Petraeus Report

[CaptnKirk]

. . . so 35 years later we get a delayed replay - repeating, almost to the word, that military solution philosophy, and reporting style that was used in South East Asia.

same song, different General.


but somebody forgot to bring the dominoes.

they have tried to suppress the 'body count' score keeping tally that they tried to brag up.

next we'll be hearing about the 'light at the end of the tunnel'

but some of us already know it's a proctoscope.

 

[BMW540I6speed]

CadSortaGuy said:

They are waiting for their new chants to be emailed to them by MoveOn.org.

Oh, and I think most here tired of the subject due to it being fought a month in advance of the actual report(another MoveOn.org move).

Fear of Movon.org?

All this uproar about Movon.org is inderectly giving it press & exposure it didn't have before.

The ad was stupid. It allowed the Admin. supporters to make this entire debate about ?military good or bad? rather than about the testimony. Stupid idiotic tactics on MoveOn?s part to hand the ideologue's a perfect wedge issue to distract everybody from the real debate that should be taking place.

They didn?t have to do the ?Betray US? thing. They could have just made an ad that pointed out all the "truthiness" Patreaus has taken part in over the last few months. The ad could simply have focused on all the misleading statements Patreaus has made. By playing it straight they could have gotten at least some of the MSM focused on the message. Granted it would have been a small number. But noise machine would have had to work at overcoming the truth.

But the ?Betray US? comment means nobody even has to bother trying to refute what they say. They simply have to say they?re calling Patreaus a traitor and stop. As far as the MSM is concerned the argument begins and ends there. It?s not about whether or not Patreaus is telling the truth anymore and stilting his testimony, it?s about his ?Patriotism.?

True or not, its bad tactics and makes it easier for the Limbaughlicans smear machine.

What ever happened to the truth being more important than one's ideology? The tragedy is that it gives cover to the far more egregious distortions of folks like the Swift Boat Veterans, and buries the very important facts about Petraeus that MoveOn contends to be bringing to light.

However....

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Republicans are making a big mistake by spending all their TV time complaining about accusations that Gen. Petraeus is cooking the books in his assessment of progress in Iraq?

Repeating the accusation, even if it's only to denounce it, is still repeating the accusation. And it means that everyone watching today's hearing is learning over and over and over that a lot of people don't trust Petraeus, something they might not have known before since the majority of Democrats aren't mentioning it.

This strikes me as a very dumb thing to do.

We got in to this horrible and complex situation through the exploitation of simplistic ideologies and adolescent thinking, and it is exacerbated daily by the same thing. It doesn't matter which "side" one is on now- every "solution" is fraught with problems, and only a sober analysis of the situation can help reduce both the body count and the destructive impact this misadventure will have in the future. Listening to Petraeus' distortions today, and seeing this ad from the "grassroots" oppostion, I have waning faith in America's ability to deal realistically with what has been wrought.

 

[jonks]

And now for some levity. Enjoy watching some protestors get the boot: http://rawstory.com//news/2007...ters_quickly_0910.html

"Oh Senator? Love the suit."

And to soothe the other side, the Onion has the inside scoop on the Petraeus report:
http://www.theonion.com/conten...petraeus_delivers_iraq

 

[manowar821]

Originally posted by: sirjonk
And now for some levity. Enjoy watching some protestors get the boot: http://rawstory.com//news/2007...ters_quickly_0910.html

"Oh Senator? Love the suit."

HAHA that was pretty good.

 

[Sinsear]

Originally posted by: manowar821

Originally posted by: Sinsear

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Nothing short of a total withdraw will make the anti-war crowd happy.

As we have seen on here in thread after thread:
There is no such thing as progress in Iraq. You can have a NY Times editorial, multiple Democrat congressman and Senators and even Katie Curic say that things are improving and they will just ignore them all and look for anything they can to prove otherwise.

They want us to lose. Defeat on the battlefield could turn into their socialist utopia here at home.

Wow, is this just more useless dirty nationalist BS or what? Does your kind of people really think like this every day? Do you really think anti-war people are bad, evil, America hating terrorist sympathizers?

There are a couple main points as to why certain people, myself included, hate war. Especially this fake "war" (fake due to the lack of a declaration). One of these main reasons is because our soldiers are dying for little good reason.

