Counter-insurgency doctrine consists of retrospective corrections for past failures to create fresh failures.
Counter-insurgency is a 25-cent, sometimes-hyphenated euphemism for attempted military solutions to populations who refuse to be quietly dominated by invading foreigners. The problem is it doesn't work... or perhaps that's the upside.
Military success is not determined by tactical outcomes, but by political ones. The war in Iraq was lost when the troops crossed the line of departure in March 2003.
David Petraeus is the current and principle author of the United States Armed Forces counter-insurgency doctrine. His ultimate boss is George W. Bush. David Petraeus, therefore, is now the number-one proponent of retrospective corrections for past failures to create fresh failures; and he works for a pig-headed idiot, who in turn takes most of his guidance from an ailing, ill-tempered, corporate dickhead, who got drunk and shot one of his lawyers while "hunting" captive quail.
If David Petraeus were not willing to toe the Bush-Cheney line on the war, he would not have been selected for the job of overseeing the last ditch attempt to salvage a lost war by conducting the Last Stand in Baghdad. Every other General who failed to toe that line has been fired. Only sycophants need apply.
So my question is, why does the press and most of Congress and every think-tank denizen in the country seem to have their noses so far up Petraues' ass? Why is everyone so breathless to hear anything that drips from the lips of this military bureaucrat who will succeed at getting more people killed in the service of a lost and illegal war? Because he wears a uniform? (tsk tsk)
He spouts the same-old party line... al Qaeda (no, they're not the same people who did 9-11; they are an unsupervised local franchise), Iranian surrogates (a complete fabrication -- what they mean is Sadr, who is a quite popular Iraqi nationalist... but who cares how the Iraqis feel?), and I'll get back to you in September... maybe the 11th, to give it that spooky backdrop... and blow more smoke up your asses -- in exchange for you having your noses up mine -- whereupon we will talk about "conditional progress" while we continue to bully the phony government there for an "oil-sharing" law (which means US companies can have access)... yada yada yada.
Most Iraqis want the US out of Iraq. Most Americans want the US out of Iraq. Most Iraqis approve of other Iraqis shooting American troops who daily frighten, humiliate, and harm Iraqis (hey, the job of occupiers is to occupy, eh).
This administration and everyone who worked for them have lied like flounders from day one, and never stopped lying... and Petraeus is now working directly for them, just as Colin Powell did when he gave that lyin'-ass cartoon brief to the UN (and the press and the pundits and the politicians hyperventilated with their noses up his ass).
Will someone please explain to me why this guy is getting the universal VIP treatment... why people are ready to treat him like our collective Bagwan Rashneesh of Baghdad?
He is just another vicious dickhead in a long line of vicious dickheads; and a lot of us have some kind of memory disorder.
[Author's note: The term "dickhead" is not a mere phatic utterance; it refers to men whose every word and deed is inflected with the need to prove their masculinity.]