What will end up being the most famous quote of the Iraq war? Remember, Bush did not actually say "Mission Accomplished." Perhaps Cheney's "final throes" will win the prize. . But increasingly, as the significance of Gen. David Petraeus grows (seemingly by the minute), I have come to believe that it might up being his once-obscure 2003 remark: "Tell me how this ends." It was cited again today by Andrew Bacevich in his New York Times op-ed contribution.
Petraeus said that when he was a Major General directing the 101st Airborne during the U.S. invasion but it's clear that today he has no more of a clue to the answer than he did five years ago.
Who did he say the five words to? The lucky recipient was Rick Atkinson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Washington Post and military historian. It shows up in in Atkinson's book about the attack on Iraq, In the Company of Soldiers, which featured Maj. Gen. Petraeus as a key character. I recommend the book for its portrait of Petraeus as a media-friendly, but somewhat scary (in his focus and drive) character.
When I interviewed Atkinson about it (there's a chapter about it in my new book on Iraq and the media), he said he considered the Petraeus quote a "private joke" at the time, but it soon became the general's "mantra."
In the post-invasion epilogue for his book, Atkinson speaks frankly. Petraeus and his soldiers had performed well, taking relatively few casualties, and showing both restraint and courage in battle. But they "were better than the cause they served." It was "vital not to conflate the warriors with the war." The casus belli f or the war, that Iraq posed an imminent threat to America, "was inflated and perhaps fraudulent." And if "the war's predicate was phony, it cheapened the sacrifices of the dead and living alike."
So I asked Atkinson in 2004 whether he felt the book was somewhat hollow, documenting the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. Did he have mixed feelings about his own effort? "There's nothing mixed about it at all," he fired back. "I was against the war before, during, and after it. I have no mixed feelings about the hundreds of dead soldiers--it was a poor use of their lives. I was certain last March that we as a nation had not done all we could to make sure lives were not lost, but I'm dogmatic about it now."
As a scholar of World War II, with popular books on that to his credit, the lesson he draws is "that if you're going to fight a global war, whether it's against the Axis in the 1940s or against terrorism today, nothing is more vital than nurturing a powerful, righteous coalition." Failing to do this has placed a tragically unfair burden on our military. "They took down a country the size of California in three weeks," he pointed out, "but there was not much thought devoted to the question of what happens next. It's astonishing how little thought was given."
But what about the argument that leaving Iraq now would dishonor the soldiers who have died so far? "It's not George Bush's military," he replied, "but the country's as a whole, and the collective proprietorship means we collectively decide if it is used properly and the cause is worth their sacrifice--and whether that cause should be truncated or we stay there forever."
Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Failed on Iraq.It includes a preface by Bruce Springsteen and a foreword by Joe Galloway, and has been hailed by our own Arianna, Bill Moyers, Glenn Greenwald and others.
These are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns.
That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns.
There are things we don't know we don't know.
~~~
just can't top that one.
~~~
Rank / Country / Military budget
1. United States (2008) - $623bn
2. China (2004) - $65bn
3. Russia - $50bn
4. France (2005) - $45bn
5. United Kingdom - $42.8bn
http://mondediplo.com/2008/02/05military
In the mean time we'll continue slaughtering them until they see our way; we have killed more than Saddam already.
This invasion and occupation is akin to the Third Reich invading and occupying Poland to get access to the Polish iron ore. When are we, US citizens, going to see the light?
The analogy to WWII is valid only if it is used to describe us the aggresive country with no casus belli.
Mission accomplished was five years ago-Saddams dead
WHY THE F ARE WE STILL IN IRAQ
If Sadr wins the election in October he will ask us to leave.
We will leave and the Iraqis will work it out with help from Iran.
Can you imagine Bush and McCain explaining Prim Minister Al Sadr before the Nov. elections.
Get your popcorn ready.
The surge is working lovely, it bought time for the "political reconciliation" we need to get permission from the worlds governments to let us proceed without return fire coming our way, and Congress did just fine in playing their parts as "concerned overseers of the public interest" Complete farce.
Bring the troops home, forget the theater. If we can't stop this, at least get our men and women home before it happens.
BRING THEM HOME NOW
It ends with "regime change" in America, followed by a massive effort to green and diversify our energy consumption.
When will the msm stop calling this a "war" and starts calling it what it is: an OCCUPATION ?
How many more Iraqis do we have to slaughter? How many American GIs will have to die before this occupation is over?
The people elected the Republicans, and the Republicans are destroying the best military ever created.
Maybe that will change in November. Its obvious that Congress has abdicated its war-making powers and has ignored its responsibility to the military.
Pathetic.
Dick Cheney to reporter, "So?"
81 percent of Americans think the country is heading in the wrong direction.
Your answer? "So?"
The people don't decide. That is fantasy. The people didn't reelect (or elect for that matter) Bush. Congress doesn't support the will of the people, but not in the way you mean. The people want out, but Congress doesn't support cutting off funding. They and the executive branch get too much money from the war to stop it.
If Hillary is the Democratic nominee there will be no choice between getting out or staying. She and McCain are the same on the war. Obama, not so much but he's now saying we'll have to stay just a wee bit longer -- you know the "extra six months" that Petraeus and Bush are always asking for.
And please, lose the "cut and run". Nobody's talking about that. Except Fox news.
You don't win an occupation, what is there to win???
their lives and limbs on a tragic mistake.