How would you like if I said you pro-war people hated our troops and enjoyed seeing them die for your own imperialistic views? You hate our troops, you want them to loose. You want them to die so we have more reason to stay in the fight and and so that companies get more profit from the war.

That's not what you think, though, now is it? That would be disgustingly unfair and hateful for me to say that. I'm pretty sure, even though I think you're 100% wrong with the way to go about it, that you want what is best for people as a whole.

So... My point? Stop calling us anti-war people "American troop hating socialists". It's pig-headed, nationalistic, and completely untrue. It reeks of blind patriotism, and shows how much your vote is truly worth in this country.

The best part is that it's worth as much as yours .

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Oh, and I think most here tired of the subject due to it being fought a month in advance of the actual report(another MoveOn.org move).

Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about it.

Only a couple of things sorta interesting. The asshat Lantos calling Petraeus a liar to his face before he even heard what he had to say. An the negative BBC poll which just happened to be released on that day.......

Fern

 

[manowar821]

Originally posted by: Sinsear

Originally posted by: manowar821

Originally posted by: Sinsear

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Nothing short of a total withdraw will make the anti-war crowd happy.

As we have seen on here in thread after thread:
There is no such thing as progress in Iraq. You can have a NY Times editorial, multiple Democrat congressman and Senators and even Katie Curic say that things are improving and they will just ignore them all and look for anything they can to prove otherwise.

They want us to lose. Defeat on the battlefield could turn into their socialist utopia here at home.

Wow, is this just more useless dirty nationalist BS or what? Does your kind of people really think like this every day? Do you really think anti-war people are bad, evil, America hating terrorist sympathizers?

There are a couple main points as to why certain people, myself included, hate war. Especially this fake "war" (fake due to the lack of a declaration). One of these main reasons is because our soldiers are dying for little good reason.

How would you like if I said you pro-war people hated our troops and enjoyed seeing them die for your own imperialistic views? You hate our troops, you want them to loose. You want them to die so we have more reason to stay in the fight and and so that companies get more profit from the war.

That's not what you think, though, now is it? That would be disgustingly unfair and hateful for me to say that. I'm pretty sure, even though I think you're 100% wrong with the way to go about it, that you want what is best for people as a whole.

So... My point? Stop calling us anti-war people "American troop hating socialists". It's pig-headed, nationalistic, and completely untrue. It reeks of blind patriotism, and shows how much your vote is truly worth in this country.

The best part is that it's worth as much as yours .

You knew what I meant, smart ass.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Sinsear

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Nothing short of a total withdraw will make the anti-war crowd happy.

As we have seen on here in thread after thread:
There is no such thing as progress in Iraq. You can have a NY Times editorial, multiple Democrat congressman and Senators and even Katie Curic say that things are improving and they will just ignore them all and look for anything they can to prove otherwise.

They want us to lose.

Defeat on the battlefield could turn into their socialist utopia here at home.

Interesting.

Is War the main Product export of the United States now?

Is that an article in the Constitution?

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Sinsear

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Nothing short of a total withdraw will make the anti-war crowd happy.

As we have seen on here in thread after thread:
There is no such thing as progress in Iraq. You can have a NY Times editorial, multiple Democrat congressman and Senators and even Katie Curic say that things are improving and they will just ignore them all and look for anything they can to prove otherwise.

They want us to lose.

Defeat on the battlefield could turn into their socialist utopia here at home.

Interesting.

Is War the main Product export of the United States now?

Is that an article in the Constitution?

Paragraphs are your friend.

 

[fskimospy]

The report issued was exactly what was expected. Is it shocking that they said "we're making progress, but much work remains to be done"? They've been saying that for 4 years now. If you look closely and compare the statements of the government and Gen Westmoreland circa 1968 or so you will see some sad sad parallels.

What's really telling is that poll done of Iraqis referenced by the BBC yesterday that said that more then 70% of Iraqis think the surge has been a miserable failure... and that they feel less secure then they did before. Even by our own initial goals of the surge it has been a horrible failure, but you'll notice if you look at the goals before and after that they shifted the goalposts in order to give them a slightly less disasterous situation to report.

