A CONSERVATIVE ON PR PETRAEUS

(h/t to ThinkProgress, which also has the video of Olbermann interviewing Gen. Batiste)

Keith Olbermann pointed out on his Friday show (9/28/07) that a conservative magazine had published a scathing critique of Gen. PR Petraeus. Now, will the wingnuts also attack the magazine and the author?

Here are some excerpts:

Sycophant Savior
General Petraeus wins a battle in Washington—if not in Baghdad.
by Andrew J. Bacevich
October 8, 2007 Issue
Copyright © 2007
The American Conservative

...at the highest levels, successful command requires a sophisticated grasp of politics. ... George Washington, U.S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower were all “political generals” in the very best sense of the term.

David Petraeus is a political general. Yet in presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the “way forward,” Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind—one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes.

Yet the essence of his message was this: after four years of futile blundering, the United States has identified the makings of a successful strategy in Iraq.

What then should he have recommended to the Congress and the president?

A single word suffices to answer that question: more. More time. More money. And above all, more troops.

It is one of the oldest principles of generalship: when you find an opportunity, exploit it. Where you gain success, reinforce it. When you have your opponent at a disadvantage, pile on.

Given the current situation as Petraeus describes it, an incremental reduction in U.S. troop strength makes sense only in one regard: it serves to placate each of the various Washington constituencies that Petraeus has a political interest in pleasing.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to sustained bipartisan applause, President Bush committed the United States to an open-ended global war on terror. ... The result, six years later, is a massive and growing gap between the resources required to sustain that global war, in Iraq and elsewhere, and the resources actually available to do so.

Petraeus has now given this charade a further lease on life.

This defines Petraeus’s failure. Instead of obliging the president and the Congress to confront this fundamental contradiction—are we or are we not at war?—he chose instead to let them off the hook.

Politically, it qualifies as a brilliant maneuver. The general’s relationships with official Washington remain intact. Yet he has broken faith with the soldiers he commands and the Army to which he has devoted his life. He has failed his country. History will not judge him kindly.