wasn’t attacking anyone here, I was going off on the story I read a few days back about Army Ranger Snipers being courtmartialed for doing their job… It’s like if we don’t kill, capture, or turn our enemy we are loosing, we are not making progress, we have little results. If we do kill, capture or turn our enemies we get put on trial or were called murderes. Meanwhile one side of our government is yelling go get em tiger, the other side is yelling bad dog. In the middle we just want to live long enough to make it home.
JACKSON Says: October 3rd, 2007 at 11:04 pm
It’s a code that every year gets changed because people who know nothing of war change it. That is a fact! You can’t train the soldiers hard like we used too, so when they break down in the field it’s their fault or the military?, it’s the libs fault for tampering with a machine that was working. You can’t paint flowers on a tank and think now isn’t that better, it’s a freaken tank it blows things up. Now I am not wanting to kill anyone and everyone or pull someones eyeballs out, all I am saying is give us a chance here, realize that if you put us in harms way give us a chance. After all just like you we want to enjoy our freedoms, but we can’t if were dead.
Nuts I know libs mean well, and they wish everyone could just be civil and hold true to their morals and share the same ethics, but the truth is our enemies don’t. I wish we didn’t need to say “What makes the grass grow, Blood, Blood, BLood” or when you see the enemy what you gonna do Kill, Kill, Kill! But our enemies have no ethics or morals just extremes of life and death. We can’t train soldiers for the best when they are fighting a war at the worst. Like I said earlier it is easy to say from your sofa “how could those soldiers do that etc…” but if you were in their shoes with your sweat in your eyes, your ears ringing, your friend dead and your heart pumping like a jackrabbit you would praying our Army Snipers get those guys who are mortaring your position.
I want to make this clear, I am not arguing the military should have free rain but more of the lines of America can’t be sensitive to how we train our soldiers and they must adjust the same way our soldiers must adjust to the type of wars we fight will fight now and in the future.
The Other Side Says: October 13th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
“These unprincipled Democrats called the leader of our troops in Iraq a traitor. You, the American people, must call them to task for this outrageous behavior. ”
how do conservatives feel about the attacks on graeme frost who said the democratic radio response a few weeks ago? the attacks against petreus put some doubt into his testimony, and again, never called petreus a traitor. however the attacks against a 12-year-old kid were lies and dangerous to his family: the conservative blogs gave out his address. but i guess all of the conservative reasons for vetoing the bill are lies or falsehoods anyway.
one more example of conservative hypocrasy.