Robert Parry: Why Do All Hail Gen. Petraeus?

from Consortium News:



Why Do All Hail Gen. Petraeus?
September 1, 2011

Exclusive: Iraq continues its drift toward a failed state, amid terror bombings, sectarian violence and a devastated infrastructure. Also, the strategic winner from George W. Bush’s invasion looks to be neighboring Iran. So, asks Robert Parry, why is Official Washington celebrating Gen. David Petraeus for his “successful surge”?

By Robert Parry


As Gen. David Petraeus retired from the Army on Wednesday, he received a 17-gun salute and was hailed across the U.S. news media as the strategic genius who organized the “successful surge” in Iraq and similarly achieved gains against the Taliban in Afghanistan. He is now off to run the CIA.

However, the less glorious truth about Petraeus’s much-heralded “surge” in Iraq was that it cost the lives of almost 1,000 more U.S. soldiers, inflicted more violence upon the people of Iraq and will likely only have achieved a delay in a U.S. military defeat of historic proportions. Much the same could be said for Petraeus’s “surge” in Afghanistan.

The Iraq surge’s primary accomplishment may have been to spare President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their neocon advisers the embarrassment of having invaded and occupied Iraq, only to see a bloodied U.S. army essentially kicked out by the Iraqis. The surge put off the forced withdrawal of the American military at least until President Barack Obama’s watch.

Washington’s still-influential neocons are now pressing for a revised “status of forces agreement” with Iraq that will allow some U.S. “advisers” to remain in Iraq after the end of the year. That way, the image of the last American troops racing to the Kuwaiti border in December 2011 – much as Soviet troops retreated from Afghanistan in 1989 – won’t be so stark. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2011/09/01/why-do-all-hail-gen-petraeus/

surges followed by fanfare, rewards, flourishes, and ruffles. :patriot:

make him a failure if that is the case. He will be called a 'war hero' and no one will question it.