Don't worry though, you will continue to hear "just a little more time", and "we're making good progress" all the way up until January 2009. You could even call it the same old broken record. (remember how much progress the police have been making all these years... and now suddenly it comes out that the recommendation is that they be disbanded because they are hopeless?) Bush is just trying to run out the clock at this point so that someone else shares the blame for the biggest foreign policy catastrophe in US history

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: umbrella39

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
They are waiting for their new chants to be emailed to them by MoveOn.org.

Oh, and I think most here tired of the subject due to it being fought a month in advance of the actual report(another MoveOn.org move).

I rallied to get you back in here? You are sadly just a shell of your old posting self.

Awww... come one now, you can't tell me I was too far off base with my sarcasm.

As to the second part we had a thread here about it that was WAY in advance of this actually coming out so it very well could be issue fatigue. And yes, MoveOn did start a while ago trying to discredit the report so my statement is accurate.

 

[manowar821]

Originally posted by: eskimospy
The report issued was exactly what was expected. Is it shocking that they said "we're making progress, but much work remains to be done"? They've been saying that for 4 years now. If you look closely and compare the statements of the government and Gen Westmoreland circa 1968 or so you will see some sad sad parallels.

What's really telling is that poll done of Iraqis referenced by the BBC yesterday that said that more then 70% of Iraqis think the surge has been a miserable failure... and that they feel less secure then they did before. Even by our own initial goals of the surge it has been a horrible failure, but you'll notice if you look at the goals before and after that they shifted the goalposts in order to give them a slightly less disasterous situation to report.

Don't worry though, you will continue to hear "just a little more time", and "we're making good progress" all the way up until January 2009. You could even call it the same old broken record. (remember how much progress the police have been making all these years... and now suddenly it comes out that the recommendation is that they be disbanded because they are hopeless?) Bush is just trying to run out the clock at this point so that someone else shares the blame for the biggest foreign policy catastrophe in US history

QFT x1000

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Another thing which strikes me about the Petraeus report is how the uber-liberal groups have managed to make anyone who opposes the war look completely batshit insane. I'm liberal, I oppose most of Bush's policies, I oppose the Iraq war... but when MoveOn.org puts a full page ad in the NY Times with General "Betray US" or Code Pink gets ejected from the proceedings for screaming profanities, it makes me ashamed to associate with a similar ideology. I may oppose the war, and I find that many of the men running the war are completely awful human beings, but at least I am able to vent my frustrations through rational discourse; using snippy remarks about betrayal or, worse, screaming profanities at people giving us a status update makes us all look stupid, and I would urge anyone who actually cares about making a point about the war to not resort to such retarded tactics as these.

 

[jonks]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
Another thing which strikes me about the Petraeus report is how the uber-liberal groups have managed to make anyone who opposes the war look completely batshit insane. I'm liberal, I oppose most of Bush's policies, I oppose the Iraq war... but when MoveOn.org puts a full page ad in the NY Times with General "Betray US" or Code Pink gets ejected from the proceedings for screaming profanities, it makes me ashamed to associate with a similar ideology. I may oppose the war, and I find that many of the men running the war are completely awful human beings, but at least I am able to vent my frustrations through rational discourse; using snippy remarks about betrayal or, worse, screaming profanities at people giving us a status update makes us all look stupid, and I would urge anyone who actually cares about making a point about the war to not resort to such retarded tactics as these.

I'm with ya, but don't feel too bad. I mean, looney Hannity claims to speak for the average conservative in this country (hopefully that aint the case)

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY

Originally posted by: umbrella39

Originally posted by: CADsortaGUY
They are waiting for their new chants to be emailed to them by MoveOn.org.

Oh, and I think most here tired of the subject due to it being fought a month in advance of the actual report(another MoveOn.org move).

I rallied to get you back in here? You are sadly just a shell of your old posting self.

Awww... come one now, you can't tell me I was too far off base with my sarcasm.

As to the second part we had a thread here about it that was WAY in advance of this actually coming out so it very well could be issue fatigue. And yes, MoveOn did start a while ago trying to discredit the report so my statement is accurate.

