Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The General Petraeus Report (stream link & discussion)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by Patroklos

    I didn't say otherwise. Agathon thinks I did because I am a "militarist" apparently, but hey when did what I actually say matter?
    That's because when a militarist opinion is needed or no, you seem perpetually ready to stride once more into the breach.

    Compared to the ordinary person, you are George C Scott pretending to be Patton.
    Only feebs vote.

    Comment


    • That's because when a militarist opinion is needed or no, you seem perpetually ready to stride once more into the breach.
      The fact that I prefer a realistic interpretation of data, relative when appropriate and always in perspective is harldy militaristic.

      I don't actually state my opinion all that often.
      "The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously.

      Comment


      • I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
        - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Kidicious
          I am full of ****
          "The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Patroklos
            I don't actually state my opinion all that often.
            Does that mean you're not gonna answer my question?
            Click here if you're having trouble sleeping.
            "We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones." - François de La Rochefoucauld

            Comment


            • Patro,

              If you aren't a militarist, I'm not a commie.
              I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
              - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

              Comment


              • Name one thing about me that makes me a militarist?
                "The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Patroklos
                  Name one thing about me that makes me a militarist?
                  I think Agathon already did that.
                  I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
                  - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

                  Comment


                  • He simply stated, like you, that I am a militarist/have a militarist opinion.

                    So what, exactly, have I said or done that is militarist?

                    mil•i•ta•rist
                    –noun
                    1. a person imbued with militarism.
                    2. a person skilled in the conduct of war and military affairs.
                    #2 is a matter of opinion

                    As for #1...

                    mil•i•ta•rism
                    1. Glorification of the ideals of a professional military class.
                    2. Predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state.
                    3. A policy in which military preparedness is of primary importance to a state.
                    1. You probably think that, though glorification is not the same as pride which most people have concerning their military. I don't believe in a military class in any case.

                    2. Completely disagree

                    3. Who doesn't?

                    So unless you think everyone is a militarist, that doesn't accurately describe me in the slightest.
                    "The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously.

                    Comment


                    • Teh Librul AAR for the senate testimony:

                      That's More Like It!
                      The Senate grills Petraeus and Crocker.
                      By Fred Kaplan
                      Posted Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2007, at 6:30 PM ET

                      The highlight of today's Senate hearings—and these were substantive hearings, unlike Monday's dispirited charade in the House—came in the afternoon, before the armed services committee, when Republican Sen. John Warner asked Gen. David Petraeus whether the current strategy in Iraq "will make America safer."

                      Petraeus replied, "I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq."

                      Warner repeated his unanswered question: "Does that make America safer?"

                      Petraeus said, "I don't know, actually. … I have not stepped back. … I have tried to focus on what I think a commander is supposed to do, which is to determine the best recommendations to achieve the objectives of the policy for which his mission is desired."

                      Two things stand out in Petraeus' response. First, he refused to indulge in President Bush's spurious rhetoric about how we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here. Second, he was, in effect, telling the senators: I am doing what soldiers do; I am trying my best to accomplish the mission; the mission is related to the policy, and the policy isn't mine.

                      Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and his fellow witness, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, did their best all day and yesterday to put the most hopeful face on the grimness before them. But, to their credit, they stopped short of lying.

                      Republican Sen. John McCain, one of the committee's more hawkish members, asked Crocker what degree of confidence he had that the leaders of the Iraqi government will take the steps toward political reconciliation that they've promised to take.

                      Crocker hesitated, then replied, "My level of confidence is under control."

                      At this morning's hearing, before the Senate foreign relations committee, Petraeus said that he couldn't foresee the future beyond next summer and that he would return with an updated report next March.

                      The Democratic chairman, Sen. Joseph Biden, asked Petraeus whether he would recommend a continuation of the strategy—with 130,000 to 160,000 U.S. troops shooting and dying in Iraq—if the situation next March were the same as it is now.

                      Petraeus replied, "That's a really big hypothetical." Biden said, "I don't think it's a hypothetical." So Petraeus stepped up and answered the question. He said, "I'd be very hard-pressed to recommend that, at that point."

                      In other words, Petraeus was saying that, if Biden's hypothetical came true, he would probably recommend a shift in strategy and a larger reduction of troops than the five-brigade drawdown that he's "recommending" by next summer. (I've put "recommending" in quotes because, as noted several times, this reduction is, and always has been, part of the plan. The surge troops' tours of duty will run out starting next spring, and the U.S. Army and Marines have no ready units to replace them. Regardless of recommendations, a drawdown would be unavoidable.)

