Yesterday, in several comments (as I'd used my diary for the day) I quoted a statement made by Gen. David Petraeus. TPM had it up on the front page most of the day as a lead headline. A couple of diaries were writen here pointed to the Petraeus interview on the BBC.
But, the reaction, silence on this site was deafening. From my point of view the words spoken by Petraeus ends the specious argument used by John McCain claiming a withdrawl from Iraq on his terms and timetable is Victory.
Years ago G. W. Bush stood on an aircraft carrier proclaiming Victory. Today, in present time, McCain claims an honorable Victory under his leadership.
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Gen. Petraeus is a man John McCain validates as a brilliant, honorable military man. The man responsible for the Victory acheived by the surge.
Obama has been consistently defined the surge in other terms. Lowering the levels of violence, but at the same time, doing little to bring the factions together to form a National Government of strength.
Obama has been racked over the coals for not calling the surge a success, a Victory. But, today it's his foreign policy stands and statements holding the most weight and being verified by the realities. Bush has come along mirroring Obama's stated positions on withdrawl and Afghanistan.
Victory, let Gen. Petraeus say it:
Q: Do you think you will ever use the word "victory"?
Petraeus: I don't know that I will. I think that all of us at different times have recognized the need for real restraint in our assessments, in our pronouncements, if you will. And we have tried to be very brutally honest and forthright in what we have provided to Congress, to the press, and to ourselves.
A bit later, Petraeus elaborated:
"This is not the sort of struggle where you take a hill, plant the flag and go home to a victory parade...it's not war with a simple slogan."
And from TPM
TPM
And now today Andrew Sullivan has this:
Obama Leads In Foreign Policy, Bush Follows
Sullivan:
In some ways, Obama has been a shadow president for a while. Even JPod now concedes that Obama has been right about the terror war:
I was among many people who ridiculed the Obama proposal at the time, on the grounds that a) no nation violates the territorial integrity of an ally, even if that ally is problematic, and b) Obama’s bellicosity seemed entirely unbelievable, given that he spoke in the wake of his remarks about meeting with the leaders of the world’s worst regimes "without preconditions." On the latter point, he was and remains wrong and foolish.
On the former point, though, he was, apparently, precognitive, and may be due an apology.
Sullivan:
Yes, they should. On one of the most critical decisions of the war, Obama staked out a position a while back that the Bush camp and neocons assailed as naive, disastrous, and revealing of his unfitness to be president. But like almost everything else Obama has said about the war, he was right and Bush was wrong. Obama was ahead of Bush in proposing to shift troops to Afghanistan, ahead of Bush in suggesting a timetable for Iraq withdrawal (subsequently embraced by Maliki), ahead of Bush in arguing we should talk directly to Iran, and, of course, right about not fighting the war in the first place.
The Bush administration - when guided by the saner forces within it such as Gates and Rice - eventually follows Obama's advice. In that sense, Obama has been president for quite a while already. And proving he could be a shrewd, pragmatic and prescient one.
Before Congress Admiral Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs chairman futher gave a credibility to Obama's stand Afghanistan.
I'm not convinced we are winning it in Afghanistan," Admiral Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs chairman, told Congress yesterday. But, he added, "I am convinced we can."
"Frankly, we are running out of time," Mullen said, adding that not sending U.S. reinforcements to Afghanistan is "too great a risk to ignore."
Robert Gates chimed in:
"The war on terror started in this region. It must end there," Defense Secretary Gates told the committee.
This is how the Independent of the UK sees it.....
As America remembers, a stark military warning
Seven years after the 9/11 suicide attacks and the launch of the "war on terror", America's most senior commanders have acknowledged that achieving victory is by no means certain, with conflicts still raging in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So tell me, please, why Gen Petraeus' statement is not in Obama's favor? Tell me why it's not confirming Obama's grasp of the issues? Tell me why scant attention has been paid to it, please. I am confounded.
By the way, I am fond of pigs on a poke.