MoveOn has a great big bullseye painted on it's back. I would think Liberals would distance themselves from that org just like they should distance themselves from McOwens here.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
MoveOn has a great big bullseye painted on it's back. I would think Liberals would distance themselves from that org just like they should distance themselves from McOwens here.

They can't. They need the money.

I've yet to hear anyone disown MoveOn.Org and agree both to return previous contributions and refuse to accept any down the road.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
MoveOn has a great big bullseye painted on it's back. I would think Liberals would distance themselves from that org just like they should distance themselves from McOwens here.

They can't. They need the money.

I've yet to hear anyone disown MoveOn.Org and agree both to return previous contributions and refuse to accept any down the road.

They're both despicable, but I think Moveon.org is analagous to Fox News.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Defeat on the battlefeild? The Iraqi insurgents and the old Loyalists haven't won one battle, we kick their ass every time they engage us yet it really doesn't seem to be doing any good. If the Iraqi government and the Iraqis themselves aren't going to do their part it's futile!

Agreed. I think the only point of contention is how long we continue to prepare and support the Iraqi forces before leaving it all to them.

 

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: Arkaign
They're both despicable, but I think Moveon.org is analagous to Fox News.

I disagree. Completely. Fox News doesn't take out full-page ads accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being a traitor.

MoveOn.org is the lowest of pond scum.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: Arkaign
They're both despicable, but I think Moveon.org is analagous to Fox News.

I disagree. Completely. Fox News doesn't take out full-page ads accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being a traitor.

MoveOn.org is the lowest of pond scum.

Fox News just uses subtle insinuations and smug comments and questions.

Next on Fox News, AT Poster Pabster, a traitor or just uneducated????

See how framing questions gives the impression (at least to idiots) that the question contains truth?

Anyway, both suck.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
MoveOn has a great big bullseye painted on it's back. I would think Liberals would distance themselves from that org just like they should distance themselves from McOwens here.

They can't. They need the money.

I've yet to hear anyone disown MoveOn.Org and agree both to return previous contributions and refuse to accept any down the road.

It's not only "can't" but "won't". They "won't" because that seems to be how they actually feel but can't say it as elected officials so they let their 527 wing do it.


***

Oh, and how many freaking threads do we need on this? I counted about 5 this morning.

 

[manowar821]

Originally posted by: Arkaign

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: Arkaign
They're both despicable, but I think Moveon.org is analagous to Fox News.

I disagree. Completely. Fox News doesn't take out full-page ads accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being a traitor.

MoveOn.org is the lowest of pond scum.

Fox News just uses subtle insinuations and smug comments and questions.

Next on Fox News, AT Poster Pabster, a traitor or just uneducated????

See how framing questions gives the impression (at least to idiots) that the question contains truth?

Anyway, both suck.

You saw that John Stewart clip, too, eh? :laugh:

Maybe you did just figure that out yourself, like myself and many others, but it's still hilarious:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=m5B_oNKoqbM

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: Sinsear

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Nothing short of a total withdraw will make the anti-war crowd happy.

As we have seen on here in thread after thread:
There is no such thing as progress in Iraq. You can have a NY Times editorial, multiple Democrat congressman and Senators and even Katie Curic say that things are improving and they will just ignore them all and look for anything they can to prove otherwise.

They want us to lose. Defeat on the battlefield could turn into their socialist utopia here at home.

No you moron we want you to wake the hell up !!!!!! My god the time, money, and lives wasted in this worthless war could of be spent on capturing the a-holes who actually committed 9/11 that are in Pakistan. Iraq had zero, zilch to do with 9/11.

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Lemon? get a clue on this ?diplomatic solution? BS.

We can?t even get a decent multi-national force into Afghanistan and that is the war everyone agrees with.

After the Hezbollah-Israeli war they had a hard time getting a multi-national force to step in there and patrol the boarder.

As long as people are dying in large numbers there is no country in the world that is willing to send troops into Iraq.

Could it be maybe because we pissed away the rest of the world's support after we went into that grand old adventure in Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11? Frankly I'd also not blame them for wanting to step into the huge pile of crap we stirred up in Iraq for absolutely no good reason.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Have someone shove a big ass rock down the main barrel. That should be interesting.