Today, as every interested party knows, General David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), and Ryan Crocker, US Ambassador to Iraq, will give the House an assessment regarding progress in that country. Tomorrow, the two will take it to the Senate.
However, many anti-war types have seen fit to get out in front of the report in order to attempt to discredit it and, therefore, Petraeus. One of the most heinous efforts appears in today’s version of the New York Times; an advertisement courtesy of MoveOn.org. Submitted for your "approval."
Over and over again, I’ve asserted here that the Left’s hatred of the troops was poorly disguised and that, one day, they would soon be unable to hold up even the tatters of that disguise. Well that day has arrived.
We know, of course, that the anti-warriors use the “chickenhawk” smear in attempt to silence civilian supporters of the war. However, that the anti-warriors have the jaw-dropping gall to use “traitor” and “puppet” to smear a general who leads troops in Iraq (and, by the way, to smear all the officers and senior NCOs who provided the information which the general will present to the Congress), make me say that there is no hope for the anti-war Left.
(Thanks to the Weekly Standard)
UPDATE: Swamp Politics has a transcript of the fine print:
General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress.”Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three months than in any other summer we’ve been there. We’ll hear of neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.
Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won’t hear what Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.
Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus is likely to become General Betray Us.
