Showtime! General Petraeus Speaks

I don’t think any of us really believe the dog & pony show, otherwise known as the testimony from Petraeus & Crocker would yield any earth shattering revelations. They are kind of like wooden dummies on the lap of the bushco ventriliquists- they are told what to say & how to say it.

MSNBC reports
“Their unwavering stance amounted to this: Further pullouts might trigger defeat; the costs of defeat are too horrible to ponder; therefore, we shouldn’t ponder further pullouts.
Specifically, Petraeus called for a 45-day pause after the five surge brigades go home this July. After the pause will come an “evaluation” of the security situation. Then there will be an “assessment” of that evaluation. And on that basis, there will be a “determination” whether further reductions can be made, “as conditions permit.”

Yes, it would appear we are firmly stuck in a quagmire of circular “logic”.

Victory lingo scrapped

All along, we’ve been told of the need to “Stay the course”, that “Victory would be ours”– now the General has repeatedly testified otherwise:

The surge-along with the shift to a counterinsurgency strategy-is a means, not an end. Its point is not to win a military victory (there is no such thing here, Petraeus has emphasized) but rather to create enough security in Baghdad-a “breathing space”-to let the political factions reconcile their disputes

Wow! What a dazzling array of changes we have made. Forget the victory, not gonna happen. Even the notion of installing Democracy (at gunpoint, no less), seems to be off the table- Democracy may be too difficult to achieve– let’s go for “breathing space” as our stated goal.

My bullshit-o-meter is in the red zone

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