Mood:
d'ohTopic: "Betray Us" (3)
What ever happened to Colin Powell? Frodo was thinking about the military strategist and former Secretary of State just the other day, and wondered why he wasn't the one charged with the responsibility for assessing the progress of "Plan B" in Iraq? After all, having also served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and participated in the decision-making process to the pre-emptive War in the first place, would seemingly make him better qualified than anyone in all of Middle Earth. Instead, an Ivy Leaguer (Frodo wonders if he was a "Legacy" at Princeton?) with rumored political aspirations, whose name was entirely unknown outside of military circles when the debacle began, gets the job.
Is it because Colin Powell is black?
Could it be that a white guy from Texas might not want to once again hand a "sales job" to a black guy? Particularly one whose credibility was damaged by the incorrect assessments handed him prior to the American invasion of Iraq. Is it possible that Petraeus was specifically chosen because his vocational bias would be more acceptable in this effort to delay the American withdrawal to those predominantly white males who make up the "core" of the Republican Party? The Incomparable Moron has consistently referred to the "commanders on the ground" (which begs the question, where else would they be?) as those whose judgments guide his decisions. He has neglected to complete the sentence however, since such counsel is adhered to only when it seemingly complies with his predispositions.
There is such an air of predictability to what will emanate from the "Petraeus Report," that the political efforts of the rational opposition to rally their own set of conflicting and contradictory reports adds to the obfuscation of the facts. The strategic effort to confuse the public, and to "sell" them on a particular policy, will tie the hands of the Congressional opponents to the flawed policy of the "surge." Despite the limited vision of Senator McCain, and those who allege that the "surge" is working, the fact remains that the peoples in the land called Iraq do not want us there; they see us as occupiers. To this day our soldiers do not know who it is that is shooting at them. With the passage of time, all that we know is that the shooters hit their targets with increasing frequency. General Petraeus might as well be teaching target practice.