                      Sen. Barack Obama asked Crocker a related question: "At what point do we say, 'Enough'?" He noted that the ambassador had once said that the Iraqis understand our patience is not limitless; yet in their testimony, Crocker and Petraeus had been suggesting that it should be. "Under what circumstances," Obama asked, would Crocker recommend swifter or deeper withdrawals?

                      Crocker did not answer the question directly. However, he noted a few "key indicators." The level of violence, he said, needs to go down and stay down. Iraqi insurgents need to display the same sort of political cooperation that Sunni tribes are now displaying in Anbar province. Linkage needs to be developed between the central government in Baghdad and provinces where this sort of progress is taking place. And the Baghdad government needs to combat Shiite, as well as Sunni, militias.

                      He did not explicitly link these "indicators" to the continuation of U.S. troops in Iraq. But the implication seemed clear: If these indicators are not sustained or achieved, the U.S. mission could not be considered a success.

                      When Petraeus and Crocker return to Congress in March 2008, these words will no doubt be read back to them. If the situation has not improved, if the indicators are not in place, then the two will be, as Petraeus put it, "very hard-pressed" to make the case for staying the course.

                      In one sense, today's hearings dealt President George W. Bush a harsh blow. Many of the senators' questions dealt with strategic issues, which Petraeus and Crocker—through no fault of their own—could not really answer to anyone's full satisfaction. Even the vast majority of Republican senators at least cocked their eyebrows.

                      Nearly all the senators seemed to recognize that the few, much-vaunted successes—especially in Anbar province, where Sunni tribes have joined with U.S. forces to defeat al-Qaida terrorists—have little to do with the main issues of this war: sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites and the failure of the central government to mediate, much less settle, those conflicts. As Richard Lugar, the foreign relations committee's ranking Republican put it, "The progress may be beside the point." The U.S. troops may be "like a farmer planting crops on flood plains."

                      Yet in another sense, Bush will probably recover from the blow without much damage. As counterinsurgency theorists understand, a combatant can win every battle and still lose the war. Similarly, the Senate Democrats won on points in today's clashes on the issues, yet Bush will probably win the ultimate contest: the vote, in the coming weeks, on whether to continue with his plan.

                      In recent weeks, Bush has put all his chips on Petraeus' testimony. He will no doubt now endorse the commander's "proposal" for a modest troop reduction and pretend that it constitutes a compromise (even though it was physically inevitable). And he will repeatedly cite the testimony from Petraeus and Crocker that "some progress" is being made and that further withdrawals might be disastrous.

                      The Senate Democrats, in any case, lack the 60 votes needed to circumvent a filibuster, much less the 67 votes required to override a veto. And so, no timetables for withdrawal will be set, no enforceable benchmarks will be imposed on the Iraqi government, the surge will play out, and the war will go on, the current strategy intact, through the end of Bush's presidency. Today's hearings—which have been, remarkably, the first real hearings about this war—put substantive issues, and useful words, on the record. But they will almost certainly not result in action or change.

                      Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate. He can be reached at war_stories@hotmail.com.

                      Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2173737/
                      -Arrian
                      grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!

                      The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.

                      Comment


                      • I am tired of this "change the strategy" crap.

                        Lesson for Bush and Congressional Democrats. Increasing or decreasing troop is not a strategy

                        While we are at it, it is okay to say withdrawal, this isn't a bunker in East Prussia in 1944. You won't get taken out back and put on a meat hook for not saying redeployment, whatever that is.

                        "The progress may be beside the point." The U.S. troops may be "like a farmer planting crops on flood plains."
                        Awesome, just because it wasn't exactly what we expected/was looking for makes in unimportant.

                        And obvioulsy he doesn't play much civ
                        "The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously.

                        Comment


                        • Sure he does. He just knows that you cottage floodplains instead of farming them.

                          -Arrian
                          grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!

                          The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.

                          Comment


                          • Civ IV

                            Civ III

                            "The DPRK is still in a state of war with the U.S. It's called a black out." - Che explaining why orbital nightime pictures of NK show few lights. Seriously.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Patroklos
                              So unless you think everyone is a militarist, that doesn't accurately describe me in the slightest.

                              You take it to a ho nuba leva!
                              I drank beer. I like beer. I still like beer. ... Do you like beer Senator?
                              - Justice Brett Kavanaugh

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Patroklos
                                Civ IV

                                Civ III

                                You may be the one person in the world who would assert that Civ III > Civ IV.



                                -Arrian
                                grog want tank...Grog Want Tank... GROG WANT TANK!

                                The trick isn't to break some eggs to make an omelette, it's convincing the eggs to break themselves in order to aspire to omelettehood.

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X